The publishers, through whatever forecasting tools they may use, made a rare unanimous decision. In planning their fall catalogs, they reckoned that no one would be buying Civil War books in September.In the 10 years I have been tracking ACW releases, I have never seen a month like this.
Apart from any self-published work I may have missed and setting aside any commercial titles scheduled but not released, my count stands at 13 books issued in the Civil War genre for 9/08. Consider, how broadly I define the ACW genre. Consider also this breakdown of the 13 titles:
- Eleven were nonfiction; one was a novel and one a picture book.
- Five were reprints, if we include the collected works of Mort Kunstler.
- One was a pomo gender study.
- Two were Lincoln books riding the Bicentennial wave.
Shocking. The same hand is not being dealt in October, fortunately.
