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Written by Knight Ridder
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Wednesday, 07 June 2006 |
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First the British sent redcoats to crush our rebellion.
Then they dispatched the Beatles and Stones to usurp Elvis and Buddy Holly.
Now they’re publishing more books than we are.
In 2005 British publishers released 206,000 new books, compared with the United States’ 172,000 new titles, according to Bowker, a New Jersey company that tracks the industry.
It was only the second time since the mid-1980s that British book publishing exceeded book publishing in the United States, said Andrew Grabois, a consultant for Bowker who did the research.
“The interesting angle here is the international one — the fact that a country like Great Britain, with one-fifth the population of the United States... published more new books.”
For Grabois and others, the big question is cultural.
“You have to wonder how a country with 300 million people (doesn’t) support more new books,” Grabois said in an interview at BookExpo America held recently in Washington, D.C.
John Updike, who was at BookExpo promoting his forthcoming novel, “Terrorist,” said other media have encroached on Americans’ time for reading.
“Not that there wasn’t media even when I was a boy, but it was confined to the movies and radio. Radio didn’t demand that you sit there all night in a stupor watching it. You listened, but it was over quickly... It still left reading time, and a reading mindset.”
Even into the 1970s, TV wasn’t on 24/7. (Remember test patterns?) Now it is, and so is the Internet, and so is satellite radio, and so on.
“It does say a lot about our country that this tiny island published more books,” said Francine Fialkoff, editor of Library Journal. “We’re just too... scattered. America is such an incredibly wealthy country, and we have so many kinds of media thrown at us and available to us.”
Does a decrease in the number of books published mean Americans are reading less?
It’s not clear whether there is a correlation, but, in fact, Americans are reading less fiction.
In 2004 the National Endowment for the Arts surveyed 17,000 adults on whether they read literature on a regular basis. In 1982 the figure was about 57 percent. Two years ago the survey showed that had dropped to 46.7 percent.
The NEA’s chairman worried that less reading could mean even bigger problems for society.
“Reading requires sustained, focused attention, working with the powers of memory and imagination,” Dana Gioia saidafter the report was released. “I believe that a society which cultivates those capabilities of attention, imagination and memory is one better mentally and intellectually prepared for the challenges of democracy and the modern economy.”
People who read typically are more involved in their communities. According to the NEA report, readers were more likely to be volunteers, play leisure sports, visit museums and attend sporting events.
Experts say reading hasn’t become any less important, even with the explosion in electronic media.
“When you go to the Internet, what do you do?” asked Janis Doty, program coordinator at Literacy Kansas City. “You read.”
People who can’t read well find themselves disqualified for many good-paying jobs, Doty said. Troubles with literacy typically start in childhood, she said, so it’s important for parents to emphasize reading early on.
Economically, the U.S. book industry is not in trouble, Grabois said, and figures from other groups back him up.
Book sales may be flat or, at best, showing modest growth. But depending on who is doing the estimating — the American Association of Publishers and the Book Industry Study Group, among others — the U.S. publishing industry generates revenues of $25 billion to $35 billion annually.
That means books are bigger than the movie box office and recorded music— and second only to television in entertainment clout.
Also, it’s not exactly as if U.S. booksellers have been screaming for more product.
Pete Cowdin, co-owner of Kansas City’s Reading Reptile, an independent children’s bookstore, said publishers have been putting out too many titles.
“Now they’re starting to pull back,” Cowdin said. That might not be a bad thing. Quality and quantity are not synonymous.
Besides, a decline of 18,000 books from 190,000 may be significant, but it’s not drastic or even all that noticeable to the American bookseller or buyer, Cowdin said.
“It’s like looking at the ocean and saying someone stole half a cup.”
No boom lasts forever.
Not all publishers are scaling back.
Elise Howard, an associate publisher for children’s fiction at HarperCollins, home of the “Lemony Snicket” books, said her company hasn’t reduced its offerings and won’t.
She said youth fiction’s profitability and demand have gone up as the industry shifted from picture books to young adult books. Harry Potter was a big reason.
Before that, retailers weren’t interested in selling hardcover fiction for kids.
What’s more, mass-market retailers such as Wal-Mart have gotten into the bookselling business. And some of the most popular children’s books — the Potter, Snicket and Narnia series — have also been made into movies and gotten wide exposure.
No boom lasts forever, though. Bowker’s Grabois said U.S. presses produced fewer children’s books in 2005 than in 2004, a double-digit drop.
That won’t surprise Crystal Faris, manager of the Waldo Library in south Kansas City. Her theory? Libraries are one of the biggest buyers of children’s books. In the last few years, many libraries have seen their budgets stagnate or shrink. That could hurt publishers.
But Faris isn’t worried. “We have a wealth of books in this country,” she said, and the average person probably won’t notice a drop in titles.
Fialkoff and Updike are optimistic, too.
“There may be some impact from all the blogging and ... all that’s going on today,” Fialkoff said. “People communicate online a lot now; there are many kinds of reading going on.” Most people, though, can’t read books on a computer screen; it’s tiring. “Linear reading requires books.”
And there’s still a kind of magic in the imaginative power it takes for a reader to turn words on a page into a vivid experience, Updike said.
“What amazes me is how we’re able to read a book for an hour before bed, forget it and pick it up again and still be in it.
“It’s kind of wonderful.”
Book slump
U.S. publishers released 172,000 titles in 2005, down about 18,000 from 2004. Meanwhile, British-published books rose from 161,000 titles in 2004 to 206,000 in 2005.
The decline in U.S. publishing was the first since 1999 and only the 10th in the last 50 years, according to Bowker, a company that has been tracking the numbers for decades.
Keep your kids reading
Try giving your child a book allowance, perhaps in the form of a bookstore gift card.
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