The Quest for Good YA Publishing Statistics
Searching for Good YA Publishing Statistics//
So I am currently working on doing some hardcore YA collection data analysis for my library. In addition to looking at what we have and how much it circulates, I was curious to know how much YA is published yearly to get a better idea of our YA collection size relative to what is available for purchase. And then, out of curiosity, I was curious to know what percentage of books published each year fall into the YA category. To be honest, this data has been much harder to find then I anticipated. Below I have collected some resources that I have found and tweeted about. If you have some good resources or data, I would love for you to share in the comments.
My questions are:
How many YA titles were published in 2017?
What percentage of titles published in 2017 were YA?
Is the number of YA titles being published growing, shrinking, or staying the same?
Thank you,
Karen
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So I am putting together some intense YA collection analysis. I have a ton of in house stats, but I really need a general idea of how many YA titles are pubbed yearly and what % of overall publishing is YA. My goal is to help determine how much $ & floor space for YA. Anyone????
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In 2010 the number was around 5,000! http://www.ala.org/tools/number-young-adult-books-published …
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This says 10,000 in 2012 https://www.thebalance.com/the-young-adult-book-market-2799954 …
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Here’s another infographic pic.twitter.com/kKW70PQatc
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Here's another discussion, but again it's older http://www.underdown.org/YA-book-boom.htm …
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Everything You Wanted to Know about Book Sales (But Were Afraid to Ask) - this article is interesting info, but doesn't answer my question https://www.google.com/amp/s/electricliterature.com/amp/p/1fe6bc00aa2d …
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Again, some more interesting info to ponder regarding pub stats http://authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com/five-key-book-market-trends/ …
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Some interesting stats. Not walking to pay $325 for full report https://www.statista.com/topics/1177/book-market/ …
Filed under: Young Adult Fiction

About Karen Jensen, MLS
Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 32 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).
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I think a lot of this depends on your definition of “published”–my guess is that the ebook numbers you’ve found include all self-published e-books that are categorized as YA, which will be different from the number of books from formal publishers, which will be different from the number of books covered in review journals, etc.
A good person to ask might be the chair/administrative asst for the Printz committee? They might have a ballpark figure.
Your questions will be answered in the annual edition of Library and Book Trade Almanac Published by Information Today.