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WHEN QUANTITY OVERWHELMS QUALITY
Sunday’s New York Times Book Review carried an essay by Rachel Donadio, a writer and editor at Book Review, that should give any author (or publisher) pause for serious thought. It becomes particularly jolting when read alongside the recent NEA report on reading in the US.
Despite the fact that NEA researchers discovered that 53% of Americans had not read a book in the past year, the number of published books grew from 300,000 in 2006 to 400,000 last year.
(As an aside, the growth occurred not just in books. According to Technorati records, blogs are growing at the rate of 175,000 per day world wide.)
I think the proliferation of political books has bolstered the increase. Bookstore windows and shelves are jammed with the output of candidates, active politicos, CIA experts, Bush haters and retired government officials.
Donadio attributes much of the increase to the burgeoning world of Publishing on Demand. She cites the 36,000 titles that iUniverse has in print and the 20,000 Xlibris boasts despite the fact that this segment of the publishing industry is still very young.
The essay quotes an iUniverse VP as admitting that most of the books she publishes sell less than 200 copies. Unfortunately, that’s reflected in the totals for the overall book publishing industry where sales of 200 or less are altogether too common.
Has production surpassed consumption? Increased publishing combined with decreased reading surely makes it look that way. How sad that is in this once-erudite nation. With admissions by POD publishers like Xlibris that they are “nonselective” in choosing manuscripts, the book world has become glutted with mediocrity. That may well be a major contributor to the fall-off in readership, and has to have a negative impact on quality authors. It’s something like the second hand smoke syndrome. The mediocrity rubs off even on those who don’t deserve it.
This has certainly made me do some soul searching. My latest book, The Writer Within You, was designed to help retirees take advantage of their free time to fulfill life-long dreams of writing. It was inspired in great part by the Gallup Poll’s discovery that 81% of mature American adults long to write a book.
The success of the book, already in its second printing, confirms the apparent huge interest in writing. I recognize that the very favorable reviews it has received and its inclusion in four best books of the year listings have contributed greatly to sales. Still I wonder how beneficial my effort is, if no one is going to read the output of the retirees I urge to write.
I share this with you as I ponder the real question: What does the future hold for the publishing industry?
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