Follow us:
  DR. BICKMORE'S YA WEDNESDAY
  • Wed Posts
  • PICKS 2025
  • Con.
  • Mon. Motivators 2025
  • WEEKEND PICKS 2024
  • Weekend Picks 2021
  • Contributors
  • Bickmore's Posts
  • Lesley Roessing's Posts
  • Weekend Picks 2020
  • Weekend Picks 2019
  • Weekend Picks old
  • 2021 UNLV online Summit
  • UNLV online Summit 2020
  • 2019 Summit on Teaching YA
  • 2018 Summit
  • Contact
  • About
  • WEEKEND PICKS 2023
    • WEEKEND PICKS 2023
  • Bickmore Books for Summit 2024

 

Check out our weekly posts!

Stay Current

Marketing books to young adults: a discussion on gender and target audience

5/25/2016

 
This wonderful post was published while I was on vacation in Mexico. I didn't have the internet access that I had hoped for. That was probably a good thing. We had a great time, but I did have access to what i needed to give Morgan Rath credit for her work. She did the research for this column as part of senior thesis project at Arizona State University. Great work Morgan. We hope to hear more from her as she leaves the university.
Picture
​I wasn’t sure what to expect as I began my senior thesis project back in September 2015. I did know what my topic would be though: a visual and rhetorical analysis of how young adult novels were marketed. I have always been a fan of young adult novels, and with a background in public relations and marketing, this was the logical and most appealing topic selection for me. Plus, I figured it would give me something unique to discuss in job interviews, a thought that is on the mind of any college senior.
 
With the topic nailed down, I embarked on an eight-month journey into the world of visual and rhetorical analysis as it pertains to young adult novels. I wanted to know what visual and rhetorical elements marketers were using to draw in the young adult crowd. Rhetorically, I used the concepts of logos, ethos, pathos, and kairos. Visually, I utilized the principles outlined by Dr. Frank Serafini in his novel Reading the Visual. I applied these criteria to the Big Five publishing houses’ (Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, Macmillan, and HarperCollins) young adult web platforms. For example, Epic Reads is the interactive web platform created by HarperCollins to push out it’s YA titles. I also applied the visual and rhetorical analysis strategies to the respective web platform’s Facebook and Twitter pages. 

Finally, I selected five books to analyze from each of these sites based on their homepage placement: the book that was placed closest to the top of the page, furthest to the left, and the largest. Based on that, my five novels were Morrighan: A Remnant Chronicles Novella by Mary E. Pearson, Other Broken Things by C. Desir, A Gatlin Wedding by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Anna and the Swallow Man by Gavriel Savit, and Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard. I examined the cover design, jacket copy, and the novel’s Goodreads page, as well.
I was instantly shocked to find that two out of three of my selected novels were novellas, which are available exclusively as e-books and are shorter, companion novels to a series. The fact that in two cases, these were the books selected to be front and center on the homepage was quite interesting. E-book sales have hit a rough patch, as of late, making way for audiobooks to emerge as the latest trend. But it seems that in the young adult world, e-books are still experiencing a moment. While I was initially shocked at the finding, it does make sense, considering that Generation Z, known for being very tech savvy, is the target audience for these YA marketers right now, or at least I had assumed.
 
Pertaining to the visual analysis, there was never an actual person depicted on the cover of my chosen novels. Instead, cover designs included objects and stick figures. My rationale for this: Using objects instead of human cover models allows a larger portion of the YA audience to relate and picture his or herself as the main character. 
​The rhetorical side of my analysis is where I discovered my most interesting findings. Pathos was the standout rhetorical technique implemented by publishers. While there were a variety of emotions tapped into, nostalgia and female empowerment were utilized most frequently. While it can be argued that stand-alone novels are the latest tend in young adult literature, four out of five of my novels were part of a series. Phrases such as “the gang is back” (Gatlin Wedding) and "the story continues” (Glass Sword) were very common.
 
Even more interesting, phrases playing up on feelings of female empowerment were used quite frequently in social media posts, as well as website and jacket copy or text. There was a lot of emphasis on the female protagonist within each novel and her conquest to survive, protect her family, etc. This observation caused me to wonder: Why is the emphasis on female readers? To the best of my knowledge, there are males who read YA, but they are obviously not the targets on these platforms. Since they are not the targets here, where are publishers connecting with this male audience? 
My study brings up a lot of interesting questions pertaining to gender and audience when it comes to YA novels. While I made some interesting discoveries, there is so much more to look into. How do young adult males select books to read? In addition, at the start of this study, I assumed that Generation Z was the target audience; however, people 18 and up actually account for 80 percent of YA book sales. So, is Generation Z even the target audience for these marketers anymore?
 
Now here I am, eight months later with a lot of new revelations, but even more questions spinning in my mind. I find myself confused but more eager than ever to enter the publishing industry and begin my search for answers. It is an exciting field that I know will teach me something new about young adult novels and marketing strategies everyday. So while I am officially a college graduate, I don’t think it is time for me to give up my title of student quite yet…

Comments are closed.

    Dr. Steve Bickmore
    ​Creator and Curator

    Dr. Bickmore is a Professor of English Education at UNLV. He is a scholar of Young Adult Literature and past editor of The ALAN Review and a past president of ALAN. He is a available for speaking engagements at schools, conferences, book festivals, and parent organizations. More information can be found on the Contact page and the About page.
    Dr. Gretchen Rumohr
    Co-Curator
    Gretchen Rumohr is a professor of English and writing program administrator at Aquinas College, where she teaches writing and language arts methods.   She is also a Co-Director of the UNLV Summit on the Research and Teaching of Young Adult Literature. She lives with her four girls and a five-pound Yorkshire Terrier in west Michigan.

    Bickmore's
    ​Co-Edited Books

    Picture
    Meet
    Evangile Dufitumukiza!
    Evangile is a native of Kigali, Rwanda. He is a college student that Steve meet while working in Rwanda as a missionary. In fact, Evangile was one of the first people who translated his English into Kinyarwanda. 

    Steve recruited him to help promote Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media while Steve is doing his mission work. 

    He helps Dr. Bickmore promote his academic books and sometimes send out emails in his behalf. 

    You will notice that while he speaks fluent English, it often does look like an "American" version of English. That is because it isn't. His English is heavily influence by British English and different versions of Eastern and Central African English that is prominent in his home country of Rwanda.

    Welcome Evangile into the YA Wednesday community as he learns about Young Adult Literature and all of the wild slang of American English vs the slang and language of the English he has mastered in his beautiful country of Rwanda.  

    While in Rwanda, Steve has learned that it is a poor English speaker who can only master one dialect and/or set of idioms in this complicated language.

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    June 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014

    Categories

    All
    Chris-lynch

    Blogs to Follow

    Ethical ELA
    nerdybookclub
    NCTE Blog
    yalsa.ala.org/blog/

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly