I believe that books about investments and saving are overlooked by the average member of the public.
If you list the most popular book genres in the UK, the list has the following rough order: (sources: various, this list was accurate at the time of publishing)
- Romance
- Mysteries
- Fantasy and science fiction
- Thrillers and horror
- Young adult
- Children’s fiction
- Inspirational & religious books
One item you’ll fail to see listed above is the genres of savings and investment books. Books are designed to do one of two things:
- Entertain
- Teach
Of course, while tears are rolling down your cheeks after reading a bittersweet ending to a romantic novel, you may wonder whether this is stretching the definition of ‘entertainment’ quite far, but indeed we are entertained whether our emotions are rising up or falling down. We enjoy being taken along for the journey, even if that journey is an emotional rollercoaster.
The best investing books are obviously designed to teach. But is that their only purpose? Absolutely not.
A well-written book about investing can also be hilarious. Think for example of books like Guns, Traders and Money, written by Mr Satyajit Das and published as part of a Financial Times series of titles. This is auto-biographical to an extent, where the author uses humour and dense knowledge to share what they’ve learned during their financial career with their audience.
Why are investing books overlooked?
The overlooking occurs because of the perception of saving as a boring pursuit. Let’s face it, even the book above evoked the concept of ‘guns’, probably in an attempt to make the subject of investing seem more edgy, more catchy, and ultimately more entertaining.
Another issue is that while many people might see Football or History as a ‘hobby’ or ‘passion’, and therefore buy or be bought factual books about those topics, do many people describe investing as a ‘hobby?’. In the same way they would talk about cooking or gardening? I’d wager that they wouldn’t.
And yet this is in spite of the fact that a huge proportion of the population certainly devoke a significant portion of their time to investing and saving in one way or another. It’s of course the topic of dinner conversations in terms of what interest rates and house prices are doing. But while discussing these items casually, people aren’t making the connection between a keen interest in these topics, and looking at investing as their ‘hobby’.
This leaves only those fringe few who see their stocks and share ISA as a hobby, who actually actively seek out the investing books in their local shop. It’s clearly still a large enough group to sustain many new investing books being published each and every year. But it’s a group that I would like to see expand, to the benefit of the investment publishing world and the audience.
After all, high investment book sales will lead to higher revenue for book publishers, who can then afford to pay for more titles or reward their authors more generously and encourage them to continue writing. This is in contrast to the current situation where many investing book authors write a single book and stop there. There isn’t enough money in it for them to consider it as a longer term pursuit. Instead they crunch out a single title, place it on their bookshelf and call it a day.
Therefore I encourage you to consider saving and investing as a hobby, as something you are ‘enthused’ about!
