What in the world are publishers doing?

I remember being a young teen, reading books and soon getting bored by the stories around me - no offence. I had read 'classics' like The Neverending Story, The famous Five, was raised on the Brother Grimm stories and others... but I started to feel bored soon, because the 'new and unread' stories started to develop very soon a lack of topics I was interested in. (And that was without schools fault!)

Mysterious people, murder, friendship, adventure, betrayal, secrets, loyaly, integrity! and all that other good stuff. :) so I started writing my own story... ^^; little arrogant, but that's what it was. It made me feel better and keep my love for books and stories.

Then, just over the last days it hit me. It is getting worse! Have you ever been in a bookstore with 'open eyes'? What about airports, supermarkets, any CVS and other places where books are sold?

They all carry the same 20 books! Doesn't matter where you are! You can go to any airport in the US, you'll find the same books, even in Germany and England do most of them match. (I remember all that now, but it just hit me over the last days). Everywhere you got you can only find the top bestsellers...

Here is the thing. The 'book-world' cries about the fact that they are dying. The average person may not know this, but truth is, they are. People don't want to invest in books anymore. And why? To give one example: because they are so freaking expensive. (I know that for sure. Most books I'd like to read are way over my allowance ^^; )

But I also believe it is not always the pricing, which has to be so high because the distrubitiors and whole-salers decide what they want to put out - not the publishers! So they only want to invest into books that are similar in style and proven to sell.. nobody want's to risk in something orginal!

Why? Because it is not 'the NEXT Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Da Vinci Code' . It is not like them and therefore will not sell. How about they start asking ' what is the FIRST (....) not the NEXT? Hope you get what I mean..

Back to the fact that the book-industry is dying (despite Rowling and Brown, who keep it alive at the moment ^^; )

I think the publishers and especially the people who disribute books should stop doing what they are doing and be a little less 'wise' about their knowlegde on what the reader wants to read. Especially because the bestsellers can only be around so long until EVERYONE has bought them. Not like we have choice. You can only read the books that are made available to the public, right?

The reader is no much smarter than that and I believe that the readers wants more variety in topics - no copycats!