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2013 LGBT YA by the Numbers

In 2012 I counted how many LGBT YA novels were published. In comparison to statistics on LGBT YA from 1969-2011, it looked like the representation of LGBT characters in YA was continuing to improve. This year there is both an increase and a decrease in the number of LGBT young adult books published. How does that work? Well, things are complicated. Additionally, things don’t look so good for girls. Here’s the overview:

94 YA books published in 2013 include LGBT main characters or are about LGBT issues
29 of those books were published by the Big 5 ((Hachette, HarperCollins, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon and Schuster)) or mainstream publishers ((These are general interest publishers that range in size from small to pretty big: Algonquin Young Readers, Scholastic, Candlewick Press, Carolrhoda Lab, Entangled, Flux, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Kensington, Running Press, Skyscape/Amazon, Soho Teen, and Strange Chemistry.))
65 of those books were published by LGBT publishers ((Bella Books, Bold Strokes Books, Harmony Ink, Prizm Books, Queerteen Press, Tiny Satchel Press))

FeaturesMalinda LoOctober 7, 2013LGBTQ, statistics, YA Pride, young adult literature, LGBTQ YA By the Numbers

2012 LGBT YA by the numbers

During the course of my YA Pride series, I've been keeping track of the number of LGBT YA books being published in 2012. The year isn't over yet, but given the long lead time of most publishing I think I have a mostly accurate list of 2012 LGBT YA. I might be missing a few, but I think I've got most of them. I've been posting these lists every Friday this month, and though the last list doesn't post until June 29, I have a handy spreadsheet behind the scenes, which has enabled me to do a little number crunching in order to put these titles into perspective.

FeaturesMalinda LoJune 25, 2012YA Pride, LGBTQ YA By the Numbers, LGBTQ, statistics

I have numbers! Stats on LGBT Young Adult Books Published in the U.S. - Updated 9/15/11

On Monday I noted that in light of this post from two authors who were asked by an agent to de-gay their book, I was planning to do some statistics wrangling and see if I could quantify some of what's happening in LGBT YA publishing. Apparently my latent economics major is raring to go (or else I just really want to procrastinate, which is a distinct possibility), because I spent last night making pie charts. To get my data, I used this bibliography of LGBT YA compiled by librarian/researcher Christine Jenkins, which lists books published in English from 1969-2009. I supplemented that bibliography with information for 2009-2011 kindly given to me by researcher Michael Cart, who specializes in LGBT children's and YA books. Mr. Cart's data for 2011 was incomplete because the year isn't finished yet, but because I've been keeping track of LGBT YA novels for Diversity in YA, I topped off the list with a number of books I know have been published or will be published this year. ((After I compiled all these lists together, I sorted through it to identify trends/gaps. The bibliographies provided by Ms. Jenkins and Mr. Cart feature LGBT characters as main characters, as supporting characters, as parents, and sometimes they feature LGBT issues as a backstory.

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