And frankly, it doesn't seem to be about to change.

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This was, of course, years before Amazon.com, and Long Tail type theories. Today, because shelf space isn't an issue, hope springs eternal for the remaindered author. There's always a chance that somebody is going to stumble across the book to which he or she devoted countless hours. But if it's true that 80,000 books get published in the United States each year, the odds of our being stumbled upon, never particularly good to begin with, are getting worse from year to year. It's great in theory, and probably even works every so often. Of course people working the slot machines in Las Vegas also sometimes hit the jackpot.

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Go to: Why don't you write a book?