Welcome to the blog of Samantha Adams. Author of the New Adult Paranormal Romance series, The Immortal Prophecy Saga. Here you will find all the latest news, updates, happenings, release dates for my books and some Indie Author book reviews! I love to hear from my fans, so stop by and say hello, stalk me on twitter or visit me on Goodreads. Happy Reading xx

Thursday 21 March 2013

What is New Adult?

I can hear you all asking, New Adult? What is she talking about?
And up until yesterday i was scratching my head asking the very same question, so let me explain...

The new hot trend or fad as some people are calling in it the publishing circles, tradtional and indie, is the New Adult genre. With the rise of the self-published or indie author, who are no longer bound by what the new york editors or top six publishers dictate their writing to be, a lot of us have been creating some amazing stories featuring a lead protagonist aged between 18 - 25. Previously, if you wrote this it would have been considered a Young Adult novel, which is categorically true, but not at the same time. 

For example, in a by the rule book young adult novel, we authors tend to skip over the more mature content such as sex, drugs and so on, which is obviously the moral decision. You don't necessarily want a fourteen year old to pick up a book marketed to them and find it filled with swearing, steamy sex scenes or someone shooting up. I'm not saying that no young adult books feature this kind of content or that its wrong to do so, but i personally couldn't write these things for a younger crowd. 

Enter the New Adult genre...

In these books, you still have all the charm and coming of age you would expect to find in a YA novel, but with more bite and a lot more steam. You won't find a fade to black sex scene in one of these, and readers around the world are screaming out for more! As you would expect there is more character development and bigger issues that are tackled, simply because they are older. 

Imagine Twilight, for an example as it is. Bella starts off as a sixteen year old attending high school in a new town and meets Edward, the forever seventeen year old vampire. Now...imagine Bella as a twenty one year old college student, trying to find her way, working out who she is and what she wants to do with her life, cause lets face it most of have no idea till our late twenties what we want to do. 


The story would ultimately have been the same, vampire falls in love with a human, human wants to become vampire and so on, but...and here's the big but...there would have been the sex scenes that people wanted to see so badly. (If they didn't, there wouldn't have been sex scenes in the movie, cause there are none in the books. Don't believe me? Go back and read the chapter on the wedding night. It fades to black.) 

For a brilliant example of a New Adult book, go and get yourself a copy of Colleen Hoover's book, Slammed. Colleen and few other authors are finding real success in this new niche and i say good on them! 

Whether this turns out to be a fad or a trend is only something that time will tell, but i honestly think this is something that the publishing world desperately needed. No longer are all of us authors who write NA feeling confused and like we are doing something wrong because we write about women in their twenties! I can't tell you how many times i put my book in the YA category but felt that it wasn't quite right.

But she's twenty-one. Is that too old for young adult? 
I want steam in the book, but is that going to put people off because its YA?
and so on...


I'm not saying YA is rubbish or anything to that effect. I love YA, it holds a special place in my heart and always will. The twilight books are my favourite. Ever! But as a writer, i want to write something with a little more bite, a little more steam and address issues that i couldn't do as well or thoroughly if i wrote for the YA market. 

The funny thing is, up until twenty four hours ago, i didn't even realise i was a NA author, but ever since i clicked on that link, i've been filled with an excitement and relief that i can write how i like. 

So, for those of you that are waiting on book two, be prepared for steam ;)

Thank god for New Adult!

So what do all you readers or writers out there think about the new trend? Love it or hate it?
I'd love to hear others thoughts on the topic :)

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