HP's Genre Problem

[Ebony Elizabeth]

No: HPFGUIDX 759

--- In HPforGrownups at egroups.com, Penny & Bryce Linsenmayer 
<linsenma at h...> wrote:
> It should be no great surprise that I agree with this, but I think 
the publishers (both Bloomsbury & Scholastic) have to take their fair 
share of the blame.  They've marketed & panned the books as for 
children from the get-go, and of all people involved, *they* (her 
editors in particular) ought to have been well-aware that the series 
wouldn't always be appropriate for 9-12 yr olds.  If they were 
listening to her I guess.

I think I've said this before, but... they probably weren't.

Like I said, it is very difficult for an unknown writer to propose a 
cross-age bracket series.  In '97, '98, and '99 I received area code 
212 phone calls from agents and editors I've queried and sent MSs 
to.  I called everyone in my phone book, purchased champagne... only 
to be given offers that I *had* to refuse.

"I loved the MS.  However, you're going to have to start your series 
out with the characters as adults.  Contemporary African American 
fiction *for adults* is hot right now--not teens.  You don't want to 
mark yourself as a juvenile author."  

"But the book isn't necessarily just for African American teens," I 
always protested.  "It's for anyone who wants to read it."

"Well, Book One is too graphic and complex for a YA novel.  And the 
main characters are too young to appeal to adults.  You'll have to 
cut it--you can use the material in flashbacks."

I have had this conversation three times in as many years.  My 
protests that the collective tale I want to tell *has* to start 
exactly where I began it fall on deaf ears.

Needless to say, I am still not published.

I am sure that JKR may not have wanted to be categorized.  But who 
knew HP would have become a phenomenon?  I am *sure* she didn't slap 
the 9-12 label on her books.  Not if it is true that she originally 
wrote the books "for herself".  But publishers are not writers.  They 
are business people.  When PS was published, someone in marketing 
probably gave the book a glance through, read the summary, noted the 
11 year old protagonist and slapped on the middle grades label.  

I know one thing.  Just like Terry McMillan's *Waiting to Exhale* 
proved that African American women actually bought books, HP proved 
something that publishers never believed before:  adults will read a 
book with protagonists who are not adults.

Thanks to both of them, my climb up the Alpine Path's a little 
easier.  

Ebony AKA AngieJ