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Exciting News & A Pep Talk To Readers

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In between tackling some challenging social media related shenanigans, I’ve been working really hard lately on my anthology, as well as some other writing for work and non-work reasons. It’s been fabulous, all of this writing, as has been the incredible honor I’ve had to edit essays for Feminism for the Real World. I’m going to have a very exciting announcement soon with the second part of my contributors (!!) but in the time before that, I have my own exciting announcement which is this: I am now represented by literary agent of wonder, Tina Wexler at ICM.

I cannot express my excitement for how well Tina and I clicked from our first email to our phone calls. I have let her in on all of my secrets and it’s really neat to have someone who not only gets it, but who is excited about helping me find a home for the projects I’ve got in my pocket. I even shared some (gasp!) YA fiction I’ve toyed with, a project I have toyed with and put away because of more pressing work, and she was receptive and excited by it.

A little back story: I’ve done this entirely backwards, upside down, and in my own way on my own terms. Most writers begin with an idea, then they write the manuscript, then they query agents, then they work with the agent who sends their work off to editors who might be interested. I jumped around. I wrote and sold a book to VOYA entirely on my own, and I did the same with Feminism for the Real World with Algonquin Young Readers. One of my editors there suggested I think about agents while going through some of the paperwork aspect of the project, and her suggestion really made me sit back and think about what I wanted for a career out of writing — and it was and is clear to me there’s more than this in me. Suddenly, I had five million ideas and wanted to find an agent who’d be open to trying these things, as unconventional as they may be.

There’s little to nothing out there for writers who aren’t going into straight fiction or even narrative non-fiction in terms of what they should be doing to find an agent. So I asked around — I asked writers I knew who loved their agents why they loved them, what made them stand out, and whether they knew anyone else who might be open to talking. I had it in my head to just talk, and I had fantastic conversations with two great agents. After talking, I knew this was something I not only wanted to do, but that I needed to do.

I have been taking an online course about dreaming for the last four weeks. I did it for me and me alone, and it’s been about an hour a day I get to spend thinking about possibilities and ideas and making my life more creatively adventurous and fulfilling. I might write about the course in more detail when it’s done, but a few of the big takeaways from it so far have been really impacting my thinking. I can’t just sit on ideas. I have to let myself pursue them as I have them or at least write them down to pursue when I’m ready. In a lot of ways, this was “divine timing.” And this was a leap and a risk I was more than ready to take.

I’m thrilled to keep writing, to keep building this unconventional and exciting and fun and fulfilling career. Last weekend marked four years since I walked out of a job that left me depressed and miserable and feeling awful day in and day out. I had no plans when I left, just that for my own sake, I needed to get out.

Four years back, I couldn’t have envisioned how much that decision radically changed my life in the best possible ways.

If you’re reading this, take that leap. You and your life are worth it. There will be super crummy times. There will be things that truly test the limits of all aspects of your life and your relationships.

But you only get to do this whole thing once, so take the chances as you can.

“Yes” is just as important as “no.”

Diversity in 2016 YA Book Covers So Far

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Last year, I did two posts that explored diverse YA book covers. I wanted to see those covers featuring people of color prominently and obviously. After paying attention for those posts, it’s a thing I’ve kept an eye on as more 2016 YA book covers have been revealed. I’ve collected the covers fitting “diverse” in that they feature people who aren’t white in a way that makes it obvious they are not white.

All of the 2016 YA book covers haven’t yet been revealed yet, and there’s always the possibility that some covers previously revealed will be redesigned. But so far, 2016 is looking to be like a real let down when it comes to racial diversity on YA covers.

There are six books that feature boats or ships on covers in 2016 so far.

There is not one single — not one single — interracial couple on a YA book cover for 2016.+

There are plenty of white couples though.

