Getting Published Now Even Easier Than Getting Read

by Staff, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 5/24/2005

Bowker revealed its annual count of books published in the U.S.recently and it proved the maxim of the headline even more than usual. The country saw a whopping 195,000 new titles in 2004, up 14% from the previous year.

The growth in title production is being driven mainly by mid-sized and small publishers—and likely on-demand and vanity presses. According to Bowker, the number of new titles released by the largest trade houses rose 5.4%, the largest increase since 2001, but still relatively small. And the number of new publishers registering with the U.S. ISBN Agency rose about 5% as well.

Fiction was the fastest growing segment, with output jumping 43%, to include 25,184 new books. In non-fiction, gains were the most pronounced in the religion, travel and home- economics, while the steepest declines came in the education, history, science and biography areas.