Bibliographic information provider Bowker, US, has released statistics on the US book publishing industry for 2008, compiled from its Books In Print database. Based on preliminary figures from domestic publishers, Bowker is projecting that US title output in 2008 decreased by 3.2 percent, with 275,232 new titles and editions, down from the 284,370 that were published in 2007.
Despite this decline in traditional book publishing, 2008 was another year of substantial growth in the reported number of 'on-demand' and short-run books produced during the year. Bowker projects that 285,394 on-demand books were produced last year, a 132 percent increase over the previous year's final total of 123,276 titles. This is the second consecutive year of triple-digit growth in that segment, which in 2008 was 462 percent above levels seen as recently as 2006.
Among the major publishing categories, the big winners last year were education and business, two categories that might suggest publishers were seeking to give consumers more resources for success amidst a very tough job environment. There were 9,510 new education titles introduced in the nation in 2008, up 33 percent from the prior year, and 8,838 new business titles, an increase of 14 percent over 2007 levels.
