For any who may be interested, I’m continuing to add titles to my LibraryThing catalog, a few at a time as I have the opportunity and whenever the damn thing is working. The site frequently seems to be overwhelmed by server requests; I’m guessing the owners were unprepared for a flood of new memberships resulting from a mention on Boing Boing. I’ve got 200 books up there now. At the rate I’m going, I should have the entire Bennion Library up for your perusal by this same time next summer…

In the meantime, I’ve found something rather interesting (and somewhat related), a vast collection of statistics about books and the book industry. Here are some items that grabbed my attention:

• [There are] 1.5+ million titles in print (currently available in the U.S.) Since 1776, 22 million titles have been published.
• [In 2002,] the five large New York publishers accounted for 45% of the market (made 45% of the sales). They grossed $4.1 billion.
• Most initial print runs are 5,000 copies.
• While the US population is growing and education levels are rising, book sales are not, due to heavy media competition for leisure time.
• The top ten US cities by dollar volume of book sales and number of bookstores are Los Angeles-Long Beach; New York; Chicago; Boston; Washington, Philadelphia; San Francisco; Seattle-Bellevue-Everett; San Jose; San Diego.
• On the average, a book store browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

Here is a series of stats that should be completely disheartening to those who, like myself, aspire to make a living by telling stories:

• 81% of the population feels they have a book inside them.
• 27% would write fiction.
• 28% would write on personal development.
• 27% would write history, biography, etc.
• 20% would do a picture book, cookbook, etc.
• 6 million have written a manuscript.
• 6 million manuscripts are making the rounds.
• Out of every 10,000 children’s books, 3 get published.

And finally, some numbers that will no doubt send a chill through anyone who loves books and reading:

• One-third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives. Many do not even graduate from high school.
• 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
• 42% of college graduates never read another book.
• 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
• 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
• 57% of new books are not read to completion.
• Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased.

You know, I hear numbers like these quite often — it seems like every six months or so, there’s a fretful article about the death of reading and the overall dumbening of America. But I’ve got to wonder… if so few people read, and it seems that the number gets smaller every year, then who the hell is buying all those books being produced and sold by the book industry? Seriously, the numbers don’t match up in my mind. Just a little something to consider…

Incidentally, the Web site where I got these figures has much more information about just about every aspect of publishing that you can think of. It also includes source annotations, so all of this can be traced. If this interests you at all, go check it out…