The Dan Poynter newsletter recently had a blurb about publishing statistics and referred the reader to the website: http://bookstatistics.com. Here are just a few of the stats. There are literally dozens of amazing statistics that can generate both enthusiasm and depression, depending upon the stat and also upon your current writing/publishing situation. Here are just a few examples.
A new book is published every 30 seconds.
78% of the titles come from small/self-publishers.
80% of the book sales are controlled by five conglomerates: Bertelsmann (Random House), Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., Time-Warner, Disney, and Viacom/CBS.
Lightning Source grew from 3 employees in 1997 to more than 500 today; the company digitally scans about 2,000 books a week and prints 1.2 million books a month. "It took us 7 years to print 10 million books," says Lightning Source VIP Kirby Best. "This year we published 10 million books in the first 11 months."
Contributed by Russ Heitz
www.russheitz.com
Announcements
FWA Sarasota Writers Group Leader
- Susan Haley
- As Group Leader of the Sarasota Chapter of the Florida Writers Association, I'm also actively attending other writing groups and Community Literary events to advance the premise "Writers Helping Writers". I'm really excited about the power of Networking and have met some wonderful people all over the country. I'm grateful to FWA and Infinity Publishing for these opportunities. I'm the author of two published books: "Fibers In The Web" published by Whispering Wind Publishing and "Rainy Day People" published by Infinity Publishing. The audio version of "Rainy Day People" received a 2008 Indie Excellence National Book award.