Chapter 3
*censorship*
Because of their influence as cultural repositories and agents of social change, books have often been targeted for *___________________.* A bok is censored when someone in authority limits publication of or access to it. Censorship can and does occur in many situations and in all media. But because of the respect our culture traditionally holds for books, book banning takes on a particularly poisonous connotation in the US.
*Aliteracy*
Censors ban and burn books because books are repositories of ideas, ideas that can be read and considered with limited outside influence or official supervision. But what kind of culture develops when, by our own refusal to read books, we figuratively save the censors the trouble of striking the match? *________________*, wherein people possess the ability to read but are unwilling to do so, amounts to doing the censors' work for them. 33% of American high school graduates will never read a book after high school; 42% of college students won't read another one after they graduate. 80% of US households will not buy a single book this year. And despite evidence that small children who are read to can recognize the letter do the alphabet, can count to 20, can write their own names, and can read sooner than those who are not, 1/4 of American kids 0-8 years old are read to never or less often than once a week.
portability
The final reason the earliest settlers were not active readers was the lack of _______________ of books. Books were heavy, and few were carried across the ocean. Those volumes that did make it to North America were extremely expensive and not available to most people.
*instant books*
The importance of promotion and publicity has led to an increase in the release of *__________________.* What better way to unleash millions of dollars of free publiicty for a book than to base it on an event currently trending on Twitter? Publishers see these opportunities and then initiate the projects. Lost in the wake of instant books, easily promotable authors and titles, and blockbusters, critics argue, are books of merit, books of substance, and books that make a difference.
colonial governors truth
The primary reason for this lack of variety was the requirement that all printing be done with the permission of the __________________________. Because these men were invariably loyal to King George II, secular printing and criticism of the British Crown or even of local authorities were never authorized, and publication of such writing meant jail. Many printers were imprisoned--including Franklin's brother James--for publishing what they believed to be the _________.
Convergence *e-publishing*
__________________ is altering almost all aspects of the book industry. Most obviously, the Internet is changing the way books are distributed and sold. But this digital technology, in the form of *_________________,* the publication of books initially or exclusively in a digital format, also offers a new way for writers' ideas to be published. In fact, many of today's "books" are no longer composed of paper pages snug between two covers. As former Random House editor Peter Osnos explained, "Unlike other printed media, books do not have advertising, so there is none to lose. They don;t have subscribers, so holding on to them is not an issue either. The main challenge is to manage inventory, making books available where, when, and how readers want them. And on that score, the advances in gadgetry and the changes in popular [reading] habits over the past decade...have produced a major advance." By gadgetry, Osnos means primarily e-books, print on demand (POD), and a host of electronic reading devices.
*Print on Demand (POD)* *remainders*
*_______________________* is another form of e-publishing. Companies such as Xlibris, AuthorHouse, and iUniverse are POD publishers. They store works digitally and, once ordered, a book can be instantly printed, bound, and sent. Alternatively, once ordered, that book can be printed and bound at a bookstore that has the proper technology. The advantage for publisher and reader is financial. POD books require no warehouse for storage, there are no *___________________* (unsold books returned to publishers to be sold at great discount) to eat into profits, and the production costs, in both personnel and equipment, are tiny when compared to traditional publishing. These factors not only produce less expensive books for readers but also gratly expand the variety of books that can and will be published, And although a large publisher like Oxford University Press can produce thousands of volumes a year, smaller POD operations can make a prfit on as few as 100 orders. Large commerical publishers have also found a place for POD in their business, using the technology to rush hot, headline-inspired books to readers. In 2008, for the first time, American publishers released more POD titles than new and revised titles produced by traditional methhods; in 2010 the ratio was more than 3 to 1. The availability of POD books will grow even more with the continued rollout of the Espresso Book Machine, a joint effort of several mjaor book publishers. The device, which can print and bind a 300-page book in 4 minutes, is available in hundreds of locations across the globe and has access to more than 7 million books available from self-publishers, a growing list of traditional publishing houses, and the public domain.
