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As British lore notes, "Where America leads, Britain follows," but the little island nation appears to have bucked such assumptions last year in the number of new books published, according to statistics released by a book- tracking firm. US-based Bowker, which monitors book production figures and gathers data from 83,000 US publishers, said that Britain has replaced the United States "as the publisher of most new books in English." "Based on preliminary figures from US publishers, Bowker is projecting that US title output in 2005 decreased by more than 18,000 to 172,000 new titles and editions," Bowker said. "The sudden and steep drop in the number of new books published in the US last year was surprising," said Andrew Grabois, a consultant for Bowker. Bowker said the fall in new US book titles was the first since 1999, and only the 10th such downturn recorded in the last 50 years. However, there had been a record increase of over 19,000 new books published in the US in 2004. "Great Britain, long the worlds per capita leader in the publication of new books in any language, now replaces the United States as the publisher of most new books in English," Bowker said. It said a total of "206,000 new books were published in the UK in 2005, representing an increase of some 45,000, or 28 percent, over 2004." Only large academic and trade publishers managed to publish close to the number of new US titles and editions that were newly-inked in 2004. General adult fiction and childrens books, two key categories in American book publishing, showed double-digit decreases in new titles and editions, Bowker said. In non-fiction, new biographies, and books on religion, history and technology suffered the steepest declines in 2005 across the US. Despite the overall
decline in new US books, the 2005 industry estimate was the highest
recorded following 2004's record year. —AFP |
