Are you there, New Adult? It's me, Bekah.

Today I'm talking about this New Adult fiction business. What's New Adult, you ask? Well I've been asking the same thing for a few months and over the weekend I decided to get to the bottom of this for my own selfish reasons. I've read three titles that I enjoyed, Homecoming by Nell Stark, LoveLife by Rachel Spangler, and Sheltered By Charlotte Stein. I'm currently reading Take What You Want by Jeanette Grey, but only Jeanette's book was presented to me as a New Adult book.

The New Adult genre has been a thing for a long time. I'll even go as far to say it's been around as long as stories themselves, but recently St. Martin's Press and the rest of the publishing industry decided to slap a title on these stories.  Here's what Wikipedia has to say on the genre (with a little help from St. Martin's and NA Alley).

"New adult literature touches upon many themes and issues to reach the readership that falls in between the categories of young adult and adult fiction. Many themes covered in young adult fiction such as identity, sexuality, depression, suicide, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, familial struggles, bullying^[6] are also covered in new adult fiction, but the various issues that are dealt with in the category hold it separate. 

Some common examples of issues include: first jobs, starting college, wedding engagements and marriage, starting new families, friendships post-high school, military enlistment, financial independence, living away from home for the first time, empowerment, loss of innocence, fear of failure, and so many others^[7].
 
This category focuses heavily on life after an individual has become of legal age, and how one deals with the new beginnings of adulthood. Commonly, these themes and issues have been seen taking place post-high school in popular new adult fiction titles, but there are exceptions^[8]." -- Yes, I'm citing Wikipedia because they had the most clear definition.

Inside Romancelandia, I've seen a bit of a divide on the subject. Some think this is simply a marketing gimmick, another set of quick buzz words to push something that already exists. And others actually find this is new description to be rather helpful and exciting. I actually fall into both camps. Do I think it is a bit of a marketing ploy? Yes, but honestly that's how you sell things. You use marketing techniques to drive customers to your product. Books are a business. But for me categories like this help me understand what I'm getting.

I want to know if I'm reading about a certain age group or certain themes. A perfect example would be Regency romance and Westerns historicals being separated under the umbrella of historical romances. I love historical Westerns, but I'm not a huge fan of Regency romances. These categories help me find what I'm looking for as a reader. As a reader, I also enjoy reading about the 18-26 age bracket. These romances a bit more mature than YA.

I'm at a point in my life where the Boyfriend and I are struggling to get beyond our college life-style. I mean I have to put in the effort to not stay up all night, watching cartoons and eating junk food. He recently just bought his first car. That was a traumatic experience. It's only been in the last couple of years that I've stopped calling my parents every time something goes wrong. For a while I felt that I was reading romances with characters that we too serious and in periods of their life (secure in their careers, too mature to get swept up in slightly immature (fun and hilarious) situations etc.) that I just couldn't relate to at all. New Adult solves this problem for me as a reader.

What does this have to do with me and my books? I'll tell you. When I first started writing Better Off Red, I realized that I hadn't read many books about characters in college. I think. I wanted to read more stories, particularly more romances with characters that were of college age.

When I first started sending Better Off Red out for submission, I knew I had  unique problem. Now there are Young Adult books with sex. Forever by Judy Blume is one that immediately comes to mind. That book has a lot of sex in it. A lot, but it's a straight up YA novel. It was written for the YA audience and the main characters are in high school. Better Off Red has explicit sex, but Ginger is 18. She acts and talks like a typical New England 18 year old. She's a bit on the angsty side. She's trying to nail down her sexuality and a good studying schedule. Ginger's life just didn't fit in with the standard romances I was reading.

So who the hell was I going to sell this book to? Luckily Bold Strokes was willing to deal with me and Ginger, and that part of the story is history, but then I had to market the damn thing. And that was tricky too. I could say it's a paranormal romance, but it still didn't fit in with the adult or the YA paranormal romances I was seeing out there.



Then along comes this New Adult business and I feel like Ginger and the girls of Alpha Beta Omega finally have a little place where they belong. Where dealing with class schedules and new relationships and parents and vampires all makes sense. So I'm taking a stand or jumping into the pool (thanks Jeanette), and I'm going to say that my vampires series is most definitely New Adult. All of my main characters will be between 18-22. They will all be in college and dealing with their sexuality and their parents and race and the undead.

Yeah. New Adult feels good.

