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| My Local BN! Date - 8.3.12 |
So before I get into this. Read this post by my fellow NA Sister Carrie Butler. This post is inspired by her NA Alley post on NA Misconceptions. She discusses common misconceptions about new adult fiction, and why the are indeed misconceptions about the category. I'll wait for you to come back...
Hi again!
So in Carrie's post she discussed some common misconceptions about NA. So I decided to tackle a couple of these misconceptions a step further, and discuss one of my own. So...
On to my local Barnes and Noble!
Carrie's First NA Misconception stated:
We don't need one more category clogging up our bookshelves!
Hmm... Are these bookstores really clogged??? Are they???
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| Sure is lots of space for the clearance section.... |
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| Anyone need a journal or Rosetta Stone? Apparently, we do since there is so much space set aside for them.... |
World History is a bit bare at the moment. And my goodness, does the Travel Pictorial section really need to have the books facing forward like that? Look at all that space!
So obviously this is MY BN, but you see where I'm going with this. There is clearly some extra space for at lease ONE little incy wincy New Adult shelf. Just a little one. Doesn't have to be huge.
Another of Carrie's NA Misconception stated:
Don’t write NA. You’ll never get published.
So besides the fact that Carrie stated that myself, she herself, and fellow NA Sister Juliana Haygert have all recently had one of our new adult works contracted, I decided to hit up BN and get the skinny to see if these books really are being published and hitting the shelves.
Meet one shelf of the BN New Teen Fiction section in my local store.
Let's see how many of these are NA. Look closely now....
There are some there, my friends!!!!!
Oh, and those four are just the ones I knew off hand that day. Through research, I discovered at least 4 - 6 more books on this shelf were 18-year-old characters in their final week of high school, or on summer vacation between high school and college. Oh, and lets not even get started on all the NA I found on all the other shelves. I would have been in there all day snapping shots.
What this picture also shows is how hard it would be for the average reader to find those four books. I knew they were NA because I'm a NA freak and always try to stay current on NA books, but what about the people who don't? What about the causal Barnes and Noble shopper? They would have no idea those books were NA by just browsing the covers.
An NA Misconception I Discovered:
College Students Don't Read, So Why Publish These Books?
I decided to end this post by adding my own misconception to supplement Carrie's. Somehow this weird misconception started going around that college students don't have time to read fiction so they aren't. Um? Who in the world has talked to every single college student in the world and asked them that question? I know I'm in grad school and still have time to not only read a book a week, but write them as well on top of doing my school work. The YA Rebels also discuss this misconception here.
Also, who in the world said only college students should read fiction about college life? How many of you have read Harry Potter? Are you in middle school and high school still? How many of you have read Hunger Games? Are you seventeen? Because Katniss Everdeen, the heroine of the Hunger Games, sure is so that means you're the only age who can read that book.
So to further prove that many audiences are in fact reading these books. Here we go!
Here we have the infamous Fifty Shades series. Say what you want about it, but this series a selling powerhouse right now. It dominates this NYT Best Sellers list, USA Today's Best Selling List, and also Amazon.com + BN.com sales at the top positions. It has done so for weeks, and guest what? It's about a COLLEGE student. She's TWENTY-ONE, my friends. And the material does indeed have a NA voice.
What? You want a read less spicy? Here were go!
Colleen Hoover's Slammed Series has been on NYT, USA Today's, Amazon, and BN's lists as well. And for WEEKS. Also, great NA reads.
Some other NA authors with NA books dominating Amazon's Top 100 Selling eBooks List right now?
Abbi Glines
Tina Reber
Jamie McGuire (NYT Best Seller for Beautiful Disaster)
Tammara Webber (NYT Best Seller for Easy)
NA self published authors who's books were doing so stinkin' well they were recently picked up by major publishing houses within the last 3 months?
Colleen Hoover (Atria)
Jamie McGuire (Atria)
Jessica Park (Amazon)
Tracey Garvis Graves (Penguin)
So obviously some one is reading these books. May not be college students (a lot probably are ;D), but someone is reading them.
Now, I would like to ask you: What do you think about this NA trend? Are you seeing the same happenings in the fiction reading world, as well? Let me know your thoughts below!
Oh, and thanks Carrie Butler for your awesome post, which inspired this one :D
Laterz Peeps!
