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Carol Culver | 10 Things I Love About Writing The YA Novel
Uncategorized / August 15, 2008

Two weeks ago I was at the RWA conference in San Francisco where I gave a talk about writing for the YA market. For those of you who weren’t there, here’s the list – YA books stay on the shelves longer (by longer I mean longer than category romance which is my other outlet) Category books are gone in a month, but the last time I checked at my local Borders, all three of my books in the BFF series, MANDERLEY PREP, RICH GIRL and THE GUY NEXT DOOR were still on the shelves. Teens are loyal readers, if they like your book, they spread the word by texting, calling or whatever. Series are popular. Hook a teen reader and they’ll stick with you. YA books are short, around 50,000 words. You can write more books in a year than single titles. Writing for and hanging out with teens can keep you young. You can dig into your own past for material or use your kids or your neighbors. Deal a blow forever to the memory of those geeks, freaks, nerds, cheerleaders, jocks and goths who wouldn’t eat lunch with you, date you, or even speak to you in the…