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BOOK SALES UP; READERSHIP DOWN
Both publishers and booksellers celebrated the news that
print book sales were up 9.1 percent last year.
A huge increase in fiction units sold led the way, with young adult fiction sales jumping 30.7 percent,
adult fiction up 25.5 percent, and children’s fiction up 9.6 percent, respectively.
All told, print book sales
have risen more than 18 percent since the start of the pandemic in early 2020.
NOW THE BAD NEWS
The statistics on female readership are specifically troubling.
For decades, women read nearly twice as many books as men, but the gap has narrowed significantly.
The average American woman read 15.7 books last year compared to 19.3 books five years ago.
While male readership declined only slightly over the same time period, going from 10.4 books in 2016 to 9.5 in 2021,
This decrease in the number of books women read will particularly impact
fiction sales, given that women account for 80 percent of all fiction sales in
the U.S., U.K., and Canada.
The overall decline in readership is likely due to increased interest in other at-home leisure activities, particularly digital streaming services.
LIKE ARCANE
Just six percent claimed reading to be their favorite way to spend an evening,
far below spending time with family (33%) or watching television or movies (23%).
Gallup notes that this is only the second time since 1960
that's less than 10 percent of Americans
didn’t select reading as their top favorite evening activity.
Unsettling, right?
Paper Shortages Continue to Delay Book Publication
Even though some mills might have closed, more likely than
not they’re not making book papers anymore.
SO WHAT TO DO?
DEPENDS
DO YOU WANT TO CREATE ART?
WANT TO SELL BOOKS?
Follow Elmore Leonard best rule:
Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
Think
of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have
too many words in them.
Write what interests and amuses you ... someone else might have similar tastes.
If not, you will have spent time in a world that absorbs you.
Interesting. I wonder as the world begins to recover and come out more, it sales will go up or it it will take a few more years after that. 🤔
ReplyDeleteHabits, like not reading, tend to stay unless other things step in. Take care, Holli. :-)
DeleteI'll try to do more reading to help the statistics. I've been making good progress on my reading list so far this year...
ReplyDeleteMaybe up those statistics with a book of my short stories, most told through feminine eyes? Just a
Deletethought/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07XKWX8H4 color pictures and only 99 cents!
Thanks for visiting, Kim. :-)
Hilarious, Roland! My thought is that female readership went down because so many women were juggling jobs, educating their children, keeping the larder full, and managing the house with everyone home all the time. They may have been buying more books in the hopes of reading them, but when downtime came, they just collapsed exhausted in front of the tv. Have a creative May!
ReplyDeleteI think you have a very good point! I know my draining job as a rare blood courier has me with little energy to read!
Delete