Well, I guess we need to hope that the Singularity happens before 2052. That's the year when Authorgeddon is predicted to happen, according to Wikipedia. In case you're wondering, Authorgeddon is the moment in time when the number of books published in the U.S. is expected to surpass the number of people in the U.S. who are willing to admit having read a book in the previous year.
"A study by print on demand company Lulu.com pinpoints 2052 as the year when Authorgeddon will arrive. The study arose from statistics published by R.R. Bowker, the company that controls ISBN distribution in the U.S., which reported that the number of books published in America in 2004 hit a record 195,000 -- a 14% increase over the previous high of nearly 175,000 recorded the year earlier. Bowker reports that the average annual rise in published titles over the last three years has been 14.6%."
That 14% increase looks pretty interesting--if it held up it would mean that the number of books published in the U.S. would double every 5 years. So, how does that stack up to real publishing statistics?
From Bookwire (owned by RR Bowker):
1993: 104,124
1995: 113,589
1999: 119,357
2000: 122,108
2001: 141,703
2002: 147,120
2003: 171,061
2004: 190,078
Sadly, in 2007 the number of books published in the U.S. plummeted to 172,000 new titles (I'll bet it's that damn Internet thingie). The overall CAGR is 3.65%, which would double every 19.33 years. But even looking at statistics to 2004 only (2005 might have been a blip, after all) it gives us CAGR of 5.14%. So even by cherry-picking the time frame to include the rosiest picture of growth, we get about 1/3rd of the growth we need. The concept of human knowledge doubling every five years did not originate with US book publishing statistics, I'm afraid.
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