"New Adult" Finds a Home

After college, I became an undergrad academic advisor at my alma mater. I'd loved being on campus as I completed my degree (part-time, in my thirties), so making the transition to working there was a perfect fit. The reason I enjoyed my job was simple: I love people in that typical college age range - the way they think, reason, respond and learn. The level of independence and dependence they attempt to creatively balance. The manner in which they tentatively or wholeheartedly throw themselves into (and out of) relationships.

My oldest child went off to college the same semester I began advising, and his sister started college the following fall. I got the idea for Between the Lines when my son, who's wanted to be an actor since he was ten, was a junior at NYU (Tisch). I wrote the novel with 17-21 year old protagonists - like my kids and the students I saw every day... and then I began doing the research to find an agent.

That idea you had about
writing college-aged protagonists?
No. Just. No.
Because I'm The Gatekeeper and I said so.

"No one wants to read books with college-aged characters." This was the pronouncement of publishers, so of course literary agents followed suit. (In their defense, if they'd tried to buck the system, they'd have ended up with a big client list of unsalable novels. Until, you know, now.)

A year later, I'd gotten nowhere writing query letters and pitching Between the Lines at conferences. I had revised the book to include two POVs, but I didn't want to age my characters up or down. I'd also nearly completed a sequel - so I had two books that appeared to be dead in the water. After reading an article about indie publishing star Amanda Hocking, my best friend began nagging me about self-publishing. A couple more rejections later, I thought: Well, I'm interested in reading about characters this age. Maybe there's like, a niche market for it... and I self-published Between the Lines a couple of months later.

I hoped to sell a few books to a few readers who'd enjoy them. I made a Facebook page, joined Twitter, and switched my blog from an anonymous URL to my name, but I didn't actively market or advertise. I was shocked when I sold a dozen in a 24-hour period during the second week. I was more shocked when it began to pick up speed from there, and flabbergasted when I began getting emails from readers... who wanted a sequel.

So much for "no market."

That moment right after you click "publish."
(Spoiler Alert: It wasn't a train.)

By the end of 2011, I'd published three novels, and was making enough to quit my job and write full-time. I had a story in mind for the final BTL installment when I began hearing Jacqueline's voice in my head. I woke up with plot lines running through my brain. I heard dialogue when I was in the shower. I tried to push it off until I was done with my series. When that didn't work, I tried to write both at the same time (hahahaha - that lasted about a day). Finally, I shelved BTL #4, and Easy was born.

That niche market I'd found with the Between the Lines books? Well, I found the hell out of it with Easy. Shortly after I published it, readers began calling it "New Adult" - a mystical category between Young Adult and Adult Fiction that didn't exist - though St. Martin's had tried, unsuccessfully, to create it in 2009. I'm no dummy, however; I wanted readers to find my books, so of course I added that label to my book descriptions.

But I was writing for readers of edgy/mature Young Adult fiction - older teens, and adults like me who enjoy reading YA. For that reason, I'd kept to the sexuality guidelines of books written for the mature end of the YA spectrum: books like Perfect Chemistry and The Sky is Everywhere and The DUFF. I didn't intend to write straight-up adult romance, or I'd have written more explicit sex scenes.

Thanks to the popularity of books like Beautiful Disaster (which is celebrating its two-year anniversary this month and was termed NA by readers last year), there has been a recent avalanche of novels on the market bearing the label "New Adult." And because the characters are technically adults, some writers feel little to no compunction to hold back on the level of sexuality portrayed. Many readers and authors began calling NA "sexed-up YA."

I saw NA as a continuation of YA - the coming-of-age aspect being the most important aspect of the novels I'd written and wanted to write... though yes, love and sex are a big part of that process. I'd written Easy for readers who (1) read Young Adult romance and (2) avoid issues books that they need to read. Many readers focused on the romance aspect only - and I was fine with that. But I was appalled and saddened when my book was included by name in major media stories labeling New Adult smut.

According to ABC and the NY Times, I write smut for teenagers.
(Suddenly, "sexed-up YA" doesn't sound so bad...)

Numerous times over the past year, I've made the point that if we, as authors, continue to allow NA novels to be termed sexed-up YA, they will eventually be pulled under the bookseller heading of Romance. As much as I hoped it wouldn't happen, it's happening... starting with Amazon, which has filed New Adult under Romance. I wasn't sure which publishing entity would ultimately be responsible for making this definitive move, but I was increasingly positive it would occur at some point, and now it has. There's no judgment in this observation, by the way - they're only doing what the majority of NA authors and the market (buyers) are telling them to do.

For many authors, this is celebrating-in-the-street news - and while I agree that it's nice to have a home, it's not the home I wanted. I wanted to write about 17-22 year olds - under the heading of YA. And here is where my epiphany occurred. *insert deep breath* What I wanted doesn't matter.

I had the beginnings of this epiphany after a discussion on Twitter a few nights ago (before Amazon's move). I was informed that my character (Lucas, from Easy) couldn't be included in a "YA" tournament on a YA blog - because "Easy is NA, not YA." I countered that Easy was republished by the Children's Division of Penguin. I mentioned other (traditionally-published) authors who've written YA books with college-aged characters who have sex. I stated for the hundredth time that Easy isn't explicit - because I wrote it as a Young Adult novel.

