Advertising in the Air

Because it's August, the subject of advertising and drops in sales have been taking up a lot of writing-related social media I follow.

In August.

Every frickin' year.

Here's the deal, folks. A ton of your readers have kids. The beginning of August is when they cram in that last vacation while the weather's nice. Then comes shopping for school clothes and supplies.

Side Note: I don't know about the other 48 states, but both Ohio and Texas have state sales tax-free weekends for parents to save a bit. And frankly, the skyrocketing prices this year is stretching a lot of households very thin.

Finally comes the start of school itself where the parents and kids have to relearn the patterns they've conveniently forgotten over the summer.

Like they have every single year since I started publishing, book sales have taken a slight dip. I'd lay good money that like every single year, sales will rise again in the middle of fall once our customers have a chance to take a breath from running around like crazy people from school to work to band/soccer/football/etc. practice.

My advice is quit whining and obsessing and keep writing. Your readers are going to need something to entertain them during their Thanksgiving travel.

Especially if the airlines keep stranding people all over the world.