All the knowledge of the world available thanks to the Internet. Nah. Tl;dr. At the same time that readership is down, the number of published books is up. Supply and demand, heading in opposite directions. And yet, my next book should be published in October. Not every decision has to make business sense. Muddling By, a roller coaster ride through America’s wealth classes, should be ready to buy within weeks. Interesting timing.

Last year, there were a few million titles published in the US. When I wrote my first book in 2002, there were about a quarter million titles. I doubt that number, but without being an industry pundit or employee, I have to rely on what I heard at a conference. I also heard that there were about a tenth as many self-published titles. Here we are a quarter century later, and libraries do not lack for content. They may lack for budget and public support, but writers are creating more books to steward. Great! Great supply! People are making stories available as the public finds ways to get around the gatekeepers.

Less than half (48.5%) of Americans read a book last year. Ten years ago, it was more like 54.6%. 48% is nice, but fewer people are reading full books. 

At the same time, 
“…the amount of time that Americans aged 15 and older spent reading anything “for personal interest” was roughly 15-16 minutes. 
…Americans spent between 2:40 and 2:51 hours watching TV on any given day.“
– Federal Data on Reading for Pleasure, National Endowment for the Arts

Look around and guess how much more time people are spending looking at their phones.

Tl;dr. Too long, didn’t read.

Information is power, some say. Information has never been easier to access. The breadth of information continues to expand, regardless of privacy concerns. We’re sharing lots. Posts and photos are shared largely without thoughts about security, but the videos, photos, and memes are welcomed. I give thanks for the Library of Congress, Wikipedia, and Internet Archive. They are a wealth that is largely overlooked, or at least underfunded.

Longer posts, articles, and publications are less likely to be read. Folks are too busy scrolling to get to the next cute video or inflammatory diatribe.

And yet, I wrote a book.

In 2008, I wrote Dream. Invest. Live. because my friends asked me to. Evidently, I could describe finance simply. They may also have been curious about how I retired at 38. The book was published, the Great Recession (The Second Great Depression) happened, totally unrelated I lost 80% of my net worth because of white collar criminals, then lost a total of 98% when I couldn’t sell my house or get a job. Many years of 10-12 hour work days later, I finally sold my house to get out of debt, and have been muddling by. Regular readers know this. Scroll back through years of previous posts for details.

As my finances have recovered, I realized I had lived through a rare set of situations. We talk in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’, but I’d lived through middle class, a stint as a millionaire, and years of muddling by. I could relay one person’s perspective of all three wealth classes, pointing out what we have in common, and what is easy to overlook. Hence, my next book, Muddling By. The longer title was going to be From Middle Class to Millionaire to (Mostly) Muddling By, but in today’s digital world, a book cover is the size of a thumb, so keeping it short made it easier to be seen: Muddling By.

The book awaits my final review, and I await the delivery of its proof. Stay tuned. I hope its review goes well.

But I didn’t write this post to sell the book. (That comes later.) Regular readers know that I watch trends. 

As a society, we’ve delivered the greatest supply of information, and we continue to add to it. And yet, we read less – or at least we read less long-form writing less. I haven’t seen the data, but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the number of words we read in posts and memes exceeds the number of words we read in books. But posts and memes rarely develop ideas, directly connect them, and deliver a complete thought. Instead, most social media posts are flashes of emotion that ask for little or no thought.

I think the world is more complex than a sound bite, unless we get very philosophical and debate whether “Nothing is Everything, and Everything is Nothing.”

Muddling By is commentary on America’s wealth classes: the stereotypes, the generalities, and my personal experiences. Each topic gets a couple of thousand words, not enough for deep consideration, but hopefully within modern attention spans. Each topic is complex for a bookshelf of titles. Each topic is also something that has hit the news. Despite the media’s tendency to emphasize discord, as I lived through each class, I recognized that the great majority of experiences were simply people trying to live their lives, usually helping others as they can. The stereotypical opposite is easier to pull in views of posts, but it purposely misses the validity of almost all lives. 

We invented wealth. We’ve decided to allow poverty and hoarding. A hundred years ago, such concepts existed, but the variety was abstract. Now, we are a click away from social situations that were easily ignored. 

We have fewer reasons to ignore our differences. We have more opportunities to realize the validity of a wide variety of lifestyles. Many of our differences are based on abstract concepts that we invented. Muddling By is one offering to demonstrate commonalities that may build some bridges, encourage some actions, and inspire some possibilities. 

In the meantime, as I wait for my delivery, I think I’ll drink some tea, read a book, and maybe go dancing later. No screens required.