Happy equinox! Today I am going to take a break from strictly paranormal or occultish type ruminations and concentrate more on a topic relevant to authors.
According to a new study, thousands of people – in Britain at any rate – only ever read a novel when they are going on holiday! For those of a statistical bent, the total sample was 8600, drawn from visitors to the website TripAdvisor (i.e. who may therefore be expected to be travellers and holiday-makers), whilst the percentage of people admitting to being holiday-only readers was 23% (or approximately just under 2000).
Although this survey has not, to my knowledge, been peer-reviewed, and the fact the methodology may be open to question, I beg leave to report that from my own personal experience I do find that my own sales do go up slightly in August each year: I have noticed this both this year and in 2011.
So, if you will indulge me for a moment: let us postulate that the conclusion drawn by the survey is true. This suggests an excellent method for authors to make use of this information, to wit, specifically time your promotional campaigns to coincide with the school holidays. Typically the most obvious would be the long summer break, but in fact, all of the holidays have potential in this regard, given that a number of people will want to jet-off on each occasion, e.g. people who depart around Christmas either to go skiing or for winter sun.
Hence, to afford other authors the opportunity of testing this theory out, here are the school vacation dates for 2012 until summer 2014.
- 2012 / 2013
- Autumn Half-term: Monday 29th October to Friday November 2nd 2012
- Christmas: Monday 24th December 2012 to Friday 4th January 2013
- Spring Half-term: Monday 18th to Friday 22nd February 2013
- Easter: Friday 29th March to Friday 12th April 2013
- Summer half-term: Monday 27th May to Friday 31st May 2013
- Summer break: Wednesday 24th July to Friday 30th August 2013
- 2013 / 2014
- Autumn half-term: Monday 28th October to Friday 1st November 2013
- Christmas: Monday 23rd December 2012 to Friday 3rd January 2014
- Spring half-term: Monday 17th to Friday 21st February 2014
- Easter: Monday 7th to Monday 21st April 2014
- Summer half-term: Monday 26th to Friday 30th May 2014
- Summer break: Wednesday 23rd July to Friday August 29th 2014.
Source: Southend Borough Council. Dates arranged by other local authorities may vary. Authors wanting to promote their books outside the UK should check local vacation dates themselves.
Sol Ascendans - The Website of Alex Sumner 
Well spotted, thanks for sharing! I will use my 7-year-old neighbour as a guide to when the holidays are up here!
🙂