New Adult - Let's make it happen

This is the suh-weet Day of Sacrifice Omnibus cover that Keary Taylor designed for me and I'm revealing it for the first time today, here, on the Indelibles site! (You can download the first DoS story for free from Amazon, BN, Smashwords, and iTunes.)

The last novella in the DoS series, Unfavorable, will drop next weekend and the Omnibus soon after.  I've got all my ducks in a row and am so happy to have another series under my belt.

Great cover.
Fun, sexy paranormal stories.
Awesomely edited.
Beautifully beta-read...everything seems in order.

Except, well, the problem I run into every time I publish a Day of Sacrifice story.

What category does it fit in?

These stories are not quite YA. The characters are predominantly 17-25. And only one story - Rebellion - has main characters that fit into the age range of Paranormal Romance for Adults.  There is also, on average, more language and sexuality than a YA novel, but less than, say, what you'd find in the Black Dagger Brotherhood books.

As a self-published author, marketing the book is only slightly less important than writing the book and, frankly, marketing these stories has been a bit of a PITA.

At the #indiechat last week, we got to talking about New Adult as a category. It's not a new idea, but it seems the category is as enigmatic as the books that belong in it. Many publishers, large and small-two exceptions being Rhemalda Publishing and Crescent Moon Press, don't use it because it's not recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble. In addition, some feel like there isn't a need to further compartmentalize novels, grouping them by genre, then sub-genre, then category, then sub-categories.

The thing is, YA isn't really recognized by Amazon or Barnes and Noble as a category either. You list your books in Children's or Juvenile Fiction and then you can choose teen-ish sub-categories from there.

It makes me feel skeevy.

My YA novels are intended for upper teenage readers and to see them pop up next to children's picture books is just not right.

That being said, YA, Young Adult, is a thing and we've all embraced it. Books need a proper category to go in so that they reach their intended readers. That doesn't mean that adults don't read YA or vice-versa, but it would certainly cut down on some confusion.

And there has been a lot of reader confusion with the Day of Sacrifice series. Reviews indicate that readers think it's too racy for YA and too vanilla for adults.

Yeah, because it's New Adult. :)

So, here's the deal. Many of the Indelibles have written/are writing/want to write novels that fit into the New Adult category.

We're all just going to agree that it's a thing. In the world. That people want.

Like I said before, I'm self-published and half the reason that works for me is because I don't like to sit around waiting for permission to do things the way I want to do them. Now, I know full well that Amazon and Barnes and Noble aren't going to include New Adult in their categories (or even create a joint YA/NA category like they should) any time soon.  What we can do is start using the label in our tags, descriptions, and in how we refer to the books we write.

If we want it, let's make it happen.



(For a more in-depth discussion of the New Adult category, check out this rad article here.)

Stacey Wallace Benefiel is the author of the Zellie Wells trilogy, the Day of Sacrifice series, The Toilet Business - a collection of essays, and multiple short stories. She sometimes goes by S.W. Benefiel, but knows she's not foolin' anybody. Stacey lives in an orange house in Beaverton, OR with her poet husband and their two young children.