Book purchasing data

Greco, Albert N. *The Book Publishing Industry* 2nd. Mahway, New Jersey: Lawerence Erlbaum Associates, 2005.

Greco cites *2001 Consumer Research Study of Book Purchasing (New York: Book Industry Study Group)

Subject category and % of Total units sold
Popular Fiction 55%
Nonfiction Religious 10%
Cooking/Crafts 9%
General Nonfiction 7%
Psychology/Recovery 4%
Technology/Science/Education 4%
Children's 3%
Art/Literature/Poetry 3%
Reference 2%
Travel/Regional 1%
All Other 1%
(216)

Ouch. Pretty devastating figures for "literature."

Greco, Albert N., Clara E. Rodriquez, and Robert M. Wharton. *The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century. Stanford: Stanford Business Books, 2007.

Cites NEA 2004 study as follows:

Popular fiction is still, by far, the most common type of book bought, with the majority (57.3 percent) of all books purchased for adults being in this category. The next largest categories are nonfiction religious (8.9 percent), cooking and crafts (8.4 percent), and general nonfiction (7.6 percent), each of which accounts // for less than 10 percent of all purchases. The remaining 18 percent is accounted for by purchases in the areas of psychology and recovery, technical, science, and education; art, literature, and poetry; children's reference; travel and regional; and all other. In addition, while the popular fiction are has been growing consistently since 1997, all of the other areas have either declined or fluctuated during this period. (175-6)

The numbers are essential the same. Add the figures of all besides pop fic, cooking, non-fic, and religious and you get the same 18%. So it looks like "serious" literature and art and poetry have been sharing that 3% share since at least 2001.

Here is more or less how that 55 percent breaks down:

Fetto, John. "Reader Request." *American Demographics.* July/August 2002. (page numbers???!)

Fetto cites Ipsos Book Trends research as follows:

Unit share of adult books sold by selected genres.
General fiction: 1999---6.4% 2001---10%
Mystery/Thriller: 1999---13.8% 2001---15%
Romance: 1999---20.7% 2001---20%
Science Fiction: 1999---6.5% 2001---5.5%

We can't confuse "general" fiction with "literary" fiction, since this category comprises all kinds of stuff not collected by the other named genres. So, if you want to reach an audience, write romance. Or thriller.

More depressing news about poetry reading in America:

*Who Reads* (cite author date and publisher!...it's a study from the '80s)

In estimating the size of the audience for poetry, the distinction between those who read classic works only and those who read contemporary as well as classic literature makes a substantial difference. If one includes those who read well-established poetry then the ARTS and BISG [Book Industry Study Group, more recent figures cited above] surveys indicate that the audience for serious poetry is about six percent of the adult population...On the other hand, if one restricts the audience to those who read contemporary "literary" poetry, then, as noted above, the poetry audience ammounts to once percent or less of the population. (33)

And that is in the 80s. NEA surveys indicate that poetry reading has declined since then. Even the latest report "Reading on the Rise" suggests that popular fiction is up again, but poetry and drama reading continue to decline.

Declining from less than one percent of the adult population...there can't be much left...

This presents a difficult situation. For fiction writers, it seems crazy to insist on "publishable literary" fiction, since the market for this is like 1.5 to 2% of the book market. This is a very small audience, and is not likely to be the audience that many writers actually want to address. Seems like an educated move into genre fiction allows for a larger cultural impact for work and perhaps reader demographics somewhat closer to what is desired (although this is not guaranteed; the presence of the white, middle-class, suburban female still dominates fiction). Opening MFA programs to genre writing seems like an obvious move.

For poets...what the hell do you do? There's no cultural capital available outside of the academy. Green's "useful" poem is the only way out. You have to already have a community for whom the poem will be useful and meaningful and then write directly to them. So your choices are: the academic-poet crowd, the Slam scene, some kind of June Jordan community project scenario, or whatever else you can pull together. Whether it's high brow or grass roots, you're still very limited in who you can reach.

Maybe that's not a bad thing... If it's about community more than it is about reaching a mass audience, then poetry may be the better choice.

Anyway, all these figures add up to the reason why this guy is my new hero.