Are People Reading Less? Are we all morons now?

Have we become a morass of ignorant, illiterate morons? 

For most people this question would be a no-brainer (forgive the pun), 

Book reading overall is supposedly in decline, but does that mean? Less than half of US adults read even a book a year (48% in 2022 rather than 54% in 2012), according to one survey, reported in Publisher’s Weekly. (Link: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/newsbrief/index.html?record=4377 )

But, weirdly, that  isn’t necessarily because fewer people are reading at all. The raw number of those who read at all seems to be stable. The problem is that Whales have become Less Whaley. What I mean is that among readers, some are Whales and some are Minnows. If you read one piddling book a year, sorry, Minnows. If you read 15, you’re a Whale. If you read a book a week, I love you. The Whales getting less Whaley means that fewer people read more than 10 books per year, dropping from 35% in 2016 to 27% in 2021 .

Americans read an average of 12.6 books in 2022, fewer than in any previous Gallup survey since 1990 . The decline is the worst amongst the best readers: women’s average reading dropped from 19.3 books (2002-2016) to 15.7 books, while men’s declined only slightly from 10.5 to 9.5 books.

Yes, ladies, this is on you.

But the problem with statistics is that you can read them so many ways, and the question you ask shapes the answer you get. Fiction sales seem to be sailing along nicely, which is great news for me personally. BookTok continues to drive trends, which is something I’m rather less thrilled about.

In completely unrelated news, you can follow me on TikTok now:  https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8rSkLGb/  

Audiobook sales continue to soar as well. In completely unrelated news, have I mentioned I’m working on getting audiobooks out there for all my series?

Print sales are also up! Which… wow. I thought those had nose dived for good. But not only are print sales still going, I’ve seen a trend, particularly on Kickstarter, to create some truly GORGEOUS hardcover books, which are works of art. It’s a delight to the soul and the eye. In completely unrelated news…

I suspect that some of those books are more for show than reading. Ebook sales as a percentage of all book sales are still climbing.

Ever the optimist, I’m going to find the rainbow hidden in demographics and new media. It’s easy to see that older people read more than the younger folk and think, “Dang nabbit screenagers!” but the young people consume their stories in more media formats than older folks. Yeah, yearh, the younglings are glued to their phones. 

But is there any fiction on their phones? Yes. There are novels, including fan fic which probably doesn’t get counted in the stats. There are webtoons / manga / graphic novels. There are audiobooks with some images on sites like YouTube, which don’t count as audiobook sales, and there are video books which are basically audio books with images or scripts. 

I am a Whale reader myself, and I’ve noticed that I’ve been following a lot of these same trends. I listen to audio books or video books on my phone while I garden, and I read webtoons or watch cheesy acted romances on YouTube. 

As an author and indie publisher, it is going to do me any good to moan and complain that readers aren’t where I want them. It’s up to me to make my stories available where the readers find them. With that in mind, the biggest goal I have for the next couple of years is to help Misque Press bring my books, and the books of the other authors they represent, to as many media formats as we can.