As I’ve become involved in publishing, I’ve read countless statistics about how the number of books being printed rises every year. Partly the number is increasing because of new technology like short-run “print on demand” options, which make it a lot less expensive for people to publish books.
The bad news is that according to a recent Associated Press-Ipsos poll, fewer people actually read. Apparently, 1 in 4 adults read NO books last year.
One in Four Read No Books Last Year
I have wondered for a while if readers are a dying breed. Realistically, my husband and I are some of the only people I know who actually read as a form of recreation/relaxation. When we’re on vacation, I often go through more than one book/day.
When we went to Hawaii last spring, we were thrilled to discover that the state lets non-residents get a library card. It’s not like we don’t do anything else, but our evenings are often spent happily reading. Sure, we see the sights, but we definitely get a lot of books read too.
Even when we’re not on vacation, we read a lot. I have about 30 books next to my side of the bed that I’ll be donating to the Sandpoint Friends of the Library soon. (Many of them are books that I got at one of their books sales, so it seems fitting that they should go back.)
In fact, it occurred to me not too long ago, that you kow you read a lot when you are browsing the fiction stacks at the library and realize you have read books by a large percentage of the authors on the shelves.
Anyway, the fact that fewer people are reading is depressing to me both as a publisher and a human being. Reading requires intelligence, imagination, and thought — three things that are not appreciated or encountered as often as they should be.