From The Bookseller:
This week the Telegraph newspaper laid a cloak of misery over the excellent UK book publishing results for 2016, concentrating of course on the negative element…(lordy, they talk of “the demise of fiction”).
In fact, the UK book industry delivered an amazingly healthy 7% increase in overall book sales (the best industry sales growth seen since 2007). Non-fiction grew by 9%. We also see the trend where e-books (Kindle books) have slowed in favour of a partial return to physical books. It’s becoming clear (in the USA too) that Kindles are liked by readers when reading books that will probably engross them once, as they read, but that they won’t return to again. And of course Kindles are so handy when travelling.
But the physical book makes sense when you might return to look at it again sometime in the future, a non-fiction subject or a literary novel say, and is, of course, the best choice for anything illustrated like cookery books etc. Plus the physical books we’ve read sit like old friends on our book shelves. Physical books matter to the publishing industry because they mean our author/publisher/agent “product” isn’t merely a file hidden within Amazon’s product. It gives the book a presence. Books give us bookshops and do something to curb the power of Amazon, the publishing Overlord. Note that Waterstones turned a small profit last year after years of losses.
The Telegraph points to the tough time being had by fiction (23% down in the past five years). That is a bad news trend; as an agent it can sometimes feel that there are as many aspirant writers of literary fiction as there are readers of new literary fiction. And yes that’s a phenomenon that everyone involved in writing needs to understand, especially authors. It’s a fact that potential readers, looking to be engrossed by storytelling, do have new choices (boxsets for me, gaming for others). And smartphones can end up owning our quiet times alone; where before a book made our best companion. But these trends don’t feel fatal at all. At an industry level they show we need the sales magic of a new writer to challenge JK Rowling’s massive historical revenue contribution to the industry (her new work, The Cursed Child is a play script and so, as far as the official statistics are concerned, is in a different category to fiction).
Link to the rest at The Bookseller and thanks to Nell and others for the tip.
What a safe and wonderful time we see ahead. The future will be the same as the present, but more so.
PG looks to a future time when a precocious child asks, “Mommy, what’s a bookshelf?” (Alternatively, “Mummy, . . . .” if the child is English.)
Or, “Mommy, what’s a bookshelf and who are Bill Clinton and James Patterson?”
PG, you are in fine form today! Brilliant three post run, there.
It’s becoming clear (in the USA too) that Kindles are liked by readers when reading books that will probably engross them once, as they read, but that they won’t return to again.
How is that becoming clear?
They forgot to take off their Glasses of Wishful Thinking +3.
Yeah. I have many ebooks I read over and over. My eink reader is small and light, easy on the eyes, and easy to hold, and I prefer it to pbooks because of that.
I’m still waiting for the rapturous articles about how audiobooks are transforming the novel, bringing back the glory days of radio drama that were tragically lost to that brain-eating trashy medium of television, and how increasing sales of audiobooks indicate a hunger for the authentic experience that is oral literature.
Oh, wait. Audiobooks (and podcasts) won’t save bookstores. It’s another form that will be served up via Amazon Echo, invading our homes and corrupting our children, like that trashy new medium, the wireless, which replaced newspapers and magazines as a source of thoughtful discussion of the day’s news and quality serial fiction.
The OP seems to accept the report that ebooks are declining and dismiss the claim that fiction is declining. I suspect the validity of dismissing the second lies in challenging the first. All those missing ebooks that are not counted in these reports because they don’t come from large establishment publishers must be something. Perhaps fiction?
Printmongering aside, the fact is the novel as literary form is in the best shape it’s ever been now that it is free of the tyranny of the word count and establishment gatekeeping.
Another fact to consider is that the novel is a relatively recent development in the use of the written word and human civilization would not collapse without it. From the perspective of human history, it just doesn’t matter if the novel dies as an art form or not. People will still tell stories in whatever way they can and that’s really all that matters.
When the epic poem got unpopular, civilization did nit collapse. And they were much older (and arguably more important to literature) than novels are, today.
The novel may not be history, but ‘only’ finding it on tree pulp is.
“The Telegraph points to the tough time being had by fiction (23% down in the past five years). ”
No, overpriced trad-pub fiction is down 23% while non-trad-pub non-overpriced indie/self-pub is doing quite nicely, thank you.
And as (some of us) eyes fail, the ability to increase the font size will cut into the ‘one size fits all’ paper sales even more. (Found my old paperback copy of Spider Robinson’s ‘By Any Other Name’ and gave myself a headache by the time I’d finished a story. If it’d been an ebook I’d just bump up the font and not spend the time squinting.)
I get so confused when people talk about the ‘death of the novel’ when they’re speaking specifically of print books. Should I be calling myself an eNovelist?
Perhaps it’s the prognosticators that need a new label.
Aside from an increase in reading since getting my newest ereader (an eink Kindle from my sister for Christmas), my habits with books haven’t changed. They didn’t change when I got my first Nook, either. I still read some books only once and “cast aside,” and other books I reread over and over, no matter how familiar they’ve become to me. Just as I behaved with all those wonderful, beautiful, precious print books that I no longer have room to store.
In fact, I prefer to reread on an ereader so much, I’ve bought ebook copies of old favorite books once available only in print. Print books make my hands cramp and go painfully tingly any more these days.
Can people stop waxing poetic on the glory and treasure that print books are for everyone and start accepting the fact that different people read different books in different formats without regard to how “special” print books (and those who read pbooks solely) are?
Me, too. I’m so glad I got most of the Georgette Heyer ebooks when they were still priced $2.99 – $5.99. Now they’re all $9.99 and it would be tough to find the cash for the 30+ that I want on my ereader. 😉
Yeah, that would be a pretty tough thing to fund.
One of my favorite things about now having a Kindle, though, is the ability to give myself a $5.00 allowance every month for ebooks. They’re just about the only thing (aside from certain Kindle accessories) that I buy from Amazon anyway, so it’s nice to know that if I feel like it or come across an interesting book I MUST have, I’ve got a little money conveniently stashed aside right on Amazon for such purchases. With the TBR books on my Kindle already, I can usually go a couple months before I come across yet another book I MUST have. LOL
The only reason why I’ve powered up my Nook since Christmas is so I can identify the in-progress and TBR books I have on it so I can purchase them for my Kindle. That’s how much I love the thing. I tell ya, it’s a darn good thing I got nearly all my Nookbooks with B&N gift cards given me for my birthday and Christmas.