What genre is your manuscript?  If it has dragons and fairies, it’s fantasy.  If it has dragons, fairies, and warring kingdoms, it’s epic fantasy.  If it has spaceships, it’s science fiction.  Dead bodies and cops make it crime fiction.

But how do you know if your fantasy, epic fantasy, or crime fiction would be considered YA or Adult?

Good question.  Today, YA fiction includes all the steamier, seamier elements of Adult fiction: sex, death, betrayal, zombies, government conspiracies, to name but a few.   And adult fiction may feature children or teens as protagonists.  Furthermore, adults are reading YA in increasing numbers.  Children are often unsupervised as they choose and consume books.

You’d think that the distinction between YA and Adult no longer mattered.

Except that it does.  Sometimes.  Importantly, it matters a lot during the marketing phase of the book’s life.  Which agent and publisher will you pitch?  And if you’re self-publishing, what keywords will you apply to your page on the booksellers’ sites?

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