YA readers are clearly not ready to put down their apocalyptic novels anytime soon even if the editors are ready for a small ray of sunshine. It is understandable that younger readers relate to an oppressive environment, i.e. zero tolerance school policies. In conjunction, Who’s Buying Teen Books and YA Comes of Age point to a depressing trend reflective of a country involved in long war and recovering from a recession. I tend to hesitate that YA has truly become exponentially more popular as I imagine the aforementioned factors make the waste world and boppressive environments more relatable to a wider audience.
Shannon Hall’s blog is clearly intended for the school administrations, teachers, librarians (when school’s employ one) and PTA members. Between encouraging schools to employ a fully qualified librarian/school media specialist and promoting her school assembly credentials she takes aim at school administers evoking the belief that boys cannot enjoy a story written with a female protagonist by a female. I hope more principals check out her blog before booking YA authors to speak at their schools and take note of the little boy that was too embarrassed to admit to reading about a ninja princess in front of his peers. Gender bias is not limited to YA books, it is embedded in our society, i.e. Ronald Moore defending his love of the Outlander series as a male. I imagine these posts have increased her page views but not necessarily her popularity. John Green Books blog reminds the page viewer immediately that he is a New York Times Best Selling author. He site targets his audience with book scroll on the left and by vlogging not blogging. Which also happens to be a great way to share the trailer to his cinematized book with his audience.
The teen harlequin page appears to be an entire publishing company dedicated to finding the next Twilight mega success, while using the same plot devices and language found in the company’s books written for adults. A brilliant marketing strategy to bring lifetime readers to the brand. The Harper Collins teen website seems to be more focused on the suspense teen thriller, obviously brought on by the success of the Pretty Little Lairs series. Harper still have a few fantasy novels sprinkled into the mix owning to their success as well. The obvious trend in teen publishing, milk it for all it’s worth.
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