BETWEEN THE LINES

Book Talk by Joe


Popularity of Books Still Soaring

Contrary to a somewhat misleading but well-publicized study, and a widely circu-lated article in a major national newspaper, most people continue to buy and read books as much as they ever have.

In 2004, the National Endowment for the Arts released “Reading at Risk: A Sur-vey of Literary Reading in America,” which concluded that Americans were read-ing fewer and fewer books and that, indeed, the literary sky was falling. This somewhat alarmist report was misleading, in that it only included literary fiction, completely ignoring the enormous number of genre fiction (mystery, science fic-tion, etc.) and non-fiction books that Americans read every day.

And, just last month, the New York Times Magazine published an article, “Scan This Book” by Kevin Kelly which predicted the total demise of the traditional book in favor of digital and electronic media. Mr. Kelly believes that everyone will abandon the book as we know it and maintain all of their reading requirements on an iPod.

According to the American Booksellers Association, book sales have been in-creasing every year, with a 3% increase forecast for 2006. So, if we are still buy-ing and reading books, where are we buying them?

According to Publishers Weekly, the large chain bookstores combined account for approximately 25% of the annual book sales in the United States. Book clubs (Book-of-the-Month Club, Doublday, etc.) garner about 20% of the market. Inde-pendent bookstores are responsible for 18%.

Surprisingly, internet book sales (Amazon.com) and price clubs (Costco, Sam's Club, etc.) are tied for fourth place, each with only an 8% market share.
As total book sales have increased, these percentages of market share have re-mained fairly constant, with only the independent bookstores increasing their slice of the pie, from 14% to 18%.

The independent bookstore has indeed survived and thrived through increasing competition from the big box chain stores as well as the internet. Apparently, book buyers rate personal service, knowledge of books and diversity of inventory as important as price in their decision of where to buy their books.

Mr. Kelly, and other doomsayers, should come to Sedona and see how not only the independent bookstore, but the independent coffee house and the independ-ent hardware store and the non-chain independent restaurant and many other independent businesses, are doing. Not to mention a thriving public library.
Sedona is not New York, thank goodness. Let's keep it that way, and support your local independent businesses.