Fifty Shades of Bridget Jones and the Boy Wizard

No. Not a new best-seller. And no; I'm not writing it. Would it sell? Almost certainly not, and besides, there would  inevitably be copyright problems.

But. Every so often, a new book/series hits the literary headlines, and becomes an instant best-seller. Then lots of other writers jump on the bandwagon, and we get (for example) Fifty shades of everyone from Elizabeth Bennet to (probably) Winnie the Pooh. But by now, the moment has passed, and I'm sure none of these also-rans have sold the way the originals did. What's happened is that the author has (probably unwittingly) filled a gap in the market; a gap no-one knew was there until it was filled.

Crazes come and crazes go. The knack- if it is a knack - is to identify that gap before it is filled. My novels are of the unfortunate kind that don't fit into any genre (although The  Birds , the Bees and Other Secrets does seem to get mistakenly lumped together with 'facts of life' type books. My publisher didn't like the title I wanted). So the answer seem to be to write something stunningly original/outrageous or whatever - something that hasn't been done before - and hope the world is waiting breathlessly for just such a novel.

Meanwhile, back to the drawing board...