o man! i had read that from al before but totally missed the year at the end until now!
--- On Thu, 7/2/09, Charlie Williams <cs_will@hotmail.com> wrote:
> From: Charlie Williams <cs_will@hotmail.com>
> Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: The State of Publishing
> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Thursday, July 2, 2009, 4:29 AM
> Dammit, I smelled a ruse but you
> STILL suckered me. First Pick-up, now this!
>
> Charlie.
>
> -------------------
> charliewilliams.net
>
>
>
> --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com,
> "Allan Guthrie" <allan@...> wrote:
> >
> > Came across a newspaper article today, entitled TOO
> MANY BOOKS, that ties in
> > with some of the topics we've been discussing here
> recently. I'll quote from
> > it:
> >
> > "Many English publishers and booksellers take the view
> that the constantly
> > increasing production of books will bring about a
> crisis in the trade, which
> > will result in the bankrupcy of a number of firms, and
> a reduction of output
> > on the part of those publishing firms which survive
> the crisis."
> >
> > The article then goes on to say:
> >
> > "The English [UK] edition of a bestseller may reach a
> sale of 100,000
> > copies. Such a total is rare, though it is often
> exceeded in the United
> > States, where the reading public and the population
> are much larger than in
> > Great Britain, but sales of 50,000 are by no means
> uncommon in Great
> > Britain, and even sales of 10,000 will return
> the publisher and author very
> > satisfactory profits. Most books, and novels in
> particular, do not reach a
> > sale of 2,000, and many of them are below 1,000."
> >
> > There's a quote from Faber and Faber that reads thus:
> >
> > "Publishers survive by their education and specialised
> books, by their
> > possession of valuable backlists built up in healthier
> times, or by reprints
> > of established classics, or by the sale of cheap
> reprinted fiction to
> > holiday makers. Without the best-seller, it is safe to
> say that the
> > publisher in these days cannot possibly survive, if
> the main part of his
> > business is the supply of new general literature."
> >
> > The full article is scanned here.
> > http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HDkTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=K5cDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6588,1695497&dq=publishing+best-seller
> >
> > Oh, yeah, it's from The Age, an Australian national,
> from January 1938.
> >
> > Al
> >
>
>
>
>
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