From the Associated Press:
A shrinking economy and rising technology have transformed how, and how many, books are being published.
With publishers cutting back new releases in response to declining sales, an estimated 275,000 traditional books were released in the United States last year, a drop of about 9,000 from 2007, according to Bowker, a New Providence, N.J.-based company that compiles industry statistics.
Categories with the biggest reductions included travel, religion and biography, Bowker said Tuesday.
But the number of "on-demand" books, a category featuring works with tiny, digitally stored print runs, topped 285,000 in 2008, the first time they outnumbered traditional texts. In 2006, there were fewer than 22,000 on-demand titles, which have become an increasingly popular way to bring old books back in print or keep recent releases from going out of print.
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