Indie Life: New Adult

I've been eyeing those pretty New Adult covers for a while. You know those black and white ones with the colored text on top? Gorgeous. I wanted one, but I had too many other projects and no good ideas for a New Adult book.

And then, umm, I was wandering around a stock photo site searching for the perfect model for the King of Forgotten Clubs cover to send to my cover designer, the fantastic Stephanie Mooney, when I saw a picture and thought, that would be epic as a new adult cover.

So, yeah. I made it into one. Oops?

I've decided to write the book in June once I've got these three novellas I need done by the end of May into edits (I don't know how I get myself into these messes... oh, wait, yes I do). Which means I've begun the research for it!

The first part of my research is learning about the New Adult genre. Shockingly, I haven't really read much in it. So I picked up a pile of New Adult books and am currently reading my way through them to learn genre conventions (I know, best research ever, right?). So far I've come up with some conclusions.

1. Typical word count seems to be around 80k, so that's what I'll be shooting for. It's longer than I'm used to writing, but I'm looking forward to the challenge.
2. First person present tense dual point of view seems to be perfectly acceptable, which is good because that's what I was going to write anyway. :)
3. I'm stupid excited to be writing about college years. (Hey, did Greek count as New Adult?) College is a lot of learning who you are without your parents and what it really takes to be an adult. Of course, there's still plenty of cushions in place for you in college, but it's a lot less than high school.
4. I'm not actually sure if I should be capitalizing the genre, but it looked good that way, so I did.

Anyway, I'm still learning the genre. The conventions seem to be a sort of mix of romance and YA, which is good, because those are two genres I'm comfortable in.

The second thing I'm researching is boxing. Somehow this book is about it, despite the fact that I know absolutely nothing about boxing. Or, oh, sports of any kind. No worries. I'm getting some books from the library. I'll figure it out. Probably.

Oh yeah, and I should probably show you the cover I've spent the entire post talking about. And the blurb that will probably change five more times as I figure out what the plot of this book is actually going to be.

Five matches. Ten million dollars. No turning back.



Juliette lives in a world where the fighter is king and the bookie is god. Still, she thought she had her gambling under control until the note showed up. Three million or her sister pays the price. She knows where to get the money. Her dad's boxing tournament. Only problem is, she can't enter. She needs a dupe to risk his life to win it for her.



She needs crazy, reckless, desperate. She needs Jeremy.



Jeremy lives in a world where family steals the shirt off your back and friends take what’s left over. With money he made from some less-than-legal fighting, he bought himself a one way ticket out, to a business school in Georgia. Except the money’s run out and he’s still a year away from graduating.



He doesn't want to entertain the scheme of the mysterious blonde who strolls into his life one day with swinging hips and batting eyelashes, but he needs money, fast. She offers to train him and enter him into The Underground, an illegal boxing championship worth millions, in exchange for splitting the winnings.



It's crazy, reckless, a risk to his entire life, but there's something irresistible in her blue eyes.



The only thing they have in common is the one rule they'll need to survive this.



Love is Weakness.

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So that's all I've got to say! Anyone have any tips on writing New Adult, or books to recommend? But mostly the books. Because I clearly don't have enough. *stuffs pile under bed*