The motherlode of book writing statistics

I know some of you read this blog because I’m a guy you sort of know who wrote a book, and you’re interested in writing books – If that’s true, say hi or post a link to this entry on your blog, so I know you want more on the book writing process.

Found a page of book industry stats (warning: questionable validity) – link from India, ink:

58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
42% of college graduates never read another book.
80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% of new books are not read to completion.
81% of the population feels they have a book inside them.
70% of the books published do not earn out their advance.
Most readers do not get past page 18 in a book they have purchased (!).

The rest are here at Para Publishing. Again, I can’t verfiy these stats. And even if I could every genre or book market is different, so YMMV anyway. The page does have sources for most of these links, but they’re of varying quality.

Also see India’s post about how book interiors are designed.