What Makes Young Adult Fiction So Compelling?

Writing books for young adults is a particularly fun brand of creation, and a favorite genre of our small publishing company, as well as for most in the independent publishing world. While readers of young adult novels tend to be in the 12-18 age range, YA fiction is popular amongst all age groups, especially Harlequin romance style books and those in the young adult fantasy genre. Readers tend to get drawn in by novels for young adults because no matter their age, the themes and issues in young adult fiction are always relatable.

YA readers tend to devour books from all genres: adventure, sci-fi romance, mystery, fantasy, humor, and mystery, among others—at a small publishing company like Sand Dollar Press, we are seeing a huge surge in those reading young adult fantasy adventure romance, romantic apocalypse and post apocalyptic books like Save the Pearls Revealing Eden. In addition, female readers still favor the style of Harlequin romance novels.

The diverse topics explored in books for young adults let readers learn about unfamiliar aspects of their world as well as other cultures, while examining deep issues in a nonthreatening way. Whether the book is a young adult fantasy adventure romance book or one about a romantic apocalypse, readers can empathize and learn the importance or relationships, coping with situations and tragedy, and personal evolution. As an independent publishing company, Sand Dollar Press looks for young adult books that are especially empowering to females, while another book publishing company may focus only on sci-fi or young adult fantasy novels.

While young adult novels generally run between 40,000-75,000 words, some run shorter or longer. In independent publishing, length will vary. It’s better for writers to focus on telling the story and then check the guidelines the book publishing company they are interested in sets forth. Sometimes a small publishing company will be more flexible with their specifications. It’s much more important to focus on telling a compelling story rather than the length. Often times, post apocalyptic books have so much ground to cover with detailed plots and many characters—therefore, it’s understandable why they may run much longer than other genres.

Visit www.SandDollarPress.com to learn more about working with an independent publishing company and to get information on Save the Pearls.