25 Trends in Publishing: Books for Boys

About the column: A handful of agents and interns who work with Cyle have learned the latest and (sometimes so, sometimes not so) greatest trends in publishing right now. Tune in each week to find out what’s trending, ranging from ABA to CBA, children’s to adult. The authors of these columns have included social media tags at the end to keep up with trends they are finding. They can also be found here. 

Trend #4 of 25: Books for Boys

Contributor: Hope Bolinger

There are a lot of books for girls in the market.

It makes sense. There’s been a push for females to enter STEM fields, why not start young? Why not encourage girls to think about princess stories differently and put such characters in pants (more on this later from Megan Burkhart)?

But now this has left a gaping hole in the children’s through YA market. What about all the boys? With the push for markets to reach young females, there’s now a need to create stories for the other half of the population.

What about all the boys?

Not to mention, there’s more of a need of this because previous books in the market haven’t done as great a job at reaching male readers. Fiction has also made it difficult for younger men to connect with characters according to an NYT article. Especially if they are looking for characters that can serve as male role models (which fiction, especially in the YA genres, has lacked).

We can still reach them. Through good fiction that has male characters they can look up to. Just like girls need good examples of strong characters who can hold their own, so do the boys.

Hope Bolinger is a literary agent at C.Y.L.E. and professional writing major at Taylor University. Her YA novel Den was contracted by IlluminateYA while she was still in college (to be released June 3, 2019).

More than 200 of her works have been featured in various publications. She is a multi-award winner from being a finalist in the Jerry B. Jenkins short story contest to her one-act earning second place in the Searchlight Playwriting Contest. She has served in various publishing capacities from working at newspapers, magazines, and publishing houses.

She can be found at hopebolinger.com.