"YA careers [...] are not generally built to last"

Is it like this in adult genre fiction?

This all just goes back to the YA market issues. Its a rough time in YA because we're in the in between phase. No ones sure what'll happen next. A lot of those big series did well ONLY because of the trends. Those writers will struggle to find their place in a harder market. They need another GREAT book, not just average. And most likely it can't be what they wrote before (paranormal) making it even harder to jump into the new mix.

There are a lot of writers making careers now though. Maggie stiefvater, Holly Black, Kirsten White and Lauren Olliver (though some are doing so by also writing MG). Those are just off the top of my head.

I agree, but it is the same way with any industry that relies on popularity for sales. It is especially true if you just follow trends in your writing. Eventually you have to adapt or risk lower returns.

Nothing I didn't know already.

Behind closed doors, many were really quite cheerful and open about the fact that they’d jumped on the Twilight bandwagon, and some of them were even quite happy to tell you how carefully they’d identified the trends, tropes, and formulas to follow.

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And is it just me or did anyone else notice how badly YA (especially trend-books) ages? A PNR from 2008 is nigh-unreadable now, the plots feel primitive and threadbare, characters are flat and cliche, rife with all kinds of stereotypes and other rape-culture-y tropes no one would dream of using their YA in 2014.

Hapax, I do see a bit less of this in adult fiction. (I think.) Still, there are a few trends that die and come back in a cyclical fashion (think urban fantasy with the chick in leather pants, which was a subgenre of its own for quite a while-- now you can't give them away for free.)

Had a good laugh reading this.

Recognized some of the thoughts too.
I confess writing "kindle porn" has struck me as a good idea on several occasions. Spewing out titles under various pseudonyms too. And keeping it all a secret, definitely, because if I actually sell a literary novel, then I wouldn't want to have bad books attached to my real name, now would I?

I'm keeping my day job and laboring on with my great quality (?) YA novels, though, until further notice.

Nicole River said:

Hapax, I do see a bit less of this in adult fiction. (I think.) Still, there are a few trends that die and come back in a cyclical fashion (think urban fantasy with the chick in leather pants, which was a subgenre of its own for quite a while-- now you can't give them away for free.)

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Hm.

I guess with my WIP it'd be tough to market as either YA or adult so I'm looking at my options.

I'm sure some people are shocked to find their house is worth less than it was ten years ago too. So it goes.

Likewise, I expect the audience of people willing to spend $2-3 for 6K words of dashed-off porn will eventually dry up when the novelty wears off. I mean, don't these people know about fanfic?

From what I've noticed over the years as a reader and a review addict (lurker) of websites like Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble, it's always the quality of the books in a major series and how the final book ends that can impact an author's popularity. The first book is always hyped up like crazy by the publishing world. It sets up high expectations and draws in the masses like flies to honey. Readers either buy the first book because they know it's going to be good or they buy it because they know it's going to be bad and they like to torture themselves.

After the first book, the expectations are higher. Was the quality (good or bad) of the first book a fluke? Sometimes, the first book is really good or sometimes, it's really bad. Readers tend to stick around to see if the series gets better or worse. The second book syndrome is pretty common and generally leads to disappointment and a loses of readers. Writers start to dig themselves into a hole by introducing love triangles, inconsistencies in plot, and just other illogical bullshit. The final book is where you either lose your fanbase or you gain some faithful followers that will follow you to your next series.

Every major book series that I've seen has always ended in a controversial way and the reviews show for it especially when the final book tries to use massive info dumps, trying to fill plot holes, killing off favorite characters unnecessarily, and resolving romantic relationships and love triangles. Author popularity is connected to author reliability.

"Can I rely on this author to give me a good story and resolve every conflict presented throughout the series in a logical way or will I be disappointed, unsatisfied, and broke? If this author used cheap gimmicks and weak storytelling for this series, why should I buy the next series?"

This is silly because YA is still in its infancy. It just had a HUGE boom and now is starting to cool off. What's the standard for comparison here? Talk to me ten years from now and then you might be able to notice a trend.

YA has been a thing since the 1970s. That's why the article refers to popular YA writers of the 1980s who are unknown today (people like Norma Klein, perhaps). What is new, or was, is the boom in YA. Way back when I was a teen, all bookstores and libraries had sizable YA sections, but you did not see YA books on the bestseller racks, ever.

