No Sex for Teenage Boys

Do teenage boys want to read about sex? Author Darren Shan says that publishers don’t think so.

Shan, who has sold 25 million copies of his books worldwide since his debut novel, Cirque du Freak, was published in 2002, claims that while YA publishers are often okay with violence, as he recently told The Independent, “Sex is a no-go.” From the same piece:

"We should be more concerned about violence than exposing teenagers to sex. Teenagers making out is perfectly natural, but killing each other…"

In fact, when Darren Shan was first trying to get his books published in the late 90s, he was told that teenage boys wouldn't read regardless of the content.

"I'll never forget a meeting with one publisher where they said we don't publish books for teenage boys; teenage boys don't read," he said.

Shan says he feels publishers should be paying more attention to what their readers want and less to what they think they want. The author says they should, “publish books they want to read and they will. It's not that [boys] get to a certain age and go, 'I'm not reading any more'.”

Shan’s newest book, Zom-B Baby, the fifth book in his popular Zom-B series, was out september 26th in the UK and will come out October 1st just about everywhere else.