Why the YA Sci-fi Market Sucks
Alexa Donne Alexa Donne
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 Published On Oct 21, 2019

Sci-fi struggles in the young adult fiction market. It comes and goes in waves, and if you're a YA sci-fi writer you'll definitely encounter more obstacles and disappointments than the average fantasy or contemporary writer. The YA publishing industry just doesn't GET sci-fi.

I"m sharing my insights into the market, in particular the CURRENT state of it: YA sci-fi is pretty dead. I explain why I think this is and offer background, as well as some (vague) hope.

I do want to disclaim that nothing I say is 100% universal in YA publishing, just generally true and may explain some of the deficits you've seen and some of the issues I've certainly encountered. Meaning: there are some specific publishers, editors, marketing teams, etc. who have done an AMAZING job acquiring and promoting YA sci-fi titles. They're just outliers, and that's sad.

Or, as I mentioned with dystopian--sometimes YA refuses to acknowledge that a popular title even IS sci-fi. Three of the mega hits I mentioned are partly sci-fi! The Hunger Games, Divergent, and Red Queen. But despite these hits you will still hear over and over again from agents and publishers that "sci-fi doesn't sell." I have heard this line VERBATIM in publisher rejections, as have many friends.

Pardon one spot in this video where the audio starts to experience some noise. The last 8 minutes of my footage was completely corrupted, necessitating my filming a new segment (which is at the end), but right before the switch, in interest of saving a few minutes of footage, I left in a short section that has mild audio issues.

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+FILMING SPECS+
Camera: Canon t6i
Mic: Rode VideoMic Go Light
Lighting: Limo Studio Soft Kit
Editing Software: Pinnacle Studio 22

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