American's reading in decline, except it's not this year!

[Drkshadow03]

With all the huffing and puffing going on in the Harry Potter thread about all the future illiterates being born and the decline of readers in the National Endowments report, apparently nobody has bothered to check the most recent National Endowments Report, which says reading is on the rise!

Link here. (http://www.nea.gov/news/news09/ReadingonRise.html)

[JCamilo]

yes, and as red herring, there is no reason to believe it is related to any specific work, however there is a good reason to believe "education" is the cause, since it seems like minority groups are becaming readers.

* Young adults show the most rapid increases in literary reading. Since 2002, 18-24 year olds have seen the biggest increase (nine percent) in literary reading, and the most rapid rate of increase (21 percent). This jump reversed a 20 percent rate of decline in the 2002 survey, the steepest rate of decline since the NEA survey began.
* Since 2002, reading has increased at the sharpest rate (+20 percent) among Hispanic Americans, Reading rates have increased among African Americans by 15 percent, and among Whites at an eight percent rate of increase.
* For the first time in the survey's history, literary reading has increased among both men and women. Literary reading rates have grown or held steady for adults of all education levels.

[islandclimber]

and yes still 50% of american adults did not read a novel, a short story, a poem, or a play last year... something to be very proud of "ain't" it...

also this does not take into account what these American adults are reading.... which is one of the main points of the other threads.. the dumbing down of the american reader... what people are reading is increasingly mediocre... but whatever we won't get anywhere if we drop into that debate again.. congratulations america you are on the rise! :p

[islandclimber]

and looking at it more closely, well the biggest increase over the period was in the 18-24 group, a 9 percent increase in literary reading from 2002 - 2008... but let us consider that this is the Harry Potter generation, and the Twilight generation.. and that it is more than likely that the vast majority of this age group will have only read such books in the last year.. so we are just increasing the amount of people reading a couple books... just opinion but I wish there was a way to find out what people had had read... it would be much more interesting to see what the rate of reading was for classic literature, and contemporary non-genre literature...

[JCamilo]

It can not be something as HP (or anybook), it would generate a similar growth in the teenage group as well (considering they are reading HP and those between 18-25 are those who read it).
It is something that happens with the 18-25 group, which is usually University. Considering the taxes growth with two groups of "Minority", it probally shows the effect of inclusion. I wonder if the statistic would match.

[JBI]

With all the huffing and puffing going on in the Harry Potter thread about all the future illiterates being born and the decline of readers in the National Endowments report, apparently nobody has bothered to check the most recent National Endowments Report, which says reading is on the rise!

Link here. (http://www.nea.gov/news/news09/ReadingonRise.html)

It says very little to me - reading may be up 7%, but reading what? Poetry, as it has been stated, has been on the decrease, whereas novels have been on the increase - I wouldn't doubt that the bulk is not filled with Faulkner, but filled with Nora Roberts - meh. And even then - going from essentially nothing being read to a little less than essentially nothing being read means nothing.

[JCamilo]

Yeah, I saw that too. It would support you and Stlukes, people are reading more romance and not specialized forms of language represented by drama and poetry... So, in the end, the Doom of American is really approaching ? Canada is too close to avoid sinking together, but I trully believe I am free here in Brazil. In my marble tower of course...

[islandclimber]

It can not be something as HP (or anybook), it would generate a similar growth in the teenage group as well (considering they are reading HP and those between 18-25 are those who read it).
It is something that happens with the 18-25 group, which is usually University. Considering the taxes growth with two groups of "Minority", it probally shows the effect of inclusion. I wonder if the statistic would match.

but it is only a study on adults.. the youngest group is the 18-24/25 group.. there is no teenage group in the study... and when I say Potter and Twilight, well those books were quite popular in that 18-25 age range in and around 2007-2008... of that I'm pretty certain ;)

[JCamilo]

Well, I would have no doubt that the study on teenages would be here also if they had pro-harry potter results. But the difference stands still (twilight may be not in the period of research for long enough), it had to show a continual increase of the ages if was a effect reletated to a the building of a readers because a worker. I mean, however read the first potter would be up there, etc. And not like, Best-sellers are not written for the other ages as well...

