Best-selling authors are frantically racing to get their latest titles on the bookshelves as it is revealed Dan Brown's new blockbuster, the long awaited sequel to The Da Vinci Code, will be published on September 15.
he cover of The Lost Symbol was unveiled just last week and shot the book straight into Amazon's top 10, over two months before it is to hit bookstores.
Publishers quickly took note and have moved the release dates of new books by multi-million selling writers such as Nick Hornby, Sebastian Faulks and William Trevor forward to give them a chance of reaching the summit of the best-seller lists before Brown's new novel dominates the charts.
With the book industry -- usually impervious to the swings and roundabouts of economic downturns -- finally being ravaged by the recession it is hoped Brown's new juggernaut will help steamroll the sector back to health in time for the Christmas market.
In the words of one executive, the success of The Lost Symbol will "mean the difference between caviar or cat food for Christmas dinner".
The Da Vinci Code and its predecessors, Digital Fortress, Angels & Demons and Deception Point, are the top four best-selling adult paperback novels this side of the Atlantic.