Lots of books are published and read and still there will be winners and losers. Why?

Answer 1

Some books are better written than others.

Some are in a more popular genre, e.g. romances or mystery fiction.

Some are written by a well-known author, so get read whether there as good as his/her previous work or not.

Some get more publicity than others, so tend to become more popular because the reading public knows about them.

Can be many reasons why a book does well or not - these are just a few.

Answer 2

Because the publishing world in not immuned to competition. It's a tight world in there and it's pretty much winner take all. Books are published yes, but the real fight begins. The publisher picks up the books, hoping to get money out of it. If books don't sell, they are discontinued. If they do well, the writer continues with the publisher. If a book is a smash hit, of course, people want the next book. Some books are considered smash hits and publishers are always looking for the next one. Why do you think there are lists as The New York Times Bestseller List. It's competition, and books are always competing with attention from another book. It's unfair that it is so but that's life.

Answer 3

There's a lot of reasons.

For one thing, it depends on the author and the type of book being published. (Is there a strong enough readership for it? Is it in high demand? Will it fit? Is the author a newbie or an established pro?)

Secondly, the markets themselves are pretty tight. And as a result, there's a hell of a lot of competion to be had. You have everyone who is being published trying to get people to buy *their* books, and they only have a 5-month window in which to do it.

And 99% of those published don't make it as a result. A lot of these authors end up failing to make the grade, and many of their books go unnoticed as well.

The other thing, is that not *every* author who does become published actually gets their books placed on the bookshelves anymore. Some store chains will only pick out books which they think will bring in money for them. (Called "cherry-picking".)

But even the pros sometimes have problems selling books. So really, no one is immune to this sort of thing.

The other thing which creates problems is that book companies will sometimes merge now and then--expanding their base. Some authors are dropped from the list. (Book publishers have been notoriously competitive, so they have to do what needs to be done in order to stay on top.)

Here's an interesting fact: 40 books a second are published, which translates to about 4000-8000 a month. Not many people can read that many books in any given day. Can you?

Lately, there has been a drop in the number of titles released because of the aging reading generation. They simply aren't reading as much as they used to anymore. And this new generation isn't reading much at all, period. (Except for HP, there isn't a whole lot of books out there that the younger generation is getting into. It's not a matter of preference, it's simply a lack of interest in reading overall.)

Hope this helps.