NYT Article - How Many Books Are Too Many?

I stumbled across this NYT's article while looking up some publishing facts:

Brace yourselves, novelists and would-be novelists. Figures released this spring show that a new book of fiction is published in the United States every 30 minutes. Even if you don't count the titles published through print-on-demand and other fee-charging, vanity-press-type outfits, the total still comes to 10,000 books a year -- or one book published every hour or so. And that's just the fiction.

10,000 books a year. Gulp.

That means I've got a pretty good shot at this whole publishing thing, right? right?!

Yeah, me and the other 10,000 writers - who are all competing for the same audience, who happen to have shrinking budgets and attention spans.

Demand is down - supply is up. I'm not Alan Greenspan (or Ben Bernanke), but I did take high school economics. Things aren't looking so great for the publishing industry. Rough waters matey.

But who doesn't know that? That's old news. Interesting, but still old.

So what to do. What to do.

I know! Keep writing. That's an excellent plan. I'll just keep writing, and editing, and writing some more. Because what else is there to do?

Anyone got any other ideas?

Here's a link to the article if anyone's interested: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/18/books/the-last-word-how-many-books-are-too-many.html