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Yes, People Still Buy Books
I understand! Statistics coming out of publishing are notoriously confusing.
Publishing is an opaque industry, and Griffin’s piece—which collects quotes and statistics from the 2022 Justice Department suit against Penguin Random House, in which the government successfully blocked PRH’s $2.2 billion purchase of Simon & Schuster—is filled with shocking claims. This vision is appealing to many people, including writers who (fairly or unfairly) feel stymied by the industry, popularists who think reading itself is a snobby hobby, and tech types who mock “paywalled dead trees.” The only problem is, the picture isn’t true. But I imagine few are shocked that books in 2024 do not occupy the place in the culture they did 100 years ago, before video games, cellphones, social media, streaming TV, and the like dominated our time.
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