But what’s really frustrating about seeing this isn’t just that there are not interracial couples depicted on 2016 YA covers yet. It’s that I can only think of one single YA book featuring an interracial couple at all, and that’s Sarah McCarry’s About A Girl cover. Granted, there are not a lot of YA covers that feature couples, period, but when you see a sea of boats and white-with-white couples, this absence becomes obvious. There are interracial couples in YA books and more, there are interracial couples in real teen life. Why aren’t we seeing that on covers?*

I suspect it’s asking a lot or expecting a lot, since the field of people of color on YA book covers is, itself, a thing that merits attention because it’s novel. The growth of flat design and illustration-driven covers clearly plays a part in this, too — I’ve spoken pretty openly about my dislike of the illustration trend because I find it kind of boring and monotonous, and I think it’s also been a convenient way for diversity on covers to be ignored further. Getting away from people on covers isn’t bad, but when they then become merely shadowy figures, what does that say about a commitment to showcasing reality? It’s like slapping sunglasses on Asian models on covers so they appear more white than they are (and yes, this is a thing — would you know she’s supposed to be Korean if you didn’t know from the book’s description?).

Can we do better though? This is reality. And seeing nothing but white couples on covers is a lie to reality and it’s a lie to the richness in YA as it stands now. I would love to highlight at least one, if not two, YA books featuring interracial couples from traditional publishers in 2016. We don’t tend to do cover reveals here, but I would do one in a heartbeat for a book like that, especially if it’s by an author of color. To suggest these books “don’t sell” or “don’t do well” because of “the market” is bullshit. They don’t do well because they’re not even being put out there TO do well. And when they are put out there, they aren’t given marketing budgets. Or they’re books written by white people who get a person of color on the cover and thus, money and attention. This is what our readers are looking for — our readers are primarily gate keepers who serve diverse teens and they deserve to know about these books in this way.

Here’s a round-up of the YA covers from major publishers (as well as some of the smaller traditional ones!) featuring people of color on them as seen so far for 2016. Descriptions are from Goodreads. Let me know if I’ve missed any big ones in the comments, and please, I want to know: what YA covers featuring interracial couples can you think of? Are there any beyond the one that McCarry advocated for on her own?**

 

little white lies

 

Little White Lies by Brianna Baker and F. Bowman Hastie III (Soho Teen, February 9)***

Seventeen-year-old honors student Coretta White’s Tumblr, Little White Lies–a witty commentary on race and current events, as well as an exposé of her brilliant-yet-clueless parents–has just gone viral. She’s got hundreds of thousands of followers; she’s even been offered a TV deal. But Coretta has a confession: she hasn’t been writing her
own posts. Overwhelmed with the stress of keeping up with her schoolwork and applying for colleges, she has secretly hired a forty-one-year-old ghostwriter named Karl Ristoff to help her with the Tumblr. His contributions have helped make it a sensation, but unable to bear the guilt, Coretta eventually confesses the scandalous truth to a select
few to free herself of the burden.

The fallout is almost instantaneous. Before she knows it, her reputation has been destroyed. The media deal disappears. Even her boyfriend breaks up with her. Then Karl is thrust into the limelight, only to suffer a precipitous fall himself. Ultimately, the two join forces to find out who is responsible for ruining both of their lives . . . someone who might even have had the power to fuel their success in the first place. And to exact justice and a clever revenge, they must truly come clean to each other.

 

 

peas and carrots

 

Peas and Carrots by Tanita S. Davis (Knopf, February 9)***

In this new YA novel by Tanita S. Davis, the Coretta Scott King Honor author of Mare’s War, a white teen named Dess is placed into foster care with a black family while her mother is incarcerated.

 

steep and thorny way

 

The Steep and Thorny Way by Cat Winters (Amulet, March 8)

1920s Oregon is not a welcoming place for Hanalee Denney, the daughter of a white woman and an African-American man. She has almost no rights by law, and the Ku Klux Klan breeds fear and hatred in even Hanalee’s oldest friendships. Plus, her father, Hank Denney, died a year ago, hit by a drunk-driving teenager. Now her father’s killer is out of jail and back in town, and he claims that Hanalee’s father wasn’t killed by the accident at all but, instead, was poisoned by the doctor who looked after him—who happens to be Hanalee’s new stepfather.

The only way for Hanalee to get the answers she needs is to ask Hank himself, a “haint” wandering the roads at night.

 

flawed

 

Flawed by Cecelia Ahern (Feiwel and Friends, April 5)

Celestine North lives a perfect life. She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.

But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule. And now faces life-changing repercussions.

She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found FLAWED.

