GeNEWration Adult: New
Trend or Marketing Trap?
Nicole Elischer
Imagine
this scenario: you are wandering through the library, looking for a
good book to read. You wander up to the reference desk, where a
librarian ask “ Can I help you?” You say you are looking for
something in New Adult fiction. The librarian says “ Oh we're
always getting in new adult fiction.” You perk up and ask her to
take you to the shelf. The librarian takes you... to the shelf of new
adult books. “ What are you interested in?” Once again, you say
New Adult fiction, and the librarian looks perplexed. “ Perhaps you
can tell me what you want” , she asks. After you explain what you
are looking for ( young adult, just out of college starting a new
life, lots of sexual content featured), the librarian find you:
A)
something in chick-lit/ YA fiction
B)
something in erotica that would make Grandma blush
C) by
some miracle, a New Adult fiction book
New
Adult(NA) fiction is a brand new genre aimed for readers, ages 18-29,
who are too old for the high school and dating antics of Young Adult
but still too young (and inexperienced) for the adult fiction.
Created in 2009 as a way to gain new authors (and to speak to the
audience of the next generation), it has taken off by storm but
creating little controversies here and there. Is it a marketing trap
to create teen erotica? Do you shelf it with the Young Adult or the
adult books? Do you really want to trust a teenager with a book with
loads of foul language and sex? In this paper, I will explain what
this genre is (and how it was started), some of the books featured in
this genre, and what the issues with this genre are. I will also provide
some tips on how parents can handle this genre for their teenage reader
and a few additional resources on finding New Adult books.
The
Birth of New Adult
As
mentioned, New Adult ( NA)fiction is a fairly new genre. While the
theme of young college/ post-college adults staring new lives in the
big world has existed in many movies (
Reality Bites,
Garden State)
and television ( Friends,
How I Met Your Mother),
they are mainly marked as “ Contemporary Romance” or “ Romantic
Comedy-Drama.” There has also been very little in the way of books
featuring college-aged adults ( or if any, grouped as “ College
stories” within books about college professors.) In 2009, book
publishing company St. Martin's Press held a contest looking for “
great, cutting edge fiction with protagonists who are slightly older
than YA can can appeal to an adult audience.” (Jae-Jones). The
contest rules going on further saying they are seeking fiction
similar to YA but could be marketed as “older YA” or “ new
adult.” “ New Adult is about young
adulthood,
when you are an adult but have not established your
life
as one ( career, family, what-have-you)” ( Jae-Jones, 2010).
After
over 300 entries, 18 winners were selected. Kristen Hoffman, one of
the winners for the ebook Twenty-Somewhere
said
in an guest columnist featured January 7 2010 in Writer's
Digest:
“There’s a period of time where adulthood feels like a new pair
of shoes. The expectations of independence and self-sufficiency are
still new, still being broken in. New Adults are the people who have
just begun to walk in those shoes; New Adult fiction is about their
blisters and aches. “
(Hoffman, 2010).
The
genre has become more popular in recent years due to word of mouth
and books originally self-published or as an ebook being bought by
major publishers. Jennifer Armentrout, author of Waiting
for You(
written under the pen name J. Lyn) said in a 2013 article about NA
fiction featured in USA
Today
“ Two years ago, agents and publishers couldn't place New Adult in
the market.( Donahue). She also added that is “ it's more serious.
The characters are older. They love more strongly and they are doing
it without the safety net of parents or close high school friends (
Donahue, 2013.)
What is New Adult?
New Adult (NA) fiction are stories where college/post college
protagonists(usually female) are between the ages 18-26 ( or in some
cases, 18-30), leaving home for the first time to learn how to make
ends meet, starting a job, experimenting with sex and substances,
dealing with more adult peer groups, marriage( and maybe starting a
family. and any other adult experience that is new to them ( Argyle,
2013). It is also told in first person, features high drama and fun
plots ( Watters, 2014), and usually in a contemporary setting. Most
are contemporary romance but there are NA titles in science fiction,
historical, urban fiction, horror, and paranormal.
Cora
Comack, author of the NA book Losing
It,
said in an interview for TODAY“
It's about that time in your life when you're trying to assert your
maturity and forcing yourself to grow up against the odds. “ (
Fears, 2013). In this same interview, Pamela Spengler-Jaffee, a
publicity director for Avon Books at HarperCollins, told TODAY
. “New adult is going to help teachers classify books that have
that same heightened level of emotion, but with an open door policy.”
( Fears, 2013)
In
a 2012 study, entitled Understanding
the Children's Book Consumer in the Digital Age,
it was found that adults 18 and up purchased 55 percent of YA books,
with 78 percent of them purchasing the bookshelves ( Cleeton,2013).
Examples of New Adult Books
In
the article “ What is New Adult Fiction Adult Fiction, Anyway?”
