Most Westerners first learn about Buddhism through a book. Hence the terms “bookstore Buddhist” and “nightstand Buddhist.” But what if you want to go beyond the basics? Buddhist books are rarely categorized by level: beginner, intermediate, or advanced. In fact, sometimes, they aren’t even categorized as “religious” books at all. Zen titles can often be found in the “Body, Mind and Spirit” section, alongside books about crystals, parapsychology, UFOs and extraterrestrials, witchcraft, and yoga. Zen in particular has become a floating signifier with no fixed referent.
How do you know if a book is an authoritative Buddhist teaching, about Buddhism—like a monograph on ancient temples or a coffee-table book on Angkor Wat, for example—or simply somebody’s riff on “Dharma lite?” To understand this koan, you first need to understand a bit more about the North American publishing industry in general.
According to Andreas Schleicher, head of education and skills at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 30 per cent of Americans read at a level that you would expect from a 10-year-old child. (The New York Times) According to the American Library Association, attempts to ban books doubled in 2022, to more than 1,200 instances. Last year, that number was up to more than 4,000. In fact, book banning in the US has been doubling year over year for quite some time. Yet the US book market is the largest in the world and expanding rapidly. One wonders: what is everyone reading? Even a bestseller that sold two million copies would have reached less than one per cent of the US population. How many people will a Buddhist book reach? Most Buddhist books sell less than a few hundred copies.
There are three main types of Buddhist books: scholarly, general interest, and liturgical. This article will discuss the first two types.
Scholarly Buddhist publishing has flatlined
Textbooks are expensive to produce. Rising costs for publishers, the explosion of used book businesses starting in the 1980s, shrinking academic library budgets, growing use of coursepacks and e-books, changes to copyright law, piracy of intellectual property, and other factors have created significant pressure on university presses and academic publishers. It’s not just university libraries whose budgets have taken a hit. Colleges and universities in general are under assault, with most instructors working in precarious gig-economy conditions, programs closing, and declining enrolments. The end result is that this is not a growth sector for Buddhist publishing.
In 2022, Elizabeth Dunne, a publishing industry veteran, presented her thesis, “50 Years of Buddhist Trade and Academic Book Publishing in the United States, 1970-2020” for a master of arts degree at the University of South Wales. I’m grateful to her for sharing her work with me. Her analysis provides many valuable insights into what is really going on in Buddhist publishing!
According to Dunne, quoting other industry experts in 2005, “In the first year of publication, 79 per cent of all new ISBNs in the US had sales of fewer than 99 copies. Many academic publishers say that total sales of hardback-only monographs are as low as 400–500 copies worldwide. University presses became much more selective about what they would publish. Except for a handful of bestselling authors, the overwhelming majority of authors make only US$5,000 or US$10,000, if that, on projects that took them years to complete.” (Knowledge Commons)
Trade publishing’s transformation since 1980
In the trade world, the 1990s was a decade of many technological innovations that had a profound impact on the publishing industry. Desktop publishing, PDFs, and e-books removed many gatekeepers between book authors and readers, posing a real threat to the hegemony of large publishing houses.
Those large publishing companies fought back with mergers, acquisitions, and leveraged buyouts, narrowing their portfolios of books written for smaller audiences. Publishing culture, always focused on the bottom line, tilted toward blockbusters, franchises, tie-ins with movies and television, and other “safe bets” where their promotional efforts would provide a bankable return on investment. In a sense, promotional opportunities rather than content became the driver for new books.
The evolution of publishing technology continued to transform the industry. Print-on-demand (POD), which began in the late 1990s, reached a level of quality and print-run capacity to become a viable option for publishers in the early 2000s, but it was the convergence of print-on-demand with e-commerce and one-to-one logistics around 2006 that really changed things. Large publishing houses use a lot of print-on-demand now for their downlist and backlist titles. And for small publishers, the economics of POD, selling online, and finding a viable business model finally makes sense. Crowdfunding platforms offer yet another option for self-publishers, although fulfilment remains a challenging part of that business model.
Large trade publishing houses also control much—but not all—of the supply chain for North American Buddhist publishers. For example, Shambhala is distributed by Penguin Random House, and in 2013, Wisdom entered into an agreement with Simon & Schuster for sales and fulfillment of its entire catalog. This gives them economies of scale, market penetration, and an edge on foreign rights sales, since only the largest companies can afford to attend book fairs in Bologna, Frankfurt, London, Singapore, and such to secure deals.
