Paranormal Romance Bursts Out of Teen Fiction at B&N

Just in case we need more evidence that teen fantasy fiction dominates the children’s-publishing world now, Publishers Weekly reports:

Barnes & Noble is in the midst of rearranging its teen fiction section chain-wide this week. . . . Already teen fiction is the biggest book growth category at Barnes & Noble, according to Mary Amicucci, v-p of children’s books. In terms of volume, it is the second largest subject, behind adult fiction. . . .

the chain pushed the go button to reorganize all its teen sections by separating out the two most popular genres—paranormal romance and fantasy and adventure—from teen fiction. . . . In addition to helping teens discover new books, the rearranged sections will enable them to easily filter out books they’re not interested in and go straight to the genre that they’re looking for. [In other words, they might discover new books, but they won’t run the risk of discovering new types of books.] . . .

Combined, the new paranormal and fantasy and adventure sections are slightly larger than teen fiction. [So they were already the tail wagging this dog.]

In addition, B&N’s publishing arm, Sterling, will launch its own imprint of fiction for teens, starting with a five-volume supernatural romance saga. That announcement carries interesting implications about using digital tags and electronic editions to get readers into B&N stores.

Now I have to go figure out how to stick this information into my “Writing Within and Without Genre“ workshop at SCBWI New England’s ENCORE! session next weekend.