(featured in the September 2013 issue of RA
News)
Molly Wetta mentions a few NA books, some listed as “ Contemporary
Romances in a College Setting”, others “ Contemporary Young Adult
Novels with College-ages Protagonists. ( 2013)” For YA novels,
Wetta mentions Gayle Forman's Just
One Day(
which is about a college-aged girl who goes to Paris to hunt down an
actor who she had a one-stand with),and Paul Rudnick's Gorgeous
( which is about a college girl who gets into the fashion world after
her mom dies.) For Contemporary College-aged Romances, she mentions
Cora Comack's Losing
It
( which is about a college girl who loses her virginity to her
college professor), and Jamie McGuire's Beautiful
Disaster (
which is about a girl who leaves college and falls for a bad
boy/professional fighter).
What's
The Drama?
While
most authors, publishing companies ( such as Entangled Publishing
editor Karen Grove, who in a 2013 Writer's
Digest
article said “ The new adult brings their adult experiences and
discoveries to an new level, and they get to choose who they want to
become ( Klems, 2013)) and twenty-something fans are for this new
genre, others find problems with it. One of the major issues is the
amount of sexual content featured in the books. Liate Stehlik, a
publisher at Avon Books, says “ Sex is an element. It's not the
driving thread.” ( Donahue, 2013). Sara Megibow, an agent from
Nelson Literacy Agency says “assertion that New Adult is just
sexually explicit YA feels confrontational to me—as if the person
doing the asserting were dismissing the sexual content as a hook or a
marketing scam to get more people to buy a book. The good New Adult
submissions I’ve seen tend to focus on the conflicts of early
adulthood—somewhat like the first Bridget Jones book—dating,
jobs, first apartments, money, identity, self-sufficiency, etc” (
Klems, 2013).
Another
issue is where the place the books. Do they belong in the YA section,
in the adult section, or does there need to be a separate shelf.
Kevan Lyon of Marsal
Lyon Literary Agency says “Bookstores have still not completely
resolved the issue of where NA titles should be shelved” (
Cleeton,2013)
but adds that mass merchandisers are working to create areas for NA.
“The NA print market is rapidly developing and changing, allowing
authors to reach readers through both a digital and print platform.”
( Cleeton,2013). And while it is aimed for “mature audiences” (
which some authors mention on their website), there are also kids as
young as ten reading NA books. “ Kids always read up Seventeen
is clearly read by 13 year olds” said HarperCollins editor Carrie
Feron ( Fears, 2013.)
Still
a few books, such as Gayle Forman's Just
One Day (
and upcoming sequel, Just
One Year)
are still listed as YA. Author Michelle Argyle, in a blog post
titled “ What is New Adult Fiction and Should You Reading It says “
Maybe that author mostly writes YA and the publisher wants to keep
all of his/her books in that category. Maybe the book, in its general
feel, appeals more to a YA audience despite the age of the
characters. Maybe the publisher hasn’t embraced NA yet and they
prefer to market to a YA readership.” ( posted July 31, 2013.)
There
are also those who view as a worthless category or genre altogether.
In the Huffington
Post article
“ The Problem with New Adult Books”, Lauren Sarner feels NA is an
insult to readers and authors, that it acts “ like training wheels
between Young Adult and Adult.” ( Sarner, 2013), saying they are
superior than Young Adult but not worthy of being “adult” (
Sarner, 2013.)
Tips
on Handling NA ( Create Communicaton Time)
With
sexual content (and the racy covers) being a major issue, parents,
teachers, and librarians are not really sure in recommending NA books
to young readers Lauren Myracle, author of “ttyl,” “ttfn”
and “l8r, g8r,” said “Sometimes I worry I’m writing ‘Fifty
Shades of Grey’ for teenagers, but I’m not” ( Fears, 2013).
In
the Chicago
Sun Times
article, Dr. Laura Berman offers a few times on how parents can
handle NA fiction. She recommends reading the book ( or reviews)
first before giving to the teen reader, and creating a “book club”
or time where the parent and teen can read and discuss the material
in the book ( Berman, 2013). She also suggest to consider the age of
the reader, that it might be okay for age 16 and up, but to let
someone 15 and under to stay with traditional YA.
Looking
for NA
Here are a few websites/blogs that showcase popular NA books:
NA
Alley- Reviews, books, and more related to NA ( Note- Some
computers may block it due adult content.)
-
-
-
Future
of NA?
What
is the future of NA? Will it last or just be pasting fad? For now,
it's hard to say. It might take more books or it's own shelf ( or a
movie deal).
In
Gemma Burgess's 2013 NA book Brooklyn
Girls,
main character Pia Kellar has this to say about being a
twenty-something girl-
“That's what's the post-college struggle truly is: finding a life
worth living, and making it yours.”
( 274).
Bibliography
Burgess,
Gemma. Brooklyn Girls. New York: St. Martin's Griffith, 2013.
p 274
Hoffman,
Kristen. “ New Adult: What is it?” Writer's Digest
7 Jan. 2010. Web. 3 March 2013.
Jae-Jones,
S. “St. Martin's New Adult Fiction Contest” S. Jae-Jones. 9 Nov.
2009. Web. 26 Feb. 2014.
