There should be a fourth box: Number of copies read from start to finish (I couldn't get through that rubbish, though not for lack of trying). I'd estimate the number of fully read copies at 10,000 (generously). And so THAT picture would be roughly the size of Wolfe's red carnation in the big picture.

Fascinating. But who do you think Jamie Lynn's baby daddy really is?

the only people who believe that book publishing remains a cultural haven are thems that don't work in it. paranormal romances come from somewhere, people. and they have exaggerated print runs too!

@TheBigDoggy: That's a stab wound from someone who did finish it.

Tommy just needs to commercialize his work a little bit. Don't be afraid to give the masses what they want.

For instance, my publisher has ordered an advance print run of 58 million copies of my latest book. Its working title is This Young Wizard Kid Discovers He's Magical at a Theme Park Filled with Reanimated Dinosaurs, and Also, That Snotty Little British Chick Actually Gets Naked in My Version of This Story.

Actually, an advertisement for the start of the L word season is represented graphically to the left. Oh boy! Shane is hot!!!!! I can't believe she left Carmen after all Carmen did for her!!!!

One book flopped! Books are dead!

Seriously, isn't this the kind of conclusion that the Times makes, and Gawker mocks?

Tom Wolfe's next novel will undergo a revision, in which the dozens of Miami characters will be merged into one sensible Miami housewife who has to learn how to hide vegetables in her kids' food.

Then Jerry Seinfeld will say something mean about Tom Wolfe, and everyone will realize Jerry Seinfeld's kind of a dick now.

The Tom Wolfe's next novel will be about a once-famous and beloved comedian who married an ambitious Jewy housewife and became a boring, vindictive person known for his voiceover work in movies about animated Llamas.

Then Tom Wolfe's novel after that will be about a once-great author who gets caught up in the vain, mudslinging world of international revenge-novel-writing. To escape from that unhealthy world, he has to learn how to hide vegetables in food from (plot twist) HIMSELF!!!!??!?!

God I'm good. Make me an agent.

@picardia: Well, it's been obvious that books are dying out for a while now. A thousand pieces of circumstantial evidence add up to a pretty conving theory. So if every single book published sells quantitatively less than it used to (relative to population size increase), then presto: you gots yourself a conclusion.

@Pope John Peeps II: a pretty conniving theory?

In other news, Gawker's looking like a ghost ship. Hey, Rip van Winkle! Hire someone who knows at least SOMETHING about traditional media, eh?

@soybomb: Well, it's true in my country at least. One of our two major publishers collapsed about five years ago. It was a pretty big shock to everyone who cared about literature, and assumed that other people did too.

Does this mean I should throw out all my books?

Does the mini travel-size Tom Wolfe come with a European adapter?

Those unsold books must have made one hell of a Bonfire of the Vain.

@CodePink: Except for Gatsby & Hamlet, yep. Throw out the Oscar Diaz book you bought to impress the girl from Corona.

Was I the only one who like "I am Charlotte Simmons"? I thought Man in Full was pretty good, too.

@judithbutler: Nope. I know this girl on 73rd and Park who liked it.

also, my understanding is that it's not that publishers are selling less books than they used to, it's that they're saying they're selling more than they actually are. more people are buying books today than yesterday; more people are writing books too. ridiculously, in trying to convince the major chains to buy into percieved big books, publishers create these print-run halls of mirrors that can make even a healthy net-sale of 293,000 seem laughable (thus setting themselves up for future failure with the chains and more bland, lowest-common-denominator-but-salable authors). which is why i need to get out of book publishing.

Aha! So Mr. Peanut has a real face after all.

@judithbutler: I, like thebigdoggy, ambitiously bought it and strained my back carrying it around, but just couldn't finish.

@soybomb: I hear ms. smalls is getting into the publishing biz. You might want to tell her some of your ish.

@Pope John Peeps II: coming up. Shaken or stirred?

@soybomb: any links to support this theory?

@judithbutler: I always thought that "I am Charlotte Simmons" and McInerney's "Story of My Life" were reminiscent of the kind of straight guys who always seem to find an excuse to dress up as women. Like Guiliani.

