I cannot put my finger on any single point of origin, but my Biblioracle senses have been detecting something of a publishing slump.
The objective data say that my senses deceive me, as the Association of American Publishers recently reported that sales in the first six months of the year were 3.9% higher than the comparable period last year.
But in talking to some folks who work up and down the industry — publishers, agents, writers and booksellers — there’s a sense that some energy has been lacking, and when asked, they had a hard time identifying a book or author that had recently lit the readership on fire.
This connects with my own anecdotal data when I ask folks what they’re reading. The most commonly cited books tend to be more than a year old, titles like “Demon Copperhead” and “Lessons in Chemistry.” These books have already sold so well and garnered such wide audiences I didn’t think there were any more readers to be found for them.
The recent release of Sally Rooney’s new novel, “Intermezzo” resulted in a brief flurry of cultural coverage that eked beyond the book pages, but out of the gate, it doesn’t look like an instant mega-seller.
I think there’s one big external factor at work. There haven’t been very many new books from big-name novelists this fall, compared with previous years. In addition to the Sally Rooney book, there’s a new book from Haruki Murakami, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” but previous years have seen fresh releases from major prize winners on a weekly basis from September into November. My guess is that publishers are calculating that the election season will be soaking up a lot of the available oxygen.
But I also think we may be experiencing a shift in the underlying publishing ecosystem that may be sapping some of the juice from the book world.
The longtime trend of consolidation in the publishing industry may be at work. According to government labor statistics, 40% fewer people now work in publishing, compared with its peak in 1997. The major imprints that have the money and marketing muscle to bring a book to wide public attention are bundled under fewer umbrellas, which may mean less competition to figure out how to break out new authors. Rather than finding the next “Leave the World Behind,” Rumaan Alam’s breakout from 2020 that is still selling in big numbers, they bank on lightning striking the same author twice, which has not happened with Alam’s follow-up, “Entitlement.”
I also think the increasing reliance people have on algorithmic recommendations through platforms like Amazon is steering more people to the same books. While this is great for the books that find favor, the overall effect flattens the array of books people may talk about in the world. The most reliable source of reading recommendations is word-of-mouth, and when too many mouths have the same words, that’s another loss of energy.
It’s entirely possible that I’m seeing phantoms, that publishing is and always has been cyclical and this is just one of those inevitable lulls. When the sales figures for the last six months of 2024 are released in early 2025, we’ll see how they stack up.
But just in case I’m right, here’s my wish, that next time you go looking for a new book, try to find one that not everyone else has read yet. If you’re having trouble with that, I know a guy who can help.
You can contact him at the bottom of this article.
John Warner is the author of “Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.”
Book recommendations from the Biblioracle
John Warner tells you what to read based on the last five books you’ve read.
1. “The Water is Wide” by Pat Conroy
2. “The Indigo Girl” by Natasha Boyd
3. “When You are Mine” by Michael Robotham
4. “A Mother’s Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy” by Sue Klebold
5. “The Women” by Kristin Hannah
— Pat A., Oracle, Arizona
There’s some risk in my pick because it’s a non-linear novel, a tapestry of different stories braided together, but I think it’s the right fit for Pat, “The Imperfectionists” by Tom Rachman.
1. “So Much for That” by Lionel Shriver
2. “Old King” by Maxim Loskutoff
3. “All That Happiness Is” by Adam Gopnik
4. “Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions” by Johann Hari
5. “Friendship for Grown-Ups” by Lisa Whelchel
— Charlaine R., Chicago
For me, this is the book of the year, so it can’t hurt to recommend it, can it? “James” by Percival Everett.
1. “The World Played Chess” by Robert Dugoni
2. “The Life Impossible” by Matt Haig
3. “West with Giraffes” by Lynda Rutledge
4. “The Lost Bookshop” by Evie Woods
5. “My Sister’s Grave” by Robert Dugoni
— Ed T., Des Plaines
For Ed, I’m going with a novel about war that’s not really a war novel, Ben Fountain’s “Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.”
Get a reading from the Biblioracle
Send a list of the last five books you’ve read and your hometown to biblioracle@gmail.com.