The Latest Trend in Publishing

Writers often ask agents at conferences, “What’s the trend in books? What should I be writing about?” The answer is usually, “If I tell you and you started this second writing in that trend, you’d be too late to catch the wave.” Or “You have to make your own trend.”

Well, there seems to be a trend in business books, although like all trends, you may be too late to benefit from it. According to the Los Angeles Times, today’s trend is to write a book that:
reflects a more sobering view of the economy and offers solutions to help Americans survive the current fiscal woes.

Now is not the time for Buy Real Estate and Become a Millionaire books or Buy-Sell, Buy-Sell and Join the Wall Street Mogul Club books.

Problem is, it takes so long to get a book on the bookshelves, even when the publisher rushes the book, that any book you start writing now will probably be too late. Even books already in the production line chance missing the wave.

The ones that may benefit from the trend are those that forecast something like this might happen to the economy. Those already on the shelves. Those authors are now being called to do TV shows or give advice or to re-release their books.

So it all comes back to creating your own trend. Or being very lucky.