Scriptshark recently issued the trends they see for publishing in 2011:
New Trends:
Young adult continued to be an exploding genre. This year, paranormal romance that extended beyond vampires, and dystopian and scifi fiction in that category were popular. Other trends in children’s publishing include the rise of diary format books (most prominent example is Wimpy Kid), and increase in series and trilogies on the YA side.
Romance has also had a good year. The New York Times recently reported on the success of the romance genre in ebooks. With the economic downturn, romance sales rose in 2009 and continued to do well in 2010. Books featuring animals (for adults) also are doing well.
Some categories aren’t having quite as good a year. Practical nonfiction—for example books about home reference or travel books—continues to suffer as the Internet supplies much of this information. The trend of stunt books (memoir based on ideas such as having sex every day or following the tenets of the Bible) seem to be fading. The market for legal and medical thrillers is also not what it once was.
Tumblr, Twitter and blogs proved once again to be fruitful sources for books. Sh*t My Dady Says as published in spring grew out of a Twitter and popular women’s blog Jezebel recently got a deal for multiple books.
Interesting, but my suggestion is that you ignore trends. Trends are about what's becoming popular and by the time you catch up with the trend it may be too late. Besides that, you should be writing what you are most passionate about. If that happens to coincide with a trend, great. If not, remember that, by definition, a breakthrough is something that isn't being done. These are the books that create the trends.
(to help you write what only you can write, get the support you need to set your writing goal and follow through with it--join my Writing Breakthrough Strategy Program. It's all online so you can work with it anytime and anyplace. Read the full description at www.jurgenwolff.com)
