A Reading Crunch?

How about a book on DIY Made Easy?

Do people read more during a credit crunch, or less? How much are book sales affected during a recession? How many authors will join the dole queue over the next 18 months?

People want to escape when times are hard, so maybe romantic and fantasy fiction will benefit at the expense of gritty, kitchen-sink novels. But people also need inspiring, so stories where the hero or heroine struggles against adversity – and triumphs – will be in demand.

The problem is that it takes something like two years from writing to being published, even if your book is accepted by a publisher, by which time the recession should have bottomed out. So you need to write your book quickly (The Fastest Way to Write Your Book by Dave Haslett can help you there) and why not finesse the slush pile by publishing it yourself (ideas4writers.co.uk is worth checking out)?

Don’t restrict yourself to writing the next fiction blockbuster. You can bet that bookstores will be bursting with books on the subject of how to survive the recession. How about championing a resurgence in knitting and home dressmaking? A survival recipe book? Home decorating on the cheap?

And finally, concentrate on getting your books into libraries rather than bookstores, for in a recession I’m sure people rediscover the joy of borrowing books rather than buying them!