Published: Sun, Jun. 15, 2008 12:00AM

Modified Sun, Jun. 15, 2008 01:39AM

tool name

"Bookscan has allowed us to be much more efficient," said Paul Bogaards, a senior vice president at Alfred A. Knopf publishing.

The Regulator's Tom Campbell said this access to instant information has made publishers numbers-oriented. "It's common for them to call the day after an event to ask, 'How many books did you sell?'" he said. "They almost never used to do that."

Writers, promote thyself

A final piece of the puzzle is the cutback in book coverage by local media. Just a few years ago, Bogaards said, he could count on newspaper and radio interviews wherever he sent his authors. "Even if you only attracted a handful of people to the reading, you could generate enough publicity to make it worth it," he explained. "That's no longer the case."

Here's the surprising thing: In this land of cutbacks, the number of books just keeps growing. Thanks to the development of print-on-demand technologies, the number of new titles published in the United States has almost tripled during the last five years, to 411,422 last year, according to R.R. Bowker, which publishes "Books in Print."

In this crowded marketplace, writers know they must promote themselves.

"We're inundated with requests from local authors, self-published writers, friends of writers visiting the area asking to set up a reading," said Fiocco of McIntyre's.

The good news for bookstores is that local writers usually work hard to publicize their events, and they don't need to sell a tall stack of books for it to be a success.

"We had some local poets read on a Saturday afternoon, and we had about 30 people here," Fiocco said. "That was good."

Booksellers are also working harder. Campbell noted that he reached out to various medical and health groups before doctors from Duke came to discuss their new book "The Alzheimer's Action Plan: The Experts' Guide to the Best Diagnosis and Treatment for Memory Problems." They drew 50 people and sold 36 books.

"In the past, we'd just slap the name up and people would come," Campbell said. "Now we have to do more niche marketing. Fortunately, people around here still love books."