The Association of American Publishers issued a report on book sales for the January just past. It comes as no surprise that adult hardcover sales were down over those of the prior January. But what stopped us in our tracks were the stats for children’s books. They fell off a cliff: children’s and young adult hardcover sales plunged 41.6%, and paperbacks in the same sector dropped 18.1%.

Given the fact that children’s books have been one of the few high-flying categories in our struggling industry, you’d imagine publishers would be rending their garments and editors packing the contents of their desks. Yet, except from a couple of publishers there has scarcely been a groan or whimper or even a pout.

Why not? We asked some knowledgeable children’s book editors and I think we know the answer  Here’s a hint: SM.  And no, that doesn’t stand for Sadomasochism.

It stands for Stephenie Meyer. The simple fact is that there there were no books by Meyer driving children’s books sales in January.  Lagardere, parent company of Little Brown, Meyer’s publisher, reported a fabulously profitable 2009 with a profits of 58 million Euros, about $78 million. Much of that was generated by Meyer’s Twilight saga: 33.6 million copies in the US, 12.8 million in the UK and Australia-New Zealand, and 3.6 million in France.

But in 2010?  No more Twilights. Clearly, Stephenie Meyer’s numbers have completely skewed the charts downward.  Same for Harry Potter.  Scholastic’s third quarter sales dipped from $423.6 million to $398.8 million. Potter‘s UK publisher Bloomsbury had a similar drop, clearly triggered by the diminishing presence of J. K. Rowling’s blockbuster series.

Though the children’s book industry appears to have plunged into an abyss, when you factor Twilight and Harry Potter out of the equation, kids’ books are fine thank you and continue to support an otherwise flat book business.

Richard Curtis

Pardon me, but do you have any legal training? I’m thinking of suing someone. My lawyer thinks I’m a crackpot, so I need a second opinion.

Listen to this:

About twenty years ago when I was a volunteer 4th grade teacher I created an adventure aimed at teaching children about government. I instructed the kids to pretend to be on a cruise ship that is blown off course by a storm. They ended up shipwrecked on a tropic island, and in order to survive they had to develop a government.

Fifteen years later, Lost was launched on television and guess what? It’s about a passenger jet that crashes on a topical island. Obviously, to cover their trail they changed my cruise ship into an airplane. Other than that it’s my exact same idea. And look at the similarities! In my story the kids have to organize; On Lost they have to organize. In my story the kids have to eat disgusting things – same as on Lost. So, I’m thinking of suing the producers of Lost for copyright infringement. Do I have a slam-dunk case or what?

Actually, I hadn’t thought of suing until I read that an author named Jordan Scott has brought a lawsuit against bestselling Twilight author Stephenie Meyer alleging copyright infringement. According to Gil Kaufman of MTV. com, Meyer allegedly plagiarized something called The Nocturne written by Scott when was fifteen. She posted it one chapter a time on her website. Here’s what Kaufman writes about Scott’s claim: “Though Scott’s book is set in 15th-century France and details a love affair between a young sorcerer and a teenage girl and Meyer’s book chronicles a doomed teenage love triangle between a human, a vampire and a werewolf set in modern times, Williams said the plot lines and some developments — detailed in more than a dozen examples in the suit — match too closely to be a coincidence.”