Brought to book
Sir: Whether or not it makes sense for 62,063 books to be published in a year in Britain, it is clearly nonsense to compare books with groceries — or with vacuum cleaners, or mousetraps (Publishing, 11 February).
If such comparisons must be made, books are much closer to gramophone records and paintings. Do we need nearly as many records as the gramophone com- panies issue, or nearly as many paintings as are to be found on sale each week through- out the country? Are there too many concerts, or fabric designs, or television programmes?
In advance of publication publishers have little idea which books will or will not become blockbusters; that is one reason why they publish so many (the same thing is true of the record business). Who could have predicted the success of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time?
There is not, and could never be, any `right' number of books that should be published each year. We can, however, be reasonably certain that the abolition of the Net Book Agreement will encourage pub- lishers to play safe rather than take adven- turous risks. Is that what Paul Johnson wants?
Winston Fletcher
Chairman, Delaney Fletcher Delaney, 5-11 Shorts Gardens, London WC2
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