Yesterday afternoon Bowker issued their annual estimates of new books published in the US during 2009 that carried ISBNs. Titles produced via offset printing were essentially flat at an estimated 288,355. (That’s marginally lower than 2008’s 289,729, but keep in mind that this time last year, the 2008 estimate was only 275,000.) The number getting attention is their tabulation of 764,448 titles “that fall outside Bowker’s traditional publishing and classification definitions.” That’s nearly three times the 271,851 “nontraditional” titles from 2008. There are a number of details and issues of context worth examining here. For starters, in exchange for being […]