New Study: 55% of YA Books Bought by Adults – Publishers Weekly

More than half the consumers of books classified for young adults aren’t all that young. According to a new study, fully 55% of buyers of works that publishers designate for kids aged 12 to 17 — known as YA books — are 18 or older, with the largest segment aged 30 to 44, a group that alone accounted for 28% of YA sales. And adults aren’t just purchasing for others — when asked about the intended recipient, they report that 78% of the time they are purchasing books for their own reading.

This makes complete sense to me! YA is a growing market, the teens section of stores running out of space. I wonder what the resurgence is?

They make the point that “Hunger Games” and “Harry Potter” are the drawing factor, but surely there’s more to it than that. Plus, this can be great news for teenagers as well, that reading is good and fun. In one of my graduate classes, we discussed the books that influenced us the most. The majority of us mentioned books from childhood and teen years, nothing fairly recently. This meant reading early and in the teen years marked important transitions in life.

Keep it coming!