Some Good News about the Book Biz

It's so easy to feel gloomy about the prospects of book publishing these days, I thought I'd pass along a few notes of encouragement.

1. Apparently, while most other industries are tanking as a result of the Bush/Cheney Economic Depression, the book business has actually flatlined, having found its bottom a while ago. It seems that we've hit a bedrock of readers who despite the bad economic news aren't willing to give up their literary habits. Which is quite an inspiring and wonderful thing. Let's keep it up! (Indie Book-buying day is May 1st, by the way, which means everyone who reads this post should visit their local independent bookstore or online retailer and buy a book on the 1st.)

2. I was at a reading Sunday night featuring Ira Sher, Joanna Smith Rakoff, and Stacey D'Erasmo at KGB Bar. I was talking to D'Erasmo afterward, who reminded me that A) She and I were not the only two people on the planet who care deeply about books and reading. B) Publishing may be going through a painful period of transition, but it's a transition that could lead to some wonderful new way of getting books and writing into the hands of readers, a way that we hadn't previously imagined.

3. I was given an article by Robert Darnton, from the New York Review of Books, talking about the fate of libraries in the digital age. It pointed out that while the media for transmitting the written word have changed throughout the ages, the written word itself has not disappeared. Also, though books are increasingly being read in digital form, the sheer number of books that have existed and will exist over time is so vast that even the considerable resources of Google are not enough to encompass them all. Which means that the book still has an important and viable future.

It's rough out there, to be sure, but not apocalyptic.