From:
http://sree.net/stories/almanac.html
By SREENATH SREENIVASAN
In the library of Oak Hill Elementary School in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kan., one set of books gets used more than most: the almanacs.
"For class work and even for fun, the kids love to sit and read them for hours," said Sharon Coatney, the school's librarian. "Children are fascinated with trivia and new things. They love to ask each other 'Did you know such and such?' and almanacs give them a lot of such and suches."
Almanac publishers have counted on schools to introduce new generations of buyers to their books. Even in the era of CD-ROMs and the Internet, with their promise of vast storehouses of information, publishers remain enthusiastic about the business of almanacs, especially general-interest books like the World Almanac and Book of Facts and the Information Please Almanac.
Two big publishers entered the almanac market this year, bringing out The Wall Street Journal Almanac and The New York Times Almanac.
The economics of almanacs is appealing to publishers, because they can bring out new books every year at a relatively low cost. Although each year's edition will include new articles and other updated information, much of the data can be recycled from year to year. Moreover, although almanac sales are quite large by publishing standards, there are no big-name authors demanding huge advances and royalties.
There is, of course, a wide variety of almanacs available, with some focusing mainly on sports or entertainment -- or on the weather as the Old Farmer's Almanac does. But the most popular are the general-interest almanacs, which compile hundreds of thousands of facts about a broad range of topics, from abortion to the zodiac. An estimated 2 million of these almanacs are sold each year, for less than $11 apiece.
Comment:
I can understand that the commie NYT is publishing terrorist literature, but the Wall Street Journal?
And who knew that there were so many terrorists, 11 million, in our midst, some of them children?