This always makes me splutter because of the logjam of words in my brain. Is the 300,000 number ridiculous? Really? What's the number based on? ISBNs? Does that include someone's dissertation on the sedge grasses of southwestern Wisconsin? There are obviously challenges within and for the industry, but the biggest challenge lies outside publishing. America is not a nation of readers, not generally. Turning the mindset of not reading into reading is akin to holding back the tide. And as for returns, this has long puzzled me. The produce manager at the A&P doesn't get to send back wilted lettuce. It's a matter of judicious ordering, a delicate process that needs an expert and not a shipment of whatever stuff a central ordering agency sends out. If there were easy answers to these issues, we'd have found them, but I have a feeling these will continue to plague us for a long time to come.

Folks are getting too worked up about the 300,000 number. Nothing really has changed. Essentially only a handful of publishers will continue to publish viable books, those that will sell more than a few thousand copies. The other 250,000 titles are like a morning fog. With rare exception, they dissipate quickly. The lesson here is that is has become easy to make a book thanks to technology. But it remains hard to sell one. That takes access to the review media and, most important, an ability to distribute a book. The latter two functions are still the provenance of the big houses.

Ditto what Christine said, but as one of those authors, I'd also like to follow up on promotion. Why spend X tens of thousands not only on the advance, but the editing and production of a book, only to give up at the last step? I understand about preorders, etc., but there are probably a good number of midlist books that could at least sell through, make back their expenses, with a little help. I'm not talking ads or premium bookstore placement, but a half hour's thought to marketing to specialized groups, for example, or making sure that the author's hometown outlets are made aware of a new book. Yes, as an author, the burden falls on us- but there are some things that need to come from the publisher, and we'd all benefit. OK, didn't mean to rant, but I did.

As a devoutly superstitious writer who watches for omens and portents, the fact that the PW news linkups have been non-functional for a week now can't be good news for the industry at large...Let's look around for a hack editor to throw overboard to appease the Gods, shall we?

As an author events coordinator for a bookstore, I absolutely agree with Clea Simon that, although authors should still be held responsible for as much marketing they can accomplish on their own end, publishers need to stop pouring ALL of their marketing dollars into only their bigger-name authors and start transferring that to the rest of the list.

If we finally want to kill off the bricks-and-mortar independent bookstore, by all means, let's eliminate returns. That way there will be nothing unusual on the shelf, and readers will be even more inclined to get all their books online.

As a serious afterthought, the only way chain bookstores of any size can protect themselves from PR-bombardament nonstarters is to start publishing and promoting their own selections, thereby bypassing publishing house hustlers who knowingly dump crap on them. And let's keep the returns for the little guys by all means. The big publishers have had a free ride for far too long here...