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Where teen guys have drifted to sports and gaming, teen girls still like to curl up with a good book.  It’s all in the numbers.  The stats claim females make up over 80% of YA readership, most of which is penned by female authors.  Did you think the popularity of the romance novel was a fluke?    Does it surprise anyone that the majority of YA fiction has female protags and heavily lilted with romantic nuances?  I almost titled this article, Have Romance Writers taken over YA Fiction, but I didn’t want to alienate my good friends who write romance, yet took the time to nurture my fledgling writing career.   Besides, you can’t argue with reality.   It’s a marketing thing.   That said, we need to up the stats for male protags written by authors who have a Y chromosome.

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