A 2005 industry snapshot
In 2005, the Center for Buddhist Studies and Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley, hosted a symposium to make sense of what was happening, titled, “Speaking for the Buddha? Buddhism and the Media,” in association with the Buddhist Film Society. The conference featured four panels: Print Media; Motion Pictures; Authority and Transmission; and Buddhism Sells – Buddhist Concepts and Images in American Advertising. The proceedings of the conference are available from the Center’s website. As the presentations and subsequent Q&A reveal, interest in Buddhism was growing, but still largely from a distorted neo-orientalist perspective. Looking back, I’d say the crystal ball that participants were using was pretty cloudy and unable to articulate what was about to happen in the coming two decades. Foresight is always so much harder than hindsight.
A bit about Amazon
Yes, it is true that Amazon was founded in 1994, but they didn’t start making money and taking over the world until at least a decade later. At this point, they have top-of-mind recognition among buyers of books—and pretty much everything else too. They launched the Kindle e-book reader, purchased Good Reads and Audible, and have worked very hard to control every aspect of book culture and commerce. But if you happen to look at “Best Sellers in Buddhism” on their site, you will discover that their categorizations are highly subjective. Furthermore, as Amazon has evolved as an open vendor platform, third-party sellers now offer a bedazzling array of misinformation and crazy pricing with little to guide shoppers to authoritative Buddhist books or the best deals.
As if that were not enough of a disincentive, the publishing world is about to be swamped by a tsunami of AI-generated titles from companies planning to flood the zone with up to thousands of titles a month! Amazon may be a seductive place to buy a book, but in my opinion, it is not a great place to go looking for serious Buddhist teachings. Please support your local indie bookstore or shop direct from Buddhist publishers! And if you’re looking for more than “Dharma lite,” do your research from legitimate Buddhist sources.
So who’s publishing Buddhist books now?
In 2021, according to Bowker’s Books In Print database, among the top 40 publishers of Buddhist books in North America, 21 were large trade publishers with broad portfolios, 10 were university presses, seven were Buddhist publishers, and two were self-publishing platforms. The top 20 publishers (of whom only four are Buddhist publishers) account for 56 per cent of Buddhist subject books sold from 1970–2020. Since 1970, about 140 legitimate Buddhist titles have been published each year amongst this group, but it’s not a static scenario. There has been a steady increase in self-publishing and movement away from print into digital delivery, especially since the pandemic began in 2020.
Diversity in Buddhist publishing in the West still has a long way to go. Asian Americans are the largest contingent of American Buddhists and of course our society is very pluralistic. However, according to a 2021 report by the Association of University Presses quoted by Dunne, the workforce of most university presses is 81 per cent white, 79 per cent self-identified as straight, and 88 per cent non-disabled. According to WorldCat, the world’s largest library catalogue, 81 per cent of all Buddhist-subject books from 1970–2020 were written by men.
Beyond print
In the next instalment of this series, we’re going to explore the world of metadata: what it is, why it’s crucially important, and how it’s evolving. We’ll also explore what’s happening to Buddhist teachings as books have become a less significant part of transmission overall. Keep your reading glasses handy!
See more
Producing Something This Stupid Is the Achievement of a Lifetime (The New York Times)
Attempts to Ban Books Doubled in 2022 (The New York Times)
50 Years of Buddhist Trade and Academic Book Publishing in the United States, 1970-2020 (Knowledge Commons)
Institute of East Asian Studies (UC Berkeley)
Amazon Best Sellers—Buddhism (Amazon)
AI Is Driving a New Surge of Sham “Books” on Amazon (The Authors Guild)
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So, You Want to Be a Buddhist Author, Eh? Part Two: The Changing Nature of Buddhist Practice
So, You Want to be a Buddhist Author, Eh? Part One of A Six-Part Exploration Into the World of Buddhist Publishing
Buddhistdoor View: The Dharma Futurist’s Hope for AI in a World of Suffering
In a World of Human Ignorance, Can Artificial Intelligence Help?
Does Artificial Intelligence Have Buddha-nature?
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence and What it Means for Our Jobs
Sumeru Books, Canada’s Buddhist Hub
Buddhist Books in Hong Kong
