The Borders site says self-published authors can even arrange readings in local Borders stores, but the kinks still need to be worked out. “It is not possible to purchase a place on shelves or an author event today,” a spokeswoman for Borders said.

Borders lists its self-publishing program under the rubric “Borders Lifestyles,” as if writing were a hobby, like golf, rather than a calling or a craft. But for those seeking formal training, there are hundreds of creative writing programs offering M.F.A.’s and other credentialing. The Association of Writers and Writing Programs represented 13 programs when it was founded in 1967. Now it includes 465 full-fledged courses of study, and creative writing classes are offered at most of the 2,400 college English departments in North America.

Since the ’60s, creative writing programs have helped “democratize” the talent pool, providing “the encouragement to women and a lot of different people of different classes and ethnicities to tell their stories and write their poems,” said David Fenza, the organization’s executive director. He disagrees with those who think an oversupply of books is pushing readers away. “Some have argued that all this new literary activity is displacing the Great Works and therefore estranging the great audience for literature,” Fenza said. “Writing programs have their faults, but they still work as advocates for the mind that reads.”

Mark McGurl, an associate professor of English at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the author of a forthcoming book on the impact of creative writing programs on postwar American literature, agrees that writing programs have helped expand the literary universe. “American literature has never been deeper and stronger and more various than it is now,” McGurl said in an e-mail message. Still, he added, “one could put that more pessimistically: given the manifold distractions of modern life, we now have more great writers working in the United States than anyone has the time or inclination to read.”

Self-publishing companies may produce books for less than $5, but how much does all this production cost readers? In “So Many Books,” Zaid playfully writes that “if a mass-market paperback costs $10 and takes two hours to read, for a minimum-wage earner the time spent is worth as much as the book.” But for someone earning around $50 to $500 an hour, “the cost of buying and reading the book is $100 to $1,000”  not including the time it takes to find out about the book and track it down.

On the whole, Zaid is unworried about the proliferation of books, though he doesn’t think everyone should set pen to paper. “About would-be writers, André Gide used to say: ‘Découragez! Découragez!’”(discourage!), Zaid said in an e-mail message. “The implication was that real writers would not be discouraged, and the rest would save a lot of time. Of course, some mediocrities are never discouraged, and some potential real writers would be lost. But there is so much talent around that we can afford it.”

Indeed. There’s a lot of noise out there, and some of it is music.