Sales Figures: YA/mainstream

[Jason P]

I got to wondering the other day about the difference in sales numbers between books marketed to a young adult audience as opposed to those marketed to an adult one. It seems like how a book gets marketed can depend just a few key differences (a few less curse words here, a little less sexual innuendo there).

From a sales standpoint, does it really make a difference? My gut reaction is to think that mainstream adult (hororr, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy) would sell tons more than YA, reguardless of the merits of the the books story and writing.

PS.- to be fair, in a discussion such as this, you have to throw out the Harry Potter factor. That was just a freaky, probably non-repeatable, event.

[Mumut]

I find YA has a number of markets not available to adult horror etc. Each state in Australia has a Premier's Reading Challenge and thousands of students read them for credits in the comp. If you can get your book into the lists (each state has different rules) you must sell more. There are other things I can't think of just now, like authors visits to schools to tap the captive audiance etc.

But saying that, my books have readers in the 9 to 73 age range (I'm looking for a 90 year old to read them - it would sound fantastic 9 to 90!).