A Promise to Teen Readers

A Promise to Teens Concerning YA Books

Here at Musa, we know a good story when we see it. And we know that some of the best stories out there are written for the YA market—that’s Young Adult. That’s teenagers. We like you guys, and we like the books and stories that people write with you in mind.

But have you ever noticed that sometimes adults don’t get it? As a mom of two teens myself, I know there’s a lot that I just don’t understand—my kids tell me so frequently! So every now and then someone tries to publish a book in which the teen characters act like much younger kids, or they act like middle-aged adults. Or they send us stories where the teens don’t know what they’re doing, and they need adults to fix everything for them.

We don’t publish those.

Here are a few promises we can make concerning our Young Adult books.

· We’ll only publish really good books and stories. Hey, we have to read all these things, too, and why would we put ourselves through reading boring or badly-written stories? We won’t put you through it, either.

· We’ve got your back. What I mean is, there’s nothing in our YA books that would freak out your parents—no gratuitous sex or violence. That doesn’t mean we’ll shy away from serious themes that involve sex or violence—we know you have to deal with that stuff every day.

· We respect teens. Some of the most important people in the world’s history were teenagers, and you guys are a huge social and cultural force now. But more than that, you have strength, passion, ideals, generous hearts, leadership skills, courage, compassion, and brains. Our books will reflect that, even if the teens in them sometimes make mistakes.

· We will never talk down to you.

· We will listen to you. Do you have a comment about something we’ve published, or a suggestion for something you’d like to see? We want to know. Comment on any of our blog entries, or contact us on our Facebook page at Euterpe YA Books.

We’re a new company, and we’re going to do things right. That means that we’re going to respect our readers…and that means you—Young Adults. Welcome to Euterpe.