Printe Media Overview: Books

Books

HISTORY

The history of books in ancient times until the Middle Ages is a history of clay tablets, scrolls, and hand-copied manuscripts. Early books were inscribed by hand and lavishly decorated, often by monks in monasteries, and many books were valued as works of art. As such, there was generally little to read, and the few people who were reading belonged largely to the religious, military, or ruling elite.

Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type in 1453 changed all of this. Once books were being mass-produced, demand rose; new book ideas emerged along with new audiences to read about them. Some of those ideas challenged prevailing religious and political beliefs, helping to the Protestant Reformation and prompting rulers such as Henry VIII to adopt an authoritarian position on books which required printers to get government approval before setting up shop.

Colonial America

Early printers were often also their own writers and publishers. Benjamin Franklin, for example, sold about 10,000 copies of his own Poor Richard’s Almanack. Religious themes and sentimental fiction dominated modest book sales. Political pamphlets became popular around the Revolution, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense selling 100,000 copies in just ten weeks.

The Penny Press Era

The changes in print technology and content focus that popularized mass appeal papers in the early 1800s had a similar affect on the book industry. Public education, penny papers, and a three-fold increase in libraries helped support demand for new writers during this period. In the non-fiction area, reference books and technical texts became increasingly popular. Book reading had become a new social symbol of education, knowledge, and social change.

The Paperback Boom

For soldiers, one pundit observed, most of war consists of waiting for it. As such, many Civil War soldiers with lots of time on their hands created a huge demand for the so-called “dime novels” of the time. These cheap new paperbacks stressed a common theme: virtue, hard work, and resolution; particularly successfully were the Horatio Alger novels which sold over 250 million copies. Also popular were pirated novels from Europe, which eventually initiated the need for new copyright laws designed to protect the original publishers’ rights and helped cool down this era of paperback proliferation.

The Early 20th Century

The 1900-1945 book industry is perhaps best known for a move towards commercialization. Family owned shops gave way to conglomerates, book agents focused on getting top dollar for their author clients, industry backers demanded closer attention to profitability, and mass marketing tools and audiences came more into play.

Postwar Books: Paperbacks and Consolidation

Low prices (25 cents) and new outlets for mass distribution after WW II helped introduce the paperback book for a second time. Content was widely varied in terms of subject matter and writing quality. A whole new audience was again exposed to paperbacks. More leisure time, larger disposable incomes, and a renewed interest in education also helped spur the paperback’s revival. These factors helped shape the investment attractiveness of the industry, and the consolidation trend therefore increased along with new sources of capital funds.

The Contemporary Book Industry

The wave of consolidation, which began in the 1970s, continued until the end of the century. As a result, the industry was on the way to being dominated by a few large companies. In the late 1990s the Internet provided the industry with new marketing and distribution opportunities via web sites such as amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com.


BOOKS IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Authors as Publishers and Retailers

Although the book industry has used computer technology for two decades (word processing, composing, file transfers, and so on), nothing compares with the advent of digitized e-books. The e-book technology easily has the potential to change the entire structure of the industry, with authors now conceivably able to write, compose, promote, publish, and distribute their own works, totally eliminating the need for a traditional publisher.

In an approach somewhat similar to the vanity press, authors could also employ existing web services that can publish, sell, collect funds, and then distribute a book title; publicity would be left to the authors themselves. This is an example of the disintermediation process mentioned in Chapter 1.

New Devices

Personal Desk Assistants (PDAs), e-book readers, and high-resolution “flexible” screens are but a few of the new and coming technologies that could significantly impact the traditional paper base of the book industry (and all its inherent problems: composing, printing, and mass distribution). The new electronic technologies would allow us to carry more books (at no extra weight), do word searches, annotate passages, enlarge text or graphics, copy and paste text, and much more.

Printing on Demand

Printing on demand is essentially another way of easily and quickly distributing books. You go to a bookstore, select a book, a computer downloads your book from the publisher’s database, and a machine at the bookstore quickly prints out your book while you wait (about 15 minutes).
This method frees the publisher from guessing just how many hard copies of a book the public might buy, which in turn eliminates needless production and distribution costs. This method could also prompt the publishing of “marginal” books that might otherwise be too risky (read “expensive”) to otherwise publish. Lastly, a book would never go “out of print,” since it would always be only a download away. Less expenses, more profits.

What Is a Book?

Digital books now raise the question of what exactly constitutes a book? Multimedia programs would make it possible—almost certain—that e-books would also include sound (voice and/or music), animated graphics on, video clips, and links to sources outside the book itself.

Are print books dead? No. As Dick Brass, Microsoft’s e-book CEO said in a Newsweek article, “[Traditional] books will persist because they’re beautiful and useful. They’re like horses after the automobile—not gone but transformed into a recreational beast.”


DEFINING FEATURES OF BOOKS

Books are the least “mass” of the mass media, but they can have a profound impact on society that far outweighs their relatively modest audience size, binging to mind books such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Das Kapital, On the Origin of Species, and Silent Spring. Books are among the oldest and most enduring of the mass media, and chances are excellent that they will still be around—probably in a variety of forms—in the next century.


ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK INDUSTRY

The publishing industry is divided into three segments: publishers, distributors, and retailers.

