Apparently, We’re Buying Fewer Books, But Going to Bookstores to Get Them

Although the news from book publishers earlier this week was grim tidings of 11 percent decline, the Census Bureau assures us that bookstore sales are still rising, with an 8 percent increase for the month of April. The PW item noting the latest figures adds that “bookstore sales were up 5.4 percent to $5.45 billion,” for the first four months of 2008, “while sales for the all of retail rose 3.9 percent.”

As always, you’re invited to make sense of all this in the comments section…

Create a social media strategy, launch your campaign, and track the results in our Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting February 16. The online event and workshop will feature speakers including The Onion‘s Baratunde Thurston (left), Facebook’s Morin Oluwole, and bitly’s Tim Devane. Register now.