Fair’s Fair “For Book Lovers”

Left Calgary May 24 to attend the book convention in New York – May 29-31.

Air miles made it possible to fly business class to Denver and then economy class to LaGuardia so the trip on United Airlines was pleasant.

Finished a book during the flights,  – “Rebel Bookseller: How to Improvise Your Own Indie Store and Beat Back the Chains” by Andrew Laties, 2005. Lots of good ideas and interesting insight on various aspects of the book business – dealing in childrens books sales, The American Booksellers Association, remainders, etc. It was a quick read

After 21 years in business the book business still fascinates me – especially now with all the negativity attacking it from just about every direction. It’s almost as though there is a grand design to limit accessibility to the printed word. Those few of us that read regularly find it difficult to believe most of the people in North America don’t read – and many can’t read. How could happen in our social circumstances? By law, every child has to attend school until they are 16 years of age – shouldn’t learning to read be THE priority?

Shouldn’t we all be shouting – “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE?” If a child can’t read fluently by the time they are in grade 6 shouldn’t everyone in the school district be fired? “It’s appalling — it’s really astounding,” said Michael Gorman, president of the American Library Association and a librarian at California State University at Fresno. “Only 31 percent of college graduates can read a complex book and extrapolate from it. That’s not saying much for the remainder.”

The most prevalent theme at the convention was E-Books and how they are becoming so popular. It seems obvious that the publishers are panicking under the heavy load of returns foisted on them by the big box stores and they see the attractiveness of the “print-on-demand” aspect E-books present.

I like electronic gadgets as much as anyone and know I would enjoy having my favorite books handy so the E-book idea appeals to me on that level – the fact I can afford it and still haven’t bought one makes me think about its negative aspects. I am still exposed to new books I would like to read and if I am bogged down by the ones I have already downloaded will that limit and inhibit the scope of my reading? – downloading a book is still not cheap. Do I want to contribute to the ongoing success of Amazon? – often seen as being the beginning of the end for the book business as we once knew it. Is it my imagination or do you too notice that Jeff Bezo’s laugh has a certain ring of deviltry in it? … smile.

I have to admit that I came away from the convention concerned about the future of the book business – what do you think?

From another website – http://www.humorwriters.org/startlingstats.html

The following statistics about book publishing and reading were found on www.parapub.com, the Web site of self-publishing guru Dan Poynter. They’ll give you an idea of what you’re up against if you want to write books for a living. 

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. 42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college. 80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years. 57 percent of new books are not read to completion. 70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance. 70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)