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.

What Euterpe Is All About

Hi there!

One of the great things about running a publishing house from the moment it crystallizes into reality from the pipe dream it originated as is that you can pretty much do what you want to do.

I've been in publishing one way or another for a decade. The majority of that time (not counting my writing, which is an altogether different beastie), I've always wondered why there wasn't a publisher who was turning out electronic books for a younger market. Seeing as one of my daughters received an e-reader before I got one myself, obviously there are other kids out there who have them too. And why not? When I was in high school—and college too for that matter—I would have happily traded my thirty pounds of books for a ten ounce e-reader any day of the week.

As a kid, no one could keep up with my reading habit: not my parents, not the library, not the school library. The only reason the bookstore could was because I had to save up to get new books. But now, with the whole, wonderful world of literature available at kids' fingertips, it doesn't make sense that there aren't many e-publishers who are devoting their attention to YA (young adult) and MG (middle grade) stories.

Hence, Euterpe (pronounced you-terp-AY).

Euterpe was one of the nine Muses in Greco-Roman mythology. Her name means "delight," and she was the muse of music and lyric poetry, the words that are set to music and become a song. In the world of Musa, she is the patron muse of literature for children and young adults. Here at Euterpe, young readers will find books from multiple genres, of lengths ranging from short story to novels. To Euterpe readers, the magic of a good story is literally only a press of the finger away.

The Euterpe imprint will have its own website, separate from the rest of Musa, to provide a secure, healthy environment for young readers to browse in—and, obviously, its own blog as well so that our readers can interact with our staff and authors.

The Euterpe section of Musa is a pet project of the entire publishing staff. Our stories will open the minds of our readers, encouraging them to let their imaginations follow down the paths our writers create. In the world of Euterpe, we showcase the kinds of stories that linger in the reader's imagination, just like the stories we remember from when we grew up.