Is It More Difficult to Get Young Adult Published Right Now?

Q. Why is it so hard to break into the young adult industry right now? I would think that after JK Rowling and Stephenie Meyer's books being released, that there would be agents that would love to get more young adult novels published. And even an agent told me specifically that even though I'm a good writer (I write young adult books) that it is really hard to get into that industry right now. So I wanted to know why. 
- Larissa

A. I'm not sure who told you this, Larissa, but the fact is: the children's market (specifically, young adult and middle grade novels) is one of the only sections of the publishing industry that is doing well. A while back, an agent summed up the recession by saying something like this (paraphrasing here): "When the economy was good, somebody would walk into a bookstore and get a book for themselves and one for their kid, too. Now that times are tight, they skip the book for themselves, but still get the book for their kid." And, look, agent Susanna Einstein just said in her GLA blog interview that "the children’s/YA market is flourishing and expanding in terms of subject matter, kinds of books, and sales."
This could just be a simple misunderstanding between you and the agent. First of all, speaking generally it is really hard to get books published. They may have been speaking about the industry as a whole. OR - perhaps they believed you wrote picture books, which falls under the children's category, and is a very, very tough nut to crack.

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