SF Signal: POLL RESULTS: Marketing Young Adult SF/F

POLL RESULTS: Marketing Young Adult SF/F

Here are the results of the latest SF Signal poll.

QUESTION
Are publishers cashing in on the young adult craze by marketing adult sf/f to young adults?

RESULTS

(60 total votes)

Yikes! Participation was down by 50% this week. I guess YA fiction is not popular with our readers?

Just a couple of comments this week...

"It's not just SF, though. There are a number of raunchy books out there being called YA when they're far from it." - Chris

"I hope that these publishers publish an author's work based upon the author's intended audience and not what audience the publishers think the book is suited for. It's kind of like Hollywood actors being typecast." - Jim Shannon

Be sure to visit our front page and vote in this week's poll about your favorite Tim Burton film!

I'm not sure if your commentor "Chris" meant it that way but "raunchy" (meaning actually having honest references to sex) books can easily be YA. The presence or lack of sex in no way determines whether a book is for teenagers or not -- no matter what certain bluenoses might want to think.

Posted by Andrew Wheeler on Monday May 12, 2008 at 3:09 PM

Andrew: yeah, that's partly what I meant. And I wouldn't call for the removal of sex from YA fiction, but some content is clearly NOT young adult material.

Now, there's obviously some gray area here, but I think marketing outside of a work's obvious realm is shady. It's insulting when certain sci-fi is marketed as literature while other sci-fi gets the boot, and it's misleading and aggravating when, say, a movie is labeled as something it's not. Marketing is a dubious business as is and I resent it being done at all, but obvious is obvious.

The whole "and why shouldn't they" aspect of the poll question is really in-your-face and, I feel, the core of so much liberal bias. Again, I'm a fairly liberal bloke, but I think there can be such a thing as adult themes. Also, I've suspected with some YA that it was labeled such because the quality of the writing wasn't up to snuff. That might be alright some of the time, but I'm afraid it's just shoving garbage writing at kids. Iell me if I'm wrong there, really, because I don't read much YA and could stand to b enlightened.

Posted by Chris on Tuesday May 13, 2008 at 9:07 AM