Global English Editing researched world reading habits in 2021 and compiled all the most interesting facts and stats into an infographic that’s full of insights. It reveals, among so much more, that:

• Graphic novels were the fastest-growing book genre in 2021.
• Stories told through illustrations — aka the grown-up version of comic books — saw a staggering increase of 146 percent in sales.
• Despite this, our favorite type of book to curl up with remains romance, which accounted for a cool 1.44 billion of book revenues.
• Fiction continued to float our boats in 2021 more than nonfiction, with 61 percent of people saying they prefer a fictional tale.

What impact did the pandemic have (both positive and negative) on our reading habits this year? Which countries have the most bookworms? What were our favorite books?

Discover all this and more in the World Reading Habits in 2021 infographic below.

Apply this information

There’s a lot of information here. How can you apply some of it to your work as an author?

I often hear older authors grumbling that “young people don’t read books.” They’re wrong, of course, and this infographic proves that. Millennials are the “bookworm generation.” Do your books appeal to them? Should they?

The continued popularity of print books (also reported by the folks at BookyCall on this blog in October) jumps out at me, as does the ongoing growth in audiobooks in the U.S. If you’ve only been releasing in e-book format, consider expanding first to print, then to audio. The more options you offer readers, the more money you’ll make.

Books continue to inspire movies and TV series, too, especially considering the volume of streaming programming available today. Is this an opportunity for you and your story?

Take time to study the data in the infographic. You might be surprised at how useful it is to your author career.

What were your reading habits in 2021? Did you read more books than the year before? Fewer? More fiction than nonfiction — or vice versa? Please tell us in a comment.

Guest post: 4 steps to an About Me page that sizzles

By Andrew Wise

Blogging isn’t easy. We are constantly being pulled in a million different directions, so it’s not uncommon for one task to take precedence over another. In our haste to get out blog posts out, we often neglect the little things . . . like the importance of a well written “About Me” page for an author.

Believe it or not, the About Me page on any given site is usually somewhere in the top ten most visited pages. It makes sense, too, when you consider that nearly 80 percent of daily blog visits are from new visitors. They want to trust that the person they are getting their information from is reliable, and the About Me page is the place where they find that out.

If your About page lacks content, hasn’t been updated in some time, or doesn’t exist at all, you’re making a huge mistake. Fortunately, there are some easy ways go to about fixing that, whether you write fiction or nonfiction. Here are four tips that will help you transform your About Me page. (Note: To see the infographic better, click on it, then click on the image on the new page a second time to enlarge it.)

1. Prove yourself to be an authority in your industry.

Why should someone turn to you for information and what makes you more trustworthy than the next guy with a website? Simultaneously build your brand and prove that you know your stuff by adding reader testimonials or subscriber counts to your page.

2. Show your personality.

An About Me page may be a visitor’s first look into who you are and how you write. Try to sound like you’re engaging them in conversation as opposed to regurgitating textbook jargon at them. Be polite, be positive, and be friendly. Having an approachable, conversational tone in your writing really does go a long way.

3. Add a picture.

Time is precious and no one enjoys reading giant blocks of text, no matter how important the information may be. Adding a high quality picture to break things up a bit may help a lot. Humans are visual creatures and visual creatures are stimulated by pictures. For an author About page, you want to include photos of yourself.

4. Conclude properly.

A great college professor once told me that you should always finish a presentation by asking if anyone in the audience has any comments or questions. You should end your About Me page in a similar manner. Whether it’s offering the reader a simple way to join your weekly newsletter list or simply suggesting comments and opinions either via a comment box or your email, make sure you’re giving them an outlet to express themselves.

What’s the first thing you will do right now to improve your “About Me” page?