Advice from an 8th Grader on How to Publish for Boys
I found this article on PW today and thought it was worth passing along. From my reading, YA lit right now is in a great spot -- there are a ton of books coming out, a lot of them geared toward the mature end of the scale (rather than the 8 - 12 audience mentioned in the comments). There are, of course, also a lot of only kind of good books coming out (and even bad ones), but that's true in every category -- for every great book that gets published, there's bound to be one or two that are subpar. (And, of course, we don't all agree with what makes a book great vs. subpar.) So I'm always a little skeptical when I hear someone say "there are hardly any good books in [my category] being published now," because I suspect that the people aren't working terribly hard to *find* good books in whatever category they read. That's just a suspicion, though.
But for Max (the writer of the linked article), I'd recommend he head over to the Guys Read website and see what folks are recommending in the vein of fiction he enjoys. They have a whole category for "At least one explosion," which seems right up his alley.
But for Max (the writer of the linked article), I'd recommend he head over to the Guys Read website and see what folks are recommending in the vein of fiction he enjoys. They have a whole category for "At least one explosion," which seems right up his alley.