Trendspotting: How Can You Tell When to STOP Buying Something?
During any given month, I could spend my entire paperback budget on on subcategory like paranormal romance, or urban fiction, or even my beloved science fiction and fantasy. I could definitely spend it all on series romance without having to spend more than five minutes a month building my cart. But part of my job as a selector is to consider my patrons, my existing collection, and the publishing trends for books that people are going to want to read in the near future. There's nothing I dislike more than spending some of the library's money on a book that nobody checks out, so this crystal ball element can be very nerve-wracking. Let's take the example of paranormal romance. We see articles all the time about the incredible popularity (especially in this economic climate) of romance novels, especially in e-book format . As far as I know, paranormal romance is still going strong , but for how long? For the past few years, if I had purchased everything that claimed it was...