Paper Books are Alive and Well!

I was looking at my recent book sales and saw that a vast majority of them were e-books. Was the oft predicted demise of traditional books upon us?  Luckily, I keep good records of my book sales and noticed January had traditionally been a poor month for printed book sales. January had also been a blockbuster month for e-books. I surmise that it's all the fault of Christmas. Many avid readers of printed books received over a month's supply of the old fashioned variety on Christmas and were not yet in the market to buy new reading material. On the other hand, e-reader enthusiasts got new devices and gift cards for Christmas, so they went on a buying spree.

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Here's a popular television ad that kinda backs me up that paper will be around for a while longer.



 The ad reminds me of the old joke that the paperless office will arrive just after the paperless bathroom.

Do readers judge a book by its title?

Everyone knows the old axiom that people shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but do they also misjudge books by their title? I don’t know. I suspect a great title can get readers to look further, a horrible title stops further inspection, and a mediocre title doesn't influence sales one way or the other.

The Barnes and Noble Book Blog posted an article “12 Books With The Most Irresistible Titles.” Good Titles, but I always liked Lonesome Dove because it sounded intriguing.

The Great Rehearsal might be the worst title I've encountered for a great book. Carl Van Doren wrote one of the top three history books on the Constitutional Convention. The book was published in 1948, when the United Nations was just starting and Van Doren thought the 1787 Constitutional Convention was a rehearsal for writing the UN charter. This poor title probably dampened sales of a fine history book.  Ironic, since the book never mentions current events except in a slapped together preface.

I've never agonized over my own titles, except for Tempest at Dawn, my own book on the Constitutional Convention. Since this was a novelization of the convention, I needed a title that didn't sound like a history book. I still like the title. Perhaps I should have agonized more over my other titles. The Steve Dancy Tales: The Shopkeeper, Leadville, Murder at Thumb Butte, The Return, Jenny's Revenge, and Crossing the Animas are pedestrian. I like The Shout Mouth Society because it connotes secret society intrigue, which is the plot of this contemporary novel. Principled Action is a lousy title and may have affected sales of this nonfiction book about the founding period.

Authors may not be the best at selecting titles, but I’m not sure focus-group driven editors are better. My title for my computer technology book was Dinosaurs and Whippersnappers, but Wiley insisted on The Digital Organization. I still prefer my title.

Honest stories filled with dishonest characters.