"For publishers, every day is Mother's Day"

Mr. Green sends along this article, à propos Bridget Jones, from today's online edition of the Guardian (venerable British newspaper, Left of centre.)

Bridget Jones is 11 years old and immortal. She is pickled in chardonnay and shielded from the ravages of age by celluloid and the comic potential of big pants. But it is just over a decade since she first appeared in print. By the calculations of British publishers that means many of the women who first bought her diaries have since got married and had children.
Women over the age of 30 buy more new fiction than pretty much any demographic segment in the country, accounting for up to 70 per cent of the market. If you listen carefully on a quiet day in bookland you can discern the hum of a hundred agents making a hundred pitches: 'It's Bridget Jones with a boring husband, kids and a lover. Madame Bovary meets Grazia magazine. V funny, v sexy.'