Publishing books for
children and teens is a bizarre, fickle thing. I’ve come to the opinion that
you have to be very brave or a little crazy (or both) to take it on.
You
see, there is nothing straightforward when publishing for the under-18 set.
With
adults, it’s all pretty common sense. If you publish romances or gothic
mysteries or airplane centric real crime novels, then you know your audience is
going to be romance fans or mystery enthusiasts or airplane crime novel
devotees. Nothing too extraordinary there.
But
the minute you publish for the children’s market (and that includes teens), you
find yourself having to please two audiences. Oh, yes, there are those actual
children and teens the phrase “children’s publishing” implies. But, and this is
a big but, there is a second audience, a more powerful audience, the audience
with the actual money paying for the books: adults.
And
the biggest problem for the publisher is that these two audiences often don’t
have the same tastes. What a thirteen-year-old finds fascinating is not
necessarily the same thing I find fascinating in my thirties. (This is probably
a good thing. Having the exact sensibilities as a thirteen-year-old is probably
not in my best interest.) To take on both a child and adult audience
simultaneously can only best be described as courageous.
I
salute Leap Books on their foray into the nutty dual audience world of
children’s publishing. Whether you are a child/teen or an adult (or adult with
the heart of a child/teen), their books will find an audience in you.
