Last year, when I was worrying aloud on this blog about “Black Wednesday” and other bad publishing news, a reader quipped that adding sex to one’s books might help. After all, she said — recalling her own experience working for a bookstore that survived the Depression by selling adult entertainment — porn is recession-proof.
Turns out it isn’t. On an NPR segment last week about the adult entertainment industry, a spokesperson claimed that naughty DVD sales were down 15%. Compare that — favorably — to sales slippage at Barnes & Noble (down 5.2% over the holidays) and Borders (down 11.7%). Maybe those bookstore figures aren’t so bad after all.
I’ll go tell my characters they can put their clothes back on.
Now that it’s getting warm?