In 1950, in the United States, there were about 11,000 books published, and of these, about 1,200 were fiction. (Source: McSweeney’s.) Twenty-five years later, nearly 40,000 books were published, and 2,400 of these were fiction. In that period, publishing saw the rise of the paperback, a doubling of the number of children’s books published (just slightly less than fiction, at around 2,100), and a near tripling of books classified as “poetry, drama,” reaching 1,100.