 

skylighter

 

The Skylighter by Becky Wallace (Margaret K McElderry/S&S, March 22)

Johanna and Rafi are in a race against time to save their country before a power-mad Keeper destroys everything they hold dear in the “enthralling magical world” (Cinda Williams Chima, author of The Heir Chronicles) introduced in The Storyspinner.

As the last of the royal line, Johanna is the only person who can heal a magical breach in the wall that separates her kingdom of Santarem from the land of the Keepers, legendary men and women who wield elemental magic. The barrier protects Santarem from those Keepers who might try to take power over mere humans…Keepers who are determined to stop Johanna and seize the wall’s power for themselves.

And they’re not the only ones. As the duchys of Santarem descend into war over the throne, Johanna relies more than ever on the advice of her handsome companion, Lord Rafael DeSilva. But Rafi is a duke too, and his people come first. As their friendship progresses into the beginnings of a tender relationship, Johanna must wonder: is Rafi looking out for her happiness, or does he want the throne for himself?

With war on the horizon, Johanna and Rafi dodge treacherous dukes and Keeper assassins as they race to through the countryside, determined to strengthen the wall before it’s too late…even if it means sacrificing their happiness for the sake of their world.

 

 

saving montgomery sole

 

Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki (Roaring Brook, April 19)***

 

Montgomery Sole is a square peg in a small town, forced to go to a school full of jocks and girls who don’t even know what irony is. It would all be impossible if it weren’t for her best friends, Thomas and Naoki. The three are also the only members of Jefferson High’s Mystery Club, dedicated to exploring the weird and unexplained, from ESP and astrology to super powers and mysterious objects.

Then there’s the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet Monty bought online. Will it help her predict the future or fight back against the ignorant jerks who make fun of Thomas for being gay or Monty for having two moms? Maybe the Eye is here just in time, because the newest resident of their small town is scarier than mothmen, poltergeists, or, you know, gym.

 

 

mirage by tracy clark

 

Mirage by Tracy Clark (HMH, July 5)

Seventeen-year-old Ryan Poitier Sharpe is a gutsy, outgoing girl who spends her summer days hurling herself out of planes at her parents’ skydiving center in the Mojave Desert. Fiercely independent and willing to take risks, she challenges those around her to live life fully. But after a brush with death, Ryan is severely altered—she’s not the same thrill-seeking girl she once was and seems to be teetering on the edge of psychosis. As her relationships crumble and her life unravels, Ryan must fight the girl she’s become—or lose herself forever—in this eerie and atmospheric thriller.

 

So it turns out there is a list on Goodreads of YA and Middle Grade titles with POC lead characters, too. Here’s the link — and while maybe if you squint you can tell some of the YA titles include a person of color on the cover. . . I’m still completely underwhelmed.

 

 

*I realized after writing this, there is a second YA book I can think of with an interracial couple on the cover. That would be the paperback iteration of Una LaMarche’s Like No Other. Because the hardcover is illustrated and the characters have their backs to the reader, it’s not possible to tell.

**Sarah McCarry is white and thus has some sway in what she wants to happen in a way that minority authors wouldn’t have. Were she a woman of color advocating for a cover like the one she was able to get, I’m not sure she would have been as fortunate.

***These books are also written by readily identifiable authors of color. So fewer than half. Come on.

+ Guess what I discovered after writing this post? Two YA books hitting shelves in 2016 with interracial couples on the cover. Check Them Out. I still stand by my words, though: we need more.

24 Thoughts on Sexism, Feminism, YA, Reading, and The Publishing Industry

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This requires no more introduction than saying it’s a handful of thoughts worth considering and working through after the last week.

1. My feminism isn’t about making you comfortable.

As a feminist, I am not obligated to make you comfortable. As a feminist, what I owe is honesty, integrity, and truth, no matter how uncomfortable it is. Not liking my feminism is your problem, not mine.

2. Being part of an oppressed class means using subversive means.

Having a conversation in a calm, collective, “professional” manner depends entirely on how we define calm, collective, and “professional.” Those definitions are made through those in positions of power and privilege. And when the powerful class doesn’t want a critical lens turned on them, they will deny the oppressed class those calm, collective, “professional” tools.

So you do things in the way you need to to achieve a desired effect. Satire. Humor. Sarcasm. Protesting.

