A golden age of fiction for teenagers?
Publishing is in crisis. The novel’s dead. Barely a week goes by without yet another newspaper article predicting the demise of fiction. But one fact seems to have somehow slipped under the radar. Some areas of fiction are booming. And one in particular.
According to figures released earlier by Nielsen BookScan, sales of physical books in general have fallen by over 5 per cent in the last five years. But young adult fiction is bucking the trend – with sales rising by nearly 87 per cent over the same period.
Just as JK Rowling’s Harry Potter franchise led to a boom in fiction for children, Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight has ignited what many are calling a golden age of fiction for teenagers.
Paranormal romances driven by unfulfilled sexual tension, adventure stories about zombie or demon-hunting, and the latest dystopian thrillers like hit series The Hunger Games – it’s subjects like these which have introduced many authors to the possibilities offered by young adult fiction. Many of these authors have been driven away from their usual adult audiences by falling sales figures and dwindling advances – and are now writing books for teenagers.
Charlie Higson began his career as an author by writing several novels for adults then penned the Young Bond series for children. As his own three sons grew into teenagers he expanded into Young Adult fiction with the popular series The Enemy – the latest instalment, The Fear, has just been published.
“I’ve certainly noticed a big change since I started writing,” he told me, “I think there was a feeling before that teenage books were issue books like “I’ve got a single parent, my sister’s a lesbian, my brother’s a junkie and I’ve just dropped my flower baby in a puddle” type of book. And there is room in the world for that type of book.
But kids also need fantasy and adventure and excitement – to be taken out of their world. The great thing is in my books I can talk about death and disease and ageing and change and relationships between adults and kids… But actually kids think they’re reading about zombie adults eating children.’
If authors have got better at writing books for teenagers then publishers have also got better at marketing these books. This is usually done online and increasingly using specially shot trailers similar to those used for films in the cinema. The idea is to make teenagers feel that they’re discovering the books for themselves. Research has revealed that, as teenagers don’t like being told what to do, they don’t respond particularly favourably to direct marketing of books. So a book trailer might be dropped onto YouTube as part of a whole campaign via online and social media outlets which allow teenagers to discover a novel, talk about it and share in the experience with their friends.
There have also been changes in the teaching of English. In many schools the focus now isn’t just on teaching classic texts but on giving teenagers the tools and the critical faculties with which to choose the right books for themselves – and ones which will provoke a strong sense of emotional connection between reader and novel. In this way a genuine passion for reading is fostered.
And, if you’re to believe the latest sales figures, it all seems to be working. It’s a far cry from the barrage of bad news about publishing. And the image of teenagers as a feral generation of hoodies uninterested in reading. And it’s one which offers much more hope for the future – not just of publishing but of the whole of society.
Follow @MatthewCainC4 on Twitter.
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There are 2 comments on this post
It’s great to see a positive report about teenagers and their reading habits, however it’s a shame school libraries didn’t get a mention. Teachers do play their part, but on the whole it’s School Librarians who are the real champions of exciting new fiction in the school environment. School Libraries work tirelessly to promote reading for pleasure, and teach skills which empower young people to make their own choices.
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Yet another inaccurate claim that the Harry Potter books were responsible for growth in children’s reading. Yes, sales of children’s books have gone up in that time, but once you strip out all the adults reading Harry Potter and other ‘young adult’ titles, the number of children’s books sold to children still shows the same downward trend.
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