That's the headline Bowker put on today's press release about its book production figures, and no doubt it will inform coverage. But there is, of course, a more nuanced view.

According to Bowker's annual book production report US publishers produced 316,480 new titles and editions in 2010, compared to 302,410 in 2009, which itself showed growth of 4% on 2008. The non-traditional sector, largely on-demand titles that may never actually be printed and self-published books, continues what Bowker described as "explosive growth", increasing 169% from 1,033,065 titles in 2009 to 2,776,260 in 2010.

However, as in the UK, American publishers have longed talked about cutting lists, and this is most probably recognised in the figures for fiction and children's publishing. Biography, history, literature, travel, poetry and drama are also all down. Fiction, which is still the largest category (nearly 15% of the total) dropped 3% from 2009, continuing a decline from peak output in 2007. The second largest segment, books for juveniles, also fell, down from 33,028 to 32,638. Science and technology were the leading areas of growth.

The real news, of course, has been the growth in what Bowker refers to as 'non-traditional' publishing fueled by the web and on-demand technologies. In the non-traditional area the top 'publishers', BiblioBazaar, General Books and Kessinger Publishing specialise in reproducing out of print or new works based on the web for on-demand. However, self-publishers such as CreateSpace, Lulu, Xlibris, and AuthorHouse, published close to 65,000 titles between them. It is not clear how many of these titles are ever printed (as opposed to going on sale with an ISBN), and what the quantities were likely to be if so.

Crucially the numbers only cover books that receive an ISBN, and therefore don't include e-books.  Bowker says it is working to develop a similar report that quantifies e-book production in the same fashion. It’s a particularly challenging task since, among other issues, there’s a lack of consistent ID standards.

It is difficult to see how soon the numbers will begin to reflect a downturn in print publishing caused by a rise in digital given these parameters. Though there will be a few experiments along these lines, no publisher is going to publish digitally only, and these numbers reflect range not volume. As Bowker's Kelly Gallagher says: "Perhaps more important is the evidence this report provides that publishers see print as a gateway to all formats – 'e' or otherwise – since we know that many of these titles will or already have been converted to digital." Probably less of gateway than a well-trodden path.

Of course publishers may shrink their range as a result of how the digital markets grow, particularly if, as has been predicted, they get to know their customers wants better, or if the number of windows continues to decline, but the time when they stop printing entirely is not now. Printers may see things differently, however, as volume begins to slide.