Even though the celebrity-fad thing to do lately is write children's books, the Young Adult (YA) genre is an exciting but sometimes-forgotten area in which to publish.

"I personally don't think writing a YA book is any different at all from writing an adult book," says Will Leitch, whose YA book Catch hits stores this winter. "In my case, an editor at a YA imprint had read my last book and thought I had a good voice and wanted me to write a book. I asked what exactly what YA meant. After a long discussion, it eventually became clear: It's a novel that's about someone who is a young adult. I asked, 'Is there stuff I can't do? Do I have to have a little mouse who rides a motorcycle?' They said, essentially, 'Just make it about a young adult. And do try not have them be a heroin addict.'" (Young adult, by the way, generally means a high schooler or somebody in their first year or two into college).

"When I was writing my book," says Leitch, "there wasn't one point where I was like, 'Well, better make sure this is YA!' I just wrote it in a way that I thought was true to the characters. The lead character was a young adult, yes. But I'm not going to send him out there to do YA things. I'm just trying to write him as a human being."
Which doesn't mean you can just write a book about a teenager and call it YA. "The truly important factor is the authenticity of the voice," says Kristen Pettit, editor at Razorbill. "Teens can sniff out a poseur a mile away. The YA author really has to get into the skin of his or her protagonist. For this audience there is nothing worse than a manuscript that reeks of well-meaning adult. If an author dumbs down her work, or speaks down to the audience in any way, the audience will sense that and scorn the work."

"A YA book shouldn't have an ironic distance," says John Green, whose first YA book Looking for Alaska is out from Penguin. "It shouldn't be about an older person writing about their childhood. Kids don't know what it's like to look back yet."

"The similarities between writing for YA and adult are far greater than the differences," says Pettit. "In YA, the same weight is given to relationships and character development as in an adult book. The language can be florid and lush, or spare and taut. One can write historical fiction, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, chick lit. (The YA audience, much like the adult audience, embraces a variety of genres.) Characters can drink, curse, smoke, and have sex, all that good and tawdry stuff. For me, the main differences can be found in the book's themes, and the authenticity of the author's voice. My mantra has always been that the major theme for ANY YA book, regardless of genre, is the main character's confrontation of the question, 'What kind of person am I going to be?' This is really the crux of the teen experience for me-and it is the point in life that the YA readership inhabits. Every choice they make is a crucial one, because it will speak to the world of who they are. The YA reader is faced with questions every day. Am I the kind of person who narcs on a friend? Am I the kind of person who cheats on her boyfriend? Am I the kind of person who sleeps around? The answer is always, 'Well, maybe I am.' What a great thing to be able to reach a reader at this moment in life--when these big questions are being asked and answered. This is the thrilling and terrifying condition that the YA writer must reflect back to the reader. And it's the thing I most look for in a YA manuscript."

"This is a very exciting time in YA publishing," continues Pettit. "An unprecedented number of well-known adult authors are crossing over into YA, and meeting with great success. The best example of this is Carl Hiaasen whose HOOT sold more initial copies than any of his adult books. Penguin just signed Clive Cussler to a series of YA books as well. J.K. Rowling made it acceptable for very serious and talented adults to turn their attention to a younger audience and so, more and more adult authors are writing YA."

"The notion that a young adult book is somehow more or less respectable than an 'adult' book is silly," says Leitch, who will be writing more YA in the future. "It was very fun, and I have more stories to tell."

Green, who also works for Booklist, says that YA is one of the fastest-growing genres, one of only a few whose audiences did not shrink last year, which means that YA writers do have a better shot at publication than those in other genres. "The YA market is wide and flush with cash," says Pettit. "I wouldn't say it's narrower than adult, just different. We deal in different bottom lines ultimately because we try to price our books so that they're easily within the reach of our audience. As with any market, of course, the chances of publication depend on the quality of the writing. That said, I think that if your manuscript contains the themes we spoke of earlier, and features a teenage protagonist, you have a better chance of getting it published in YA.

How does a YA book get treated by editors and publishers? "The editing is the exact same. We do pay a lot of attention to plot, and make sure to keep things moving for our younger, less patient audience. But other than that, I'd say the editorial processes echo each other. At my imprint, Razorbill, which is a part of Penguin Young Reader's Group, we are willing to be very hands-on, if that is what the author needs. We love to collaborate! Razorbill is one place authors with a work in progress can come to for help in bringing their idea to fruition. It's my experience that most publishers don't do that. Instead, they look for finished manuscripts to add to their lists.

"In terms of publicity, the major entertainment magazines do not cover YA publishing--at least, not yet. I'm hoping that will change as the line between YA and adult grows ever fuzzier. Our outlets are fewer, and our market more specific, so we send review copies to Seventeen, for example, instead of Entertainment Weekly. Marketing efforts for books are small and slow-moving when one considers the efforts (and money) put into marketing for other entertainment media. Again, I know of several young editors, including myself, who are trying to change that. YA is very much about word of mouth. If a book looks cool, and reads well teens will talk about it, and other teens will pick it up. There's a kind of groundswell effect that happens in YA that is less frequent in adult, I think. The key is making teens aware that a particular YA book is out there."

The marketing is the publisher's job, not yours, in the end. "Just write a story," advises Leitch. "Just be true to your characters. Don't try to dumb anything down, because a story is a story is a story. I am firm in the belief that the only thing Y about a YA book are the characters. If you set out to try to write something 'for young people,' I just think you'll fail. You have to write a story that's true to itself and not trying to be anything else other than a story."

Plus, don't forget that a good YA book can affect the way a youngster feels about books for the rest of his/her life (okay, that is just the way I feel (if you want to know why, check out Celine, by Brock Cole.) "It's worthwhile work," says Green.