Publishing: Sports books don't sell!!!1!!!!

Also Publishing: #MSWL "I'd like the next Friday Night Lights!"

Literally every piece of sports fiction, regardless of medium, is not actually ABOUT sports. A League of their Own isn't about baseball. Miracle isn't about hockey. Friday Night Lights isn't about football. Yuri on Ice isn't about figure skating.

Anyway, I'm tired.

I've been lucky enough to have agents and editors who know this is bullshit, who've championed my work, but I'm also steeped in this industry from the other side. We're not tapping into a huge part of the potential market. Readers aren't just kids who queue for a fantasy series.

Your average high school athlete is ALSO a reader. Over 55% of high school students play at least one sport and we're literally just pretending like half of the potential YA readership can't relate to a story about a fellow athlete?

And don't even get me started about how female athletes get drawn into sports. I played softball as a kid BECAUSE I saw A League of their Own when I was eight. We talk about representation mattering all the time.

Imagine if we published as many, "girl wants to be on the USWNT" books as we did, "boy wants to be in the NBA" books in a year. Imagine what that would do, the fires it would ignite.

Okay, I just revved myself up. Time to get back to my MG softball MS.