Reason #7: Publishing is Dying

These statistics have done the blog-cha-cha in the last few weeks:

In 2004, Nielsen Bookscan tracked the sales of 1.2 million books in the United States and here's what they came up with:

• Of those 1.2 million, 950,000 sold fewer than 99 copies.
• Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies.
• Only 25,000 books sold more than 5,000 copies.
• Fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000 copies.
• Only 10 books sold more than a million copies each.
• The average book in the United States sells about 500 copies.

(From Bookends, where it seems to have started, though they claim otherwise. A print-on-demand shill calls it evidence of a "dying industry". Miss Snark weighs in with caveats.)

If you read these points (particularly the last three) and think "Hey, only 500 copies, what's the point of even trying?", then I say:

Bravo! Stop writing, and you'll have more time to read books written by people better than you.

Now, there are many reasons why these statistics are not representative of the industry as a whole. (They track ISBNs, not titles; they only count 70% of the retail market; the 1.2M figure includes backlist, small press, print-on-demand and even calendars; they don't include Amazon or WalMart; this only covers the US market, etc.)

But based on these numbers, the reports of the death of the industry are greatly exaggerated. Even on the most conservative interpretation of these figures, the top 25,000 books sold at least 180 million copies, an average of 7,200. (Make up a number for the unaccounted sales.)

Do you think there are 25,000 books in the world that are worth a damn? If you haven't cracked the top 25,000 yet, should we feel sorry for you?