We work with Alex Newton of K-lytics to bring you a high-level look at publishing trends based on what’s currently being read and sold at Amazon. These trends relate strictly to the Kindle ebook market, where Newton has been tracking sales rank data since 2014.
Teen & YA
YA literature has been a growth area for traditional publishing since 2010, although it has slowed down in recent years. (In 2021, YA fiction sales were flat.) Conventional wisdom says that more adults read in the category than young people.
- YA does not mean “short.” Amazon data shows that YA books are the same length as books in the adult market.
- The leading subcategories in YA—by a significant margin—are science fiction & fantasy as well as romance.
- Popular keywords used to search for YA books on Amazon include “teen girls” and “teen romance books.” Popular topical searches include “teen depression,” “teenage witch,” and “teenage cookbook.”
- In the past year, declines have occurred in YA historical fiction (-30 percent) and LGBTQ (-10 percent).
- Pricing is in the middle to lower tier relative to other main Kindle categories, with $4.99 as the most frequent price point. More than 70 percent of the top YA titles are in Kindle Unlimited.
- Virtually all YA bestsellers are part of a series. Top-performing authors right now, aside from the perennially popular JK Rowling, are Tracy Wolff, Sarah J. Maas, and Alex Aster.
- For more insights, you can purchase the full report.
Side Notes
- Amazon’s new limitation on bestseller list rank (a book can only rank in three categories at a time) continues to play out and create opportunities for less well-known authors to reach the Top 100 in their subcategory. This is particularly true in YA.
- Recently, romance surpassed the more general, catch-all category of “literature and fiction” to become the highest-selling category in the Kindle store.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