I know this article reflects one person's experience (and, perhaps, bitterness), but I can't get it out of my head. As a writer, I have no interest in a cash grab. I have a day job. What I would like to do is build a small but loyal audience of readers for my work. I'd rather publish all three of my books to minimal returns and growing readership than just one on-trend book with a big advance, followed by obscurity.

This piece suggests that publishing is no longer set up to nurture that kind of career, something I've also heard in the laments of midlist adult writers. It's common knowledge that the blockbuster mentality rules in Hollywood: even Steven Spielberg had to fight to make a "quiet" movie like Lincoln. Is the same becoming true in publishing?

The last thing I want to do is bash trade publishing, because the big five and the indies still put out so many wonderful books, with far more variety than I see at the multiplex, and promote them far better than authors can themselves. But if YA is increasingly flavor-of-the-month driven, blockbuster oriented and closed to experimentation, I find myself tempted to turn back to writing for adults. Or to self-publication, or to both.

Fuchsia Groan said:

This piece suggests that publishing is no longer set up to nurture that kind of career, something I've also heard in the laments of midlist adult writers. It's common knowledge that the blockbuster mentality rules in Hollywood: even Steven Spielberg had to fight to make a "quiet" movie like Lincoln. Is the same becoming true in publishing?

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Quieter titles with niche audiences are the ones who suffer when business gets tight. But there's no reason why an author can't do a bit of both. Self-publish the quiet titles and trade publish the trendy ones. That way you're not relying on one path for your career.

This is one reason I considering going trade with MG, but for my Adult stuff (by adult I mean loosely, like how Oliver is technically "adult") I'm probably going the smash words routes.

So my quite fiction, what is meant by this? I prefer to read science fiction that is a little bit more quiet myself. (For example Steam-punk that doesn't rely on action as the main plot driver.)

I wonder if it also depends on how wide an audience your books are able to capture. If your only audience is teens, you might face problems keeping your career going when a large portion of your audience has outgrown the desire to read your YA books.

In essence, every new series has to capture a largely new audience.

How does this effect general coming of age stories? (Where the character essentially grows up throughout their life.)

Are they as bound to trend market hiccups?

rwm4768 said:

I wonder if it also depends on how wide an audience your books are able to capture. If your only audience is teens, you might face problems keeping your career going when a large portion of your audience has outgrown the desire to read your YA books.

In essence, every new series has to capture a largely new audience.

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Generally, YA doesn't really have an audience problem that I've seen because its audience is basically self-renewing: every year, new people are growing up and attending high school and getting exposed to books aimed at people their age. For every reader who "ages out of" reading YA (which arguably doesn't happen to a lot of readers -- I've read more YA since leaving high school, not less), one more grows up and takes their place.

I see high school girls nowadays clutching the same library books I took out almost ten years ago. The same battered copies of SPEAK by Laurie Halse Anderson, the Gemma Doyle trilogy, the Georgia Nicholson books, etc, are getting passed around today. It is possible for books to stay perennial in that high school library climate. Those books just have to have more of a timeless quality than, for example, the 2009-2010 paranormal romances.

Becca C. said:

Those books just have to have more of a timeless quality than, for example, the 2009-2010 paranormal romances.

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Agreed. I've been thinking about this article for a couple of days now, and I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Maybe this is why YA fantasy seems to still be where a lot of the big marketing pushes happen, because it feels more immune to trends and won't seem dated a few years from now.

*shrug* I don't think most publishing pros and authors have kept it a secret that this isn't a business to get into because you want a big paycheck and stardom. The media certainly likes to pump up the handful of big-deal moneymakers, but it's not the norm. Most YA authors are writing books for salaries ranging from barely-there to "enough to do it full time," whatever that amount is. Probably not as much as you'd think, since many YA authors tend to be partnered or married.

The shiny six-figure deals look pretty on paper, but that shakes out to a very, very average wage when all is said and done, since you're being paid essentially on commission, and only when the publisher chooses to buy. Most writers I know who are writing ANYTHING are also doing other projects on the side, whether it's articles or editing or, like this author, poooooorn. That's pretty typical of a writer's existence. Gotta pay the bills.

Niiicola said:

Agreed. I've been thinking about this article for a couple of days now, and I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Maybe this is why YA fantasy seems to still be where a lot of the big marketing pushes happen, because it feels more immune to trends and won't seem dated a few years from now.

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Agreed. Certain contemps are also pretty timeless -- mostly the straight up coming of age stories (think Sarah Dessen, Melina Marchetta etc).

