Home Alone

Some might think that the COVID-19 pandemic changes little, because novelists have always worked from home and found isolation to be necessary for their creative process. But in fact, there is a spectrum in sites of production. Even in a novelist's solitary study, her task is to construct a narrative out of her past social experience. The pandemic has caused a drastic reduction in such face-to-face activities. Changes in the consumption of fiction during the pandemic can be tracked on Amazon and include a shift from print to Kindle, and also shifts in genres. The biggest gain in share on Kindle has been in children's books. Post-publication activities have become steadily more important, as promotion of a book is now integral to its production. The rise of self-publishing on Kindle Direct Publishing bypasses traditional gatekeepers. With KDP almost everyone now can have their own press, and the centres of gravity of publishing have moved from London and New York to Seattle. Post-apocalyptic fiction envisions life in the wake of natural disasters.