Books appear to be "over."

So you want to write a book. Well, why not? So does about 80 percent of the United States population according to a survey.

Anyone who has ever tried to find an agent or get a manuscript accepted by a publisher knows what a tough business writing is. Even if you do get your book published, there's no guarantee anyone will buy it.

The following statistics about book publishing and reading were found on www.parapub.com, the Web site of self-publishing guru Dan Poynter. They'll give you an idea of what you're up against if you want to write books for a living.

1/3 of high school graduates will never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.
70 percent of books published do not earn back their advance.
70 percent of the books published do not make a profit.

A successful fiction book sells 5,000 copies.
A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies.

On average, a bookstore browser spends 8 seconds looking at a book's front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.

Each day in the U.S., people spend 4 hours watching TV, 3 hours listening to the radio and 14 minutes reading magazines.

I read nearly 300 pages a day, none from books.