According to book industry statisticians Bowker, says Jim Milliot in a Publishers Weekly report, “The number of new and revised titles produced by traditional production methods fell 3% in 2008, to 275,232, but the number of on-demand and short run titles soared 132%, to 285,394.”

In other words, for the first time, “the number of on-demand titles topped those of traditional books.” In fact, taken altogether, book production was up a whopping 38% to 560,626 titles.

Milliot reports, “Kelly Gallagher, v-p of publisher services for Bowker, said the decline in traditional books reflects not only the difficult economy but the decision by publishers to become smarter and more strategic in the titles they published last year.”

So where were publishers getting, er, “smarter”? Religious titles were down the most, by 14%, followed by fiction at 11%.