Think You’ve Read A Lot?

-->I recalled today a presentation a fellow classmate in Grad school had given several years ago regarding the publication of novels. In fact, I think it was Brad Uy, if memory serves (correct me if I’m wrong here Brad). Anyhow the short of it is that we had to read so much material during those years that several of us thought we’d read a good amount of what was out there. How wrong we were.

It turns out that there are a lot more books out there than people realize. I mean, a lot more. Some of you may have heard the old phrase that more novels have been published since the year 1950 than in all of human history beforehand. And that is true, but did you also know that so many new novels have been published in the last few years that there are almost more new books in print that were published after the year 2000 than all the previous centuries before? In other words, within a few years there will be more new, never before published books since the year 2000 than all the rest of human history put together. That’s a lot of books! 

In fact, currently, in novels alone, in fiction alone, over 200 completely new and unpublished works are printed and presented to the public for the first time…every day. That’s right, over 200 new novels a day in English alone. And the rate of newly published novels is rising exponentially every year as well. Now, I’m sure if you finished one novel a day for the rest of your lives you’d feel like a real bookworm, right? But, even at 200 novels a day you’d still be behind. There is a plus side, however. There are more books than you’ll ever physically be able to read, so the enjoyment is limitless. In addition, for first-time authors (like myself) there’s more and more of us getting published every year. Of course, there are more writers too so the odds may remain about the same. Nonetheless, I think the sheer volume of books printed today is something worth wrapping your head around.

So get reading…