The next big thing

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I wonder if it'll outpace Queen of Tearling as the new big thing in YA, because that definitely seemed like a book with legs earlier this year.


Going to bookstores, I've seen QotT shelved more often as fantasy than as YA. Friends have mentioned the same thing. Probably because of the character's age?
 

thisprovinciallife

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Going to bookstores, I've seen QotT shelved more often as fantasy than as YA. Friends have mentioned the same thing. Probably because of the character's age?

I think so. I think they were pushing for large amounts of crossover, but it doesn't seem to have worked as well as they'd hoped. My bookstore moved QoT from 'hottest books' to regular shelves pretty quickly after the release. I'm sure it'll jump to bestseller lists when the movie with Emma Watson comes out, plus I heard the sequel will be more exciting.
 

IdrisG

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Going to bookstores, I've seen QotT shelved more often as fantasy than as YA. Friends have mentioned the same thing. Probably because of the character's age?


It's funny you should mention her age. Since so many of the YA book bloggers I follow have discussed the book and it's shelved YA on GoodReads, I took for granted that the MC wasn't 18 or younger. You could be right about that.
 

Niiicola

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If we see agents asking for a "YA-version" of a big hit in the near future, I'd bet it'll be OUTLANDER. The TV show seems like a big hit, and the ninth book in the series just sold for more than $6 million.
You sure called it!
Sarah Landis at HMH has acquired at auction Jan3t Tayl0r's debut Th3 D1m and a sequel, pitched as Outlander for teens, about a 16-year-old girl who must travel back in time to 12th-century England to rescue her mother. Along the way, she becomes entangled with a secret society of time travelers and a mysterious boy who may be the key to setting her mother free.
 
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wampuscat

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Ha ha ha! But see, I'm sure that debut was already written before this new giant Outlander boom, so really it's just fortuitous that it can be pegged now as Outlander for teens.

(The original Outlander book was out in the early 90s, I think. I don't know what propelled it from a good book series to something that apparently everyone I know has heard of. Now I'm curious.)
 
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bertrigby

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Anyone working on a prison YA that could be the 'teen OITNB'?
 
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Nice call, wampuscat. I believe Taylor had worked on the book a year and a half before it sold, and had been writing seriously for two and a half years, according to QT. From the same source, she started querying about a year ago, and didn't have a lot of luck. There was some interest, but no solid offers. Not sure how that lines up with the interest in Outlander.

You can read the full interview here, complete with the query she landed her agent with: http://querytracker.net/success/janet_taylor.php
 

jtrylch13

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I just read this from a May 2014 interview with agent Alyssa Eisner Henkin of trident Media Group:

For a long time when I started agenting, I found editors asking me for commercial books, i.e. books with sales hooks that they felt could really follow a trend, whether it was paranormal, dystopian, or “high-concept” middle grade. These days I find editors just ask me for “good” books, i.e. the kind that get starred reviews, are original in the way they are told, and that have commercial legs to stand on, but are commercial more because they are doing something novel as opposed to something obvious and safe. I’m encouraged by this turn of events, and really urge authors to take their time both in honing their craft and in thinking of new ideas and/or formats that live a bit off the grid.

http://www.yabuccaneers.com/blog/20...w-alyssa-eisner-henkin-of-trident-media-group

I really hope this is true! For readers as well as writers.
 

Christracy19

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I don't know if this has already been said but utopian. In my opinion by the time kids today will be reading YA books they'll all be sick of dystopian, they'll want the exact opposite. (Frankly so would I.)
 

thisprovinciallife

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In PW, I saw that Cecelia Ahern just sold a two-book dystopian for mid six-figures. They describe it as 'different' but it sounds like classic dystopian. Just goes to show that nothing is really dead, I guess. A well-told, emotional story will always find a place, especially when written by a bestselling novelist ;).

They're being published in 2016 and 2017--maybe a break from dystopia in the next couple of years is all teens need to get back into the genre.
 

rwm4768

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I don't know if this has already been said but utopian. In my opinion by the time kids today will be reading YA books they'll all be sick of dystopian, they'll want the exact opposite. (Frankly so would I.)

But if you have a book that's truly utopian, where is the conflict? Everything's perfect. You can't have a good story without conflict.
 

wampuscat

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Perhaps the conflict is whether a utopia is possible and the attempt to create one. (Huxley's ISLAND vs. the dystopian BRAVE NEW WORLD)
 

Christracy19

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But if you have a book that's truly utopian, where is the conflict? Everything's perfect. You can't have a good story without conflict.

Look at Star Trek for an example (old school not the new movies) I think Gene Roddenberry had the right idea of the genre.

Humanity has solved their problems so the conflict comes from outside. It gives the characters the chance to experience conflicts as a third party. The morals are taught as a reflection of what humans once were instead of what they are now.

I think pure Utopian can be done if you have a skilled writer behind the keyboard.
 

jtrylch13

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I've seen several agents requesting dystopians, but just a few. Sci-fi seems big, but that's a pretty big umbrella. I've also seen books coming out or recently published that are sci-fi in either a utopian or dystopian world, but they call it sci-fi.
 

