It isn’t often we hear from a best-selling author of young adults’ fiction, so let’s make the most of us. He insisted on concealing his identity, but you can probably guess who it is. You just can’t hide that kind of fame under a bushel.
You will also notice how the market strives for Diversity by making sure that published novels, no matter how many there may be, are so shaped to be indistinguishable from one another. That way, if you’ve read one young adults’ fantasy, it’s sort of like you’ve read them all. The new ones won’t be so confusing then.