Catching up on my RSS feeds.

This article prompted an awesome discussion at the circ desk this morning:

Does YA sell so well simply because teens have more free time? "Certainly teens have more time to read, but they also are less genre-identified," New York Times best-selling YA and SF author Scott Westerfeld says in an e-mail interview. "I've met adults who read only Tom Clancy knockoffs, for example. But teens haven't specialized nearly as much as adults, in reading as in everything else. Quite simply, this means that SF for a YA audience is going to get a larger slice of the population, not just the 10 percent of us who don't mind having a spaceship on the cover at age 30.

"This brings me to another point about sales comparisons: Teens are more networked than adults," Westerfeld adds. "When they really like a book, they make their friends read it and ostracize those who don't. Yay, them."

We at the circ desk heart you, Scott Westerfeld!!

Comments

[a Paperback Writer]

I've always assumed that YA sells better because a lot of it's just plain written better. Good YA books have plots. A lot of literary fiction follows in the post modern trend and skips a plot. Well, a lot of adults like a cracking good tale, too. In the "adult" book category, there's a reason why DaVinci Code sold a lot more than anything by Doris Lessing; it's entertaining and it has a plot.
Children's author Lynn Reid Banks once told a group of us at a workshop in 2003 that she fumed when she saw adults reading Harry Potter and wanted to rip it out of their hands and replace it with Anna Karenna. Now, AK has a plot, but really, what's more fun to read? HP, hands down.
YA has entertainment value, so adults often grab it over "grown up" books.

[EllenB]

I'm not sure teens have more time to read. My Freshman teen, who has always been a big reader,hasn't read very much at all this fall, with all of the homework and activities. I'm so glad his English teacher has sustained silent reading for the first 20 minutes of class.

[dot dot dot]

It's a lovely sentiment, and probably mostly true, but I still can't remember the last time one of Mr.Westerfelds YA novels had a spaceship on the cover. Instead, his publishers went the photo route, which did help it reach a larger audience.