CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you're looking for a new book to read, you might want to wait until 2025, and experts say you can blame the presidential election.
A recent scarcity of new books can be blamed on the 2024 presidential election. Let's connect the dots.
The fall of an election year is filled with campaign ads and debates, so a new book has a high chance of being overshadowed. Getting overage in the press can make or break a book. That's why editors encourage authors to publish by September or simply wait until January.
Publishers felt the effects of the 2016 election media storm in a big way, with book sales falling 8% from the previous year.
However, during the 2020 election, new books grew by 1%. Why? Everyone was quarantining at home, so entertainment was hard to come by, allowing book sales to grow despite it being an election year.
Some consumers will still turn to reading for an escape from politics, though. Reports say fiction novels fare better than nonfiction and political books during election season.
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