Suffering from a summer sales slump?

There’s only room for a certain amount of books in a suitcase or hand luggage. And if your books (like mine) aren’t fortunate enough to be classed as ideal beach reads, and don’t find their way onto the shelves of a store in an airport bookseller, chances are as potential readers head off on holiday / vacation, your/our books aren’t going to sell or attract page reads like they do during the rest of the year.

This will lead to the alliterative condition I’ve featured in the headline of this blog post: the Summer Sales Slump. It’s a condition I’m all too familiar with and I’ve tried rubbing lotion into the affected area without success.

Having tracked the sales and page reads of my novels every day for the last 18 months, ‘Dr’ Lymon can now reveal more information about this unpleasant condition. Last year, June, July and August were my slowest and weakest months for sales and page reads in the year. The affliction was at its worst during these warmer months, but things perked up come September at the end of the holiday season and stayed strong for the rest of the year.

So my advice to those suffering from a similar ailment is do not despair! As a writer of dystopian darkly humorous fiction, I actually don’t expect any of my novels to be read on the beaches of the world. They’re best consumed in snug rooms with a roaring fire going.

It’s why this year, I expected a return of the Summer Sales Slump, and the symptoms have indeed come back – though not with such vigour as last year.

The biggest downside of the condition is that it does leave me looking forward to the end of summer a little more than I’d like. Even though the heatwaves we’ve had here in the UK have led to uncomfortable nights trying to sleep, and uncomfortable days trying to write, it’s refreshing to have long days of sunlight and warmth. And I know I’ll miss the heat in the cold of autumn and winter.

So I’m trying to enjoy the slow summer months, accepting that reading books like mine isn’t as high on most people’s priority list at this time of year.