I have mentioned Monster Librarian on this blog before. This resource is the only one out there that focuses on horror in the library for all ages. (I focus on adult with a little YA.)
After doing a guest post for their Monster Movie Month celebration back in June, I asked Kirtsten Kowalewski, one of the Monster Librarian editors to write a piece for 31 Days of Horror on the current trends in the genre. Below is her guest post.
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By Kirsten Kowalewski
Many of the trends in horror fiction right now reflect
trends in publishing and reading in general. Anyone who follows books at all,
or has been to the bookstore recently, will note an overwhelming number of YA
titles devoted to the supernatural, as well as dystopian and post-apocalyptic
fiction. So results
of a recent study by Bowker Market Research, that show that 55% of YA books (targeted at ages 12-17) are
purchased by adults reflect a notable trend not just in general but for the
horror genre. The trend towards adults
reading YA books is now so strong that popular writers of adult horror, such as
Jonathan Maberry are now writing YA titles, and publishers of adult horror are
now starting YA imprints--ChiZine Publications recently announced
that it will introduce a new imprint, ChiTeen, in 2014.
Something to remember as you consider these numbers is that
teens also read a lot of adult fiction. In her book Shelf Discovery, Lizzie Skurnick touches on this, as she recalls
reading adult books like Jaws and
raiding her parents’ bookshelves , in addition to reading contemporary YA
fiction (and as Becky noted in this
blog post, as teens are new to the genre, introducing them to these more mature titles is a great way
to circulate your backlist). Many, many people start reading Stephen King and
other adult horror novels as teens. What young adults read isn’t necessarily
fiction targeted at young adults, any more than what adults read is targeted to
them.
At MonsterLibrarian.com,
we’ve reviewed books with monsters in them that fall all along the spectrum,
and the most popular searches for book lists are for YA vampire books and
paranormal romances. These are so popular that we started a blog, Reading Bites, just
for this audience. However, there seems to be agreement between horror readers
and librarians that the vampire novel, for the most part, has lost its bite; as
one middle school librarian noted to me recently, middle school girls aren’t
scared by a vampire who will take them to the prom. As vampires bleed into the
genres of romance and mystery, hardcore horror readers, who prefer their
monsters to be monstrous, have started to turn away from this subgenre. Make sure you know what a reader wants
when he or she asks for a vampire book.
The trend in YA fiction towards dystopian and
post-apocalyptic fiction, influenced by The Hunger Games, also seems to frequently take on a romantic angle,
and often portrays the main characters as catalysts for societal change. Post-apocalyptic
fiction seems to be mainly reflected in adult horror in the subgenre of zombie
fiction, where the focus is usually on the survivors of a post-apocalyptic
event doing their best to survive a zombie invasion. Lovers of this subgenre
are sometimes content to read the same kind of story over and over—they like
the fast-paced action and gore and aren’t necessarily interested in character
development—but in recent years there have been some fresh takes on a genre
that, while popular, was starting to get a bit stale (you can see what I mean
by checking out our list of
zombie titles). Mad science is
also taking off in interesting directions, with plague viruses, technology gone
mad, genetic manipulation, and man-made monsters showing up with frequency in
both YA and adult fiction. One of the scariest books I’ve read in the past
twelve months was Kenneth Oppell’s This Dark Endeavor (reviewed here),
a prequel to Mary Shelley’s classic horror story Frankenstein. Both Oppell’s short novel and Shelley’s original
appeared together in the same ebook.
Now that’s a hook! The Frankenstein story takes a totally different turn
in Neal Shusterman’s UnWholly,
due out later this month. And these days many zombie books start with some kind
of virus or plague, with the search for a cure a significant storyline.
Another trend in publishing and reading that is affecting
horror fiction is the popularity of ebooks and self-publishing. At the time
that we started MonsterLibrarian.com, horror fiction had more or less lost its
home in mainstream publishing and migrated to small presses that often
specialized in printing collector’s editions—beautiful, but expensive, and not
easily available to the average consumer. Some of them, like Cemetery Dance and Bad Moon Books have done very well,
but many times books from small presses are only available by direct order,
which makes them hard to find.
As ebooks and self-publishing have exploded, horror fiction
of all kinds has become much more readily available. Short pieces that weren’t
exactly what a publisher was looking for, or were by unknown authors, could be
(and are) presented in ebook format, and find an audience. This is great for
horror readers who are loyal to a subgenre that isn’t being promoted in
mainstream publishing , like werewolf fiction. There is a strong minority of
readers who love werewolf horror (enough that we hosted a Werewolf Month for
several years), but there are few current werewolf horror books (here’s our list of werewolf
titles). A search for “werewolf horror” on Amazon.com brings up over 1,000
titles, mostly self-published ebooks. It’s hard to know what the quality of a
self-published book will be before you read it, but many ebooks are very low-priced.
Some authors are now publishing serials, with an attempt to hook an audience
with episodes of a continuing story.
Authors whose rights have reverted to them can introduce their books to
a new audience. Small presses sell
books in ebook format as well as collector’s editions, making those available
to a wider audience. And current mainstream authors (like Stephen King) are
finding a demand for shorter pieces . The ways that ebooks are changing
publishing in general and horror in particular are many, and it’s very
exciting. Unfortunately for libraries and their readers, most of these won’t be
easily available through a service like Overdrive. The conundrum of how
libraries can help horror readers connect more easily with ebooks doesn’t seem
like one that can be solved easily.
A final trend that I see affecting the way people experience
horror fiction is the way it is sweeping the media. Television shows like The
Walking Dead (originally based on a series
of graphic novels) have made zombies more mainstream. Movies such as Joss
Whedon’s Cabin in the Woods draw
in reluctant viewers (see what blogger Barbara Vey wrote here).
Apps allow you to take the experience along with you. The brand-new book Horrible Hauntings by Shirin Yim Bridges uses augmented reality
technology to extend the reading experience; ghosts leap out at the reader when
you point your cell phone camera at the pictures! Horror is such a visual genre
that the way other media are giving readers to experience it is nothing short
of amazing.
Getting the horror reader in the door can be a challenge.
But the real challenge is this: with so much horror outside mainstream
publishing, once you get the reader in the door, how are you going to manage to
give them what they’re looking for?
Kirsten Kowalewski
has worked as a children’s librarian and school librarian and is now
editor for MonsterLibrarian.com,
a review website dedicated to helping librarians with readers advisory and
collection development in the horror genre, and to help horror readers find
another good book to read. In
addition to cajoling reviewers and editing and writing reviews, she also runs
the blog Musings
of the Monster Librarian, which you should definitely visit. Kirsten can be
reached at monsterlibrarian@monsterlibrarian.com.
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