Pagan books sales have gone down radically in the last year and a half, despite the increasing number of books being made available. It seems to reflect what many of us authors have been worried about for several years now. The sales aren’t even made up with e-books, as those have dropped significantly as well. Audiobooks for non-fiction still aren’t that popular either, and the revenue from them has always been minimal. So why is there this sudden and sharp decline in books sales?
When I first started learning about and practicing various forms of Paganism in the early 1990’s, books and events were the go-to places to gather the information that I sought out. The choice of books available in the bookstores was only a handful stuffed somewhere in the “New Age” section. The internet didn’t exist, but you could order books from glossy catalogues that companies such as Llewellyn provided, which wasn’t too bad if you lived in the US but if you lived anywhere else, the shipping fees were astronomical. And so you just had to make do with what your local bookstore provided. If you were lucky to have a witchy type shop near you, the selection was a little better, but shelf space was always at a premium. And we didn’t even bother much with libraries back then, because they would never stock those sorts of books in the first place. Finding books to read was a real struggle, but such a joy when you did find one that resonated with you.
The coming of the internet was a huge blessing for the Pagan community who wanted to connect with others, talk about authors and books and find solace with others when the community was so small and so widespread. Books began to be marketed online, which was a real boon to the publishing industry. And yet, with more people online than ever before, what has happened to book sales lately? Surely they should still be increasing?
Nope. I’ve talked to my publishers, I’ve talked to other authors and everyone is seeing a real downturn in books sales. We’ve been scratching our heads, trying to figure out why. As book lovers ourselves, it’s difficult to fathom how this downturn has come about so suddenly. So here is my take on what’s going on, and how it could very well spell the end of non-fiction books in the coming future.
- People can get information for free online. As people are online more and more and there are so many different channels to get information from, why buy a book? You could watch a video, read a blog and receive a ton of information anywhere for free. I know that if I was a youngster just starting out, the majority of my information would be garnered from this form of transmission simply because it is free.
- People don’t have spare cash to buy books right now. Everyone I know is hurting more and more financially, and if it comes down to buying your groceries for the week or buying a book, you will buy the food. I hope.
- You can find pirated copies of pretty much anything online. Need I say more?
- Attention spans are waning. It’s a fact. “In the early 2000s, she and her team tracked people while they used an electronic device and noted each time their focus shifted to something new—roughly every 2.5 minutes, on average. In recent repeats of that experiment, she says, the average has gone down to about 47 seconds.” https://time.com/6302294/why-you-cant-focus-anymore-and-what-to-do-about-it/ (I actually had trouble reading this article, not because of attention span but because four different pop-ups kept interrupting my reading. Oh, the irony.)
- When a book is released, it is competing will millions of other books these days. With so much choice, it’s wonderful for the reader out there. But for the author? It seriously dilutes the sales. Unless you have a slick marketing team that works for you.
- Authors can’t afford slick marketing teams. The shift in lots of publishing has been to place the onus of marketing up on the author, as the publishers have to make cuts somewhere just to stay competitive. Most authors aren’t marketers. I spent nearly a decade in marketing for a world-famous music venue here in England. That has seen me in good stead for the last ten years, but even now I’m struggling against a tide of everything that I’ve mentioned above.
The struggle is real, folks. I hope one day that books will have a resurgence, that cosying up with a book on a rainy day will replace hiding under your duvet with your smartphone. There is just something about a book, something that feels like an old friend you can turn to, something that you can hold in your hands, that ages even as you age, the feel of something material rather than something immaterial.
Go analogue for a while. Slow down. Smell the books along the way. Because who knows how long they’ll be here?
I finished the Big Book of Druidry (as I like to call it) and it was a labour of love. So much work went into that volume, and I hope that it reaches people like The Awen Alone did. I received so many emails from people about The Awen Alone this year, so many wonderful and life-changing stories, and I am so grateful that people took time out of their busy lives to write and share their story.
Druid College continues to be successful, and due to a high demand for online courses, next year we are putting Year 1 on hold in order to create an online course. This will consist of video and audio material, a downloadable book and online meetings with others on the course. We hope to have this available by 2020, fingers crossed! Our current Year 2 students are doing so very well, and it is indeed a great pleasure to be working alongside such people. After each weekend session, as soon as I get in the car with Robin, we both say how wonderful the people are that have chosen to work with us, and how blessed we are by those that have chosen to join. They bring so much, and I am eternally grateful that these first four years have been as good as they are, which is to say, brilliant!
As well, I had a difficult experience of another sort, when a peer decided to attack me on social media after I had contacted her to request permission to use two verses of an Irish poem she translated. To this day I still have no idea what set her off, but the vitriol of the attack was shocking, and the attempt to destroy me and everything I do quite mind-boggling. It brought back old pains of bullying when I was a child, and affected me on a physical level as well as mental. I realised this when I was walking down my street to the village shop, and in the middle of the street my heart started pounding and I felt very unsafe, like bullies were just waiting around the corner. I had to remind myself that I was 43 years old and no longer a young teenager, and no one was going to physically hurt me. It opened my eyes to the old scars that never truly heal, and I have learned how to better deal with such experiences. Namely, don’t read posts like that on social media, don’t get involved and don’t read all the uninformed comments either! Let the haters hate, there’s not much I can do about their behaviour anyway. As long as I am physically safe, and emotionally okay with a good support network of family and friends, that is what really matters, not what strange people say. I’m still working on compassion for people like that though. It’s not easy.
Back to the creative front, I hope to add more to my 
My Pagan Portals book, 
Down the Forest Path 