Books

Statistics Everywhere

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There were lots of interesting statistics in Publishers Weekly today relating to retailing and Print-On-Demand.

According to a Bowker study, the Mystery Genre is what Americans read most, accounting for 17% of all books sold. Science Fiction accounts for 5.5%, General Fiction snags 3%, and Horror scares up 2%.  The same study also found that chain bookstores account for 33% of booksales while the Internet sells 21%.

A study by the Association of American Publishers found that total industry sales rose 3.2% in 2007 to $25 billion. The largest gain is among adult hardcovers, which are up 7.8%. The "largest overall gains in the year came from the smallest segments." They note that ebook sales jumped 23.6% and audio books rose 19.8%.

PW editor Sara Nelson notes in her column that Amazon accounts for slightly more than 10% of online sales. She doesn’t seem  particularly worried about the company strongarming POD presses to use Booksurge, their POD service. She observes that big publishers use POD "only sparingly," that there remain many other venues of POD sales, and that lawyers she has contacted don’t see the grounds for an anti-trust suit.

And in a news brief, Lightning Source has partnered with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso Book Machine that prints novels for readers on the spot. So far, there are a grand total of seven machines in operation…not exactly a major force in book retailing.

Bookbuying by the Numbers

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Publishers Weekly reports today that online booksellers account for 30.5% of book sales, chain book stores 32.5%, discount stores (like Wal-Mart and Costco) 13.5%, independant booksellers 8.7% , grocery stores 3.7% and author/publisher websites 1.8%.  The article states that combined internet sales (32.3%) could overtake big chain bookstore sales soon…but it seems to me that they still have a ways to go to eclipse the share claimed overall by brick-and-mortar sales (which now account for 67.7% of sales).

Projected Share of Consumer Book Purchase in 2008 (source Publisher’s Weekly, Fairfield Research, Greyhound Books)

Online bookstores: 30.5%

Chain bookstores: 32.5%

Discount Stores: 13.5%

Used Sales and Stores: 9.3%

Independent bookstores: 8.7%

Grocery/Spec/Newsstands 3.7%

Author/Publisher/Web: 1.8%

RESOLUTION

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I read an ARC of Robert B. Parker’s RESOLUTION and I really
enjoyed it….but less so than APPALOOSA, which  is the best Parker book since DOUBLE PLAY. Parker’s books are so short
and so similar, and feel so much like contemporary westerns anyway (particularly the Spenser novel POTSHOT and all the Jesse Stones), that I felt like I’d read it before. Actually, RESOLUTION feels more like a sequel to STRANGER IN PARADISE, the latest Jesse Stone, than it does to APPALOOSA. Lawman-for-hire Virgil
Cole is essentially Jesse Stone, right down to the philandering
wife/girlfriend he can’t let go of, but somehow it plays a lot better in the wild west than it does in present-day Massachusetts. The book, which comes out in June, left the door wide open for a sequel and I’m looking forward to it.

Book Lust

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I went a little crazy at the Paperback Collectors Show & Sale today…the books were so cheap and the selection was huge. My buying binge included a bunch of Ashley Carter (aka Harry Whittington) books as well as:
TRAIL OF A TRAMP by Nick Quarry (Marvin Albert)
NICE GUYS FINISH DEAD by Albert Conroy (Marvin Albert)
THE ROAD’S END by Albert Conroy
COCOTTE by Theodore Pratt
TROPICAL DISTURBANCE by Theodore Pratt
GET SMART! By William Johnston
THE MOONLIGHT WAR by Clifton Adams
THE GRABHORN BOUNTY by Clifton Adams
LAST DAYS OF WOLF GARNETT by Clifton Adams
DESIRE IN THE DUST by Harry Whittington
CALL ME KILLER by Harry Whittington
JOURNEY INTO TERROR by Peter Rabe
CORNERED by James McKimmey
CASE OF THE PETTICOAT MURDER, CASE OF THE BEAUTIFUL BODY, CASE OF THE BRAZEN BEAUTY, MORGUE FOR VENUS, and COME NIGHT, COME EVIL by Jonathan Craig (based on Bill Crider’s enthusiastic blog posts about the author recently)
TRAGO by Frank Bonham
EYE OF THE HUNTER by Frank Bonham
KISS HER GOODBYE y Wade Miller
GOAT ISLAND by William Fuller
I LIKE’EM TOUGH by Curt Cannon (aka Ed McBain)
NO SCORE by Chip Harrison (Lawrence Block)
STRONGARM by Dan J. Marlowe
DEATH DEEP DOWN by Dan J. Marlowe
13 FRENCH STREET by Gil Brewer
ASSIGNMENT CARLOTTA CORTEZ by Edward S. Aarons (who, I discovered today, wrote some TV tie-ins based on THE DEFENDERS).

