It’s hard to read Michael Posner’s Globe & Mail piece about the decline and fall of book sales without wanting to yawn, cover our ears and generally tune things out. I mean, this is hardly new, and oh I don’t know, maybe some real live solutions would be a good idea now? You know, like finding new ways to get people excited about books when they could spend more time on their XBox 360 or upgrading their iPods?
Which isn’t to say the doom/gloom isn’t there, and at least from a Canadian perspective, it’s fun to hear what reasons are offered up for such a decline:
Ben McNally, who runs Toronto’s popular Nicholas Hoare Bookstore, says the recent wave of popularity for Canadian fiction may have encouraged too many publishers to ride the crest. “I think there’s been an unseemly haste to get books to market before they’re ready. The editorial process is not taking as long as it should.”
Concedes Penguin Canada senior editor Barbara Berson, “There is over-publication. There are so many books out there. Some of them are worthy. Some of them aren’t. I do believe the great ones rise to the fore, but they can be obscured by the glut. That can lead to a dulling of the senses.”
Berson says over-publication was the result “not of wanting to cash in, but of feeling confident that we had in Canadian fiction something others didn’t have. It led to the opening up of fiction programs, but it was not a sustainable plan.”
Ah yes, the age-old “too many books” argument…