Genres
New adult fiction
A developing genre of fiction with protagonists aged 18 to 29, built on leaving home, career choices and first adult relationships.
New adult (NA) fiction is, in Wikipedia's definition, a developing genre of fiction with protagonists in the 18 to 29 age bracket, marketed to post-adolescent readers of the same range as a cross-over category appealing to both young-adult and adult audiences. St. Martin's Press coined the term in 2009, in a call for fiction similar to YA that could be published and marketed as adult. Its themes are the first adult decade: leaving home, developing sexuality, and negotiating education and career choices. The genre grew largely through self-publishing, with authors such as Colleen Hoover, Jamie McGuire and Tammara Webber building the shelf before major publishers acquired them.
It is web fiction's native audience category in everything but name: first jobs, first apartments and first serious relationships are the stuff of campus romances and harem serials, and the romantasy boom overlaps it heavily. The label promises adult protagonists without the adult shelf's distance from its readers.