{"id":25593,"date":"2018-05-15T07:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-05-15T11:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=25593"},"modified":"2018-05-15T07:30:59","modified_gmt":"2018-05-15T11:30:59","slug":"the-trouble-with-and-triumphs-of-trends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=25593","title":{"rendered":"The Trouble with (and Triumphs of) Trends"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you’ve been a bookseller for more than 21 years, you see a lot of trends come and go. When we opened in 1996, middle-grade realistic fiction\u00a0and mysteries were\u00a0big\u00a0and the young adult genre was considered “dead.” Ten\u00a0years later, YA was exploding, and picture books were declared\u00a0to be critical condition. When Harry Potter<\/em> burst onto the scene, catapulting longish MG fantasy into the stratosphere, realistic MG fiction languished. When\u00a0The Hunger Games<\/em> launched a torrent of dystopian fiction, classic fantasy took a backseat. Then, when Game of Thrones<\/em> hit the small screen \u2014 well, you get the idea. One genre rises, another falls, and thus spin the wheels of publishing.
\n
\nIt seems to me that the so-called death of any genre usually results in two things: (1) wiser publishing decisions (i.e., less mediocre stuff makes the shelves in that genre), which is great, but also (2)\u00a0very cautious publishing decisions. In the immediate aftermath of a great slump,\u00a0the genre\u00a0itself may narrow in scope and originality,\u00a0with publishers passing on\u00a0quirkier manuscripts that might have had legs given the chance\u2014and\u00a0a viable market\u2014to breathe. It’s an understandable reaction, and, I hope, doesn’t do permanent damage to the breadth and scope of\u00a0literary imagination.
\nThe occasional death of a genre might be like a forest fire \u2014 there are terrible losses and lost chances, some irrevocable. But the clearing also makes space for new life to spring up and bloom. Look at YA; it’s hard to believe it was ever endangered.\u00a0It’s possible that the burgeoning of YA couldn’t have happened without that steep decline. The same is true of picture books. Our current golden age of picture book art makes it hard to remember those years when editors complained they couldn’t sell them to save their lives.
\nWouldn’t it be wonderful if rock bottom were always followed by beauty, growth, and progress? (Please feel free to apply that to any social ills we are currently experiencing.)
\nAs far as genres due for a rebirth, I think MG mystery and horror are showing signs of increased demand and the potential for a future boom.
\nHow about you? What are your predictions for collapse and ascent in children’s and teen literature?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s not always terrible news when a genre slumps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}