[islandclimber]

agreed

[MSDGreen]

I say that some reading is better than not reading at all. I have read one HP book and did not care for it, but I am glad that some people can find enjoyment in reading them. You can find stupid people anywhere on the planet, it is not just an American phenomenon. Our school system in America is well below what I would like to see as the standard. However, our universities are top notch. Have I met many extremely stupid people here? Yes, I have, but I have also met extremely intelligent and well versed people as well. My traveling experience has proven to me that there are stupid people everywhere. IMO intelligence does not depend on reading or enjoying poetry or classic literature, but it can’t hurt.

[Drkshadow03]

Hmm, JCamillo still doesn't know what a red herring is.

Anyway, JBI. It's true you cannot tell what those Americans are reading. However, it would really be impossible to add that component to a survey like this since the questions need to be very basic as they are telephone surveys. I can think of ways one might try to measure how much Canonical literature Americans are reading, but it would be extremely difficult to execute and get accurate results. How would you propose to measure it?

[JCamilo]

I do not know? Are you sure? A red herring is an attempt to divert the topic of a debate to another subject. The topic if the worth of Harry Potter and voillá, you bring a subject that does not mention Harry Potter at all. Of course, now we debate this study, but you are unable to bring a single evidence about Harry Potter (which you cannot, since you already admitted that it is only enterteiment and it does not matter if it is HP, Goosebumps, comic books, etc). You are even careful to post this outside the thread. Seriously, when a 13 years old ask you for any book to read, do you suggest Harry Potter?

[Drkshadow03]

I do not know? Are you sure? A red herring is an attempt to divert the topic of a debate to another subject. The topic if the worth of Harry Potter and voillá, you bring a subject that does not mention Harry Potter at all. Of course, now we debate this study, but you are unable to bring a single evidence about Harry Potter (which you cannot, since you already admitted that it is only enterteiment and it does not matter if it is HP, Goosebumps, comic books, etc). You are even careful to post this outside the thread. Seriously, when a 13 years old ask you for any book to read, do you suggest Harry Potter?

I brought it out of the thread because I didn't think it was related enough to the original topic and I wanted to focus on the study itself, not Harry Potter, hence why I started a new thread and why it's not a red herring genius. The mention of Harry Potter in the opening was only to reference where I got the ideas I wanted to focus on as the main topics, without reference to Harry Potter necessarily: "Future illiterates" and "Decline of Reading in America."

[JCamilo]

Dude, seriously. Are you kidding? The thread starts commenting the HP thread and how we are not cheking this study, when we should. You opened a thread about something we, in your opinion, should have checked before arguing. If you did not wanted to related to HP you would just have said this or posted in the other thread originated by the HP thread dealing exactly with the theme of America. Your opening post was far from "Harry Potter thread got me thinking" and close to "Hahaha, you guys in HP are wrong because of this".
Forget philosophy 101, digressions do not kill good arguments.

[Drkshadow03]

Dude, seriously. Are you kidding? The thread starts commenting the HP thread and how we are not cheking this study, when we should. You opened a thread about something we, in your opinion, should have checked before arguing. If you did not wanted to related to HP you would just have said this or posted in the other thread originated by the HP thread dealing exactly with the theme of America. Your opening post was far from "Harry Potter thread got me thinking" and close to "Hahaha, you guys in HP are wrong because of this".
Forget philosophy 101, digressions do not kill good arguments.

You know for someone who reads a lot of "great" literature you're reading skills leave something to be desired. I never said anything about anyone being wrong. I simply thought it surprising that people quoted older studies about declining readership, and hadn't read the newer study. I never attribute anywhere in my post the rise of reading to Harry Potter. You still don't know what a red herring is or a coherent argument.

But even if it were a logical fallacy, which it is not, all one needs to do is restate the argument and we can move on. I am restating my intent that I would like to focus on the study and thought it was great that reading is on the rise. I am not trying to prove anyone wrong in anything they said in the Harry Potter thread. Problem solved.

