So I thought it would be interesting to see what different age groups we all aim to write for.

My writing is aimed at adults, but I think it would be enjoyed by older teens as well.

My writing recently has been all over the place. Mostly, I write for children. Not little kids, but around the age of 9 and up. However, I'm also working on some projects that would be considered YA and have ideas for some adult novels so ...

At the moment, my Series is written for (officially) 8-12 year olds, but I think older people will enjoy it as well, it's just not specifically for them. As such, it's quite difficult trying to get into the mind of someone that age and trying to interest them but not overload them with information.

My writing is typically aimed for ages thirteen and up. I'm not writing specifically for teens, but the general idea is that people of all ages should be able to enjoy it if I do it right.

I've never really thought about what age group I'm writing for (Generally it's for myself so whatever age I was when I wrote it, I guess.)

Putting age limits on books has always been a silly idea to me. (I've never picked up a book and gone "Man, Its for ages 10-13 I guess I can't read it now!"

To me there should only be two types of books: books for everyone, and books for adults with themes that would be hard for small children to take in.

Age guidelines on books have never been aimed at the reader, but rather at the buyer---usually either the parent or a school librarian. And (for example) Goodnight, Moon or The Runaway Bunny is not ideally suited for the same readers as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

I see what your saying. Especially about small children's books.
Though small children are all so different its really up to the parents what age they are ready for "Pat the bunny" or "Green eggs and ham"

I agree that putting list ages on books is like saying there are twenty words every two-year-old child should know. Everyone's different, but when I 'age' books, I tend to mean it towards those who would enjoy it best. Kids read adult books and vice-versa (*clears throat* Ahem, like me...) But there's still a concept there.

And you write differently for different age groups. Like, I'm not going to use my entire vocabulary in a story where the main character is fourteen. And I'm not going to explain the American government in a story where the MC is thirty-four.

I've read many a children's book that was not well-written (dull, slow, or just plain "off-center") because the author was used to writing for older readers. It's completely different. You use different words, concepts, illustrations, themes, everything. They're not aliens to one another, but not brothers either. More like cousins. XD

(But that's not really the discussion for this thread, I think, so, whatever.)

I'd say my writing is aimed at older teens/young adults. Not so much because it's hard to read or anything, but some of the concepts(not sure if that's the right word) are a little older.

Well, I certainly don't write for small children, but I also definitely agree with what someone said before me: books should not have ages on them. I was reading old classics and Shakespeare when I was nine and-while I didn't catch everything-I still enjoyed them immensely, and still do! I think that if a child picks up a book and begins to read it, if the child can understand it, the book was written for that age-regardless of the age of the child in question. Everyone is made differently, and not everyone is as literate as others as soon. (Compare brothers and sisters at the same age...)

That said-and I apologize for my digression-I probably write more for adults. Some of my themes would probably not be understood as well by younger children, but I hope anyone would be able to enjoy them.

Yes, but ... as I said, age labels on books are for the benefit of book-buyers and bookstores. If I had a young relative whom I bought books for, I would walk into a bookstore (or, nowadays, maybe search Amazon) and try to find books that looked suitable; I wouldn't (usually) take my young relative into the bookstore with me. And if a child is precocious, those who are buying books can (and often will) be told "the child is reading at a fourth-grade level" (or whatever level it is).

I never really aim to write for any age. I just write what I want to write/what I would want to read, and if someone who doesn't know me personally wants to pick up my book (haha, right, that's not going to happen), they can. Whether they like it or not is up to them.

I've always had trouble discerning what the 'age limits' are. I was reading by the time I was three. When I was eight or nine, I was reading things like Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle (what he had written of it so far, that is), as well as other rather thick fantasy books. Everyone was shocked and wondered why someone my age was reading books geared towards late teens.

So due to the whole 'you're such an advanced reader' thing, I've never really been able to deduce age limits; since I read at a higher level, I automatically assume that people at my age would be able to read the same books I do. Which isn't true, apparently...

I suppose most of my books would be considered as aimed towards people in their teens. But I haven't written an actual novel in so long, that may have changed, since I've gotten older. (And then there's the fact that about two of my current novel ideas deal with subjects less than suitable for a younger audience.)

The bottom line is that mostly teens would be interested in the books I've written so far. Possibly people in their early twenties too. Maybe.

Good point...

I'm homeschooled and i live out in the middle of nowhere, so I speak from my own experience. And usually we already know what books we want, or the child is right there with us. Or we pick the book up, flip through it to decide if it's good, buy it if it is, and-if it's too hard for the child in question-stick it on the bookshelf until the child finds it on his/her own.

So I bow to the person with more practical experience.

I wouldn't say I have much practical experience, except on the receiving end. When I was growing up, my nearest relatives lived a full day's drive away, and it wasn't until I was in the second half of middle school at the earliest that my relatives started giving me bookstore gift cards instead of books. And my allowance was a quarter a week, of which twenty percent was required to go to tithe and savings, so I couldn't buy many books on my own (except from Friends-of-the-Library book sales, at $1 a bag) even when I had opportunity to do so. But because my teachers knew my reading level, my parents knew my reading level, and therefore they could communicate that to my grandparents and aunts and uncles, who were buying the books I got for Christmas and my birthday each year. (And I was required to write thank-you letters, so they learned whether I had liked the books they gave me .)

When I got books from the library (either the school library or the city library, which is within walking distance) I never paid attention to markings saying what age books targeted---but I mostly browsed by section ("kids' science") or, in the science fiction/fantasy section, by author (McCaffrey and, I now regret to say, Piers Anthony).

(Oh, and most of the books sold in school book sales or through the book-club catalogs circulated through elementary school classes looked absolutely uninteresting to me, so I never even bothered to look at any age-group-targeting information in those ads or on those books either.)

Basically, a discreet suggestion that "this is at a Nth-grade reading level" somewhere on the back cover of a book, or in advertising copy, provides useful information to people buying books for children not their own (making it more likely that they'll risk buying it if the child in question reads at that level, but less likely that someone will buy it for a child at a substantially different level and then write a scathing review of it), but doesn't seem likely to draw the attention of anyone who's not looking for it.

Well, all of that is still more experience than I have had.

But you state your case well! It gives one something to think about-especially if one plans to sell one's book anywhere.

I regularly write for each age group, though I most frequently write for young adults.