A poll conducted by the Publishers Association has found more than half of young readers credit BookTok, a subcommunity on the social media platform TikTok focused on books and literature, with helping them discover a passion for reading.
Alex Aster grips a tall Starbucks hot chocolate in her right hand as she guides me through the second floor of the world's largest Barnes & Noble bookstore.
"I come here several times a week," she says, pointing to a corner of the Young Adult section that often acts as a background for her many viral TikToks. "I usually stack two or three books to create a sort of stand." Read more
I've kind of given up telling non-publishing people that I write for young adults. They nod knowingly and then say something dismissive like "isn't that just vampire romances?"
This leaves me with two options. Option one: bite them on the neck. Or option two: explain very politely that young adult fiction is without doubt the most exciting, innovative space in publishing today. Read more
Despite the fact young adult books are "for" teenagers, it's rarely teens who are shouting the loudest about those books. They're reading them, but they're not necessarily the ones making the most noise about books in the YA "community" on social media. Read more
The 2010s saw the rapid rise and equally rapid fall of the YA dystopian genre, with The Hunger Games and its followers dominating headlines and popular culture. Read more
When Leigh Bardugo first came face to face with her characters, she wept. In a video that was uploaded everywhere from YouTube to TikTok, the author stepped on to the Budapest set of Netflix's Shadow and Bone and embraced her heroine, Alina - or rather, the actor Jessie Mei Li in costume. "You guys look amazing," Bardugo repeats in the video, between hugs and tears. "You look so incredible. Read more
Once in a while, a book comes along that lingers long after a spine is first cracked. It consumes your every waking thought, burying itself so deep into your psyche that years later, on occasion, it will still emit some stray spark of memory. Read more
The proportion of authors of colour writing for young adults in the UK has more than doubled in the last two years.
Research from University College London associate professor Melanie Ramdarshan Bold has found that 19.6% of YA authors published in the UK in 2019 were people of colour, compared with 7.1% in 2017 and 13.25% in 2018.
'Go for broke. Always try and do too much. Dispense with safety nets. Take a deep breath before you begin talking. Aim for the stars. Keep grinning. Be bloody-minded. Argue with the world.
Here is how platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
Agents have predicted continued demand in 2023 for feel-good stories as well as a romance and ‘romantasy' boom thanks to TikTok but say there could be a shift this year towards darker, genre-busting and challenging books.
When I pitched One Woman's War: A Novel of the Real Miss Moneypenny in October 2020, I had no idea that Operation Mincemeat, a movie about the same subject matter, would be released in early 2022, just a few months before One Woman's War was due out.
In a sense, every detective novel is about the inside of someone's head. What immediately captures the reader at the beginning of a Sherlock Holmes story is the tick-tock of Holmes mind: what brilliance will he conjure next, what detail will he pull out of an ordinary scene, who is this guy?
Both Romance & Sagas and Sci-Fi & Fantasy had banner years, with Romance's £53m its best since 2012, the year of E L James and Fifty Shades, and Sci-Fi & Fantasy's £47m its highest since 2007. Colleen Hoover's It Ends with Us was the overall bestseller of the year, with four other Hoover titles in the top 10. Read more
Mystery readers savor the hallmarks of their preferred subgenres of crime fiction. To meet their expectations, the savvy mystery author should choose their words wisely. Authors must deliver the expected violence level, the appropriate sleuth qualifications, the correct level of police involvement, a vibrant setting, a compelling whodunnit, and a satisfying resolution.
Everybody wants a good climax, especially when it comes to storytelling. That's why, today, we'll answer the question- what is a story climax? We'll also talk about the types of story climaxes, climaxes versus other story elements, look at some examples, and discuss how to write a compelling story climax. So, let's get started!
"Why isn't there more sex in your books?" I get this question a lot. In my DMs. In my email. In Zoom book club meetings, bookstore signings, and festival events. This, more than any other, seems to be the question my enthusiastic (and apparently thirsty) fans are burning to ask. Written inquiries are usually punctuated with fire emojis, or more commonly, a string of bright red chili peppers. Read more
I write dark fantasy stories for adults that explore survival after sexual trauma and war. My work focuses on the aftermath of sexual violence and the way my protagonists stubbornly live well after the unthinkable. There are no on-page depictions of SA in my work. Read more
I write a historical fiction series set in World War Two London. My protagonist is a Scotland Yard detective called Frank Merlin. I place great importance on being historically accurate in my books. I take the view that as I am attempting to transport my readers to a very different time and place, accuracy is a key element to doing that successfully. Read more
Booksellers report that more customers are switching to paperbacks as household budgets tighten, with agents and publishers also predicting a shift towards the cheaper format. Read more
'Writing is more than anything a compulsion, like some people wash their hands thirty times a day for fear of awful consequences if they do not. It pays a whole lot better than this type of compulsion, but it is no more heroic.'