Another follow-up to the recent BookExpo America, held last weekend at the Javits Center here in NYC, in a decidedly more critical vein.
David Kipen of the San Francisco Chronicle commented that “by and large, underneath all the hoopla, attendees’ spirits proved as autumnal as their catalogs. In an age when no trend story is complete without the phrase “in an age when,” it fell to the Associated Press to point out that it’s easy for consumers to spend 8 percent more on books — just so long as books keep costing at least 8 percent more than they used to. In other words, folks are buying fewer books, but shelling out more for them. Seen in this light, the book-sales glass is not only half-empty, but looking decidedly on the brackish side.”.
Here’s this reporters suggestion (as a participant in the show); focus more on the small publishers and don’t forget to check out the many wonderful titles that don’t end up on the bestseller lists.
Another follow-up to the recent BookExpo America, held last weekend at the Javits Center here in NYC, in a decidedly more critical vein.
David Kipen of the San Francisco Chronicle commented that “by and large, underneath all the hoopla, attendees’ spirits proved as autumnal as their catalogs. In an age when no trend story is complete without the phrase “in an age when,” it fell to the Associated Press to point out that it’s easy for consumers to spend 8 percent more on books — just so long as books keep costing at least 8 percent more than they used to. In other words, folks are buying fewer books, but shelling out more for them. Seen in this light, the book-sales glass is not only half-empty, but looking decidedly on the brackish side.”.
Here’s this reporters suggestion (as a participant in the show); focus more on the small publishers and don’t forget to check out the many wonderful titles that don’t end up on the bestseller lists.More from the article: “So are all the publishing professionals and amateurs who showed up for BEA simply deluded? If so, according to publisher Malcolm Margolin of Berkeley’s Heyday Books, “At least that delusion is shared by thousands of people.”
But are thousands enough? Readers aren’t just buying fewer books total, they’re buying fewer different books. As conglomerates like WalMart come to dominate a larger and larger slice of the book market, the much smaller selection in stores like theirs has real consequences for the biodiversity of American thought. On Saturday, the audience at a C-SPAN2 panel laughed when I suggested that no bookstore should stock more than a single copy of any one book at a time. But is that any more absurd than the alternative we’re fast approaching, when stores will finally stock thousands of copies of only one book?”
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