Yes, there is a straitjacket aspect to giving authors instructions about words per text and pages per chapter before they get started writing. However, I've seen those kinds of instructions in writers' magazines for many years. What seemed different to me in this article was, as Terry said, the subsets described for picture books, the easy readers vs. transition books vs. chapter books, the two types of middle grade books, and the two types of YA.
I think this is why you read about so many YA authors who just wrote a book and let the publishing house determine how to categorize it. I'm not crazy about that idea, myself, but I can certainly see how it happens.
3 comments:
I didn't see them as multiplying, just a very visible example of how many ways you can cut the pie (look at the subsets of picture books).
Well, I just glad that E.B. White and Beatrix Potter didn't have to figure out which publishing straitjacket THEIR works fit into before they wrote.
Yes, there is a straitjacket aspect to giving authors instructions about words per text and pages per chapter before they get started writing. However, I've seen those kinds of instructions in writers' magazines for many years. What seemed different to me in this article was, as Terry said, the subsets described for picture books, the easy readers vs. transition books vs. chapter books, the two types of middle grade books, and the two types of YA.
I think this is why you read about so many YA authors who just wrote a book and let the publishing house determine how to categorize it. I'm not crazy about that idea, myself, but I can certainly see how it happens.
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