As an author with a forthcoming non-fiction book, it's both depressing to read that non-fiction book sales are down, but inspiring to read of the importance of books.
The New Republic considers the (diminishing) prospects and (continuing) importance of non-fiction books.
Nonfiction Publishing, Under Threat, Is More Important Than Ever
Cuts in publishing and book reviewing imperil the future of narrative nonfiction, and our understanding of the world around us. by Paul Elie
“The decline in sales of new nonfiction might reflect a changing information ecosystem,” Elizabeth Harris observed. “People looking for information can now easily turn to chatbots, YouTube, podcasts and other free online sources.” Last December, The Guardian cited NielsenIQ figures indicating a one-year drop of 8.4 percent in nonfiction book sales (twice that of fiction) and quoted a writer who had “heard publishers have soured on any nonfiction that isn’t ‘Hollywood friendly.’”
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"Fretful narratives about the demise of books and the rise of devices have been in play for half a century or longer. “Our world of books, like most other worlds now, is the arena of an increasingly bitter struggle for space, and for the limited reading time that a busy citizen in this electronic age can afford,” John Updike lamented when accepting the American Book Award in 1982. Narrative nonfiction in particular has faced headwinds in mass culture before. And in many respects, the challenges it faces are built in. Long fact is hard to publish and always has been. Reportage and research take time, resources, attention, and fortitude. A book can require several years to write and another year and a half to be edited, checked, printed, and publicized—only to wind up coming out during a news cycle dominated by a sex scandal, school shooting, pandemic, or war. It was as true half a century ago as it is today that readers expect to pay for fiction but are used to getting nonfiction passively through the media.
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"In societies where freedom is under threat, an informed citizen is countercultural and deep reading is an act of resistance. Just as protest and vigilance are essential, so is the ability to read and think. In a would-be autocracy, the autocrat aims to subsume our society’s particular narratives into his master narrative—in which his name fills the headlines, his voice and image dominate the broadcasts, and his airbrushed visage appears on the facades of government. To read a book, however, is to enter a narrative that stands outside the politics-and-media maelstrom. In a would-be autocracy, even a small bookstore—with hundreds of books, classic, recent, and current—is a space of contrary narratives, where truth is recognized as both essential and complicated."
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