[JBI]

You know for someone who reads a lot of "great" literature you're reading skills leave something to be desired. I never said anything about anyone being wrong. I simply thought it surprising that people quoted older studies about declining readership, and hadn't read the newer study. I never attribute anywhere in my post the rise of reading to Harry Potter. You still don't know what a red herring is or a coherent argument.

But even if it were a logical fallacy, which it is not, all one needs to do is restate the argument and we can move on. I am restating my intent that I would like to focus on the study and thought it was great that reading is on the rise. I am not trying to prove anyone wrong in anything they said in the Harry Potter thread. Problem solved.

I'm going to go in the other direction - I am going to say that the increase in the rate of reading is deliberately connected to popular literature.

Lets be honest, most people aren't reading anything, so that when a book becomes a fad, like the Potter, they each read one book, and bam - the data skews up for that time period. Perhaps then, the increased rate can be attributed to something like Twilight, or whatever else is popular in that age bracket. The only way to really see how the spike in reading supposedly influences real books though, or was influenced by real books, would be to look at trends from libraries and bookstores, and make a comparison based on publishers.

I don't, for instance, see Penguin Classics as getting much of a boost in terms of sales. Likewise, I cannot help but think that even Harlequin will have not gotten a boost in sales. To me, the trend seems to be built around fad and advertisement, rather than reading - Romance readers will read the same amount, probably, regardless - but when a fad book takes the stage, it can make the most ridiculous things popular for a period of time.

The real difference, would probably be in the age grouping. Young Adult literature, for instance, is a new marketing group, but perhaps now we are seeing "early adult" literature being influential, or some other such name for the category. These are the so called Harry Potter generation, keep in mind, so their purchasing power is clearly there - perhaps the spike has to do with Twilight and other such texts giving more appeal to that grouping.


Either way, as it has been stated, poetry is on the down still, especially with women. What does that mean? Well, to me, that just seems to say novel reading is on the up. In other words, novels are now being sold as popular commodities more successfully, whereas real literature like poetry is on the down (poetry, in general, is not a popular form, and has never functioned as a popular form in the US). Perhaps it is just Twilight sucking up everything, while real books haven't really fluctuated at all, but who knows.

[mortalterror]

Well, one way we could analyze the maintained interest levels between new works like Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (http://www.google.com/trends?q=harry+potter+goblet+fire&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) and older works like Hamlet (http://www.google.com/trends?q=hamlet&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0) would be to run a search in Google Trends. This site shows how often people use search terms, when, and where they search from. As you can see, there's that huge spike for Harry Potter back around November of 2005, which is when the movie came out, and then a subsidence to a comparatively low interest level. The Philippines was the most interested in it, United Kingdom 5th, Canada 6th, and United States the 8th most interested. Compare that graph to the continued popularity of Hamlet year round every year. There's a recurring cycle of dips in the middle of the year, suggesting that no one is studying it in classes at the time. Yet it remains high for all that.

I'd like to suggest a hypothesis of my own about why Shakespeare doesn't sell as well as J.K. Rowling. J.K. Rowling's works are all copyrighted and the exclusive publishing rights belong to one company. Therefore, everyone who owns a copy of Rowlings books owns the same copy. However, more people own copies of Shakespeare's works, just different copies, which individually do not sell well. Viewed together their sales would be spectacular. Yet, since no publishing company owns the exclusive rights to Shakespeare anymore the sales figures are all chopped up among hundreds of different printers, compete with each other, and drive the numbers down.

Examine these graphs for Ernest Hemingway (http://www.google.com/trends?q=ernest+hemingway&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), William Faulkner (http://www.google.com/trends?q=william+faulkner&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), James Joyce (http://www.google.com/trends?q=james+joyce&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), William Shakespeare (http://www.google.com/trends?q=william+shakespeare&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), Charles Dickens (http://www.google.com/trends?q=charles+dickens&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), Stephen King (http://www.google.com/trends?q=stephen+king&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0), and J.K. Rowling (http://www.google.com/trends?q=j.k.+rowling&ctab=0&geo=all&date=all&sort=0).