Those who don’t want to be criticized and don’t want to face the truth won’t listen to you anyway, so you do what you can, how you can, in order for everyone else to hear and understand.

3. Means, methods, tools, and places for criticism vary. 

You can’t use the same critical tools in every situation. Your methods depend entirely upon your goal and on the subject and situation at hand. When talking about an issue of sexism, if talking about the texts at hand won’t do the job, then you pick up the next tool available to you. This includes public commentary and interviews.

Sometimes a blog post is effective. Sometimes Twitter is effective. Sometimes Tumblr. Sometimes the best tool isn’t online at all but in an interview in person. On a panel discussion. During a Q&A.

If one tool doesn’t work, you pick up another.

4. White male allies need to step back. 

Quit patting yourself on the back for “empathy,” “niceness,” or “feminism,” especially if you’re a “nice, empathetic, feminist white guy.”

Use your platforms and your privilege to amplify the voices of the oppressed. You don’t need to interpret it through your perspective. Let others have your stage for a bit and listen.

As Eric Mortenson put so well — and this is hands down one of the best things I read this week: “If you’re really on women’s side, you don’t need to tell them. They’ll know.”

5. We love amplifying the white male ally voice.

Take a hard look at whose voices you’re relating to and sharing. If it looks like a sea of white men, reassess.

Watch who you’re crediting when you’re crediting an internet “kerfluffle.” Watch who you’re crediting when you’re crediting a discussion of sexism in publishing.

Bet it’s not the same people getting credit.

6. When you speak in generalities, people insist on examples. When you provide examples, you’re called a bully. 

When you talk about institutional sexism in a broad sense, people want explicit examples. But when you provide explicit examples, you’re a bully for doing the very thing you were told you needed to do in order to prove your arguments legitimate.

7. “Nice” doesn’t mean above criticism.

Plenty of nice people screw up every day. Plenty of nice people have good intentions.

Your “niceness” doesn’t mean you’re above being critiqued or above being called out for a thing you did that’s not good. Your “niceness” doesn’t absolve you from responsibility. Your “niceness” has zero bearing on what you create and the art or thought you put out in the world.

8. Art and artist are not one in the same. It is HARD to separate art from artists, as well as art from personal taste.

We are complex, challenging creatures. We don’t always know what we’re doing when we’re doing it. We don’t always know what we’ve created until it’s outside of ourselves. Let’s be generous enough to allow artists to live separately from the art they’ve created.

Art and artist are also separate from personal taste. You may find someone’s art distasteful; I may find it enjoyable. That is not a reflection upon the artist or his talent.

9. Girls don’t get points for experimenting. They have to get it right the whole way through. Men are right when they try, even if they fail.

“Trying” to be better isn’t the same as being better. Especially in a world where women can never be right and are never getting better.

“Trying” doesn’t pass for women.

10. We insist we love critics and criticism until the heat is on.

Back in the day, artists used to critique one another and did so harshly. There wasn’t fear that saying something critical about another artist’s work meant doom for your own career.

Now that we rely on outside critics more often than not, in the form of trade reviews and yes, blog reviews, we constantly talk about the important role those criticisms play. Those who take this seriously do so because they care deeply about the art and they care deeply about representation, voice, accuracy, and a whole host of other things.

But as soon as critics start to actually criticize art, suddenly, they’re out for blood. They’re the enemies. They have a vendetta.

11. Criticism isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t fun.

It would be worthwhile to praise those critics who work with the heat is on high as much as it’s worthwhile to continually pat those on the back who praise things generously, with less criticism.

There are people who are absolutely, positively dedicated to change and fair representation. They put their criticisms out there every day in hopes of sparking change.

It’s not easy.

It’s NECESSARY.

It makes us BETTER.

12. You don’t get to determine whether someone’s concerns about sexism, or any other -ism, is correct or incorrect.

Just because it isn’t sexist to you doesn’t mean it’s not sexist to those who are speaking up about it, as well as the legions who are too scared to speak up or don’t have the means to speak up.

13. Nothing is either/or, but/and. Everything is a spectrum. Everything is complex.

Calling out a weakness in an author’s work — or a series of work — doesn’t mean that the rest of the work is done poorly. Badly drawn female characters are not an indictment against how the boys are written.

