Did I Write a Children's Book by Mistake?
On targeting an audience, and a "shelving problem"
Recently I was invited to talk at YALC – one of the UK’s largest gatherings of storytellers and readers. It was held at London Olympia, the same venue and on the same date as Winter Comic Con. In the vast Victorian exhibition hall, while cosplayers mingled on the ground floor, YALC was hosted upstairs.
I sat on a panel with four other authors, all of whom, like me, had woven legend and folklore into their own stories. We discussed the purpose of myth, and the challenges of turning well-loved tales into new forms.
Most of which was great. My fellow authors were interesting and passionate about this subject, and the audience were engaged and asked astute questions.
Except...I couldn’t shake the feeling I shouldn’t be there at all.
This was not the usual imposter syndrome. Rather a question of target audience. YALC stands for Young Adult Literature Convention.
And I don’t believe I’ve ever written a young adult book.
My Blind Bowman trilogy is an epic fantasy retelling of the Robin Hood myths. It most appeals, as far as I can tell, to fans of Scott Lynch and Patrick Rothfuss and the so-called “grim-dark” crowd. It has little in common with the “romantasy” titles that fill the YA shelves.
“Weird, wild and wonderful…Game of Thrones style” - SFX Magazine on Shadow of the Wolf
When my agent was initially touting my first book, Shadow of the Wolf, one of the publishers I met described it as a cross between Joe Abercrombie and China Mieville. In other words, brutal and weird.
Yet here I was talking at a YA festival. To make it all the more confusing, none of the people in the audience were actually young adults. They were all, as far as I could see, in their 20s and 30s, and predominantly female. It’s apparently well known, in publishing circles, that this demographic is in fact the main buyers of so-called YA books. I’m not sure anybody really understands why.
In any case, looking out at this gathering, I had the strong sense it was not my crowd. I’d have been better off downstairs with the Marvel fans; they would have appreciated, I’m sure, my supernatural superhero reboot of Robin Hood.
As it was, after the panel discussion, when it came time to sign books, the queue for my table was significantly shorter than for those who had actually written a YA novel. Don’t get me wrong, I was still grateful to be there; it was a pleasure to meet every one of the readers who did come to get a book signed.
But in all honesty, I also found the day a bit dispiriting. It played into my general sense that my books aren’t currently being seen by the people who would love them the most. The fact is, my Blind Bowman trilogy, at the moment, appears to be suffering from what my publisher calls a “shelving problem.”
This was illustrated to me quite literarily recently when I went into my local bookshop and saw my first novel, Shadow of the Wolf, sitting in the fantasy section, and its sequel, Dark Fire, shelved with the “older teens” books.
My editor, Anthony Hinton, agrees with me that The Blind Bowman is closer to an adult fantasy than YA. Part of the problem, however, is that my publisher, David Fickling Books, is known the world over as specialising in children’s stories. No matter how hard Anthony or the sales team at DFB try to persuade booksellers that The Blind Bowman is a grownup fantasy, the message doesn’t get through. So my series falls down the crack between two potential readerships.
To be clear, I’m not feeling sorry for myself, or bitter. This is merely me trying to make sense of where I am, and to plot a path ahead. Most importantly, I want to figure out what lessons I might learn.
Because whatever the wider causes, surely this “shelving problem” began with the author.
I choose to start Shadow of the Wolf with Robin and Marian as children. I did so because I was thinking of it as an origin story, and so it seemed natural that we would watch our heroes grow up.
But perhaps this decision alone gives the opening of the series a ‘young’ feel and gave it an initial push towards the children’s market. As the trilogy progresses, we follow Robin and Marian through their teenage years and into adulthood.
Later on, then, these older protagonists perhaps point more towards adult fantasy. Other aspects of my storytelling, particularly the length of the books, and their descriptive quality, also make it better suited to older readers.
Anthony, my editor, told me that if I ever write another fantasy of this sort, he’d prefer it if I stuck to younger protagonists, and also aimed for a shorter page count. Either that, or I should use adult characters in a longer book and make it categorically an epic fantasy. In other words, I need to pick a side.
None of this feels particularly creative. Surely a writer wants to make the choices that are best for their story, not driven by a target demographic. On the other hand, an author certainly needs to keep their audience in mind.
Stephen King talks about having an ideal reader looking over his shoulder as he writes. Is that enough? Should I forget YA and epic fantasy and all the rest, and just write for one individual who I know will love the story I’m going to tell? I think it was Christopher Nolan who said the only true way to make a film is to make one you’d like to watch yourself. Am I my own ideal audience of one?
I don’t have all the answers here, not remotely. I only sense, as I prepare to start writing my next story, that the questions are important if I want that story to be read. If anyone out there has any thoughts on this subject, I’d love to hear them…
Thanks for being here, and happy reading!
Tim
P.S. There’s been some splendid offerings on Substack this week, so I thought I’d highlight a couple.
, master of the serialised novel, wrote a typically brilliant post about the form - this time focusing on the tricksy art of foreshadowing:
Also
and , brilliant writers both, came together for an inspirational chat:
Without having read your stuff, I cannot presume to offer any sorts of advice or remedy. But it does occur to me that if I picked up a Robin Hood adaptation and it began with children, I would also (unfairly) assume it was for a different audience than for myself. And again I feel it’s wrong of me to suggest anything, but I do wonder if this is the sort of situation where a prologue would help—some in-world anecdote that may not really be a “beginning” but which would help set the more mature tone of the story before we go meet our young protagonists.
In any case I appreciated this read. Thanks for sharing TK, and congrats on your publications and your work so far. Persevere! I’ll look forward to more.
Had this newsletter queued up in my inbox to read properly for aaages, finally getting to it. Really interesting, thank you. I don't know why I feel compelled to write a massive comment, but here we go: I'm not a trad-pubbed author or anything but I think I suffer from this demographic/genre confusion too. I've tried to write (successfully) and sell (unsuccessfully) 'YA' novels (superhero, fantasy) for quite some time now, but only relatively recently i.e. a few years ago did I discover that 'YA' readers are mostly teen girls and women in their 20s-30s. Nothing against them at all, but they're prob not so interested in my juvenile male fantasy fantasies [sic]! I think the thing for me is going forward is going to be to aim just for a regular fantasy categorisation. Lots of classic-style fantasy seems to me to have something of a 'YA' flavour to it because it can be enjoyed by teenage boys (and girls, though perhaps less stereotypically), and yet it isn't categorised as such. This is maybe where I got confused. Also for years I thought one of my favourite series ever and biggest inspirations, The Chronicles of Prydain, was YA, but this was because I'd never considered it properly since learning about the different publishing demographics--of course in terms of length and maturity it's only middle grade! And what confused me also was that I first read and loved it in my early 20s! Categorisations are fluid... Ho hum. An author all this puts me in mind of, too, is Chris Wooding, another of my absolute favourites. He started out in 'proper' YA/middle grade, but now writes 'proper' fantasy novels (they're incredible)--yet though they are categorised as adult fantasy they have a definitive 'YA' flavour to them! So it sounds to me like The Blind Bowman already just *is* 'adult fantasy' and belongs on those shelves. I hope you manage to get it there. Maybe if your contract with DFB eventually lapses you can get it re-published somewhere with another house / put it out indie (as Chris Wooding has done with some of his older middle grade / YA fantasy, but now with adult covers! Check out his 'Broken Sky' ebooks--though his more recent stuff is far more successful). P.S. Have you ever been to the actual MCM comic-con, downstairs where you were? I have with my family a couple of times and it's awesome--highly recommended! The first time I went I saw Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear on a panel :)