Archive - January 28, 2009

There is an interesting front-page story in the New York Times today, Wednesday, January 28, 2009, about the growth of self-published books. The growth in self-published (or POD books, i.e., print-on-demand books) comes at a time, the article says, when “traditional publishers look to prune their booklists and rely increasingly on blockbuster best sellers.” A new study by the National Endowment for the Arts reports that while more people are reading literary fiction, fewer of them are reading books. According to Cathy Langer, lead buyer for the Tattered Cover bookstores in Denver, “People think that just because they’ve written something, there’s a market for it. It’s not true.” The article has a few great success stories. Lisa Genova wrote a novel about a woman with Alzheimer’s disease. It was turned down by 100 literary agents. She paid $450 to iUniverse to publish the book and sold copies to independent bookstores. . . .