2013 LGBT YA by the Numbers
2013 LGBT YA by the Numbers

In 2012 I counted how many LGBT YA novels were published. In comparison to statistics on LGBT YA from 1969-2011, it looked like the representation of LGBT characters in YA was continuing to improve. This year there is both an increase and a decrease in the number of LGBT young adult books published. How does that work? Well, things are complicated. Additionally, things don’t look so good for girls. Here’s the overview:

  • 94 YA books published in 2013 include LGBT main characters or are about LGBT issues

  • 29 of those books were published by the Big 5 ((Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster)) or mainstream publishers ((These are general interest publishers that range in size from small to pretty big: Algonquin Young Readers, Scholastic, Candlewick Press, Carolrhoda Lab, Entangled, Flux, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kensington, Running Press, Skyscape/Amazon, Soho Teen, and Strange Chemistry.))

  • 65 of those books were published by LGBT publishers ((Bella Books, Bold Strokes Books, Harmony Ink, Prizm Books, Queerteen Press, Tiny Satchel Press))

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FeaturesMalinda LoLGBTQ, statistics, YA Pride, young adult literature, LGBTQ YA By the Numbers
Diversity in ALA's Best Fiction for Young Adults

Every January, the Young Adult Library Services Association, a division of the American Library Association, releases the Best Fiction for Young Adults list. This list includes novels, short story collections, and novels in verse that were published in the past 16 months. These titles, according to YALSA, “are recommended reading for ages 12 to 18.”

As librarian and blogger Kelly Jensen explained to me, “I think the BFYA is useful for librarians who don’t know YA lit well, who may be the only librarians in their library or system, or who have been tossed into teen librarianship without the background that would help them in building a collection. I think people use BFYA as a collection building tool, which has a lot of merit to it.”

Thus, because the BFYA lists are used for collection development — and because the adjective “best” indicates that these titles are of high quality — being included on a BFYA list can help both sales and book buzz. (Full disclosure: My novel Huntress, published by Little, Brown, was on the 2012 BFYA list.) Indeed, the ALA’s various lists and awards can be extremely significant in terms of a YA book’s overall success — and thus, the author’s literary career.

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FeaturesMalinda Lodiversity, Diversity in YA, statistics