THE ONION SYNDROME

They were trying to be funny. Publishers Weekly's PW Daily for Booksellers actually published this in an email distributed to subscribers:

Books Too Boring Compared to TV

Trade book sales fell 100% to $0.0 in 2003, according to the Association of American Publishers, as a bumper crop of compelling reality shows ranging from Average Joe to Queer Eye made reading seem boring in comparison. The figures, released today, sharply conflict with year-end statistics released by the AAP just yesterday, which indicated that trade book sales rose 43.2% to $13 trillion.

An AAP spokesperson explained that the 2003 figures unveiled yesterday were found to be incorrect under the organization's newest formula, by which annual book sales totals have been re-calculated going back to 1970. The spokesperson explained that the sales growth and totals have been refigured against a baseline of $0.0 in 1970. "Before the 1970s, cable television and home video games were not widely available, so book sales really didn't count," the spokesperson commented.

AAP numbers for 2003 also differ from statistics released by market research firm Ipsos-NPD. An NPD spokesperson cleared up the discrepancy by pointing out that its numbers are based on a weighted formula in which purchases of books bought only to be displayed on a coffee table to impress visitors were not counted, while books that consumers really wanted to read (defined by NPD as "bathroom books") counted twice.

In other statistics news, 2003 chain store book sales also were also revised downward, after it was discovered that the majority of revenue attributed to book sales was actually brought in by scones and cappuccino. The U.S. Census Bureau is expected to release its 2003 figures as soon as it finalizes its definition of "book."

The seemingly contradictory nature of this latest batch of statistics has led to renewed calls for more reliable industry figures. For its part, BookScan has issued a press release offering to clear up the confusion for anyone willing to "pay through the nose" for the information.

Hello?