Dear O'Abby: Is there a time of year that's best for self-publishing a book?

Dear O'Abby,

I'm curious... Is there like a peak season for book publishing?  Is there a particular month or season where self-pubbed books do better?  Or is book publishing kind of a year-round thing?

Sincerly,

Out of Time

Dear Out of Time,

What a good question!  While book publishing is a year-round enterprise, there are certain types of book that do better at different times of the year, so you may want to take that into consideration.

For example, self-help books tend to do well toward the beginning of the year when people are making New Year's resolutions and trying to start the new year off in a different way.  This is also a bad time for kid's books because parents and grandparents have just splurged on their kids for Christmas.

A good time for children's books is before the summer holidays because parents will be looking for things to occupy their little darling while they're out of school (and possibly going on long trips).  This is also a good time for those"beach reads" - thrillers and romances and things that people can consume quickly. 

Halloween is good for horror, obviously, 

And then heading toward the Christmas period, self-help pops up again, as does kid-lit, but this time of year is also good for coffee-table books and other gorgeous-looking volumes that people can be impressed with when they unwrap them.  Cookbooks are good at this time of year too.

I hope that was helpful!

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: What is the best time to contact agents?

Dear O'Abby,

I'm about to start querying and was wondering if there is a specific day, or time of year, or part of the month that is best for querying.  I'm guessing Mondays are probably not the best because everyone is snowed under with weekend emails on a Monday, and probably around public holidays isn't great either.

But that's just based on my own experience.  Am I guessing correctly?

Kind regards,

Business Hours

Dear Business Hours,

I can see the appeal in trying to figure this out, but you are wasting your time.  There is no magic formula to when it's best to send a query.  These days a lot of agents use Query Tracker to manage their queries, and they will just log in to look at them whenever they have time, so when you send them is irrelevant. Even those who still accept emailed queries rarely look at them as they come in.  Most agents will have a separate query email address and they will go in to look at those emails when they have time.

And when they have time depends on what their existing clients are up to and what they need.  So it may be that the only time an agent has to look at queries is over the weekend or on public holidays when other people aren't working.

My advice is to write the strongest query you can, and send it when you're ready.  Don't waste time and energy trying to figure out when the stars align most favourably.  The agent might look at it five minutes after you send it, or it could be five weeks. The only thing that really counts is if she wants to read the book.

Best of luck with the querying!

X O'Abby