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So it seems like epic/secondary world fantasy is creeping up into the trends and hot sales huh...
 

jtrylch13

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Although, I took a chance on an agent who has almost exclusively contemps on her list, says she wants contemps, but said she'd also be interested in some sci-fi, and she requested my post-apocalyptic. So PA and dystopia aren't completely dead.
 

Roly

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Although, I took a chance on an agent who has almost exclusively contemps on her list, says she wants contemps, but said she'd also be interested in some sci-fi, and she requested my post-apocalyptic. So PA and dystopia aren't completely dead.

Yeah, there's actually a dystopian novel that sold a week (or two?) ago. So I guess nothing's truly dead. We'll have to see. Can't hurt to try something (although you don't know who has connections where).

Here's a new interesting book on the way

T3ssa Elw0od sold Hung2r, H2art, Fu3l, N@tion to L1s@ Ch3ng at Runn1ng Pr3ss. Ch3ng took world rights, in a two-book deal, to the YA novel from V1ct0ria M@rini at G3lfman Schn3id3r. Mar1ni said the novel is a “space Reg3ncy,” calling it “G@me of Thrones in space.” In the novel, a girl takes her sister’s place “in an @rranged political marriage between two intergalactic r0yal houses.” Marini added that the stakes are raised when the heroine finds “sh3 may be the 1ll3gitimate daughter of her family’s sworn en3my.”

Lol maybe I went overboard on the scrambling but it was fun :3

So we have the 1) girl caught up in royal intrigue/court politics thing 2) arranged marriages etc. I'm wondering how the space element comes in because aside from the word 'intergalactic' it just sounds like fantasy. Could be interesting!!
 

Chazemataz

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This might sound sort of harsh, but I kind of can't believe that publishers actually think describing something as "this is a mashup of 'x-popular-thing meets other x-popular-thing'!"will result in that new thing becoming popular, too. I realize they're business people, and therefore they analyze business trends and respond to those trends, but they're sorely mistaken and this is why some new YA books pitched as "THE next big thing! Six figure deal! Woohoo!" aren't selling as much as anticipated.

What readers want are creative, intriguing books that are completely different from anything else they've read before. This requires a risk and businesses hate taking risks more than anything else, aside from going out of business. What they need to do is get more input from people who enjoy YA and read it often rather than going on this "Hunger games meets Twilight!" type of pitch.

When Harry Potter was published, it was the first of its kind. When Twilight was published, it was the first of its kind. When HG was published, it, too, was the first of its kind. They were unique in the realm of YA fiction and they captured audience's attention. Nearly all of the copycats afterwards aside from a select few which were equally creative (Beautiful Creatures, Divergent, ect) sort of floundered.

I'm not the YA guru, but I do read a ton of YA and these are just a few of the things I've noticed.
 
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Sage

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Two nights ago I was on Amazon, scoping out the recommendations to see if anything new would catch my eye. And at some point, I started thinking that everything was sounding the same. And then three books later, I realized that part of the problem was how the descriptions were starting. Those three books started like this:

"Game of Thrones meets Graceling..."
"Graceling meets The Selection..."
"The Selection meets The Handmaid's Tale..."
 

eparadysz

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Two nights ago I was on Amazon, scoping out the recommendations to see if anything new would catch my eye. And at some point, I started thinking that everything was sounding the same. And then three books later, I realized that part of the problem was how the descriptions were starting. Those three books started like this:

"Game of Thrones meets Graceling..."
"Graceling meets The Selection..."
"The Selection meets The Handmaid's Tale..."

Quick, someone write The Handmaid's Tale meets Game of Thrones to complete the book ouroboros!
 

thisprovinciallife

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Two nights ago I was on Amazon, scoping out the recommendations to see if anything new would catch my eye. And at some point, I started thinking that everything was sounding the same. And then three books later, I realized that part of the problem was how the descriptions were starting. Those three books started like this:

"Game of Thrones meets Graceling..."
"Graceling meets The Selection..."
"The Selection meets The Handmaid's Tale..."

This is so true! It's like the market is saturated with "sellable concepts". It makes it hard to distinguish which story is truly special, since there are so many Next Big Things with major deals and movies optioned before publication. From Goodreads comments, it seems like readers are tired of overhyped books, and you're so right that they're all starting to sound the same.

Why do they have to say Divergent meets The Fault In Our Stars when Gone Girl's Amy Dunne falls for a Cyberman? Just say, "this book is damn good. Read it for yourself."

That being said, I like reading about new deals and I'm excited for some of them. And I know publishers are working hard to set their books apart in a world with so many great stories (plus that regal space opera sounds like my cup of tea).
 
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Fuchsia Groan

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I asked a successful YA writer what she's doing next, and she said, "Game of Thrones meets Robin Hood."

I'm going to avoid even considering writing "Game of Thrones meets anything" because it can't take more than a year or so for that category to become hopelessly oversaturated.

I don't see anyone mashing up Welcome to Night Vale, though it sure is big on Tumblr. Maybe this is my chance to get in on the ground floor? :D

Then there's the whole fanfiction-with-the-serial-numbers-filed-off trend (the Harry Styles book). Could that make the jump from NA to YA? Or does wildly popular fanfiction need to have an erotica element?