Publishers have always been inflating print run numbers -- this isn't some new event in response to lagging sales. But reported print runs aren't audited figures and ad sales aren't factoring into it, so they don't NEED to be. I think half the reported print run is a pretty decent estimate a lot of the time.

This is really doesn't qualify as a "hugely compromising bit of data" or even really ... news. Nice try.

@Pope John Peeps II: just every launch/marketing meeting i've ever been to. I guess i could do some actual research, but i just get depressed. everyone please support your local indies, because B&N is to blame for this.

@picardia: @FormerEA: Shhhh. Go easy on the new guy.

@Pope John Peeps II: Which one? News to me...

@moff: this really is a pretty clueless "story" for a ny media blog. i hate to say it, but maybe they should stick to j.a.?

Publishers like to inflate print run numbers, but depress actual sales numbers (for obvious reasons). Authors, on the other hand, like to brag about their print run numbers, until someone gets a hold of their BookScan numbers, which they quickly (and rather futiley) point out is only 70 percent of the actual sales total. The bottom line is each book sells far less than its author claims but a bit more than the publisher will admit.

@moff: Grandmoffbastard (that's what you'll always be to me). Dude. You are on fire today.

@soybomb: Especially for a NY media blog that recently published a book of their own? A more interesting "revelation" would have been the announced run, actual run, and actual sales for THAT book.

@MattGaymon: I was wondering when someone would dare to go there.

@MattGaymon: Ask and you shall receive: Smallish, miniscule, 48.

@Pope John Peeps II: Ha!!! That was a thing of beauty.

@moff: oh my darling, I'm totally humping your leg right now.

Am I the only one who knows that the discrepancy between the publisher's numbers and the actual sales lies in the fact that the publisher's own numbers always reflect how many books they sold to booksellers? Who gives a shit whether Bookscan says 100,000 or 10,000 of them were bought at Barnes and Noble. The small-number sold is the retailer's problem (that is until the author's next book arrives in stores and the order numbers come in low). If the publisher sold 1,000,000 copies to the retailers, then both they and the author have made their money.

@soybomb: Really? Wow. That would be unexpected, and contrary to the popular belief that nobody reads no more. I'll have to try and see what's actually going on in the Canadian publishing industry.

I need that MBA/stats degree to properly explain this, but suffice to say that there are more literate people today (in this country and the world), who have more free time (perhaps to read?) and there are more books and magazines etc published now than at any time in history. The biz sucks because it is a monopoly owned by 2 germans. And what Brawndo said.

@Brawndo: No. Book retailers can return unsold books for full credit. I KNOW, right??

Hmm. Well

here's a little link that recaps the story

here's an article written shortly after in 2003 about the state of Canadian publishing

here's a recent story about how we're actually dumber than Americans in literary terms. Which is surprising, but not that surprising. Noboby I know reads

and here's a link to an old New Yorker piece that says that in 2006, book sales were lower than ever. Who's Caleb Crain?

anyhow, I'm bored of googling things now.

@MattGaymon: and then the publishers eat the cost for warehousing and shipping those unsold books--and eventually, destroying them.

But! thank you gawker for ruining my fantasy of a publishing world run by bohemian artistes who sip cabernet and work for the love of literature, who care nothing for numbers or (shudder)profit. I had NO IDEA.

@Pope John Peeps II: he's a cutie pie, is who he is.

@berryline: awwww. is he kissable? does he have glasses and tousely hair? that's how I picture him.

@Pope John Peeps II: the hair is thinning, but he is eminantly kissable. I saw him at a panel discussion with the N+1 dorks and that is when i fell in love with him.

@soybomb: Oh, I know.

@FracturedAcetabulum: I should probably go to the hospital, or at least get some aloe.

@the supergoddess: Oh no. It's purely coincidental, but convenient, that I'm about to go take a cold shower.

@moff: Also: Thanks, you guys.

@judithbutler: re Was I the only one who like "I am Charlotte Simmons"?

Yes.

What is the matter with you?