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Tom Cheetham's avatar

dammit Ted - how long is it gonna take me to red all of these? which i now have no choice about…

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lagz9's avatar

As a P.S., 58,000 titles published in a single year = loss leaders. I haven't worked in bookstores since the 90s, but even then, there were *far* too many titles being published. That any one new hardcover (keep in mind that most titles from major houses are still issued in HC 1st, with paperbacks following in 9-12 months) sells more than a few hundred copies is pretty amazing, given current list prices.

That people *are* buying books is indisputable, but what they're buying are *backlist titles.* Not new HC books, unless they're intended as gifts.

I'm not sure the author who claims that nobody's buying books understands much about bookstores and bookselling - and I wonder if e-books are included in the figures she cites? My hunch is that they're not.

Most publishers make the bulk of their profits on backlist titles. And since used books aren't counted (by publshers or anyone else, any more than used LPs or CDs are), there are more buyers and sellers than the article suggests.

With today's economy, buying new books on a regular basis is something relatively few people can afford. Like most library patrons, you know?

I think that the author's statements are pretty misleading - not on purpose, but b/c she lacks context and perspective. And there are a *lot* of small, independent publishers in this country. They're not taken into account by the writer.

Honestly, 58K new titles per annum is just idiotic. 10-15K is also way up there, but farr more reasonable than 58K.

Only in America would such excess ever be thought of as normal; the more so b/c an awful lot of those new titles are the kind of sci/tech writing that only specialist booksellers carry. I used to work near a store that specialized in math, science, and tech titles. It was a large store and was crammed with books that only a handful of people would ever buy or read, and yet, they sold lots and lots of books daily, to people who knew that this store - and only this one (except for their opposite numbers in Manhattan) carried what they needed.

Those kinds of titles are as far off from what's stocked by most bookstores as Antarctica is from Timbuktu (and its amazing libraries from the 1st millennium CE/AD).

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