How to Market to the New Adult Audience

For the Day 17 prompt of the 28-Day Blog Challenge for Authors, the question is:

Describe the market for your book – to the tiniest detail (e.g., childless divorced women past age 50 who want to remarry). Why that demographic? How do you connect with them to market to them?


This is an interesting question because as I have mentioned in previous posts, I consider my book part of the emerging "new adult" genre. This term caught on back in 2009 when St. Martin's Press announced a contest looking for submissions from authors who have protagonists slightly older than teens. These books are intended to appeal to adults who read young adult novels and older teens.

The audience for the new adult genre is mostly females who are in that in-between stage of their lives. They may live in a college dorm or still live at home with their parents. New adults are typically at an uncertain phase of their lives. They may be looking for their first job, leaving home for the first time or beginning their first serious romantic relationship.

The reason I chose this audience and made my protagonist Kate 21 years old is because I find this stage in a girl's life fascinating. She has to find her footing for the first time without her parents and must make a decision on the type of career path she wishes to pursue. College is also such a fun time in a person's life and leads to experiences (bad and good) that stay with you forever.

Since agents and publishers are reluctant to take on older protagonists for YA books, it's a tough market to break into. Most of my marketing has been done via social networking, connecting to other NA writers, blog guest stops and online giveaways.

If you are a writer of new adult fiction or want to learn more about the genre, here are a few excellent resources:

NA Alley: This is a must for NA authors! The fabulous group of bloggers that run this site are both NA authors and fans of NA books. They review NA books, discuss the genre and host giveaways.

Writer's Digest: An article from 2010 breaks down the genre and talks about typical protagonists and the intended audience for the books.

Title Changes and Book Description for Second Sight

Here's some details about my upcoming book release. I officially changed the name from Second Sight to First Visions: Second Sight Book One. I also finished my final draft for the book jacket. After going back and forth, here's the final description I settled on:

Two years ago, 21-year-old Kate Edwards became deathly ill and slipped into a coma. While unconscious, she crept into the mind of a missing boy and awoke with the knowledge of his location. Friends and family were skeptical and wary of her new ability to see into the minds of others. Their fears prompted Kate to keep her psychic powers a secret. Feeling alienated, she dropped out of college and spent most of her days holed up at her mother's home.

A Review of My Vacation Reads

Although I didn’t get through all of my vacation reads, I did finish four and a half books. Crossed by Ally Condie will have to unfortunately wait until I put a dent into my packed DVR. The books definitely eased the boredom of a sixteen hour car drive to Florida. Here are a few quick impressions:


Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter-This was better than I expected, but still suffered from middle book syndrome. Since it’s a trilogy, the second half felt like mostly a set-up for the final novel. Plus, I didn’t get why Henry was hung up on Persephone. I think the author should have made her a bit more likable.

Expel by Addison Moore-God, I am so torn after this book. It was fast-paced with plenty of love angst, but oh god the ENDING! Not sure how everything is going to work out and who Skyla could possibly end up with. Can’t wait for the next book to see how the author brings everything together.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi-This book has been super hyped, so I started reading it with a lot of preconceived notions in my head. I’m glad I gave it a shot because it was sooooo good. I love stories where the two main characters hate each other at first, but then fall in love over the course of the book. The setting was so different too from other dystopian YA entries.

Life on the Edge by Jennifer Comeaux-After some heavier reads, I was definitely ready for a beach read. This book was just what I was looking for. No heavy conflicts, cute love story and a fun setting. Can’t wait to read the upcoming sequel!

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire-Hey, I can dig bad boys just like most girls. But Travis was way too unlikable for my tastes. I got about half way through and gave up on it. Was very disappointed since I liked that the main characters were college-aged.

Now that my book marathon is over back to getting Second Sight ready for publication. Plan to do my final edits this week, hooray!

YA and New Adult Vacation Reading List

Although my hubby thinks I’m nuts, I have a very ambitious vacation reading list. I really want to devour as many books as possible while I’m away because when I return I plan to do marketing work for Second Sight and start on my first draft for the sequel (gulp). I pretty much have the story in my head already and an outline, I just hope it translates as well to paper. For research and enjoyment purposes, I’m keeping my list mainly YA and New Adult.

Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter-When I saw the first book was from Harlequin Teen, I almost didn’t read it. I have such a love/hate relationship with the books from this publisher. There’s been a few that I’ve had to throw across the room because I’ve been so disappointed. However, the Goddess Test was REALLY good which makes me have high hopes for the sequel. (I also saw there’s an ebook novella out as a bridge story. Some of these for series books are cool, but I typically only download the freebies.)

Expel by Addison Moore-The Celestra series has been one of my faves lately. Love the mix of humor and action. Great twists too that will get you excited about the next book. I’ve read mixed reviews on this latest entry, but I’m sure I’ll consider it fabulous.

Life on the Edge by Jennifer Comeaux-I’m such a sucker for 90s movies and this book description makes me think of the Cutting Edge. Plus, it is new adult (upper YA) which I’m trying to read more of.

Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi-I’ve heard AMAZING things about this book so I’m definitely looking forward to checking it out.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire-Another New Adult genre book I’m hoping to get to. This book has also received a mix of bad and good reviews, so I’m wondering if it will end up in the chuck pile.

Crossed by Ally Condie- This is in my maybe pile. I read the sample chapters and it’s not sucking me in just yet. Wondering if it could get better?

New Adult? Upper YA? No Market?

This topic is very near and dear to my heart because I’m coming across this time and time again as I interact with literary agents and publishers. The 18 to 22 year old age room is not a target audience in fiction books. My main character for Second Sight is 21 and lacks the marketability of a young adult novel with a teen lead.

When I went to college, I definitely came across this problem with finding books that fit with my age group. We weren’t quite “adults” with full-time jobs and familial responsibilities, but we weren’t exactly ‘kids” either. My roommate used to tease me for reading a series called “Making Out.” (Look it up, the books were AWESOME lol). So, where exactly do books with college age main characters fit?

A couple of years ago, there was this big hoopla over St. Martin’s Press looking for “new adult” genre books. These novels were supposed to be targeted at the upper YA audience. Nothing lately have been released about this imprint, but hopefully crossover novels with a broad age range will begin to pop up at more traditional publishing houses.

So, what’s a writer to do? I’ve been told to either make my MC a teen or drop the YA label. But when you change a character’s age from 21 to a teen aren’t you compromising many of the main components in the novel? Leaving the paranormal stuff aside, teens and college age students have completely different lifestyles and problems.

The other possibility is dropping the young adult genre label altogether and marketing the book simply as a paranormal romance. This would probably make the most sense, but I think many of the feelings and issues would resonate with YA readers.

My feelings right now are either to go with a smaller publishing house with upper YA novels or self-publish. You’ll hear differing opinions on the effectiveness of small presses which I’ve discussed in a previous post. My hope is that one day this won’t be a problem and crossover new adult novels will be more commonplace.