The rest of us may be trying to figure how to make summer last a bit longer, but book publishers are cleaning up their fall lists and are well on their way toward preparing marketing material for books you and I will see this winter and next spring.
You'll notice an interesting trend, as you go through their catalogs. Spirituality/philosophy books, which are turning up in ever greater number on the bestseller lists, now almost always contain a "how to" component. And business books, especially "how to" business books, are beginning to have spiritual overtones.
The blurring is easy to understand. As the line between home and work is becoming ever fainter, people are now looking for more out of work than just a paycheck. And as the population grows older -- the median age in this country is now the highest it has ever been -- people are desperately groping for fulfillment everywhere, especially at work. They want to be employed where, at the very least, they feel that their job is important to the success of their organization.
And people want something else. They want the ability to be the same person on and off the job. They don't want to check their values at the office door. If they believe in the Golden Rule outside of work, they also want to believe (and act on it) at work. The books you will see coming to the fore reflect that trend. If the definition of marketing is figuring out what people want, and developing a way to give it to them, then expect these "hybrids" to do well.
-- Paul B. Brown
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