If you look at Hemingway and Faulkner's figures, they're still popular in spite of both having been dead for fifty years. Rowling's figures only spike when she releases a new book. King is popular but that's partly because he writes a couple books a year and movies are constantly coming out based on his stuff.

Now my suggestion only tracks interest in search terms and is far from scientific. But there are other ways (http://www.rampant-books.com/mgt_book_sales_tracking.htm) to track actual book sales, and Drkshadow's mention of a web of knowledge site which keeps track of how often works are cited in criticism is a good starting point for studying the impact of specific works among academics. If memory serves, JBI knows of a site which tracks reading habits among Americans and Canadians, which also keeps track of what is read i.e. newspapers, magazines, etc. You might ask him for the website if he still remembers it.

[JBI]

I don't have the sites anymore - it's been a while, and I rarely bookmark things - do you remember what topic I posted all that on?

[mortalterror]

I don't have the sites anymore - it's been a while, and I rarely bookmark things - do you remember what topic I posted all that on?
I think it was on one of the one's where I disagreed with you.

[Quark]

the most recent National Endowments Report ... says reading is on the rise

That's true, but I'm not sure what to make of that. The NEA data is pretty vague. They group reading into only three categories: fiction, poetry, and miscellaneous. There isn't a distinction made between classics and mass-market fiction, biography and weight loss books. Also, I think the NEA only charts reading tied to books. Magazine, newspaper, hypertext, and other forms are left off. On top of that, the NEA has been under a lot of pressure to put out a positive report after they came under fire for being overly pessimistic in their last attempt. They titled their 2004 study "Reading at Risk," and it included a pretty dire assessment of the situation. Some thought that reports like that only exacerbated the problem by making reading appear less popular. The cheery tone which announced this study may have much to do with the backlash that greeted previous studies. That being said, I don't think they faked their data. The NEA's conclusion is corroborated by several other sources. More people have been reading. Reading what, though? And how have they been reading what they're reading? Can we say that people are better readers now than they were in 2004?

The first question is the easiest to answer. JBI has the right idea when he says:

The only way to really see how the spike in reading supposedly influences real books though, or was influenced by real books, would be to look at trends from libraries and bookstores, and make a comparison based on publishers.

Library circulation is hard to track, but publishing figures are not. The AAP (Association of American Publishers) puts out sales numbers every year, and their most recent look at the industry (March 2008) can be found here: http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm. According to their figures, mass-market paperback sales declined by 2% while "Higher Education titles saw sales of $3.7 billion, up 6.5 percent." This trend is borne out by other sources as well. Demand for Penguin Classics, the largest publisher of classic literature in the US, has increased in recent years, as has that for Britain's Random House. It's a recent phenomenon that started sometime around 2005, but by 2006 sales of classics had huge gains and they've held ground ever since. This doesn't fully account for the across the board change in reading that the NEA charts, as classics makes up only a small part of total reading, but it is part of the change. It should also be noted that sales of classics are linked, not only to the demand of individual readers, but also to schools and universities. Just because sales are increasing doesn't mean that casual readers are suddenly getting an desire for fine literature. In any case, though, more books by Dickens and the like are being moved now than slightly before.

The other two questions I asked (how have they been reading what they're reading? Can we say that people are better readers now than they were in 2004?) are more difficult to answer, and I've run out of time to post.

[Adderhead]

The rise percentage in the report propably was mainly caused by casual teenager and young adult readers as they bought and read the entire Twilight series. I'm not sure if Twilight is as popular now as Harry Potter was back in the day(2000-2006) but it's probably getting close to the same level of popularity. But then again, you can't rely all truth on surveys and straw polls.

[Drkshadow03]

The rise percentage in the report propably was mainly caused by casual teenager and young adult readers as they bought and read the entire Twilight series. I'm not sure if Twilight is as popular now as Harry Potter was back in the day(2000-2006) but it's probably getting close to the same level of popularity. But then again, you can't rely all truth on surveys and straw polls.

