the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2020, Keyes again rejected the term chick lit as dismissive and sexist, as popular fiction written by men is not described as "dick lit". Publishers In 2000, Sydney Morning Herald described the "publishing phenomenon" of what it called "chicfic," books with "Covers [that] are candy-bright, heavy in pink and fluorescence. The titles are also candy-bright, hinting at easy digestion and a good laugh... ...Such books are positioned in a marketplace as hybrids of the magazine article, fictional or fictionalised, television...and comfort food digestible over a single night at home." Through the 2000s publishers continue to push the subgenre because sales continue to be high. In 2003, Publishers Weekly reported on numerous new chick lit imprints, such as, "Kensington's Strapless, which launched in April 2003 and has one book a month scheduled through the end of 2004. Kensington editorial director John Scognamiglio explained that the imprint was created in response to requests from salespeople for a chick lit brand." Nonetheless, the same Publishers Weekly article was already looking back enviously at the massive sales achieved by Bridget Jones's Diary in 1998 and commenting on the challenges for chick lit publishers in a now-overcrowded market. Already, Publishers Weekly suggested, chick lit was - if not in decline - at least at a turning point. In 2008, editor Sara Nelson stated that the definition of what's considered to be within the genre of chick lit has become more accomplished and "grown up". By 2012 news sources were reporting the death of chick lit. Salon.com reported that "Because chick lit (whatever it is - or was) provoked so many ideologically fraught arguments about the values placed on women's vs. men's tastes, high- vs. lowbrow culture, comedy vs. drama and so on, it's tempting to read particular significance into its decline," but went on to argue that the decline was due to a normal process of changing fashion and taste in genre fiction. Chick lit globally Though chick lit originated in the UK and U.S., it rapidly became a global publishing phenomenon - and indeed may have been one of the first truly global publishing trends. India In India, Rajashree's Trust Me was the biggest-selling Indian chick lit novel. The popularity of novels like Trust Me, Swati Kaushal's Piece of Cake can be seen in the context of the rise of regional varieties of chick lit. In an interview