A book that goes viral implies several things: A demographic exists within which the book is a must read. People who wouldn’t normally read much also tend to read this, vastly increasing sales and diffusion of the story or idea.

Eg: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, The da vinci code by Dan Brown

Such a book, if the first part of a novel series, tends to only grow its audience over a period of time as the demographic ages and the story continues, as a continuation for the original and as a must read for a new set of readers who age into the demographic. This phenomenon of aging into a demographic lasts only as long as the story isn’t complete with the release of the last book, after which it drops off sharply.

Eg: Harry Potter by J. K. Rowling

The demographic that makes a book go viral ages out of the territory covered by the context of the viral book. When a work of fiction, the aging out is literally age related, but when a work of non-fiction, it implies that the contextual content has fallen out of favor with the demographic, regardless of the existence of the issues addressed by that context.

The demographic has a certain range of issues that it chooses to contend with at any given time, and favor is given to different contexts in a rotating manner just to keep things looking fresh. The deeper dives into similar topics that are usually the products of any given non-fiction author’s work, do not generally garner the similar viral status as the original work.

This also implies that there is always some book that is viral in a given demographic, just that the contexts keep rotating around. While the erudite part of a demographic that was also part of the viral phenomenon, may likely choose to continue reading the given author’s later works to deepen their own understanding of the context, most of the original viral demographic that ages out of the context, either switch to a new viral book or stop reading altogether as something they did once. This implies the creation of new demographics and a flow out of the reading system. Then there are those who age into a demographic, who have their own set of contexts that will rotate around them as they age into other demographics or age out of the reading system.

This implies that at various stages of a person’s life, they are part of a demographic where the contexts are different as they are perceived by that demographic, there are author’s who target these contexts, there is always at least 1 viral book in every demographic, and the range of issues covered by viral context are naturally limited by the limited range of mass demographics.

It would be hard for an author of non-fiction to target these multiple demographics with a single or succession of works, if they aren’t aligned with the contextual realities as perceived by that demographic. The author chooses between capitalizing on the success of one viral work by slipping into the erudite conversational circles enabled by that success and the risks of appealing to a newer demographic, where the author, who has themselves aged, may feel not too conversant in the language of the newer demographic or feels it is too much work to do so, or is naturally disposed to dive deeper into the original context to bring forth new ideas and connections, but these do not have as much of an impact as the discussion is now limited to the erudite circles rather than a mass demographic.

There are also viral books that appeal to successive demographics. These are quite rare and are usually communications regarding higher order technical concepts that are presented in a form where the tone is conversational and seemingly erudite. A popular science work such as A brief history of time by Stephen Hawking would be one of these. This invites both those demographics who wish to gain a deeper understanding of the context and those who wish to be perceived as having that understanding.

This is similar to a highway with multiple entries and exits. At each leg of the journey people enter and exit, the flow of traffic remains relatively constant, the refueling stations and eateries beside the highway are similar to the rotating contexts, limited in range but served by different providers and chefs. What becomes viral, in this analogy? The food, as the highway may be moving through different geographies that have differing cuisines. There isn’t a destination per se on this highway, just entries and exits. The taste of the incoming people is heavily influenced by the taste and experience as reported by the outgoing people, but it isn’t the same.

Tunnels along the highway could be similar to a shortcut of idea flow, where one cuts through the noise (roads that would go around the mountain, and take longer to reach the other side). Thus, reading provides the avenue for learning from other peoples experiences and emerging just a bit wiser but ahead of those who don’t read.