How to become a rich in a bad economy by becoming a best-selling author:
1: Think up a plot for a book based on semi-modern mythology, try to avoid vampires, werewolves and witches/wizards as these have been done.

2: take whatever sounds good in your story and twist to cater to your audience. Teenage and pre-teen girls with their moms are one of the best markets, looking at the success of other franchises which will go unnamed here.

3: Further edit the story so that it becomes so romantic and soppy, with unrealistic, handsome, dashing and generally dreamy male characters that fall for unremarkable girls and love them unconditionally. These factors should make most of the girls who become major psychotic fans later never date any of their classmates, etc. because they all entertain the same foolish hope that the character from the book (and movies) will magically appear and sweep them off their feet.

4: Get a good enough publicist that can get you on Oprah. The money that you will have to spend to be able to bribe her with to get her to recommend it on air is worth it. The amount of profit that you will receive later will pay many times over for the money that you spent to get it on the show in the first place.

5: Draw out series long enough so that you can maximize your profit on the sales of the books and with the later movies.

6: Create enormous fan base to later consume mindlessly the literary swill that you later produce.