My proof readers and I got together yesterday and had a little chat.
I was asked what my target audience was meant to be, what ago am I aiming at?
I have always thought of myself as the target, late teens to mid twenties (what I believe is known as Young Adult). During the discussion though they all questioned this and seem to think my manuscript would be better suited for the preteen market, they specifically said 10 years old. My sister in law teaches to this age group and said they would be interested in my type of story.
After all that rambling... my question...
How are we supposed to market our work? and should I withdraw my own notions and go with my proof readers. They did add that there was some language that would need to be changed if I was to target a younger audience
Michael, that's a good question.
I would try an establish the lowest age of readership and work up from there.
I'm dithering between 10 and 12 years at the lower end of my readership.
'The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) of the American Library Association (ALA) defines a young adult as someone between the ages of twelve and eighteen.
Authors and readers of young adult (YA) novels often define the genre as literature as traditionally written for ages ranging from sixteen years up to the age of twenty-five, while Teen Fiction is written for the ages of ten and to fifteen.
The terms young-adult novel, juvenile novel, young-adult book, etc. refer to the works in the YA category.
There are many sources offering varying opinions. The best solution might be to find a similar book to yours on Amazon, or elsewhere. Check out authors in the same genre, and their target audience.
Michael, books for late teens to mid twenties would normally be classified as adult literature. I find the difficulty lies more in distinguishing "middle grade" from "young adult". For instance, Joanne Rowling's Harry Potter books start off as definitely more middle grade than young adult, but the later ones are more young adult than middle grade. Young adult books are read by readers as young as eight, readers who probably also enjoy middle grade books. I honestly don't think anyone here could tell you whether your books are MG or YA without reading some of your work. One thing you could do is look at some books in your library on both the YA and the MG shelves (preferably ones that seem similar to you own) and compare their writing styles, their lengths, etc. Mind you, if you think your books are YA you should be borrowing books from this section of the library already. And your SIL who teaches 10-year-olds is well worth talking to too. She should be able to give you some reading recommendations. Best of luck.