On Demand Books Overtake Traditional Titles for the First Time

Publishers Lunch
Tuesday, May 19, 2009

On Demand Books Overtake Traditional Titles for the First Time
Bowker's [Bowker.com] preliminary data for books published in the US in 2008 shows that output from traditional publishers declined by about 3 percent to 275,232 new titles. But they project that the number of "on demand" books grew 132 percent to 285,394 books, now exceeding the traditional titles.

The biggest declines for traditional publishers came in travel (down by 15 percent, with 4,817 new titles), fiction (down 11 percent, with 47,541 new titles the largest of all categories), and religion (down 14 percent, at 16,847 titles).