*fx: mutters about one side of one sheep being black*
I believe all that they reported the agent as saying was that this particular book was significantly less likely to sell because one of the main characters was gay.
(More precisely, all we know is that they would not represent it with the gay character, but would represent it if the character were retconned to straight. I think it's reasonable to assume that is because of their beliefs about its prospects in the two cases, but even that is not a known thing.)
This is very different from "no books with gay main characters sell". YA, as a broad genre, has a large crop of "issue" books, in which the plot of the book is an exploration of an issue that is of concern to young adults, such as menstruation, loss of faith, death of a parent -- or homosexuality. Thus, there are quite a number of books about gay young people (or young people with gay parents, or...) who are dealing with the various social and emotional repercussions of that homosexuality, and the focus of the book is on those social and emotional struggles.
That is something that all of the books that you have referred to have in common: They are not merely "books with gay protagonists", they are "gay books". They have plot summaries like "She explores everything, like coming out to your friends and family and questioning whether or not you are actually gay." (To quote from one of the summaries on one of the links you posted.)
There is a second level of othering, beyond what happens when there are no books about gay people at all, and it is when the only books about gay people are about the gayness of those gay people. They don't get to have the same adventures that straight people do, or have the same stories -- if they are the protagonist, then the only story that is told about them is the story of their gayness.
And that is the position that it appears this agent is taking: That a book that is not an issue book about gayness will not sell when it has a gay protagonist.
no subject
I believe all that they reported the agent as saying was that this particular book was significantly less likely to sell because one of the main characters was gay.
(More precisely, all we know is that they would not represent it with the gay character, but would represent it if the character were retconned to straight. I think it's reasonable to assume that is because of their beliefs about its prospects in the two cases, but even that is not a known thing.)
This is very different from "no books with gay main characters sell". YA, as a broad genre, has a large crop of "issue" books, in which the plot of the book is an exploration of an issue that is of concern to young adults, such as menstruation, loss of faith, death of a parent -- or homosexuality. Thus, there are quite a number of books about gay young people (or young people with gay parents, or...) who are dealing with the various social and emotional repercussions of that homosexuality, and the focus of the book is on those social and emotional struggles.
That is something that all of the books that you have referred to have in common: They are not merely "books with gay protagonists", they are "gay books". They have plot summaries like "She explores everything, like coming out to your friends and family and questioning whether or not you are actually gay." (To quote from one of the summaries on one of the links you posted.)
There is a second level of othering, beyond what happens when there are no books about gay people at all, and it is when the only books about gay people are about the gayness of those gay people. They don't get to have the same adventures that straight people do, or have the same stories -- if they are the protagonist, then the only story that is told about them is the story of their gayness.
And that is the position that it appears this agent is taking: That a book that is not an issue book about gayness will not sell when it has a gay protagonist.