I want my jet-pack

[james_davis_nicoll]

Andrew Wheeler looks at the seventeen replies to SF Signal's question "If you could change any aspect of the science fiction field itself - publishing, mainstream acceptance, fans, or whatever - what would it be and why?"

Not all of the answers were created equal but I'll use one of them for a later post.

Comments

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

"Everyone wants to be the category-breaking massive bestseller with the glamorous Chip Kidd cover, but that's like wanting to be thin and rich and model-beautiful, and about as likely."

Don't mind me, I'm just highlighting this for Doug. Incidentally, Chip Kidd does about a hundred book covers a year. It's not like winning the lottery.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

There were 172,000 new titles published in the US in 2005 [1] so the odds of getting a cover by him are roughly one in 1700.

Winning a lottery (In Canada, assuming the store clerk isn't a crook) is about one chance in 14 million, which compares to the one in 650,000 chance of getting killed by a terrorist, the one in a million chance of dying from flesh-eating disease, the one in 56,000 chance of being struck and killed by lighting, or my favourite, about one third as likely as dying in a traffic accident on your way to buy the ticket, assuming a 16 km trip (all odds courtesy the CBC).



1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Books_published_per_country_per_year#cite_note-Reuters-1

Anyone want to explain what's going on over in the UK?

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

206,000?! Holy crap. I was just talking about the history of publishing last night with my father (he's going to be teaching a publishing course this upcoming academic year) and he said that when he was working for Macmillan in the late 70s, there were about 40,000 titles published per year.

"And now it's more like 120,000," I said.
"Well, probably 150,000," he said.

What is going on in the UK? I'm baffled...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

That's one book per 300 Britons. Per year. Assuming a 75 year lifespan, each Briton will write 1/4 of a book, on average.

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

To be fair, a certain proportion of those books will be British editions of books from other English-speaking countries, or translations. But still...

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

I suspect that there is a variation in counting methods.
The UNESCO website has some more detailed statistics and there's a note by the USA data explaining that they don't count school textbooks, government publications, pamphlets or university theses. There isn't a similar note by the UK data.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, significantly more inclusive reporting in the UK. The UK figures include large numbers of very small press books - town histories, family memoirs, steam train photograph albums. These classes of book exist in great profusion in the US, but aren't nearly as completely counted, because the US is bigger and less centralised.

Best guess from the academic side (personal conversation with several university librarians) is that the US publishes more books in total, but fewer per capita, than the UK does.

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

Bugger. That was, in fact, me.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

But only 50,017 fiction titles in 2007, and 9,796 literature titles. (Source.) If you delimit the category enough, you're almost in pull-tab territory.

Benji Saves the Universe

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The number of books published per year/the number of books that are category-breaking massive bestsellers with glamorous Chip Kidd covers cannot be as bad as the odds of winning the jackpot in 649 (with or without encore) since even one in 200,000 odds are nearly a hundred times better than winning the lottery but it sure isn't likely.

Re: Benji Saves the Universe

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the odds of writing a category-breaking massive bestseller are all that different from dying from flesh-eating disease?

Re: Benji Saves the Universe

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

Among North Americans? Writers? Published writers? Published writers who earn their living from their work?

The distribution is typical for a celebrity economy, but by the time you reach that last category, it's well within friend-of-a-friend territory.

[ninebelow.livejournal.com]

Wheeler really does talk a lot of shit, doesn't he?

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

I knew there was a reason I liked Jay Lake.

[daev.livejournal.com]

I've been reading through the replies to this question about SF print magazines vs. online stories posted by Gordon Van Gelder at SFSite. The respondents vary in age from 20 through 60. And so far I have just not seen the "young people hate print and want to live 100% digitally" attitude that the louder doom-mongers are fond of. To be honest, I feel like there's an element of gloating about a lot of those "realists," although not necessarily Wheeler, and it really turns me off: "The future will bury you, loser fossil old white dinosaur piss men!!!" I think the suggestions that he's rejecting offhand should be taken more seriously, because (if the SFSite commenters are typical) many readers don't hate the magazines. They just have more of a choice of printed media now, so the ones that want novel epics don't feel obliged to buy short story magazines or anthologies.

[le-trombone.livejournal.com]

I'm confused by the sideswipe comment on Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu (note correct spelling). I'm pleased that she got reviewed in the New York Times. I'm also pleased that I've spoken to her in contexts that had everything to do with "SF field". It is possible to be in both areas.