Traditional Book Sales Up in 2010 . . . But Only Some Books Sales
Published May 30th, 2011 | 
Knew this guy in high school. Nice guy. Real cheery fellow. Loved to race around on his atv on the weekends. One day he’s racing around quite recklessly, blew up his atv power steering going up a hill, lost control and went flying ass-over-head. Lucky to be alive with only a dislocated shoulder and a few minor cuts and bruises. I was thinking about that guy while reading a blog post earlier about how traditional publisher did better than expected with print sales last year. Now, I’m not really in the “print is dead” category, but I will say that print is only doing as well as it is despite e-books and not because print is a smart and growing market.
Traditional publisher’s are like ole Randy, going about their business, pushing ahead despite difficulties. But mainstream publishing blew out their power steering a long time ago and they’ve misjudged the distance until they reach the top of the hill.
Consider the numbers: a 5% percent increase in traditional book sales sounds impressive until you break the numbers down by genre and format. Certain nonfiction books did get a bump, but fiction actually is continuing to take a nosedive. Science books are selling, but science fiction books are still literature’s unloved stepchildren. Hardback books did okay, but mass market paperbacks are on life support.
No, the whole print v. e-books isn’t Sophie’s choice for readers or publishers, but publishers do have to decide where to invest their money and so will readers.