Suggesting that girls should be fully developed characters doesn’t take away from boys being fully developed or being the absolute center of the story. It’s not saying the books are bad.

It means readers want these stories, where both boys and girls are fully developed.

14. Sometimes people who are “outsiders” have to speak up because insiders are too close to the source.

Outsiders are reading the criticism. They offer a perspective that those too close to the art could never offer without bias.

Critics put their work out into the world for outsiders, not insiders.

It’s your job to help your friends and colleagues. It’s not mine.

15. Being called out sucks. Learn and do better.

We are all problematic. We are not without fault. And when you’re called out on something, it sucks, especially if you were trying everything to not be wrong. Sometimes you still are.

I am not above being called out. You are not above being called out. No one is.

Learn from your mistakes. Listen to those who are offering you insight. Then DO better. When you’re given the chance to learn from your mistakes, take it.

It takes privilege to leave the conversation before it’s over. And certainly, when you decide you’re exiting a conversation, rather than acknowledging it’s even happening — even with a simple “I am busy and can’t talk about this right now but will soon” — you’re not listening.

Listening means sticking around for the hard parts.

16. There aren’t fair levels of scaffolding in this industry. Be aware of yours and what others are.

Critics don’t usually have agents, editors, publicists, publishing houses or any other level of scaffolding behind them. There aren’t other people to step in and do damage control or offer up insight into process.

If there are people on your side with a financial stake in your career when you go up to bat for something, are selling a product, or creating art, you’re damn lucky.

17. You don’t get to invoke someone’s personal life as an excuse or value judgment. That’s theirs and theirs alone.

You aren’t empathetic or understanding when you invoke my mental illness as part of your “being understanding” of what I may be going through when I speak out. You also aren’t entitled to bring someone else’s personal life into the explanation for their creative weaknesses.

Those things are personal and the individual owning them is the only person who gets to invoke them in discussion, even if they’ve been open about it.

18. If you express criticism directly at someone, you’re a bully. If you don’t, you’re subtweeting/talking about them behind their backs.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. See #6. See #12.

19. Criticism isn’t bullying. 

The purest definition of bullying is this: when a person with superior strength or influence uses their their influence to force a person to do what s/he wants.

Speaking up about sexism isn’t bullying.

Being told you should die and never come back or else you’ll be given a reason never to come back is bullying.

20. No one likes being called a cunt, a whore, a bitch, a pain in the ass, and no one deserves to be told they should be given something to be scared about.

Women don’t often engage in conversation about sexism because they are fun and the rewards are high.

21. People go to the ends of the Earth to defend a nice guy. People don’t defend women in the same way.

See: #KeepYAKind, #GrasshopperGate, #AndrewSmith, change your avatars to a Smith cover, buy all of the Smith books, give away all of the Smith books.

The only reason I (and others, all female) knew people cared about me or defended my right to say what I did and how I did it was because I was reached out to.

Privately.

Those who agree with you most are the ones with the most to lose if they speak up. Speaking up without fear of career consequence is a privilege I have that many others in this industry — those who experience the DIRECT CONSEQUENCES OF SEXISM IN THIS INDUSTRY THIS IS DIRECTED TOWARD IN THE FIRST PLACE — do not.

Because that’s how institutionalized sexism and racism work.

22. True feminism isn’t about ideation. It’s about action.


If you don’t put your money where your mouth is, you’re not working toward a solution to the problem. You’re hot air.

You can’t just believe in change. You have to be an active part of doing something about it.

And it’s not only about women. It’s about ALL classes of people that face oppression.

I assure you straight white males are not part of the oppressed. Even if they think they are.

23. These conversations are born from hurt

No one decides overnight to highlight direct examples of sexism.

They are the result of people being hurt over a long time.

24. I have the right to speak. 

The risk of speaking up for women, as a woman, is great and often ends in threats of violence and death. When I told another woman I don’t know how some feminists do this every single day, she said, “If you stay, as a woman in this fight, you end up steel whether you want to or not.”

For further reading:

  • Phoebe North on Why

“For the Girls” in Dedication

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I don’t pay a lot of attention to dedications in books. Most of the time, those are personal to the author, naming people in their lives who are important to them — family members, friends, someone who helped them significantly while writing the book. I find acknowledgement pages far more interesting to read.

