The industry’s pace of change quickens as digital content technologies advance, print-on-demand becomes more prevalent, and declining readership and reaching today’s consumers continue to pose significant challenges.

By James Sturdivant

Then, there are new U.S. Census numbers, released in December 2007, that show that the number of hours per person spent reading consumer books has been basically flat over the last six years. The same report—“The 2008 Statistical Abstract”—records that per-person spending on books is rising modestly, though time with and money spent on books is dwarfed by the continuing rise in those numbers for television. Adjusted for inflation, American households’ spending on books, according to the NEA report, is near a 20-year low.