The years 2020 and 2021 marked a great change in our lives. We began to think differently, to eat and live differently, and even to read differently. Reading time has increased from nine hours a week to 16 hours a week, according to Nielsen’s research on the effects of COVID-19 on Indian book consumers.
Fear of leaving the house, pollution, an unstable political situation and unexpected death – the year was stranger than fiction. Readers searched for nonfiction books to refer to and find an answer. They looked for solutions in science, technology, self-help, spirituality, history and business to find their role in a new, uncertain world.
The statistics revealed the reality when serious non-fiction books flew off the shelves via online e-book gateways. Amazon’s adult non-fiction sales have increased 22.8 percent over the past five years. Amazon Health, Fitness & Diet, Politics & Social Sciences.
YA fiction sales rose 21.4 percent in 2020, while non-fiction book sales rose 38.3 percent. According to Nielsen research, historical / political biographies were the most popular among Indian non-fiction readers, followed by self-help / personal development and self-study such as learning new languages.
Advances in technology and travel mean that teenagers are exposed to easily accessible vectors. As a result, Indian readers will pay for a book like Shashi Tharoor and Samir Saran’s The New World Disorder and the Indian Imperative, which outlines how India could affect the future of the world.
Beyond fiction, Indian writers who write in English expand their horizons. So are publishers. Neasha Mittal, the author of Rain Takes the Rainbow by Storm, says technology and pandemics have played a critical role in improving people’s reading habits. Personally, she was deeply moved by social issues that affect society, and especially those that affect women. The socio-economic complexity of these issues was imperative and prompted me to conceive and develop an anthology entitled “Rain Takes the Rainbow by Storm”.