Publishers

There are 2,000 or so American publishers printing some 55,000 books each year. It’s a highly segmented industry based largely upon the targeted market being served. The Association of American Publishers lists 12 major divisions:

1. Trade books Aimed at the general consumer and sold primarily through book stores

2. Religious books Bibles, hymnals, prayer books, theology, devotional inspiration

3. Professional books Aimed at doctors, scientists, engineers, and other professionals
who need up-to-date reference materials in their respective fields

4. Book clubs Listed here because many publishers publish their own books and print
special editions of titles obtained from other publishers

5. Mail order publications Books created for the general public and marketed by direct
mail. These differ from book clubs because they require no ongoing membership

6. Mass market paperback Softbound volumes on all subjects that have their major
sale points in places other than bookstores

7. University presses Publish mostly scholarly books with cultural or artistic merit

8. Elementary and secondary textbooks Also known as “elhi” publishers (from
ELementary and HIgh School), this division includes texts designed for classroom use

9. College textbooks Publishes books targeted at college students

10. Standardized tests Publishers who specialize in tests of ability, aptitude, interest,
personality, and other traits; for example, Educational Testing Service publishes the
Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and the Graduate Record Exams (GRE)

11. Subscription reference books Encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, and so on

12. Audiovisual and other media Supplies tapes, films, slides, transparencies, etc. to
schools and training organizations

The trade book division, those books geared towards the average consumer, dominates all other book publishing segments with its current 27 percent share of sales.

Distributors

Thanks to the Internet, there are now two main channels by which books can get to consumers: the traditional method (publisher to wholesaler to retailer) and the online approach used by dot.com companies such as amazon.com In this case you simply visit their website, choose a book, pay for it with a credit card, and your book is shipped right from the seller’s warehouse.

Retailers

Books are sold in some 20,000 traditional bookstores and other chain retail outlets in the U.S., not to mention the major online vendors. Other retail channels include college bookstores and direct-to-consumer book-sellers such as book clubs and mail-order sales.

OWNERSHIP

The book industry is dominated by large conglomerates with interests in other media. The top five companies as of mid-2000 were:

. Pearson Publishing, global media company and world’s largest educational publisher
. Random House, part of Bertelsmann media empire, with 600 companies in 53 countries
. Harper-Collins, part of Rupert Murdoch’s worldwide multi-media empire
. Simon & Schuster, part of CBS/Viacom, a huge broadcasting conglomerate
. Time-Warner Publishing, part of AOL empire, together the world’s biggest media firm


PRODUCING THE BOOK

Departments and Staff

There are four major departments in a publishing company:

. editorial deals with authors; two-fold responsibility: select and prepare manuscripts
. production oversees the planning and design of the physical book
. marketing supervises sales, promotion, and generates publicity for books, authors
. general administration of the business self-explanatory
. e-book publishing new area devoted to collecting, converting titles to e-book formats

Publishing the Book

Editors get their books from three main sources:

. agent recommendations
. unsolicited books
. ideas generated by editors
Most trade book ideas come from agents since agents are industry savvy and will not generally submit manuscripts they know will be unacceptable. Unsolicited manuscripts, a.k.a. slush, are put in a slush pile and eventually screened by an editorial assistant. When book editors have an idea for a book themselves, they’ll generally contact a book agent who can in turn suggest a potential author.




General Steps in Getting a Book Published

. author submits a book proposal that can include:
. cover letter and a brief description of the planned book
. a list of reasons why the book should be published
. an analysis of the potential readership market
. an outline or a table of contents (and perhaps a sample chapter or two)
. proposal forwarded to an acquisitions editor for evaluation
. if the evaluation is favorable, a contract is signed and the author begins working
. as chapters come in, editors review book for sense and achievement of original intent
. book mechanics are checked (writing, grammar, spelling, footnotes, permission to
reproduce previously published materials, and artwork)
. concurrent with the above, design decisions are made and production schedules initiated
. the book is then printed, bound, and sent to warehouses to await distribution


ECONOMICS

Despite economic swings, changing lifestyles and predictions that reading is a lost art, the book industry continues to prosper. There are several reasons for this continued growth:

. the population is getting older, and the biggest readership occurs with the 35-49 year olds
. people currently have more disposable income and leisure time to spend on books
. government continues to make education a priority, thus encouraging new book sales
In other areas, book prices for both hard- and soft-cover titles continue to rise (average price of a hard-cover book in 1999 was $46, and an average mass paperback sold for $6.00.

Publishers have two main sources of income: (a) money from book sales and (b) money from subsidiary rights (book clubs, foreign markets, Hollywood, and paperbacks). Return on their investments for book publishers runs only about five percent, the majority of expenses going to production costs, author royalties, administrative expenses, and credits for book returns.


Feedback

The most important form of audience feedback in the book industry is the best seller lists compiled by newspapers such as the New York Times, USA Today, and the trade magazine Publisher’s Weekly. Although tabulating methods vary, making the best seller list is important since many bookstores automatically order large numbers of all the books that make these lists. Amazon.com offers a unique feedback arrangement called “purchase circles,” in which best-seller lists are based on the zip codes of the customers who order books from amazon.com; the lists are then categorized by geography, by organizations, by companies, and by educational settings.