Fiction grows in 2011

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

Article in USA Today discussed briefly some 2011 bookselling trends.

My takeaways:

• I was surprised to read of a decline in non-fiction. I always thought it sold well.
• I was not surprised by the growth of e-books, but was surprised that in the specific statistic provided (number in the top 150), the growth was only 2 percent.
• More self-published authors made their debut on the list.

[I. J. Parker]

I welcome the decline in non-fiction.  All the how-to books have been mind-boggling.  Fiction authors eventually caught on to this and started to write books on how to write novels.  It's ridiculous.

The rest is hardly surprising.

[EDWARD C MORGAN]

Just like fiction, there is plenty of non-fiction that I look at and think, "are you kidding me?"  But there is some good non-fiction as well. I'll be curious to see if there will be an increase in non-fiction sales related to the election year.

I was genuinely surprised at the 2% increase - I thought it would have been more.

[Benjamin Sobieck]

I think the demise of non-fiction sales is tied to the rise of e-books. E-books are better suited for fiction material, something that offers a page-by-page narrative. Reference material often requires a lot of jumping around the pages. It's also crammed into not so ideal situations, like when my copy of Joy of Cooking leans against a pot of boiling water. Wouldn't do that with my Nook.