MJ Rose has a good post on Buzz, Balls & Hype on the difficulty of nailing down the real number of novels published last year. She notes that while Bowker reported 25,000 or so books in the adult fiction category, that total includes 8,000 "self-published" books which, for the sake of argument, she subtracts from the reported total to come up with 15,000 fiction books, or 288 per week, released by "publishing houses." She then makes an important point:
There are about 1,500 what Bowker calls "very large publishers not named Random, Simon, Harper, Penguin and Holtzbrinck," and they publish adult fiction. Then there are what Bowker calles "7000 to 8000 very respectable mid-size, publishers who publish adult fiction."
But my guess is that those 7000-8000 are not all traditional publishers. My guess is that many of them are self publishers. I was there once. My company was called Lady Chatterley's Library. Nothing quantified it as an author's own publishing company. So what percentage of the 7000-8000 are authors own companies that do a single title a year? I don't know. But I'd guess at least 2500.
Of course there is no accurate number to be gotten because the
individuals in question have no interest in conceding that their
'publishing company' might in fact be a vehicle created specifically to
publish their books. And what if I create a publishing company to
publish my own book but then I decide to publish my wife's book, too?
Or my friend's? Or a book by a guy I just met at a cocktail party who
mentioned that he had a book? Am I suddenly no longer a self-publisher?
There is no meaningful difference between independent publishing on a
scale of one book (my own) and publishing on a scale of five or ten or twenty books (by other authors). I know of one aficionado
of horror writing who developed his own publishing company--CyberPulp Press--and started publishing e-books by people he knew and then eventually paperback books through Lulu (currently he offers 25 or so paperbacks by various authors). He has a day job that's not related to books. He does all his own editing and typesetting. The books he offers are neither better nor worse than any other book on Lulu, on average. He, by some definitions, would be considered a mid-size publisher.
And what about the thousands and thousands of books on Lulu that don't have ISBNs at all, which means that they go untracked by Bowker in its annual publishing totals? What about the novels being published on the Internet in serial form on blogs, like Monster Planet, by David Wellington? These books are being read by someone, even if the audience is very small.
What to make of all this? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I think most reasonable people would agree that there are both positive and negative aspects to the proliferation of books and other content. The overabundance of books is certainly bad from the standpoint of profitability if your business is based on making blockbusters (as opposed to nichebusters). If you are the author of a book--especially a novel--and you want as many people to read it as possible, then the environment may seem depressingly competitive. But for anyone who believes in free and open markets this should be an inspiring sight. For those publishing from among traditionally underrepresented populations it is inspiring.
NPR ran a story a few days ago on self-publishing that, as in other recent national stories on the same subject, was woefully under-reported in that it repeated the cliche about paying $500 to get published and then named only the usual, tired suspects--Xlibris, iUniverse, and AuthorHouse--with the addition of BookSurge, which is still riding a wave of newfound respect thanks to its recent purchase by Amazon.com. The best thing about the story, which was put together by self-published author Gloria Hillard and set at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, is a quote from someone in the conventional publishing industry who laments the loss of the essential filter provided by editors and publishers [who, like benevolent fathers, protected us from being exposed to bad books]. A better or more willing villain in the drama of the great publishing revolution would be hard to cast.
The most important thing to remember about the proliferation of books--good, bad or indifferent--is that it is primarily the product of changes in technology. Technology has altered the economics of publishing to allow anyone to enter the market. You don't even need $500 to pay the likes of iUniverse; you can publish a book for free on Lulu. There's no going back--there are no thin-lipped editors who can stop the man in the street from saying what he has to say--in print if he so chooses--as tempting as that may be. There's no sense in complaining about the advances made possible by technological progress, a mistake the music industry has made repeatedly and loudly. The only sensible answer is to adapt. I, for one, am looking forward to having plenty to read.