I think another factor here might be the timeline content is expected to be produced on in YA. I see a lot of YA trilogies being pushed out over a period of three years or less, whereas I'm used to waiting several years for adult genre releases. That might give that particular trilogy a huge push, but it probably also enhances the effect where an author only becomes known for one series and can't branch out from there.

maybegenius said:

Most writers I know who are writing ANYTHING are also doing other projects on the side, whether it's articles or editing or, like this author, poooooorn. That's pretty typical of a writer's existence. Gotta pay the bills.

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Ha!!!

maybegenius said:

*shrug* I don't think most publishing pros and authors have kept it a secret that this isn't a business to get into because you want a big paycheck and stardom. The media certainly likes to pump up the handful of big-deal moneymakers, but it's not the norm. Most YA authors are writing books for salaries ranging from barely-there to "enough to do it full time," whatever that amount is. Probably not as much as you'd think, since many YA authors tend to be partnered or married.

The shiny six-figure deals look pretty on paper, but that shakes out to a very, very average wage when all is said and done, since you're being paid essentially on commission, and only when the publisher chooses to buy. Most writers I know who are writing ANYTHING are also doing other projects on the side, whether it's articles or editing or, like this author, poooooorn. That's pretty typical of a writer's existence. Gotta pay the bills.

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Exactly. Almost all of those six-figure deals are multi-book deals (there was a four-book six-figure deal mentioned in the trends thread about Bologna). So divid the amount by four, and that would probably get paid out over the course of several years as the books are written/put into production... yeah, it's good money, but it's not really instant riches.

Re: the bolded part... I've noticed this. There are probably very few full-time YA writers who aren't married or relying on someone else's income at least a bit. It makes me feel very unfeminist for saying it, but I'd looove to marry someone who could support me while I write! Even if I'd just have to have a part-time job, that would be fabulous right about now

Becca C. said:

Exactly. Almost all of those six-figure deals are multi-book deals (there was a four-book six-figure deal mentioned in the trends thread about Bologna). So divid the amount by four, and that would probably get paid out over the course of several years as the books are written/put into production... yeah, it's good money, but it's not really instant riches.

Re: the bolded part... I've noticed this. There are probably very few full-time YA writers who aren't married or relying on someone else's income at least a bit. It makes me feel very unfeminist for saying it, but I'd looove to marry someone who could support me while I write! Even if I'd just have to have a part-time job, that would be fabulous right about now

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Agreed! I am married, but my husband and I have an agreement that if he ever makes enough to cover my current salary (or close enough to it), I'm quitting my job and writing full-time. I don't really feel unfeminist for it, though, because he says if I ever make enough writing to support us both he's quitting and playing golf, haha. Pipe dreams, but really it's nice to have someone who is so supportive of those dreams. I don't know how single writers do it. They have my utmost admiration!

Personally, I think if you want a longer career it would be better to receive a small advance, earn out, and keep selling. It does seem hard for an author to move beyond a blockbuster book/series. At least, that's the way it seems these days. While it would be cool to have that kind of success with a book/series, I think it would make me sad in the long run if that's all people wanted from me. Kind of like musicians whose fans never want them to grow beyond the music the initially produced. (Now I have images of Annie Wilkes in MISERY in my head).

Sadly, the key to maintaining a writer's life (when you can maintain it at all) is to be regularly producing work that you can actually sell. This image of the artistic recluse genius writer who writes one book a decade (if that) and being able to live comfortably off of those royalties is pretty laughable. The writers who are actually raking in the big money (Patterson, King, Rowling, etc.) put out multiple books. The same for self-published authors -- the people who are successful in that sphere are those who are putting out book after book.

I think people get this idea in their head that you can just write THE book, or THE series, and as long as you hit the bestseller list, you're golden forever. Your book will never go away, people will buy it for eternity, and you'll be set. And there's not enough "nope" in the world for that.

I mean, sure, Rowling made so much on the HP series that she'll never want for money again, but we're talking 0.000000000000000001% of the writer population that has that luxury. It's honestly a luxury to sell consistently enough to make $30K a year.

It's a scary prospect. This is something I want to do so badly, but at the same time, I know the paydays are sporadic at best. Meanwhile, my current day job is consistent. I always know when I'm getting paid. It'd be hard for me to logically leave the steady income, even though writing full-time is THE DREAM.

Wouldn't the second book stress kick in though? Even if one isn't rich, there seems to be something about being an unknown (like myself) and being able to write what you want. I'd more easily fear being typecast for a book.

Not saying I wouldn't want the spare change, but I'm not in this to write the series. (I can't write a series anyway.)