The Deep Dive

How Well Do You Know the American Book Industry?

Jeff O'Neal

CEO and co-founder

Jeff O'Neal is the executive editor of Book Riot and Panels. He also co-hosts The Book Riot Podcast. Follow him on Twitter: @thejeffoneal.

I used to teach a college class called “America as Idea” to incoming freshmen. It was a writing class focused on various articulations and contestations of the idea of America, and as you might imagine, it could get heated. By my third year of teaching, I realized that many of my students were arguing cases for and against things without having a good sense of the reality of America. So, I started giving occasional quizzes on their understanding of basic facts about American life. It was both humbling and helpful. We were a little more careful to make generalizations, reject possibility, and all-around more amenable to the idea that we didn’t know everything. At all.

So, in that spirit, here are 10 questions for you to assess your own knowledge of the American book industry.

You, unlike my old students, get multiple-choice prompts…and anonymity. (answers, with citations at the bottom).

  1. About how many non-self-published books come out every year?
    a) 5,000 – 10,000
    b) 50,000 – 100,000
    c) 500,000 – 1,000,000

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