Although studies show us abandoning print in droves, the number of new books published every year increases, hitting more than 200,000 separate titles last year.

It's little wonder, then, that the authors of unpublished books are feeling frustrated as well as rejected these days. When I speak to writing groups, a few always approach me with their stories of struggle, some bitter about their rejection slips, especially after finding out how many other authors have grabbed the golden ring of publication.

I usually don't tell them about the kinds of books that make it to the bookstores because I don't want to disappoint them even more. The sad fact is that major publishers are making some strange choices these days, choices that could prevent more worthy works from acceptance.

I've been earmarking a few of these curious books that are on the publishing calendar this year. Here's a sampling:

"The Secret Plot to Make Ted Kennedy President: Inside the Real Watergate Conspiracy" by Geoff Shepard (Sentinel HC, $27.95)

Follow me closely here because the premise of Shepard, an insurance company lawyer, requires an amazing amount of concentration to keep from laughing out loud. But here goes:

Liberals (probably a few communists) wanted the disgraced U.S. senator to become president so badly that they trumped up the Watergate case, fixed the legal system to protect the real criminals and infiltrated the special prosecutor's office branch with such traitors as Hillary Rodham, all to get rid of President Nixon.

The dirty swine!

A funny thing happened on the way to this conspiracy: Kennedy never became president and the Watergate tapes so firmly implicated Nixon without Hillary's help that there was no doubt he broke the law.

Shepard's "Camelot Conspiracy" further justifies the phrase "the lunatic fringe" and raises major doubts about the professionalism of Viking, which publishes the Sentinel line.

"The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters" by Rose George (Metropolitan Books, $26)

Londoner George, seeing books on cadavers, garbage in India and Ted Kennedy plotters getting published, probably asked herself, "How low can I go to get a book idea?"

Not much lower than the sewer, apparently, but the thought won her a book contract.

"With razor sharp wit and crusading urgency," claims her publisher, George has dipped her toe where no author's tootsie has gone before. She's toured the sewers of Paris, the bio-gas facilities of China and watched U.S. soldiers use lasers in inventive ways to treat the age-old disposal issue.

My question: Has she visited the Alcosan plant when the wind is right?

Of course, George, self-taught eliminations expert, predicts that veritable "s" storm is coming unless humans clean up their, um, act. Some readers will find her book interesting, I'm sure. Great bathroom reading.

"Makers and Takers" by Peter Schweizer (Doubleday, $24.95)

The subtitle really tells us all we need to know about this book:

"Why Conservatives Work Harder, Feel Happier, Have Closer Families, Take Fewer Drugs, Give More Generously, Value Honesty More, Are Less Materialistic and Envious, Whine Less ... and Even Hug Their Children More Than Liberals."

That phrase includes every conservative and every liberal, of course, without exception.

The author is labeled a researcher at the Hoover Institution, in case you wondered if he had enough grip on reality to hold a steady job. His book contains few if any names of real people, most of his "information" comes from Web sites, and he hasn't the slightest idea that people are individuals, not labels.

He provides little in the way of details on the methodology of the grab-bag of surveys and polls he cites. Schweizer clearly ignored other results that would describe so-called liberals as better people than those labeled conservatives.

"Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party's Buried Past" by Bruce Barlett (Palgrave MacMillan, $33.69)

Anyone with a passing knowledge of American history knows that what was called the Democratic Party, including such notable members as presidents James Buchanan, Pennsylvania's only chief exec, and Woodrow Wilson, represented racist, Southern-dominated and agrarian political bases from the Civil War era until its last gasp in the 1960s.

So what's the "buried past" in Bartlett's title refer to? You got me. The real news is the turnabout of the Dems, starting with President Truman's integration of the armed forces in 1948 -- while running for president, by the way -- and including today, with the first black candidate for the White House.

It seems there are plenty of other areas to criticize the party for, rather than rehashing its troubled and well-documented history.