It’s
hard enough to convince people who actively buy and read books to give of their
wallet and time to your book, but a new report indicates fewer people are
reading books. How are authors to win
over those who are falling off the reading grid?
In
2017, the percentage of adults 18 and over reading a book was 52.7%. That means nearly half of our adult
population did not read a single book last year that was not for school or
work. Apparently, reading a book for fun,
improvement, curiosity, learning, or escape is a dying experience.
These
discouraging findings are from a report issued by the National Endowment for
the Arts. They surveyed nearly 28,000 adults and found that though there was an
increase, in the past five years, of those attending a visual or performing
arts activity, only 54% of adults took part in such an activity.
There’s a pattern here – 1 in 2 American adults care about books, museums, plays and the like – and almost as many do not care at all.
There’s a pattern here – 1 in 2 American adults care about books, museums, plays and the like – and almost as many do not care at all.
In
2012, the NEA found 54.6% of U.S. adults read at least a book that year, down
from 56.6% in 2002. The trend is
disturbing. In the past 15 years, the
number of adult book readers is down.
The study did not indicate if the number of books read by readers is up
or down.
So
why are the number of book readers down?
Is
it because there are not enough books, especially good ones, available? Of course not. There’s been an explosion of books in the
past 15 years, where there are over a million new titles released
annually. With the advent of
print-on-demand and digital books, millions of titles that would otherwise by
inaccessible or out-of-print are now available.
Though the quality of some books is questionable, there are tons of
critically-acclaimed, award-winning or best-selling books (in every genre) available at the click of a button, visit to a library or a trip to a
bookstore.
Is
it that people can’t afford to buy books?
This study was about readership, not purchasing, so with so many books given away online, available for peanuts at used bookstores, retailing well-below cover price on Amazon, and available for free at libraries, affordability doesn’t appear to be the issue.
This study was about readership, not purchasing, so with so many books given away online, available for peanuts at used bookstores, retailing well-below cover price on Amazon, and available for free at libraries, affordability doesn’t appear to be the issue.
Is
it because people don’t read anymore?
The Internet has greatly increased time spent reading. We read newspapers, magazines, blogs, newsletters, websites, and emailed documents – for hours every day. Obviously America, with a high literacy rate is reading plenty of stuff – just not books.
The Internet has greatly increased time spent reading. We read newspapers, magazines, blogs, newsletters, websites, and emailed documents – for hours every day. Obviously America, with a high literacy rate is reading plenty of stuff – just not books.
So
what’s the reason?
Rather
than speculate, I’ll leave it up to the experts to figure it out, but my
earlier question is about how authors will market their books to a shrinking
pool of book readers and the answer may be an ugly one.
Will
authors and publishers have to start treating the books by others the way corporations
treat competing products and services?
Will books get sold not by touting their merits but by scolding titles
of the same genre? Will books be
marketed the way a political candidate seeks your vote -- by tarnishing the
opposition?
If
only so many people read books, and even fewer buy them, authors and publishers
will need to come to some tough choices:
·
Should
prices be raised with fewer books sold?
·
Should
fewer titles be published?
·
Should
books be shortened, to cut costs?
·
Should
certain genres get ignored for publication if they are not so popular?
Rather
than downsizing the quality or quantity of books or making other drastic
changes, we need to do the opposite. We
must expand the number of literates as well as the number of book readers. We need public service announcements to raise
our book-reading consciousness. The book
industry – and the American public wins when more books are read by more
people. We must reverse the ugly trends
of decreased readership or we’ll see a book world that will move to eat its own
to survive.
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