Let's welcome Mary Kole back with answers I've needed for years. Thank you, Mary!
By Mary Kole
Recently, a writer friend posed a question that stopped me mid-scroll: What do you do when you write about teens… but not for them?
It’s a deceptively simple question. You’d think we’d have this figured out, given how many of us write middle grade and young adult stories—but often, the lines get blurry. Especially if your newsletter or social media is read mostly by adults, parents, grandparents, teachers, librarians, or booksellers. Especially if you don’t have a teenager in your house. Especially if your own teenage years feel emotionally present but logistically distant, like a fuzzy VHS tape of someone else’s ‘90s teen dramedy.
Let’s break it down. Because when we say “audience,” we’re often conflating three different things:
1. The Intended Audience
This is who your book is “for” in traditional publishing terms, otherwise known as the reader age group the story is meant to resonate with. If you're writing YA, it's fourteen-plus but, more likely, sixteen-plus. If you're writing middle grade, it's typically between eight and twelve, with some outliers in the thirteen and fourteen-year-old “gray area.” (This is where we get into modified MG, like “early” and “older” middle grade.) Easy, right?
This is where the article should end, but many writers know the truth is a little bit more complicated. We also have…
2. The Actual Readership
In the real world, many YA books are read by adults. Depending on the source, figures can reach as high as 55% of YA novels getting consumed by adults over thirty. And a lot of middle grade is consumed aloud by parents, teachers, librarians, or nostalgic grown-ups chasing the feeling of Harriet the Spy or A Wrinkle in Time. YA, in particular, is known for quick pacing, resonant stakes, and high emotions close to the surface. It’s easy to consume (though you won’t find me arguing that it’s easy to craft—that’s a longstanding publishing misconception that has haunted books for this age group).
I’m not talking about “crossover” titles like The Book Thief here, either. Those are the rare books published and packaged for several distinct categories (or target audiences), a decision usually made pre-release internally at a publishing house or after initial publication when a title just so happens to appeal across reader age ranges.
This is not, inherently, a problem. It just means that when you write about kids or teens, your audience may include—but won’t be limited to—people who are actually those ages. That’s true even if you're writing with full integrity toward your characters' emotional truths. I’m not sure I would consciously aim to address adults in MG or YA writing, as this can lead to some decided category no-no’s like inhabiting adult POV or going too deep down the rabbit hole of adult problems.
So we have your primary audience, the secondary “shadow” audience who’s also dipping into these books, and, finally…
3. The Marketing Audience
This is the trickiest one, and it’s where most writers get themselves tangled into multiple mental pretzels. The marketing audience means who’s buying your book, who’s reading and engaging with your posts, who’s on your mailing list, and who’s showing up at your events (or at least driving the minivan to them).
And let’s be real: If your followers are mostly fellow writers, bookish adults, teachers, librarians, or parents, your marketing persona is going to feel out of step if you pretend you’re talking to an actual fourteen-year-old. (Especially since kids younger than thirteen are technically and legally not supposed to have social media accounts, though we all know they still access these networks through their parents’ phones, or lie about their age to sign up for TikTok. Still, one could argue that they’re mostly not there to consume bookish content, as much as some of us wish this wasn’t the case.)
So what do we do with that disconnect?
Embrace the Split
You don’t have to pick just one audience. You just need to stop pretending they’re all the same.
You can write for young readers and still talk about your work in terms that attract adult readers and, more importantly, gatekeepers. Not literary agents or acquisitions editors this time, but the adults buying the books and stocking them in classrooms, school libraries, and bookstores. Because in children’s books, your end user (the reader) is often not the same person who pulls out the credit card and places the order.
What does this mean from a craft perspective?
You can explore teen characters with care and craft and discuss that process with grown-up readers who remember how formative (and messed up) those years were. You can market to the people who love kidlit, even if they no longer technically qualify as the target readership.
You might write about teens, but you shouldn’t write for those same teens on Substack. Instead, you can write for people who are interested in how stories are made, how voice works, how characters grow, and how we metabolize our younger selves through fiction. That includes other writers, readers, editors, and sometimes the occasional lurking third grader. (Hello! Keep reading books!)
While this has long been called a marketing problem, it can also be an opportunity to split your author and marketer self, as well as to tailor the various activities you do and conversations you have online so that all of the various segments of your future fans have something to enjoy.
Final Thought: You’re Not Doing It Wrong
If you’re feeling awkward about who your “real” audience is, it’s probably not because you’re confused—it’s because you're trying to be honest. The industry doesn’t always leave room for that. But you can.
Here are some useful questions to ask yourself as you both draft and market your work:
- Who is this book about?
- Who is this newsletter for?
- Who do I hope connects with this piece (whether it’s a novel or a newsletter article)?
Sometimes the answer will fall under the three different groups identified above. But that’s not a problem. That’s a Venn diagram. And it’s where you can empower yourself to exist more intentionally in the kidlit world.
