Here’s an optimistic thought for those authors who, quite rightly, worry that a lot of their readers are retired people, and that welcome as they are, they will not be around for ever, and that there are not enough young people reading crime fiction to replace them.
Research on the Accio.com website has identified a reason to be optimistic, that one of the healthiest areas within the genre is Young Adult (YA) and Social-Media Driven Mystery.
These stories are crime fiction aimed at younger adults or featuring teenage sleuths, with a lot of the books attracting widespread online interest from young readers with a focus on social justice, digital-age investigation, and fast paced storytelling.
According to the researchers, the sector is ‘growing rapidly’ and they cite as an example Holly Jackson’s A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, whichachieved more than 2 million sales in one recent month, and the ever-popular Nance Drew series plus the rapidly increasing number of ‘Urban Thriller’ authors.
The challenge for us crime authors who write for older readers – or assume we do – is how to reach out to these young readers as they get older and persuade them to read our books – and as challenges go that’s a big one!
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