Hadley Dyer talks at the Word on the Street Festival this past Sunday

Sara Mahmood, Ryersonian staff

Vampires are so dead.

Dying in the young adult book market, that is. 

Four years ago, if you walked into a bookstore, the teen section would be filled with novels about girls falling in love with vampires. Chapters even used to have a table called Bella’s picks, named after the main character of Twilight.

Since interest in vampires is draining, publishers have to move on and satisfy readers’ new cravings. 

Hadley Dyer is the executive editor of children's books at HarperCollins Canada Ltd. It’s her job to act as the go-between for the author and the production department. She acquires books, edits and sees them through production.

Dyer goes through manuscripts and chooses the best of the pack. Although it may sound like an easy job, predicting what will sell is harder than it seems. She says you can’t just hop on the bandwagon whenever something’s popular.

“We pay close attention to the trends but we try not to play catch up,” Dyer says. “In Canada, we’re small and we have a small population of writers and when you’re trying to chase a trend it’s harder to do with a smaller amount of writers.”

She also mentions the issue of “exhausting” a trend, like what’s happened with vampires. Instead of overwhelming readers even more, publishers will try to steer them into another sub-genre. For example, if a girl doesn’t want to read about vampires anymore, she can turn to books with similar themes and plots, but with angels instead of demons.

Despite the fact that vampire books aren’t so hot anymore, speculative fiction — the umbrella term for fantasy, supernatural and dystopian fiction — is still extremely popular.

Dyer doesn’t think it’s just following trends when it comes to this wave of novels.

“I just think there’s a lot of good writing out there, and a lot of writers are discovering this genre and having fun with it,” she said.

Although speculative fiction dominates the New York Times children’s fiction bestsellers (the category that lists books for grade-schoolers, teens and adults), more realistic fiction also sells well.

Dyer says one of HarperCollins bestselling young adult novels right now is Canadian author Vicki Grant’s Betsy Wickwire's Dirty Secret. The novel is a comedy about a girl who starts a cleaning service and finds love, friendship and self-worth without any fairies, zombies or vampires.

Although books like Twilight and Harry Potter have encouraged many people to read, boys are still one of the toughest markets to break into.

According to Statistics Canada, boys tend to score lower than girls in literacy tests. In the 2007 State of Learning in Canada: No Time for Complacency Report, more boys identified as non-readers than girls. The report also noted that there is a significant gender gap in reading and writing in all participating countries.

These numbers mean publishers like Dyer have to try even harder to find books for boys.

“Fiction is more targeted towards girls,” she says. Non-fiction readers are more balanced between males and females, but how to get boys reading more fiction is the million-dollar question no one’s been able to answer for decades.

When she isn’t worrying about how to sell books for boys or girls, Dyer is still immersed in literacy. She often takes manuscripts home to read because her job is so demanding. She also taught a course at Ryerson on publishing children’s literature, but that position is currently on hiatus.

During her lunch breaks, Dyer will even check out her local Chapters. She also tries to attend book festivals like the Word on the Street, which took place last Sunday.

Dyer always tries to participate in the festival in one way or another and this year she and her HarperCollins co-worker, Lorissa Sengara, gave a talk they called, beyond vampires in commercial fiction. The two told an audience of students, readers and aspiring authors, what made a manuscript noteworthy. 

“I was delighted to arrive and see that the fair and the Wordshop (her tent) were full and we had so many people,” Dyer says.

“I think there’s something pretty exciting about seeing the works of so many authors and publishers in one place. Nobody has to go but they’re there because they love books.”

Dyer’s love of books extends beyond reading them, she’s written quite a few herself. 

One of her most celebrated novels is the award-winning Johnny Kellock Died Today. The novel is a coming-of-age story that takes place in 1950s Halifax and is based on an event from her mother’s childhood.

Next year she has a non-fiction book about urban farming coming out and she has been working on a couple of fiction novels, but will publish them when — if ever — she feels they’re great stories.

“I’ve published a lot of stuff — books and newspaper — and seeing your name in print after a while, the novelty wears off so I just want to produce good work. I’ll publish a novel whenever I finish a good novel.”