Maybe, but then why did the 2004 report a decline in readership including YA readers? Twilight wasn't out, but the Harry Potter books sure were.

[JBI]

That's true, but I'm not sure what to make of that. The NEA data is pretty vague. They group reading into only three categories: fiction, poetry, and miscellaneous. There isn't a distinction made between classics and mass-market fiction, biography and weight loss books. Also, I think the NEA only charts reading tied to books. Magazine, newspaper, hypertext, and other forms are left off. On top of that, the NEA has been under a lot of pressure to put out a positive report after they came under fire for being overly pessimistic in their last attempt. They titled their 2004 study "Reading at Risk," and it included a pretty dire assessment of the situation. Some thought that reports like that only exacerbated the problem by making reading appear less popular. The cheery tone which announced this study may have much to do with the backlash that greeted previous studies. That being said, I don't think they faked their data. The NEA's conclusion is corroborated by several other sources. More people have been reading. Reading what, though? And how have they been reading what they're reading? Can we say that people are better readers now than they were in 2004?

The first question is the easiest to answer. JBI has the right idea when he says:


Library circulation is hard to track, but publishing figures are not. The AAP (Association of American Publishers) puts out sales numbers every year, and their most recent look at the industry (March 2008) can be found here: http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/indStats_02.htm. According to their figures, mass-market paperback sales declined by 2% while "Higher Education titles saw sales of $3.7 billion, up 6.5 percent." This trend is borne out by other sources as well. Demand for Penguin Classics, the largest publisher of classic literature in the US, has increased in recent years, as has that for Britain's Random House. It's a recent phenomenon that started sometime around 2005, but by 2006 sales of classics had huge gains and they've held ground ever since. This doesn't fully account for the across the board change in reading that the NEA charts, as classics makes up only a small part of total reading, but it is part of the change. It should also be noted that sales of classics are linked, not only to the demand of individual readers, but also to schools and universities. Just because sales are increasing doesn't mean that casual readers are suddenly getting an desire for fine literature. In any case, though, more books by Dickens and the like are being moved now than slightly before.

The other two questions I asked (how have they been reading what they're reading? Can we say that people are better readers now than they were in 2004?) are more difficult to answer, and I've run out of time to post.

I retract what I said earlier - though, I am curious as to the actual breakdown. I guess not what the poets asked for, but perhaps a step - it's a shame about the poetry though, and probably the drama too.

It seems that the four forms most ignored in general these days are Letters, Personal and Academic Essays, Poetry, and Drama, but perhaps there is yet hope for the literary novel, assuming the upgrade in reading of Penguins is not a direct result of the fact that the New Style Penguins happen to have a far, far better selection than the old ones, and the new super-cheap penguin editions (without introductions and with crummy printing though) perhaps offer a better buy for one's buck.

[Drkshadow03]

I retract what I said earlier - though, I am curious as to the actual breakdown. I guess not what the poets asked for, but perhaps a step - it's a shame about the poetry though, and probably the drama too.

It seems that the four forms most ignored in general these days are Letters, Personal and Academic Essays, Poetry, and Drama, but perhaps there is yet hope for the literary novel, assuming the upgrade in reading of Penguins is not a direct result of the fact that the New Style Penguins happen to have a far, far better selection than the old ones, and the new super-cheap penguin editions (without introductions and with crummy printing though) perhaps offer a better buy for one's buck.

I've read numerous essays that claim Classics have steady sales. Best-sellers, especially Thrillers like Patterson, have huge sales when they first come out and then die out. Here is a good article from Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2081052/) on the topic, but I know I've read other articles making the same point in different magazine/newspaper sources.

[JBI]

I've read numerous essays that claim Classics have steady sales. Best-sellers, especially Thrillers like Patterson, have huge sales when they first come out and then die out. Here is a good article from Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2081052/) on the topic, but I know I've read other articles making the same point in different magazine/newspaper sources.

