No one buys books

[gvopedz]

The DOJ’s lawyer collected data on 58,000 titles published in a year and discovered that 90 percent of them sold fewer than 2,000 copies and 50 percent sold less than a dozen copies.

https://www.elysian.press/p/no-one-buys-books

 

[JSngry]

I buy books. Not a lot, though.

[Ken Dryden]

I don't buy as many books as I used to but still buy them. One of the things I found in a recent trip to a local bookstore was the first volume of the Benny Carter discography published by Scarecrow Press. I forget the price but it was a steal.

[medjuck]

Despite the title she gave the article she never gives any total sales figures.  There have been several articles pointing out that the DOJ never said that 50% of books published sell less than 12 copies a year.  They asked a hypothetical question.   

[Pim]

I buy books but must say they are quite expensive. Philosphy is one of my big hobbies and I've bought quite some of the 'standards' from the genre for the past few years as I am teaching it in high school now as well. I managed to buy them trough my work which litteraly saved me thousands of euros.. With 40 or 50 euros a piece I could see why people go for an ebook instead. From a space in my house of point of view I have the same strategy as with my LP's and cd's: I only buy what I regard as essential. Less essential works I read on my e-reader.

I love reading: it's part of my pre-sleeping ritual and try do read an hour a day at least. It's hard to get my students reading books. Video games are a serious threat to both their physical as their mental health. I might sound like a boomer now but I see the consequences everyday... 

Edited April 27 by Pim

[Dmitry]

I mostly buy art books. I also check out many books from our excellent public library system. 

[rostasi]

Books around here are becoming like the massive amount of music - pushing our living boundaries!

[Niko]

Most of the books I buy sell less than 2000 copies, so from that perspective I'm buying almost nothing, following the author's logic... Same for music btw

[Teasing the Korean]

We have lots of coffee table books on art, design, and architecture.  So many that I sometimes get depressed because I don't look at them often enough. 😿

[Eric]

Today is Independent Bookstore Day.  My wife has hit three so far and reports they are packed.

[soulpope]

Bought a lot of books over the last decades, obviously more than I could read during said times .... nowadays working through my stock and buying much less (mostly exhibition catalogues and art/photography books) ....

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I would guess that the main reason physical book sales are down is because they keep jacking up the prices. Why would anyone pay $30 for a new book when they can pay $12-15 for an e-book version? I used to try buying physical copies but I eventually switched over to e-books. The only times I find myself reading an actual book is when i check one out from the library.

[sidewinder]

I find myself buying more than ever these days (and will have to have a clear out soon). As a regular visitor to our National Trust historic houses and gardens, most of these have second hand bookshops where bargains can be found for a few £. Similarly, Oxfam.

I don't think I've used a library for 30 years !

Edited April 28 by sidewinder

[porcy62]

19 minutes ago, sidewinder said:

I don't think I've used a library for 30 years !

Last time I was in a library I was writing my Ph.D dissertation 

6 minutes ago, porcy62 said:

Edit:

Later I visited some historic libraries as a tourist, not as a reader 

Edited April 28 by porcy62

[GA Russell]

I give about 100 books each year as Christmas presents. 

I like to give cookbooks to the various women in my life, because cookbooks can be feminine without being a romantic gesture.  Most of these cookbooks are about cookies or chocolate.  The guys get books about backyard grilling or hot sauce.

I give teens interesting stories to read, so that they will discover the joy of reading for pleasure rather than under compulsion (schoolwork).

Who knows?  Maybe I am the only person giving books to these people!

[felser]

I love books and buy them (though often used), but find it hard to set aside time to read.  And a lot of the reading I do get done is semi-required for my volunteer work.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

6 hours ago, sidewinder said:

I find myself buying more than ever these days (and will have to have a clear out soon). As a regular visitor to our National Trust historic houses and gardens, most of these have second hand bookshops where bargains can be found for a few £. Similarly, Oxfam.

I don't think I've used a library for 30 years !

I do buy used books too. But this thread is about new book sales.

[Gheorghe]

I have always bought books and will always buy books. But nothing philosophical or too deep, just for relaxing. I mean if it is something non musical, I don´t want to have to figure out heavy stuff, that´s it.

[Ken Dryden]

I buy mostly historical books and biographies new, although there are a couple of novelists that I include, one of them a guy who grew up five doors away from me, Carl Hiaasen (Striptease, made into a movie starring Demi Moore and Burt Reynolds). I love Hiaasen’s gift for the absurd and parodies of real life people, including the pervert congressman in Striptease, inspired by the arrest of J. Herbert Burke outside of a Broward County nude bar in the mid-1970s for causing a disturbance and drunkenness, plus the thinly disguised lampoon of Geraldo Rivera as Reynaldo Phlegm in Skin Tight. 

Edited April 29 by Ken Dryden

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Carl Hiaasen's books have been great. His characters are hilarious. Too bad he hasn't put out too many books lately. He used to put a new one out every two years but since he started mixing children's books, it stretched to 3 or 4 years between books. His last one, "Squeeze Me", was hilarious...it was also his most political one yet.

[sidewinder]

14 hours ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

I do buy used books too. But this thread is about new book sales.

This thread is titled 'No one buys books'. No mention of whether or not new.

[mjazzg]

And even if it did it's not an unreasonable diversion to the subject of used books. I buy both, too many of them as my 'to read' pile attests

[Ken Dryden]

1 hour ago, Kevin Bresnahan said:

Carl Hiaasen's books have been great. His characters are hilarious. Too bad he hasn't put out too many books lately. He used to put a new one out every two years but since he started mixing children's books, it stretched to 3 or 4 years between books. His last one, "Squeeze Me", was hilarious...it was also his most political one yet.

Carl was a couple of years older than me and was writing for the Miami Herald while I was still an undergraduate. Somewhere in my files I have one of his old columns, with a title something like, "A Girl, A T shirt, A Pitcher of Water and That's Entertainment?" He already had a knack for writing funny prose back in the mid-1970s.

I also have the wirephoto of our local Representative J. Herbert Burke, obviously three sheets to the wind, being lead off from the nude bar parking lot. He went down to defeat that fall, no doubt in part from the publicity of his arrest.He claimed that he overheard a drug deal being discussed in another bar and was following up to get more information for the police. 

I still remember that photo being on his occasional newsletters that were always captioned "not printed at government expense."

Edited April 29 by Ken Dryden

[jazzbo]

I still buy new books. . . though a good amount of the time I have been buying them from Daedalus Books which are cut-outs etc. at reduced prices. They often have books I am interested in reading.

Also I've been buying some books from favorites Rex Stout and A. A. Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner), which are newly re-published titles that have been out of print for fifty years or more that Hard Case Crime et al have been printing.

Edited April 29 by jazzbo

[Stompin at the Savoy]

I buy a lot of books, new and used.  If I can find something as an ebook I will get the ebook because my eyesight is poor and I like reading text blown up large on a good sized screen.  No ebook - buy new or used.  For me buying books is like buying music cd's and downloads: I do it habitually and shop quite a bit.  Other people put money into cars, motorcycles, boats, houses, etc.  I buy books and records.  Of course it's too much to keep it all in my house so I have a storage unit.  Am I crazy?  Probably.

Edited April 29 by Stompin at the Savoy