Shelf-life, or the time for which a new book is kept in stock and sold at the published price, becomes shorter with each passing year. The shelf-life of a new novel by a first-time author is just 17 days in the United States of America, according to American trade journals; it isn’t much longer in Britain either.

There are two reasons for the truncated shelf-life. First, too many new books chase too few customers. Second, there has been a sharp decline in reading habits owing to the predominance of mass entertainment. But any serious analysis of the shortening shelf-life of books must follow the money trail, that is, the costs of warehousing and inventories and the returns on them. Can holding on to slow-moving stocks be justified when space has to be created for new titles every month? If additional warehousing is no longer an option because of rising real estate costs, does a publisher have much choice but to dump dead stock and make room for the new? If this is the new reality, what are its implications for authors and their publishers?

That physical space has become a real problem for publishers can be understood in two ways. First, through a Google search for recently published books on two websites that specialize in used books: Abebooks and Daedalus books. These sites provide competitive rates that are far below the original prices, as the books have been bought from publishers at throwaway prices. Second, almost all major publishers have moved their warehousing, sales and marketing operations from the city to the suburbs for rising real estate costs. This had affected distribution initially, but with better communication and transport facilities, it has worked out well by cutting marketing costs.

But the recent changes have not obviated the urgent need for more physical space. The real crisis is of overproduction and shorter print runs. Overproduction has meant more titles to be accommodated in bookshops, while lower print runs have led to higher unit costs. This has resulted in lower inventories: the bookseller now stocks only as many copies as he can sell off within a month, or, preferably, the next day. Like the publisher, he too is cramped for space and cash-strapped to hang on to stocks for an indefinite period.

What complicates the retail scene, on which the publisher is heavily dependent, is the facility of ‘returns’ that booksellers enjoy: they return copies they haven’t been able to sell within a reasonable period. In a tight money market with rising overhead costs, the bookseller plays it safe by buying the minimum number of copies that can be turned over quickly or returned.

With neither the publisher nor the bookseller prepared to take any risks, the publisher has no other alternative but to cut down on the number of new titles to be published. Authors, in turn, will have to work on books that have a wider appeal. With the squeeze that shows no signs of loosening its grip, there is hardly any choice.