Day 658

It's officially my book birthday again! Weee! The Fling hits shelves nation/internet wide today. Here are the other titles Bold Strokes Books is putting out today, all available in print and ebook. I've highlighted the titles I've read so far and both were excellent. :)

Burgundy Betrayal by Sheri Lewis-Wohl - Paranormal Lesbian Romance

LoveLife by Rachel Spangler - Contemporary Lesbian Romance

Ill Will by Jean Redmann - Mystery (lesbian)

Buccaneer Island by J.P. Beausejour - Gay Pirate Erotica

Twelve O'Clock Tales by Felice Picano - Collection of Short Stories

Murder in Rue St Chartres by Greg Herren - Mystery (gay)

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This video has nothing to do with anything, but I love this song. Usher's new "jam" Climax. 

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Fellow author Rachel Spangler does occassional blog posts where she shares the search terms that have brought people to her site. I usually share mine with her, but now I'll share them with you. Here are the results for the last 30 days.

rebekah weatherspoon - this makes complete sense

rapunzel boobs - posted one picture from Tangled and her boobs were not out.

oksana - i wonder if people were searching for pornstars or figure skaters of the same name

annie adderall - were they looking for a girl who deals Rx's named Annie

butters love - again one picture of Butters and here we are.

cute innocent brunette white guys - i love that someone is looking for this in general, but they didn't find it here

el mac - i worship the man and he's hyperlinked on my Extra's page so this makes sense.

looking for my childhood bedtime story book from 50's or 60's big red book - o_O

my little pony friendship is magic rainbow - we all know what this is about.

rebekah weatherspoon author - another no brainer. A few months ago I had several searches for boob related topics. these seem a little boring.

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And for no reason at all, here is my take on HBO's new show, Girls. I posted this on  my tumblr yesterday, but I'm sharing it here to keep from driving people unnecessarily toward tons of nude photos.

so here are my thoughts on #GIRLS AT THIS VERY MOMENT, as I am sure they will evolve.
i’ll get this out of the way first (since there's been a lot of chatter about in the twittersphere). i NEVER expected there to be any sort of diversity on this show. ever. look at the poster. so i’m not upset that there was one WOC who scored one line and will never be seen again since Hannah no longer works with her. And i’m not upset that in NYC there was one black walking down the street. i am not upset by this because it is EXACTLY what i expected. my bar was set real low on the diversity scale.

as with the New Girl, and Don’t Trust The B in APT 23 and even 30 Rock, we are seeing a continuation of a new female figure on our televisions. The quirky brunette is the new dumb blond. her large breasts and wide eyes have been replaced by glasses and one liners. that in mind, GIRLS is not some new feminist take on the 20 something. these girls are not kicking ass and taking names. they are barely taking care of themselves. they are not even respecting themselves. seriously. all 4 of them are taking it pretty hard to the face.

characters: i know nothing of Lena Dunham, but as with many in Apatow’s camp i am sure parts of this are autobiographical. PARTS as Dunham is 25 with a show on HBO, soooo…
Hannah is interesting. she’s of average intelligence. she’s of average wit. And its stops there. she doesn’t do anything entirely smart. the whole episode people walk all over her as she says witty things and when her parents cut her off she throws a temper tantrum. as someone who has received financial assistance from my parents at this point in my life, okay i get it. but my dad helped me keep my car from getting repo’d. he wasn’t supporting my ENTIRE life as Hannah’s parents are. she’s been working an internship for a good clip.

Hannah’s friends:  i don’t know any of their names. they all blended together.

• roommate/most attractive girl is in a relationship with the most attractive guy on the show, who she is not attracted to but refuses to break up with him because of reasons? mostly she doesnt want him to go all Lloyd Dobler on her, but that seems to be the only reason.

• british friend is british. so far that’s all i got. she’s pregnant, but the way these girls are and the way they are living, i dont see them binding together to raise a baby. there might be a trip to the clinic in her future

• over-zealous friend has terrible lines written for her. we all know that hyper, wants to be liked girl, but some of this chick’s dialogue didn’t make sense. like no one would actually say some of the things she says to another person.

• the fuck buddy-Adam. he treats Hannah like crap and she lets him. parts of this i get and parts i don’t, mostly because it FEELS like a plot device. we’ll see how she handles him.

• hannah’s parents. there’s not much to say here. they cut her off and expect her to fend for herself. this is totally cool, but you would think that parents who spoil their kid this much who have some sort of convo with this kid about how they can get on their own two feet. this doesn’t happen. her mother just keeps yelling GET A JOB!

overall, i liked the feel of the show. it highlights how things are for a section of America’s 20 somethings at the moment, albeit 20 somethings i would never actually want to spend time with. it rings of Sex and The City 2.0, but less campy and way less sexy.

Lena Dunham stars, writes, directs and produces this show. my fear is that so much of her is in this project that we will be forced deeper and deeper into her limited scope. i don’t feel there will all that much satisfaction at the end of the road, but we’ll see.