What
follows is some information related to the book
publishing business. This information has been gleaned
from a variety of sources, including the New York Times and
the American Booksellers Association:
Since the opening of the major chain book superstores in the
early 1990s, Americans gradually have come to buy fewer books
and pay more for them, surely reading less as a result. The
average American household spent $164 on reading in 1997 versus
$201 in 1987, a decline of 18 percent. Since the mid-1990s,
publishers have seen their profit margins dropping and their
trade book
units shipped decreasing. These declines resulting from
the corporate superstore model, have occurred during one of Americas
healthiest economic booms.
In 1985, the United States led all nations in book title production
(the number of different titles published). But by 1995,
the U.S. had fallen to fourth. As title diversity and trade
sales declined, the number of big bestsellers (300,000 or more
copies sold) has grown to a record number, and the number of
100,000-copy sellers has also increased. This trend juxtaposed
against declining book sales overall means that midlist books
are falling off the edge — never seeing the light of day. And
that means that it is much harder than previously for literary
writers to break into print and develop an audience.
Other related phenomena include the news that readers under
twenty-five are buying fewer books, and that readers with annual
incomes greater than $75,000 — ordinarily loyal book buyers
— are in fact buying fewer books. And in general,
readers are buying fewer fiction titles than in the past. Fiction
sales decreases mirror an overall decline in book sales, which
are expected to drop from 2.41 billion in 2001 to 2.39 billion
in 2002, with a further decline of 10 million in the following
year. Simultaneously, the number of new books published
each year is increasing. 135,000 new titles came out in
2001, which was more than 10 percentv above 2000. More
books are competing for fewer buyers. As a result, some
publishers have been cutting their lists. Doubleday, for
instance, now publishes 200 titles a year versus the 400 per
year it used
to publish. Several years ago, Harper-Collins killed many
titles on its list in order to economize.
All of this spells a period of transition and relative difficulty
for writers. The publishing industry is in the middle of
a movement into the digital era, and while on-line book sales
currently account for a relatively low percentage of total American
book sales, this figure is sure to grow, and the ultimate wide
availability of digitized books and print-on-demand should bring
new opportunities for writers, though not without territorial
struggles with the big publishers who are trying to control the
field for the future.
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