Conservatism in YA publishing?

[tamaranth]

An overseas friend has just been told her YA novel is 'unpublishable' because it deals with (amongst other things) past lives and underage misuse of alcohol. My immediate reaction is that these wouldn't be an issue in the UK. Thoughts?

Comments

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

Jeez! Show her Skins :-)

[realthog.livejournal.com]

I tripped over this last year at the World Fantasy Convention: I was on a panel that included an agent who described some material (I forget what) that'd be unexceptionable in a British YA novel, then explained why this made the book totally unpublishable. Finally she added that at least we here in North America were more open-minded in this respect than the tight-assed Brits, whose publishers were far more inhib . . . It was at this point that I exploded.

[purplecthulhu.livejournal.com]

This seems entirely consistent with what a friend and potential YA author has to say about the US publishing market where the presence of one instance of 'fuck' can get your book banned.

I'm told the UK is nowhere near as bad.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

It depends very much on the publishing company. If the text is considered to have great artistic merit and/or a chance at high sales then it wouldn't be a problem. But plenty of booksellers will balk at this sort of content and writers are often under pressure to remove it.

I've been asked to remove references to underage drinking, drug use and smoking from my books by a UK publisher.

[seph-hazard.livejournal.com]

This sort of thing tends to want to make me explode in incoherent rage. I hate it when They try to do the same things to books that they do to films and TV and advertising.

[andrewducker]

I'm the other way round - I hate it when they do to TV and films what they don't do to books :->

[surliminal.livejournal.com]

heh:) we're such pre literates aren't we?

[fjm.livejournal.com]

She needs to write something neutral and then she will stand a chance of getting it accepted.

[tamaranth.livejournal.com]

She's already had a novel accepted by the same publisher (which, come to think of it, also features underage drinking and nicotine abuse!) -- hence surprise that they didn't want to touch her second with a bargepole.

[realthog.livejournal.com]

New editor at the publishers? Otherwise it does seem odd, as you say -- unless they just thought the second was a stinker and were trying cackhandedly to make tactful excuses.

[ajshepherd.livejournal.com]

I suspect it may not be so much conservatism as fear of being sued for some pea-brained idiot who doesn't want their kids reading about that sort of thing.