A facile explanation is that these figures reflect weightless fiction and celebrity biographies.
Read straight through, the average celebrity biography leaves you feeling glutted and a bit tainted.
Still, a celebrity biography is a celebrity biography, and some do very well.
She has never, as the celebrity biographies like to put it, looked back.
In recent times the company is best known for its commercial non-fiction list, which includes business, health and lifestyle, music, film, and celebrity biographies.
"We've always had celebrity biography," he says, "but what we haven't had is this deluge".
Without a mark of approval, celebrity biographies don't always sell.
She knows they go for science essays and inspirational books but not celebrity biographies.
In nonfiction, celebrity biographies, memoirs and books on government reform are selling fast.
Blackburn specializes in celebrity biographies; she motivates herself to write 5,000 words per day.