Harry Potter Generation Driving 'Grip Lit' Boom
Sales for the gripping psychological thriller, or "grip lit," are up according to Nielsen Book, a company that provides data for the book publishing industry on point-of-sale of books. Last year, data indicated that sales for the fiction genre were up 5.2 percent, with crime novels and thrillers cornering 29 percent of the book market. It is the second-largest genre after general and literary fiction, worth 41 percent. A record volume of twenty-five million copies of crime sector books, including e-books, was reached last year. Grip lit such as "The Girl on the Train" and "Gone Girl" have been driving the boom.
The book sales monitor also found out that most grip lit, making up 67 percent, is bought by women who are mostly 25 to 34 years old. For instance, purchases of the bestseller by Paula Hawkins, "The Girl on the Train" by women in the same age range accounted for 60 percent of total sales, and only 17 percent was attributed to males in the same age category.
Neill Denny, Bookbrunch editor, explains, "A generation of women in their 20s and early 30s, who grew up reading Harry Potter, are now energising the book trade," referring to the influence as the "Harry Potter cohort."
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Nielsen Book's Jo Henry points out that, over the years, the book publishing industry has been influenced by the female millennial's book buying power. This power has also pushed the sales of young adult genre such as "The Hunger Games" and "Divergence" mostly by the age group 18 years and above, but not excluding children.
Henry says, "It is Generation Potter … Two years ago they were reading YA, now they're coming on to grip lit … they're obviously really heavy book readers, and we have to make sure we're reaching them in the right way."
These statistics prove the Harry Potter generation as voracious book readers who so obviously love literature. And grip lit is not the only market whose sales are being pushed up. Children's picture books and adult coloring books are also very popular in the market, including health and dieting volumes. Millennials also prefer self-published authors, as indicated in the recent white paper on female millennials in the UK put together by Nielsen, "Brands Risk Losing the Women of Tomorrow."
