"[7] His Smart Aleck's Guide to American History (Random House 2009) was nominated for a YALSA award for nonfiction by the American Library Association in 2011,[8] and his novel for younger readers, I Put a Spell On You: From the Files of Chrissie Woodward, Spelling Bee Detective (which was based on Watergate) was nominated for a Great Lakes Book Award[9] and short-listed for an Edgar award nomination.

[11][12] In 2009, Adam's editor at Random House asked him to write a book based on "I Thought She Was a Goth," a song he had written a decade earlier.

[13] to acclaim from trade reviewers, who described it as "smart," "original," "hilarious," and "a scathing parody (of the paranormal romance genre)".

[14] Film rights were optioned by Disney Channel Original Movies[15] A follow-up (to both that book and I Put a Spell On You) entitled Extraordinary* was released by Delacorte in 2011,[16] the same day as he published Sparks with Flux under the name SJ Adams.

In 2009, his first adult nonfiction title with a major publisher, Your Neighborhood Gives Me the Creeps, told stories of his life and work as a ghost tour guide and as a skeptic in the ghost-hunting field.