I think, all told, I spent about $70. A perfect day.

I Should Go Out of Town More Often…

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I’ve been on a Spring Break road trip with my family through California, and wireless access hasn’t always been available or reasonably priced…so it has taken me a few days to discover all the nice things that Bill Crider had to say about MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE. He said, in part:

I’ve never seen so much as a single scene from the television
series. So why do I enjoy Lee Goldberg’s books about the character so
much? Well, let’s see. They’re funny, they’re well-written, they’re
carefully plotted, and they’re poignant. They probably have other good qualities, too, but those should do for starters.

Thanks so much, Bill!

Mr. Monk and the Out-of-This-World Review

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Okay, that’s an exaggeration, but James Reasoner gave MR. MONK IN OUTER SPACE a very kind review on his blog today. He said, in part:

[…] his Monk novels
are some of the most consistently entertaining mysteries to be found these days.
They’re tightly plotted, laugh-out-loud funny, and the voices of the various
characters are as pitch perfect as they can be.

[…]Regular readers of Lee’s blog will recognize where some of
this material comes from, but he’s not content just to poke affectionate fun at
the worlds of fandom and cult TV series. The plot turns out to be considerably
more intricate than that, and Monk has to have the help of his brother Ambrose
to sort it all out.

Thanks, James. Speaking of Mr. Reasoner, you may remember that he recently lost his home — and his everything he owned — in a wildfire. In addition to reconstructing his library, he’s trying to recover copies of the books that he’s written. Here’s a list of what he’s looking for.  You can also find it on Amazon. If you can help him, I know he’d appreciate it.

Mr. Monk and the Two Nice Reviews

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There are two more nice reviews for MR. MONK AND THE TWO ASSISTANTS out this week in the blogosphere. Barry Ergang of Futures Magazine said, in part:

This is the fourth of Lee Goldberg’s Monk novels that I’ve read. I’ve
enjoyed all of them, but this one is the best to date, in no small
measure because of its fairly-clued solution. The clue, I might point
out, is kept in front of the reader throughout the book, but is
nevertheless elusive—a sign of excellent authorial misdirection. Recommended without reservations.

Debra Hamel at SpikeBooks and at BookBlog says, in part:

I love this series. Sure, Monk is an unrealistic character, and some of
his feats prove a little harder to swallow than others. But they’re
good light mysteries, and more intricate than you’d expect. (This one,
in fact, was so intricate that it became a little confusing at the
end.) What makes the books shine, however, is Monk’s dialogue, which is
spot on and often hilarious.

Thanks Barry and Debra!

1,282,442 Words (That’s Almost as Much as James Reasoner Writes in a Month)

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The Press-Enterprise reports that 11-year-old Nicholas Barry of Riverside, California has read 1,282,442 words so far since August, quite an achievement…and a nice, even number that Adrian Monk would appreciate. So I guess it’s no surprise that Nicholas counts the Monk books among his favorites:

Nicholas, a Riverside resident, said he reads so much because he enjoys it.

"I love the challenge. I don’t do it for the prizes," he said.

Some of Nicholas’s favorite books are the "Star Wars" series by
Timothy Zahn and the "Monk" series by Lee Goldberg. The Accelerated
Reader program lets students take quizzes on the books they enjoy and
allows them to read an assortment of books which benefits the students,
Nicholas said.

"It inspires kids to read. They get to read what they want," he said.

Congratulations, Nicholas!