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The 10 Awful Truths about Book Publishing
Steven Piersanti, President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Updated March 6, 20121.
 
The number of books being published every year has exploded.
Bowker reports that over three million books were published in the U.S. in 2010 (May18, 2011 Bowker Report). The number of new print titles issued by U.S. publishers hasgrown from 215,777 in 2002 to 316,480 in 2010. And in 2010 more than 2.7 million“non-traditional” titles were also published, including self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books. In addition, hundreds of thousands of English-language books are published each year outside the U.S.2.
 
Book industry sales are declining, despite the explosion of books published.
 Adult nonfiction print unit book sales peaked in 2007 and have declined each year sincethen, according to BookScan (
Publishers Weekly
, January 2, 2012). Similarly, bookstoresales peaked in 2007 and have fallen each year since then, according to the U.S. CensusBureau (
Publishers Weekly
, February 20, 2012).3.
Despite skyrocketing e-book sales, overall book sales are still shrinking.
“Print Declines Outpace Digital Gains” was the
Publishers Weekly’
headline of September 19, 2011. For the full year of 2011, a 17.1% decline in print sales outweigheda 117.3% increase in e-book sales, resulting in a 5.8% decline in combined print and e-book sales, according to the Association of American Publishers (
Publishers Weekly
,March 5, 2012). Similarly, combined print and e-book sales of adult trade books fell by14 million units in 2010, according to the August 9, 2011 BISG BookStats report. Thetotal book publishing pie is not growing, yet it is being divided among ever more digitaland print products.4.
Average book sales are shockingly small, and falling fast.
 Combine the explosion of books published with the declining total sales and you getshrinking sales of each new title. According to BookScan – which tracks most bookstore,online, and other retail sales of books (including Amazon.com) – only 263 million bookswere sold in 2011 in the U.S.
in all adult nonfiction categories combined 
(
PublishersWeekly
, January 2, 2012). The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime. And very few titles are bigsellers. Only 62 of 1,000 business books released in 2009 sold more than 5,000 copies,according to an analysis by the Codex Group (
 New York Times
, March 31, 2010).5.
A book has less than a 1% chance of being stocked in an average bookstore.
 For every available bookstore shelf space, there are 100 to 1,000 or more titles competingfor that shelf space. For example, the number of business titles stocked ranges from lessthan 100 (smaller bookstores) to approximately 1,500 (superstores). Yet there are250,000-plus business books in print that are fighting for that limited shelf space.6.
It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.
 Many book categories have become entirely saturated, with a surplus of books on everytopic. It is increasingly difficult to make any book stand out. Each book is competingwith more than ten million other books available for sale, while other media are claimingmore and more of people’s time. Result: investing the same amount today to market abook as was invested a few years ago will yield a far smaller sales return today.7.
Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
 Everyone in the potential audiences for a book already knows of hundreds of interestingand useful books to read but has little time to read any. Therefore people are readingonly books that their communities make important or even mandatory to read. There isno general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usuallyfar less effective than connecting with one’s communities.
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Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

Steve, What are pass along sales?

reply08 / 24 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

Thanks BK. All the suggestions are good ones.

08 / 25 / 2010
Berrett-Koehler

Steve actually JUST fielded this question from a local Bay Area book agent, and copied the BK Staff on his answer. Here it is copied and pasted: “Pass-along sales” mean that people are not buying books for themselves; instead they are buying books for others and passing along the books to them. Parents are buying books for their children; group leaders are buying books for group members; CEOs ar

08 / 25 / 2010
Jed Diamond, Ph.D.

I wrote and published my first book in 1980 and have been writing and publishing ever since. The "Awful truths" offer wonderful opportunities. Since I have been doing most of the promotion, I signed with publisher where I get 80% of the profits.

reply08 / 24 / 2010
Berrett-Koehler

Thank you all for the wonderful comments. We are so glad to be getting such feedback! It's definitely tough times but, as you can see, we see a real future for book publishing!

reply08 / 24 / 2010
cdinwv

It is a very interesting read. If you are considering marketing, publishing or producing a book; I recommend reading this. It's a great thing that I write to share:)

reply08 / 20 / 2010
Hyla Molander

Thank you for sharing this valuable information.

reply08 / 19 / 2010
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