7/1/2013
The demand for the young adult (YA) publishing sector ebbs and flows based on best-selling titles. Last year was buoyed by The Hunger Games, for instance, with total YA sales accounting for $828.9 million in revenue for publishers, up 11% from 2011, according to the Association of American Publishers (AAP). Yet, lacking a breakthrough success this year, YA sales are down 24% year-over-year, according to the AAP.
Even more notable about today’s YA market is that all (or nearly all) of the most successful titles are fiction. Twilight, The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, Insurgent, and The Vampire Diaries are just a few recent examples of best-selling and popular fiction titles. Although there are no hard-and-fast reasons for the lack of nonfiction YA titles, publishers typically attribute it to three key themes:
- All nonfiction sales, even adult, are weaker than fiction;
- YA readers associate nonfiction with schoolwork and, as a result, prefer to read books that align with magic and mystery; and
- Without a movie tie-in, there’s no way to capture their attention.
Though there is validity to these arguments, it appears YA nonfiction is increasingly becoming popular among publishers and young readers. And book publishers are learning what works and what doesn’t, always on alert for that elusive breakout nonfiction title that sells as briskly as a vampire-themed romance series.
Aging Down
One of the most effective ways to publish a YA nonfiction title is to age down a best-selling adult nonfiction title. St. Martin’s experienced great success with its I Am a Seal Team Six Warrior last year, which is an aged-down version of the adult nonfiction best-seller Seal Team Six. Earlier this year the publisher printed Navy Seal Dogs, the YA version of the adult nonfiction book Trident K9 Warriors, an enormous best-seller that was heavily promoted on “60 Minutes.”
Similarly, Scholastic “had great success” with James L. Swanson’s Chasing Lincoln’s Killer, which is a YA adaptation of his adult best-seller Manhunt. In September, Scholastic is testing this formula once again with The Nazi Hunters: How a Team of Spies and Survivors Captured the World’s Most Notorious Nazi, which is a YA adaptation of Neal Bascomb’s best-selling Hunting Eichmann book.
YA girl readers, in particular, typically won’t pick up adult versions of similar topics. If they are going to read about Italy, they want a travel guide written from their viewpoint. Hairstyle suggestions need to address the prom, not the high school reunion. As such, TV personality Lauren Conrad penned her beauty guide specifically for teen girls, despite the fact that she has more millennial-aged fans.
Star power sells in YA nonfiction, though in a distinctly different way than in adult nonfiction titles. In adult nonfiction, memoirs by past and current known personalities are the primary best-sellers. Successful star-authored titles in YA nonfiction, on the other hand, are fan guidebooks, such as the eponymous One Direction: Forever Young and Justin Bieber’s Just Getting Started.
Publishers are exploring other successful adult nonfiction genres, particularly career advice. To this end, in March, Scholastic published filmmaker and MTV star Andrew Jenks’s My Adventures as a Young Filmmaker to serve as a how-to for prospective movie executives. Likewise, in 2014, Lea Michele of the TV series “Glee” will publish her advice on getting ahead in Brown Ambition. Despite a few titles here and there, the travel and comedy genres remain largely untapped among YA publishers. Nobody knows for sure whether this is because these titles don’t sell or publishers are focusing now on more lucrative opportunities.
Although YA nonfiction publishers are increasingly embracing social media to directly advertise their titles to young readers, the primary way YA readers learn about potential YA nonfiction books is through their teachers and librarians. These educators learn about YA nonfiction titles through awards and literary honors. Thus Titanic: Voices From the Disaster was a popular seller last year after winning an ALA/YALSA Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction Award and an ALA Sibert Honor Book Award.
And while there has yet to be any YA nonfiction titles as widely successful as Twilight or The Hunger Games, book publishers are excited about this genre’s gender potential. Whereas girls largely read YA fiction, YA nonfiction skews heavily male.
CONTACTS AND CONNECTIONS: HarperCollins Children’s Books, Corinne Helman, VP Digital Publishing, 10 E. 53rd St., New York, NY 10022; 212-207-7000; corinne.helman@harpercollins.com; www.harpercollins.com.
St. Martin’s Press, John Karle, 175 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10010; 646-307-5546; john.karle@stmartins.com; www.stmartins.com.
Scholastic, Tracy van Straaten, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012; 212-389-3782; tvanstraaten@scholastic.com; www.scholastic.com.
Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, Mara Anastas, VP Deputy Publisher, Simon Pulse, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020; 212-632-4907; mara.anastas@simonandschuster.com; www.simonandschuster.com.
© 2013 Business Valuation Resources, LLC (BVR). May not be reproduced without written consent of publisher.