How to Position Your Children’s or Young Adult Book in Today’s Market

Submissions are at an all-time high, and not every agent is the right fit for every project. So, understanding where your book fits in is essential. It’s not because agents are lazy – it’s because we have to be selective.

How you present your manuscript gives us a sense of your vision for it. If we can tell that your vision for your book is different than ours, it’s probably a sign that it won’t be a very fruitful artistic partnership.

So here are some steps to help figure out where your book fits in this market: 

• Ask yourself, is my book really for children?
• What is your age category?
• What are your comparative titles? Ideally, these should highlight what you think are the strongest or most important features of your book
• Does your book fill a gap in the market?

Let’s take a closer look at each of these steps.

Is my book for children?

Children’s books are not about adults. Unless you are Neil Gaiman or the ghost of Roald Dahl, your book needs a child protagonist. Arguably, there needs to be other children too, so they’re not just surrounded by adults.

Of course, there are books with animals and even objects – but even though they’re not an actual child, they’re usually child-like. Children’s books need to be about things that children care about, that see the world the way they do.

So my first step is to ask – is this book for children? Does it feature adult characters, dealing with things in their adult way?

Or, does it go too far in the other direction? Does it feature a child character, but told through a reflective lens of an adult perspective? Or is the content, even if it features a young child, not accessible to a child reader? Sometimes stories that are about children are not written for children, but are very adult handlings of very mature subjects.

What is your age category?

We know that it’s exhausting to constantly be asked to categorise your work, especially by age. But here’s the truth: publishing is a business. Publishers are selling a product. Booksellers (read: superheroes) need to make it as easy as possible for consumers to make the best choice in their selection. And we, in turn, want to make it as easy as possible for them to do that.

While categories in publishing may seem restrictive, we have these categories for the same reason that a supermarket has different sections – so that consumers know what they’re getting, and it’s easy for them to find it. When you need milk, you go to the dairy section. If you want to find a book that is aimed at a 6-year-old, you go to that section.

I did say ‘aimed at’ – this is important. Even if your 10-year-old is incredibly advanced, books for 16-year-olds can deal with things like abusive relationships, drug use, sex, mental illness, through the lens of a teenager who may be experiencing it. Just because a 10-year-old can read it, that doesn’t mean that it’s appropriate for them. Books aimed at 10-year-olds can deal with the same issues, but it’s handled with that age group in mind.

There is a lot of work done to provide age-appropriate stories for teenagers who maybe aren’t as seasoned as readers – if you want to write a story for a reluctant or struggling reader, who’s aged 15, great! 

Comparative titles

Comparative titles shouldn’t feel like homework. They’re telling us so much about how you see your book.

Agents hope to see that you haven’t written your book in a vacuum. The best writers are readers, so we would expect that you’re reading widely in that space. That you understand your audience and what they’re reading. That you know what’s doing well with that age group.

But I do have some tips to make it easier if you’re really struggling.

For a start, stake out a bookshop. See what’s on the tables – they’re normally more recent publications. Picking a title that’s relatively recent shows us you’re keeping up to date and want to stay informed on the market. Talk to the bookseller! Ask them what’s popular, what’s selling, what people are asking for.

For a second comparative title, you don’t have to choose a book. You can choose a TV show or movie that you really related to, as long as it’s aimed at (more or less) your target demographic.

You can also isolate the elements of a book that you think add to your pitch but maybe overall, it’s not the right fit. Think about things like writing style, setting or time period, dynamics or tropes in the main relationships. You can say that your manuscript combines an element from Book X with something else from TV show Y. Play around with it.

Does your book fill a gap in the market?

I want to be clear here that I’m not talking about writing something specifically to fill a gap. Write what you want to write, write what you love! But you can always pitch something in a way that suggests it’s filling a gap.

The best way to do that is not to be cocky or arrogant. Don’t tell us “no one is writing about this” or “there are no books addressing this”. But what you can do is say, “I think my book would be perfect for readers who are ready to graduate from X” or “readers who aren’t ready for Y” – if you can highlight in that sentence along that there isn’t a lot of material for readers who are ready to graduate from a certain series or brand, that’s a USP that strengthens your pitch. See if you can find a gap that your manuscript fills? For example, I see a lot of calls for more STEM-based stories nowadays. Does your manuscript have a STEM aspect that you can talk about? I would never suggest changing or writing something to fit a trend, but if there is a part of your manuscript that fills a gap, let us know. If your book is the perfect next step (often a step up in difficulty) from a popular book, you’re creating a place for yourself in the market.

Ultimately, we want you to love your book as much as you did when you first sent it to us. It’s our job to sell it, but if you and your agent aren’t on the same wavelength about what you’ve written, along the way someone gets let down. So we ask that you give us a good sense of the book you want us to expect, so that we can find the perfect home for it!