Who's Reading Young Adult Fiction?

A report in Publisher's Weekly on the 13th of September made this surprising claim:

55% of buyers of works that publishers designate for kids aged 12 to 17 - known as YA books - are 18 or older, with the largest segment aged 30 to 44, a group that alone accounted for 28% of YA sales. And adults aren’t just purchasing for others - when asked about the intended recipient, they report that 78% of the time they are purchasing books for their own reading.

While a large proportion of this figure (30%) can be attributed to the success of The Hunger Games series, these figures do not simply reflect the phenomenal popularity of a few titles. The Report* goes on to note that 'the remaining 70% of readers reported a vast variety of titles (over 220), only two of which commanded more than five percent of overall sales – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Breaking Dawn.'

*first published in Understanding the Children’s Book Consumer in the Digital Age.