Oh, that lovely, thorny issue of ‘age ranges’ in books! It’s a minefield. But never fear! Skylark is here to attempt to get to the bottom of it.

Firstly, all these age labels – Middle Grade, Teen, Young Adult – are merely tools for categorisation, primarily for publishers, booksellers and librarians, who need to know where to put them so they find their way into the right hands.

As a writer you really shouldn’t feel you have to begin a story making sure it fits neatly into one of these categories. However, at some point it is wise, particularly if you are hoping to get published, to consider what your reader looks like and where your book will sit in the market. These bandings do have an impact on issues such as the age of your main character, for example. We know that readers are aspirational and a book will typically have a main character at the top end of the bracket, so for 8- to 12-year-old readers the protagonist would usually be 12 or 13.

It is also definitely worth bearing reading age in mind when looking at the word count of your book. See our previous blog post.

Do note that everyone has a slightly different idea of where these categories fall when it comes to age bands, so you don’t need to be entirely rigid, just aware! Don’t fall into the trap of applying the reading ‘age’ of your own children (or yourself when you were their age). What you need to consider here is how the market will view your novel. And if you’re not sure about that, please go to the library and read, read, read as many current children’s books as you can to get a clearer idea.

Here at Skylark we would roughly break up the age groups as follows:

Young Fiction (2 categories here) – roughly 5-7 years and 7-9 years

Middle Grade – 8-12 years

Teen – 12-14 years (Do be aware, lots of publishers/booksellers don’t use this and put teen in with YA)

Young Adult – 14 years +

We must stress that there is plenty of overlap between the categories because, ultimately, books are jolly hard to categorise!

As we all know, children read at wildly differing levels of ability and maturity so these brackets are NOT prescriptive in any way for anyone buying books – parents, friends, grandparents, desperate party-present seekers – they are JUST a helpful steer! There is much debate about whether books should carry age-banding on their covers. In general, we at Skylark prefer not, precisely because young readers are all so different, but there are strong arguments on either side.

We hope this post helps just a little bit. Ultimately, don’t get too hung up on age-banding. It’s just a useful rough guide!

With our first anniversary under our belt and our first deal just agreed – all very exciting! – it felt like a good time to reflect on our first year as an agency and the ups and downs that have come with it.

The ups are easy to pinpoint – and, thankfully, numerous! Publishers and authors alike have been welcoming and enthusiastic about our new venture. Almost everyone in the world of children’s/YA publishing is lovely. We’ve met lots of fantastic people as we’ve toured the country – one of the highlights of our year – reaching out to writers’ groups around the UK. Huge thanks to you all for welcoming us so warmly (and providing copious amounts of cake!).

Reading a submission and realizing that it is a gem – that really makes your heart race! Sending a book you love out to publishers and hearing them say they love it too! All these things have happened this year and made both Jo and me very, very glad that we decided to set up Skylark.

But of course there have been frustrations and disappointments. The main one on this list is having to reject submissions. Obviously, it goes with the territory, but nobody likes disappointing people and having to send those rejection emails is never fun – especially when we know well how horrible it is to be rejected.

Sending out a manuscript to publishers and getting those first few rejections before the positive responses come in is terrifying and has given us a new respect for authors who put their work – and themselves – on the line every time they send a manuscript to an agent or publisher. By the time we’ve signed an author and worked closely with them to polish and perfect their story, we are deeply and passionately invested and sharing it with the publishing world is downright scary. It’s lucky that all those commissioning editors are so lovely (see note above) even when they are having to say ‘no’!

Doubtless we will become more thick-skinned as time goes by but I hope we will never lose that capacity for feeling anxious when we send an author’s work out on submission. It reminds us of just how it feels to be a new writer awaiting a response from agents (such as Skylark). It reminds us to be kind. And it makes the joy of finding the right publishing home for an author all the sweeter.

To all the wonderful authors out there who are still looking for the right agent, don’t give up and don’t be nervous about approaching agents – just remember that, ultimately, we are all looking for great stories. And, on that note, keep watching this space because we will be running a new Skylark competition soon!