The State of the Reading Nation Isn't Good

According to this study, if you asked ten random adults on the street about books and reading, you'd find out that:

14% Adults in U.S. are illiterate
33% High school grads never read another book.
42% College grads never read another book after college.
80% U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70% U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57% New books are not read to completion.
70% Books published do not earn back their advance.
(Source: Jerold Jenkins, www.JenkinsGroupInc.com)

As a writer, those statistics hurt more than your dog getting run over on Sunday morning. I'm not sure which figure is the grimmest of all. 57% of new books unfinished by readers is alarming. Are we only writing the boring same old-same old books?

70% of published books not earning any profit doesn't surprise me, given the present lean and mean economy. The hopes are pinned on Kindle and Nook to play our salvation and change all that. Writers like the bestselling Kindle millionaires will grow rich. I so doubt it.

14% of adults are illiterate reminds me of a man I worked with who couldn't read. He needed his wife to read everything to him and carried around his phone number in his wallet. Even if, he worked like a fiend, and he was a good dude. He taught me the ropes and helped me to keep my job where reading a book wasn't a requirement at all.

By Ed Lynskey
@edlynskey
Author of Lake Charles
"Satisfying."
The Rap Sheet/Kirkus Reviews