But that’s changed a little as I’ve noticed a small trend in YA dedications. It’s a trend I love, and it’s one that I hope I keep stumbling upon. These are dedications to girls. Not just one girl, but to girls more broadly, offering them a piece of advice, a word of kindness, or a piece of hope. A lot of these dedications make perfect sense in context with the book too. If the book’s about strong girls or about a girl who learns what it means to be a girl, that sort of dedication feels like a sweet message from the author to the reader holding the book. 

Here’s a round-up of recent dedications I’ve seen “for the girls.” This is incomplete, as it’s something that I’ve only just started to notice. If you can think of others, let me know in the comments so I can track down those books and include a shot of the dedication. I’d love to have enough to do another big round-up of them, and I know they’re out there. 

I’m including a description of the book and, for some, the publication date, since these aren’t all released yet. Descriptions are from WorldCat.

Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily receives special protections from the spiritual forces of Neverland, but then she meets her tribe’s most dangerous enemy–Peter Pan–and falls in love with him.

Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
Sixteen-year-old Gabi Hernandez chronicles her senior year in high school as she copes with her friend Cindy’s pregnancy, friend Sebastian’s coming out, her father’s meth habit, her own cravings for food and cute boys, and especially, the poetry that helps forge her identity.
Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A. S. King
As her high school graduation draws near, Glory O’Brien begins having powerful and terrifying visions of the future as she struggles with her long-buried grief over her mother’s suicide.

The Walls Around Us by Nova Ren Suma (March 24, 2015)
Orianna and Violet are ballet dancers and best friends, but when the ballerinas who have been harassing Violet are murdered, Orianna is accused of the crime and sent to a juvenile detention center where she meets Amber and they experience supernatural events linking the girls together.

The Devil You Know by Trish Doller (June 2, 2015)
Exhausted and rebellious after three years of working for her father and mothering her brother, eighteen-year-old Arcadia “Cadie” Wells joins two cousins who are camping their way through Florida, soon learning that one is a murderer.

On Book Packagers and Literary Development Companies

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I was perusing old college newspapers a few weeks ago and reading some of the columns I used to write. It’s probably not entirely shocking that I wrote a lot about books back then. As I was rereading, I stumbled upon a story I wrote that I remember finding endlessly fascinating at the time and one which still captures my interest: ghostwriters. I can’t put my finger on why ghostwriting is so interesting to me, but whenever I hear about a book or series that’s been ghostwritten, I can’t help finding out as much as I possibly can about the book, the “author,” and why it was published that way. Most of the time, there aren’t answers. But I find a lot of satisfaction in the questioning process.

Which leads me to a topic I’ve been thinking about now for a while — book packagers and “literary development” companies. Like ghostwriting, it’s a topic I seem to have more and more questions about and fewer and fewer answers to. The excitement and interest to me is in that mystery and in that endless series of “what about” and “why” questions.

It’s likely you’re well aware many big franchises in the YA book world are the result of book packagers. Packagers are companies that come up with concept and hire someone either within the company — though more usually outside the company — to write the concept. Pretty Little Liars, for example, isn’t the original concept of Sarah Shepard, but instead, it was developed at Alloy and she is the name at the helm of the project. Other well-known older and more recent books from Alloy that might sound familiar to YA readers include Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares, Shadowlands by Kate Brian, The Luxe series by Anna Godbersen, and plenty of others you can check out over on Alloy’s page. Many of Alloy’s projects are meant to go beyond print, which is why many of these books do end up on television or made into movies — they exploit the rights of as many avenues as they can in order to bring in bucks.