Please understand: I didn't care about inclusion in the tournament. Seriously. Not at all. What I cared about: I was staring the beginning of the end in the face, and I knew it. I never believed NA would get its own category, but I hoped it would eventually get its own section of an existing category. In my mind, there were two possibilities: Young Adult or Romance. I wanted it to be YA. Looks like that's not going to happen.

So what's my next move? If what I write isn't going to be accepted in Young Adult, and it's not explicit enough to be Romance (ie: my personal expectations when reading a Romance novel), then what I write is in no-man's land. Again.

Time to reinvent, I think. Stay tuned.

COVER REVEAL: Here Without You (Between the Lines #4)

The fourth book in the BETWEEN THE LINES series has a digital release date: AUGUST 6 2013. (Paperbacks will be available later the same month.) The storyline of this final book in the series centers around Reid, Brooke and Dori.

The US cover is on the left, and the UK cover is on the right:

We're working on revisions and edits currently, and I'll begin doing teasers beginning in June!

(And then, yes, I'll begin writing LUCAS'S STORY (no title yet), TBR 2014.)

That One Time I Went to the RT 2013 Convention

I'm home from my first Romantic Times Convention, and I hope it isn't my last. It was insane - even though I missed most of it because of a manuscript deadline. Which means I spent much of the week cloistered in my room, writing (insert sniffle), because that's what happens when you are too optimistic about how quickly you write.

I missed the nightly parties, and most of the panels and workshops - except the New Adult panel I was on with Jennifer L. Armentrout, Jeaniene Frost and Erin McCarthy - who were all awesome. (Especially Erin, because we were wearing the exact same earrings. Consider how many possibilities of earrings there are in the world, and what the chances are of this. It's a sign! I'm not sure what it's a sign of, but it's gotta be something.)

I did escape my hotel room for a few meals (though my room service bill was horrifying), and I got to room with the wonderful Colleen Hoover. I couldn't cry myself to sleep at night, because she would have said, "What's the matter? What's the matter? What's the matter?" until I told her I'm an unbelievably slow writer, that's what. And then she'd have said, "But I knew that already. Why aren't you writing now? Here, have some Diet Pepsi and get back to work!"

Colleen is the little sister I never had. Those of you with little sisters know what I mean by this.

The Ginormous Booksigning event on Saturday was pretty cool, except whoever was in charge of ordering books for me ordered 48 copies of Easy. Thank goodness lots of people brought copies with them (even some indie editions!), because I ran out of books just after noon, and the signing went until 2 PM. Boooooo to whomever was in charge of ordering my books.

My face still hurts from all the smiling.
(Note to self - Fashion Don't Alert: You are too pale to wear this color.
No, it doesn't matter if it looked cute in the store,
because it matches your pasty, oatmeal-colored skin tone.)

My battle cry: Nothing motivates me like the last minute!

So, I did a lot of writing during the conference, and I've been home a week, finishing up. Which means: I'm about to send my Penguin UK editor the final BTL #4 manuscript! We'll wrap up final revisions this week, and then it goes to copy editing. Woot! The (digital) release date is AUGUST 6th. (And the title/cover reveal will be SOON.)

I didn't think I'd be one of those overly-sentimental types to whom the end of a series means both champagne and tears. I was pretty sure the champagne alone would be fine, thanks. But I kind of cried through writing the last several chapters, and some of the reason for that was the realization that this is it. I'm saying goodbye to the characters I've grown very fond of since I first dreamed them up, four years ago.

I hope you like it.

Giveaway Winners Emailed

Last week, I decided to do a BIG GIVEAWAY: Ten sets of the first three books in the Between the Lines series. My reasons: I have ten BTL sets sitting on a shelf, in my closet. And I'm moving soon. (Boo for packing. Boo for carrying moving boxes up and down stairs. Yay for husbands who go to the post office with packages.)

So I wrote up last week's post, and I wondered how long to have the giveaway run - two or three days? Five days? A week? I was worried that I might not get enough entrants to make it a good contest, what with giving away ten prize packs and all. I mean who wants to have a giveaway with ten prizes and get twenty entrants?

According to Punchtab, there were 1302 entrants with a total of 4652 entries.

Me: o.O

I've emailed all ten winners, and (so far), I've gotten three replies. So. Check your email, people! Check your spam boxes! Winners have 48 hours to respond. If someone doesn't respond, I'll have Punchtab choose a replacement - so yes, all of you who didn't win, cross your fingers for people to be lazy email-checkers. Trust me - it could happen. Stay tuned!

(Random Somewhat-Related Story: When I was an undergrad academic advisor, I had students every semester who desperately wanted into a full class. They begged and pleaded, while I tried to make them understand that we based the maximum enrollment on the number of chairs in the room. I had to get very hard-hearted, which wasn't easy for me, because I'm naturally a soft-hearted person. But I had a secret weapon, and I gave it to the students who were respectful in their begging: Tuition has a due date. People who don't pay or make arrangements to pay by the due date are dropped from their schedules. At midnight. I always wondered if administration caught on that a LOT of my students signed on at 12:01 AM the day after tuition was due and snatched up those vacated seats??)