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University of Wisconsin Milwaukee UWM Digital Commons Theses and Dissertations August 2016 Young Adult Authors, Readers, and Feminized Social Media Margaret R. Kohlmann University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.uwm.edu/etd Part of the Comparative Literature Commons, Gender and Sexuality Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Kohlmann, Margaret R., "Young Adult Authors, Readers, and Feminized Social Media" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 1285. https://dc.uwm.edu/etd/1285 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by UWM Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of UWM Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. YOUNG ADULT AUTHORS, READERS, AND FEMINIZED SOCIAL MEDIA by Margaret R Kohlmann A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in Media Studies at The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee August 2016 ABSTRACT YOUNG ADULT AUTHORS, READERS, AND FEMINIZED SOCIAL MEDIA by Margaret R Kohlmann The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2016 Under the Supervision of Professor Elana Levine This thesis looks at YA literature, a feminized genre that continues to gain momentum in publishing and popular culture. Specifically, I look at YA authors and their readers’ interactions on social media and the manner in which these conversations are gendered. I argue that YA authors are expected to utilize feminized traits on social media with their readers and fellow authors, but they use same traits to create social change in the genre and industry. This project analyzes three different types of readers: Readers, Reader-Creators, and Bloggers and their interactions with YA authors on social media. My interviews with five YA authors show the impact of social media interactions on their work, which speaks to the changes in cultural production in the age of social media. !ii © Copyright by Margaret R Kohlmann, 2016 All Rights Reserved !iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter Page I. INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………… 1 II. AUTHORS AND THEIR READERS……………………………………………………… 25 III. AUTHORS’ NEW WORK PRACTICES AND READER INFLUENCE…………………. 58 IV. CONCLUSION…………………………………………………………………………….. 87 V. BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………….. 96 !iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you to my advisor Elana Levine. Who knew that as I thank you, I would have to also thank James Franco for his role on General Hospital? I distinctly remember your presentation in Fall 2013 and thinking as the other graduate students spoke, “I could do this. I’m smart enough for this, too.” You saw that in me. Without you, I would not have gone to UWM and had you supporting and pushing me to be my best. Thank you for believing in me—it means more than you could ever know! An incredible thank you to David Allen, Michael Newman, and Richard Popp. Thank you for letting me write about young adult literature, for listening to me, and for helping me on this journey. I learned so much from all of you and greatly appreciate your support. Without all of your comments and questions, this project would not be what it is. Mom, Dad, and Joe, thank you for always supporting me. Thank you for providing words of encouragement when I needed them most. Huge thank you’s to Daniel Murphy and Rachel Kinnard. You two are wonderful, supportive friends. There would have been a lot more crying without the two of you! Of course, thank you to all my friends who stood by me and cheered me on. Your support means so much. Finally, thank you to my 16 year-old-self for always loving books. !v Chapter 1: Introduction Cather Avery loves the Simon Snow books so much she decides to write her own story about the characters. This fan fiction stars Simon and his vampire roommate Baz, who isn’t quite as big a fan of Simon as Cather is. Of course, the story Cather writes is a love story—Simon and Baz are meant to be together! Fan fiction is but one element in Rainbow Rowell’s 2013 young adult (YA) novel, Fangirl. The novel seamlessly ties together the story of 18 year-old Cather’s freshman year of college and the fan fiction about Simon and Baz that she co-writes with her sister Wren. In the novel, Rowell showcases the current status of fandom, from the fan fiction to the T-shirts and the posters. In response to the novel, Rowell’s fans created their own fan fiction and fan art about Simon and Baz based on what they know from Fangirl. In 2015, Rowell went a step further, writing the canonical version of Simon and Baz’s love story, Carry On. This layering and merging of mass marketed cultural texts with fan productions and practices is alive and well in the YA literature community. Since 2012, YA literature has been on the rise. YA literature is a category of books typically