There’s nothing seedy or off-putting in what Alloy does. It’s a company that comes up with ideas that appeal to a wide audience; in Alloy’s case, the bulk of the concepts for YA appeal specifically to teenage girls. They know what teen girls like and they know what will sell. Whereas many envision books as the work of one (or two or three) authors brainstorming, outlining, writing, revising, and selling their book in that manner, Alloy is a step inside many of those phases of the process as a means of ensuring their business of selling books is indeed a business. Although I cannot link to it directly because of the pay wall, I highly recommend checking out “The Gossip Mill” by Rebecca Mead in the October 19, 2009 edition of The New Yorker to read more about Alloy (if you have access to a good library database, you should find it without problem). 
Since that piece, Alloy’s developed another arm in their company, which they’ve called The Collaborative. Rather than have all of their products come from within, this is an opportunity for writers to pitch Alloy a manuscript and have Alloy work on the business end of it. One of the recent Collaborative products is a book you might have seen buzzed around lately: Katie Contugno’s How to Love. There’s a nice piece in Publisher’s Weekly about this book and about her decision to go with Alloy’s Collaborative. 
The idea of the packager isn’t anything new: Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys were products of a packager as well, known as the Stratemeyer Syndicate. 
But what’s been interesting over the last few years is that the face of the book packaging industry has shifted from being headed as a business by someone in the business world to being headed by authors themselves. It’s likely unfair to call them packaging companies since many of these businesses aren’t necessarily developing an entire package. They don’t always pursue every avenue to sell the idea, though some do or note that that’s one of their goals as a company. Instead, most are developing ideas and hiring writers to pursue this ideas, which are then sold to the publisher on behalf of the business (sometimes via an author’s personal agent and sometimes the agent who is involved with the company). “Literary development” has been the popular term for these companies, though they don’t operate much differently from packagers — it’s just on a smaller scale. 
A few years ago, news emerged that author James Frey developed his own packaging company, Full Fathom Five. If you’ve not yet read the piece in New York Magazine about Full Fathom Five, spend a few minutes reading it because it’s eye-opening.  The long and short of it is Frey hires authors to write stories which have already been conceptualized, they get sold, and the authors who have worked to make the story happen are paid pennies for their work. There’s not a question that the goal of Full Fathom Five is the money, as Frey’s noted again and again how the YA market is where there are opportunities to be had when it comes to making bank on a story idea. He points to Twilight as proof.
What’s come out of Full Fathom Five? Well, Frey’s own collaborative effort with another author under the pseudonym Pittacus Lore titled I Am Number Four is one of them. But that’s not the only one. Perhaps you’ve seen any of these books either on shelves or in catalogs for near-future publication:

Much of who is working for Full Fathom Five is not disclosed, and a quick search doesn’t bring up a website for the company (though there are plenty of pieces about the company, beyond the one I’ve linked to above). Discovering which books are a product of Full Fathom Five comes through a little Googling about the author. Or, if you’re an avid reader of Publishers Weekly reviews, you’ll discover a Full Fathom Five product at the end of a review in lieu of a traditional agent listing. 
Before I go further, let me make something clear: most readers do not care. They don’t care where the book comes from if it’s a good book. And they shouldn’t — a good read is a good read, regardless of the origins, and this is an argument that comes up again and again. Just look at how people have read and interpreted Frey’s A Million Little Pieces. Some people love it, even though they know the history of the “memoir.” Other people find the means through which the book came to be off-putting and deceptive. But for the most part, readers don’t care, as long as they get what it is they’re looking for within the book itself. 
Since these books are written by an author who is the face to the book, it’s not like these books are lies or fabrications. Sure, they might be part of a team of writers (look at Erin Hunter), but the author still becomes the brand. Sometimes, the author will continue working for the packager exclusively and sometimes they will branch out on their own, either through using a pseudonym or the same name they’ve used before (more on that in a second).

What readers want is a good book and a good book will make them want to try the next book by that author. 

So there’s Alloy and there’s Full Fathom Five, and then there are a few other literary development/packagers that have  emerged even more recently. Let’s start with one that might be familiar: Paper Lantern Lit. Founded by Lauren Oliver — yes, that Lauren Oliver — and Lexa Hillyer, the packager has produced a number of concepts that have gone on to be written and published. Both Oliver and Hillyer have backgrounds in editorial, and they’ve got their own staff of editors who help along with the writing process prior to the books being pitched to publishers. 
Many of these Paper Lantern Lit titles may be familiar on your shelves:

Like Full Fathom Five, Paper Lantern Lit is spearheaded by a well-known author. Unlike Full Fathom Five, the ethics aren’t questionable. Authors “try out” to write for Paper Lantern, and those who have the chops to do it get the opportunity to write the concept as given to them. In other words, these authors have the ability to write, and this is their chance to break into the industry. Paper Lantern doesn’t want stories; they want the writers for the stories they’ve created. 
I noted earlier that sometimes authors choose to pursue publication in addition to what they’ve written and sold through a packager. Fiona Paul is one case. While the Venom series is through Paper Lantern Lit, Paul is “debuting” her first novel as herself in the spring of next year. It’s called The Art of Lainey and it’s written under a different name: Paula Stokes. I put debut in quotation marks because it’s not a debut in the purest sense. She’s published before; this is simply under a different name.  
Paper Lantern talks on their website that so far, their success rate is 100%. That means every book they’ve pitched so far to the publishers has been picked up. Oliver and Hillyer’s connection to the industry likely has helped their company and their authors secure the deals they’ve had. Likewise, those connections have most likely been a boon for Oliver and Hillyer’s understanding of the market and what sells — these aren’t books that have done poorly. I highly suggest spending a little time reading this profile of Paper Latern Lit over at Fast Company to get an even better idea of how they operate and what their goals are. 
Since Oliver and Hillyer’s success has hit, two more literary development companies have emerged — both within the last few months.

Wildcard Storymakers, spearheaded by author Veronica Rossi (of Under the Never Sky), her husband, and their friend, editor and ghostwriter Lorin Oberweger, kicked off earlier this year. Like Paper Lantern, Wildcard Storymakers develops concepts and chooses writers to develop them. Also like Paper Lantern, it was created by an author herself, one who, like Lauren Oliver, saw success with her own YA series.

Wildcard plans to focus on middle grade, young adult, and “new adult” titles. They’ve had one deal pop up so far, which was for a book called Boomerang, a “new adult” that will published through William Morrow next year. It’s being written by Rossi and Oberweger under the name Noelle August, and you can learn a little more about it on Goodreads. As of this writing, that is the only book under contract so far from the studio.

The second development company to spring up recently is Cake Literary, which made its announcement last week when founders Sona Charaipotra and Dhonielle Clayton’s first book from Cake was announced in Publishers Weekly. The book, titled Dark Pointe, will be authored by the pair who founded the company, and you can read more about the book over here. 


Unlike Oliver or Rossi’s companies, Cake wasn’t founded after the authors had published. Instead, this is the first book the two have developed and written and it’s the first sale for the company. Likewise, the focus of their company differs a little bit from that of Paper Lantern and Wildcard — the goal is to develop, produce, and publish more diverse titles within the middle grade, YA, and women’s fiction arenas. The company’s site, which isn’t complete yet, suggests their vision is for books that are highly commercial but also decidedly literary, an interesting use of terms that have, for a long time, been used as binaries to one another, even if they aren’t necessarily so (in other words, many believe a book is either commercial or literary, rather than a combination of the two, though such combinations certainly exist and get published). The pitch for Dark Pointe likens the book to Pretty Little Liars — a highly commercial book (…developed by Alloy).

What does all of this mean? In all honesty, not a whole lot when it comes to reading books and getting them into the hands of the readers who will love them. But I find the growth in packagers/development companies recently to be fascinating, particularly because two of them are headed by authors who’ve had success and made connections within the industry. It’s clear they’re looking at this from a business perspective and proceeding with that in mind. I’m interested in seeing what comes of Cake, too, particularly as their goal is to develop more diverse titles and have them published — and I’m curious, too, whether the backing of a literary development company such as theirs really adds more diverse titles to the YA field. What is it they’d be able to make happen that, say, other authors who’ve been writing these stories are not as successful at achieving?

There’s a lot more complexity to packagers and the non-reader end of the industry I’ve not even touched on (such as pay and exploitation of rights) that interest me, too. And why now? What’s the field of middle grade, YA, and “new adult” offering at this moment that’s brought these development companies out and what will keep them going? How many authors who get their starts here will continue with them through their careers and how many will go on to publish independently — and how different will their works read and feel?

It’s an endlessly fascinating series of questions that don’t have answers to them yet and that might not ever have answers.

Have you read any books from the packagers or literary development companies? Does knowing their origins change the story for you as a reader? Does it change how you approach selling the book to other readers, especially teenagers? I’d love to know your thoughts!