This might sound like a shock, how can clothing be similar to the publication industry? As a book lover, I’ve seen the implications in the uproar of literature following closely to fast fashion based on a multitude of factors. It’s definitely not a negative in retrospect to seeing others falling back in love with reading and buying more books for their shelves, but industries are finding quicker routes to make more profit.
Quantity over quality
Has anyone else noticed how quickly authors are pumping out books to keep up with trends? Similarly to the fashion industry, books followed trends for years before authors moved on to the next best thing. This is partially due to social media and the overconsumption people support because what used to take years in order to create high quality books is becoming a negative if authors aren’t publishing multiple books within a year. This causes a domino effect with the quality of the overall content within the book as well as simple mistakes such as editing errors and incorrect printing (page numbers, book covers, or text). It’s not that the publication of many books a year is uncommon, I mean, look at James Patterson; but it’s how consumers are receiving the books poorly made for the amount of money they’re spending.
Tropes
The amount of videos that have come on my TikTok FYP to show which books fits what tropes best is insane. It’s the exact same with fashion. There’s always a new trend to follow or a new style you’ve got to try which means these clothes are ending up in dumpsters or in the thrift store (is it obvious that I’m talking about SHEIN yet?). The industry has stepped away from focusing on meaningful stories that might have a trope in it to the entire book being based on a single trope with a third act conflict break-up! This is not to say I don’t read or enjoy books like this, but this trend is filling the shelves with the same authors and the same tropes, and I’m actively having to search for books with more diversity and in depth storytelling.
Reading Habits
I’ve heard so many of my friends complaining that they aren’t reading fast enough to reach their goal by the end of the year. I’m a victim of this too as I always set myself up to read at least one book a week, but if I don’t reach my goal by the end of the year, the world is not going to stop spinning! Personally, I’d rather read quality storylines and recall how amazing it was than continue to read multiple books with the same formatting that I’ve given a two star and can’t even remember why I kept going.
It’s not to say every author or person or even publication company is following this mass production scheme, but I want personally do not want to see what happens when the industry comes to a crashing halt after the trend becomes unpopular. I want to be able to branch out to other genres and have the time to actually enjoy reading again.