Quark's site claims sails on classics are up, that was what I was commenting on.

[Drkshadow03]

Quark's site claims sails on classics are up, that was what I was commenting on.

Yeah. I'm not disagreeing. I was just providing another source that says the same thing and also talks about how classics have steady sales.

[boye]

I am thankful for Harry Potter and Twilight for nudging young people
back to the book. It doesn't matter if they're great literature or not,
they introduced reading to millions who otherwise would have never
bothered.

[Quark]

though, I am curious as to the actual breakdown.

You mean what the actual sales totals are? I don't have the figures in front of me right now, but in the US mass-market fiction continues to dominate the market. Romance (only one part of mass-market fiction) makes up something like 39% of all fiction sold (again, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but it is something like that). It's hard to tract down precise numbers about the sales of classics, though, because studies frequently don't have a category for what we consider classics. Typically, there are distinctions between trade, educational, young adult and juvenile, and mass-market, but not a specific distinction made for literary quality. You can look at sales at Penguin and Random House but that's only part of the story. I can only hazard a guess as to the actual total. It has to be less than 30% of the fiction market, and it's probably quite a lot less.

Yet I don't think the totals are what Drkshadow03 is calling attention to. It seems like the point he's trying to make (is he going to make it himself?) is that classic literature isn't threatened by popular fiction. The argument is that even though libraries, awards societies, and some classrooms have eagerly courted popular authors, the number of people reading and the interest in literature, at least, hasn't changed. I sort of agree with this. I don't think reading is going to disappear just because someone is teaching a class with a less than stellar novel. There are larger forced behind reading trends than the decisions of teachers and critics, and we should look at the data before we make apocalyptic projections based on a few plaudits given to a substandard book.


I guess not what the poets asked for, but perhaps a step - it's a shame about the poetry though, and probably the drama too.

It seems that the four forms most ignored in general these days are Letters, Personal and Academic Essays, Poetry, and Drama,

There's no doubt about that. You don't need statistics to show that those forms are hurting. I would add to that list history, too. The amount and quality of history read (not including biography which sometimes gets counted as history) has deteriorated greatly. History found in bookstores now seems anecdotal, gimmicky, and detached from the scholarship surrounding the subject. The lives of these books resemble mass-market books with a large boom in sales when they come out, and then a steep drop off after a few years.


but perhaps there is yet hope for the literary novel, assuming the upgrade in reading of Penguins is not a direct result of the fact that the New Style Penguins happen to have a far, far better selection than the old ones, and the new super-cheap penguin editions (without introductions and with crummy printing though) perhaps offer a better buy for one's buck.

Didn't the change happen a while ago? I thought the new editions came out mostly in 2003. I could be wrong about that, though.


I've read numerous essays that claim Classics have steady sales. Best-sellers, especially Thrillers like Patterson, have huge sales when they first come out and then die out. Here is a good article from Slate (http://slate.msn.com/id/2081052/) on the topic, but I know I've read other articles making the same point in different magazine/newspaper sources.

That's a good article because it differentiates between academic and non-academic sales of classics.

[JBI]

Yes, the new black as apposed to the tan and black covers are around 2002-2003, but I would wager, them not being advertised, it has taken this long for them to be realized - there are quite a wider range of texts now available, which makes things better, though why anyone would want a 14$ copy of Lyrical Ballads when one could get a 10$ copy of Wordsworth's complete Poems with the rest of Lyrical Ballads tact on is beyond me.

What is considered classic now though, I think has changed significantly - Americans are want to make anything published before 1970 into a classic, no matter the quality, whereas Canadians technically don't have "classics", though The New Canadian Library runs texts from the late 1700s to just a few years ago, that generally aren't printed by Penguin, though they supposedly now have Susana Moody in Penguin, probably because of the popularity of Margaret Atwood.


Now though, I keep seeing an affordable printing of Penguins with ugly covers going for a few bucks a piece on crappy paper without introductions and often with typos. That certainly helps a lot, I think, though, in terms of sales, that is only one part - I personally wouldn't fit in any sales statistics as I buy almost all of my stuff used, besides school texts that I cannot find in the right edition on time, and beyond that, I borrow almost everything from the library. I think most academic reading is in the library.

