Is my Novel Adult, Young Adult, New Adult….or?

First, I want to apologize for being somewhat absent. Life has been…interesting lately. I wish it were full of awesome and wonderful things, but unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case. Just know that I’m here, rooting for everyone, loving you all, and hoping for a better tomorrow.

Second, the picture I used for this post strikes me as funny. I don’t know why, but hopefully you’ll laugh, too.

Now that’s out of the way, I want to touch on genre and target audience. I say “touch” because this is a conversation that could go on and on.

A lot of writers don’t know what type of book they are actually writing. That’s okay! You’ve spent your time writing your book, polishing it (the important parts), and now you’re ready to send your baby out into the world. Well, how do you market it? Which agents/publishers do you target? Would you send an agent who clearly states they do not rep young adult your novel about a sixteen-year-old girl who is trying to swim through the ocean of adolescence? Probably not.

A good rule of thumb is to look at your main character’s age. Are they ten to fourteen? It’s probably middle grade. Are they fourteen to eighteen? Then you’re probably looking at a young adult audience. Let me go ahead and state that “young adult” isn’t actually a genre–it’s a marketing term. The target audience is fourteen to eighteen (although statistically, more women ages twenty to forty buy the majority of young adult books).

Well, you say, my main character is eighteen (or insert any age here), but the issues are clearly meant for an adult. This can all be a bit confusing. Look at George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones or Room by Emma Donoghue. George Martin has several main characters who fall into the young adult category, but the overall theme of the book is definitely meant for a mature audience, and it’s marketed as adult epic/high fantasy. Room is told from the point of view of a five-year-old. But it is marketed as a piece of literary fiction.

The rules aren’t crystal clear. You will have to do some research to figure out where your book best fits in the market and find which readers will best connect to your book. Knowing your genre is important, but it’s also important to write a good book. If you’ve written, workshopped, edited, rewritten, and polished until you think you can’t polish anymore–you’re going to have a good piece of fiction (or non-fiction) on your hands. People of all ages will want to buy your book because it’s a good book.