aimed at readers age 13 to 18, in other words, teenagers. As more people are writing YA books and publishing houses are printing more YA books, adults have taken to reading YA, too. A Bower Market Research study conducted in 2012 found that around 55 percent of those buying YA books are adults older than 18; moreover, around 78 percent of those adults bought YA books to read themselves, not to give to a teenager. Part of this is due to the success of film franchise powerhouses like Harry Potter, Twilight, and The Hunger Games. In the same 2012 Bower Market study 30 percent of those surveyed said they were reading The Hunger Games.1 The YA 1 “New Study: 55% of YA Books Bought by Adults,” Publisher’s Weekly, September 13, 2012. !1 genre as a whole can be traced back to the 1940s dime novel and later the series novel, à la Nancy Drew or Cherry Ames. The 1970s were a particular “golden age” for YA literature, with novels like Forever by Judy Bloom and The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. The category continued to grow thereafter, but had an especially significant resurgence in the 1990s, especially the genre of the “problem novel.”2 However, since the 1970s “golden age,” the biggest period of growth for YA has been since 2012. Data from BookStats shows the steady increase in the publication of YA novels: in 2002 the number of YA novels published was 4,668, but in 2012 that number rose to 10,276—the number of books a little more than doubling.3 A few notable YA books came out in 2012, among them John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (hardback copies sold ~300,000), Insurgent by Veronica Roth (hardback copies sold ~615,000), and, during this time frame, The Hunger Games continued to dominate, selling 27.7 million copies.4 The Association of American Publishers (AAP) reports that in 2014 the children’s/YA publishing industry made $4.39 billion dollars, a 20.9 percent increase from the year before.5 Moreover, at the 2015 Children’s Book Summit, Nielsen claimed US children’s book sales were up 12.6 percent since January 2015, up 28 percent in Brazil, and up 10 percent in China.6 Books like An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir, Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, and Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard continued the YA 2 Michael Cart, Young Adult Literature: From Romance to Realism, (Chicago: American Library Association, 2010), 32. 3 Emma Whitford and Jennifer Vineyard, “The Five: The Young-Adult Bubble,” New York Magazine, October 6, 2013. 4 Diane Roback, “Facts & Figures 2012: ‘Hunger Games’ Still Rules in Children’s,” Publisher’s Weekly, March 17, 2013. 5 Jim Milliot, “The Verdict on 2014: Sales up 4.6%,” Publisher’s Weekly, June 12, 2015. 6 Natasha Gilmore, “Nielsen Summit Shows the Data Behind the Children’s Book Boom,” Publisher’s Weekly, September 17, 2015. !2 success story in 2015. The latter of these books had 150,000 copies printed by HarperCollins before its release in February of that year and hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list the week it debuted.7 As this data shows, the YA industry continues to gain momentum and popularity among readers. While the sales are impressive, book sales do not take into account the interactions between authors and fans, which cannot be quantified in the same way. Many fans purchase books, but their engagement goes beyond simply buying and reading books. With social media, YA authors are a few clicks away from readers who ask questions, want clarifications, and desire encouragement. In this thesis, I identify three types of readers: (1) Reader, (2) Reader-Creator, and (3) Blogger. These types of readers work on a continuum with different levels of involvement when it comes to social media. All three types of readers interact with YA authors in different ways, but impact authors’ work practice almost daily. An analysis of the interactions between these readers and YA authors connects to larger discussions of gender. How do authors interact with these readers? How do readers interact with YA authors? How might these interactions be gendered? How does femininity factor in to these conversations? Additionally, because of the constant demand of social media, the discourse between YA authors and readers has the potential to influence the content in novels. The influence from the audience on the creator is under-explored in previous fandom research and there is plenty of room to do so. Social media affects YA authors’ work practice in noticeable ways beyond their conversations with readers. How are YA authors expected to portray themselves online as authors? Who do YA authors write their books for given constant social media interaction with 7 Shannon Maughan, “‘Red Queen’: A Bestseller Is Crowned,” Publisher’s Weekly, February 26, 2015.

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