There must be a statistic somewhere that monitors library circulations, no?

[Drkshadow03]

You mean what the actual sales totals are? I don't have the figures in front of me right now, but in the US mass-market fiction continues to dominate the market. Romance (only one part of mass-market fiction) makes up something like 39% of all fiction sold (again, I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but it is something like that). It's hard to tract down precise numbers about the sales of classics, though, because studies frequently don't have a category for what we consider classics. Typically, there are distinctions between trade, educational, young adult and juvenile, and mass-market, but not a specific distinction made for literary quality. You can look at sales at Penguin and Random House but that's only part of the story. I can only hazard a guess as to the actual total. It has to be less than 30% of the fiction market, and it's probably quite a lot less.


I found some statistics from Romance Writers Association 2006 study that breaks down sales by genres (http://www.rwanational.org/galleries/default-file/ROMStat2006.pdf), except I'm not sure Religion/Inspirational counts as fiction. At the same time this chart doesn't include any other non-fiction categories, which I find weird.

I know I read a study elsewhere that Romance makes up 40% of all fiction sales, Mainstream Lit 20%, Westerns 20%, Sci-fi/fantasy 10%, everything else 10%. Mainstream literature would include traditionally accepted classics, but also anything that typically ends up in the Literature section of a book store.

[Quark]

Yes, the new black as apposed to the tan and black covers are around 2002-2003, but I would wager, them not being advertised, it has taken this long for them to be realized - there are quite a wider range of texts now available, which makes things better, though why anyone would want a 14$ copy of Lyrical Ballads when one could get a 10$ copy of Wordsworth's complete Poems with the rest of Lyrical Ballads tact on is beyond me.

Now I feel so ripped off about my Wordsworth collection. (Damn you Penguin!) I agree the new editions are far better, but I doubt it took consumers three years to figure that out. Casual readers buy books with the idea that they're going to read them in the immediate future. They typically don't amass editions when they're cheap, and burn through them like an excess layer of fat when the market is harsh. Book buying is more hand-to-mouth than that. Someone gets a book for a plane ride or summer reading, and they read that book pretty quickly. Then they buy more at whatever price is asked. Book sales are tied to acute demand, so it seems unlikely that a delayed reaction like that would really happen.


What is considered classic now though, I think has changed significantly - Americans are want to make anything published before 1970 into a classic, no matter the quality, whereas Canadians technically don't have "classics", though The New Canadian Library runs texts from the late 1700s to just a few years ago, that generally aren't printed by Penguin, though they supposedly now have Susana Moody in Penguin, probably because of the popularity of Margaret Atwood.

Are you referring to the publishers here? There really are no American and Canadian publishers. The same multinational conglomerates that control the market in the US are the same ones that hold the Canadian market. Penguin has a headquarters is Toronto, just as it has one in New York and London.


There must be a statistic somewhere that monitors library circulations, no?

If you can find them, you'll have my undying respect--at least for the day.

Edit:


I found some statistics from Romance Writers Association 2006 study

I don't know much about the "Simba Information Estimate" which this study is based on, but I'm guessing their category "Classic Literary Fiction" is a lot broader than we would we like it to be. Books like Cold Mountain, or others similarly suspect, might be filed under that column. Nonetheless, though, the number they come up with sound right.

[JCamilo]

But why breaking it to fiction (something that is arguable). It is possible to separate the reading habits, like reading Gibbon Decline and Fall is certainly as good as reading anything.

Talking about Lyrical Ballads I bought it because I did not found a complete Wordsworth poem cheaper, damn it...

[Quark]

But why breaking it to fiction

The Romance Writers Association breaks it down by fiction genres because those are groups that they consider their competitors. They probably don't think that someone looking for a non-fiction book is going to decide on a romance novel. That doesn't me we should only focus on fiction genres, but I can certainly see why they do.