*e-books*
E-Books: In her mid-40s, Erika Mitchell, writing under her pen name, E. L. James, was having some success publishing fan fiction based on the vampire novels "Twilight" as *____________* - books downloaded in eelectronic form from the Internet to computers, e-readers, or mobile digital devices. This brought her to the attention of traditional publisher Random House, and working together they turned her 50 Shades of Grey tilogy into a series of best sellers and major motion pictures. Other example sin book too of doing really well on digital, more so than hard copy
*tie-in novels*
In addition, *_______________* - books based on popular television shows and movies - have become more common. "Bratva" is a novel using characters from the FX Network's hit series "Sons of Anarchy." "Homeland", "Fringe", and "CSI" are other TV shows that have enjoyed novelization, as is "Murder She Wrote," which went off the air in 1996 and whose 44th book version was released in 2015.
*e-readers*
Many booksellers and even publishing companies themselves offer e-books specifically for smartphones, tablets, and *_____________*, digital devices with the apearance of traditional books that display content that is digitally stored and accessed. Although earlier attempts at producing e-readers had failed, the 2006 unveiling of the Sony Reader, dubbed the iBook, proved so successful that it was soon followed by several similar devices, such as Amazon's various Kindle models, Apple's iPad, and Barnes & Noble's Nook. (In 2014, Sony discontinued its e-reader technologies). In addition, smartphone and tablet apps like Bookari and Scribd and other e-reading alternatives such as online publisher Zinio, which makes titles available for most digital devices, and Pronoun, which offers video-enhanced books, have also appeared. Today, just under 1 in 5 American adults owns a dedicated e-reader, but because 68% have smartphones and 45% have tablets, the large majority holds in its hands the ability to read digital books.
*platform agnostic publishing*
Nonetheless, readers have welcomed the devices and publishers have understandably responded, given the industry's belief that "any business that requires a truck these days, forget it." Hundreds of thousands of in- and out-of-print titles are available for *__________________________* - digital and traditional paper books available for any and all reading devices. And those reading devices themselves will continue to evolve, with advances such as flexible screens so thin they can be rolled up and fully text-functional e-readers that let users copy and paste text to Word documents on their computers. In anticipation of the growth of e-publishing, some traditional publishers, Dorchester Publishing for ex, have abandoned bound paper books altogether.
*subsidiary rights*
Publishers attempt to offset the large investments they do make through the sale of *_____________________*, that is, the sale of the book, its contents, and even its characters to filmmakers, paperback publishers, book clubs, foreign publishers, and product producers like T-shirt, poster, coffee cup, and greeting card manufactuers. The industry itself estimates that many publishers would go out of business if it were not for the sale of these rights. Although this is good for the profitability of the publishers and the superstar authors, critics fear that those books with the greatest subsidiary sales value will receive the most publisher attention.
Cambridge Press
The first printing press arrived on North American shores in 1638, only 18 years after the Plymouth Rock landing. It was operated by a company called _______________________. Printing was limited to religious and government documents. The first book printed in the colonies appeared in 1644--"The Whole Books of Psalms", sometimes referred to as the "Bay Psalm Book". Among the very few secular titles were those printed by Benjamin Franklin 90 years later. "Poor Richard's Almanack", which first appeared in 1732, sold 10,000 copies annually. The "Almanack" contained short stories, poetry, weather predictions, and other facts and figures useful to a population more in command of its environment than those first settlers. As the colonies grew in wealth and sophistication, leisure time increased, as did affluence and education. Franklin also published the first true novel printed in North America, "Pamela", written by English author Samuel Richardson. Still, by and large, books were religiously oriented or pertained to official government activities such as tax rolls and the pronouncements of various commissions.
*dime novels* *pulp novels*
The growing popularity of books was noticed by brothers Irwin and Erastus Beadle. In 1860 they began publishing novels that sold for 10 cents. These *___________________* were inexpensive, and because they concentrated on frontier and adventure stories, they attracted growing numbers of readers. Within 5 years of their start, Beadle & Company had produced over 4 million volumes of what were also sometimes called *__________________*. Advertising titles like "Malaeska: Indian Wife of the White Hunter" with the slogan "Dollar Books for a Dime!" the Beadles democratized books and turned them into a mass medium.
Stamp Act
The printers went into open revolt against official control in March 1765 after passage of the ___________. Designed by England to recoup money it sent waging the French and Indian war, the Stamp Act mandated that all printing--legal documents, books, magazines, and newspapers--be done on paper stamped with the government's seal. Its additional purpose was to control and limit expression in the increasingly restless colonies. This affront to their freedom, and the steep cost of the tax--sometimes doubling the price of a publication--was simply too much for the colonists. The printers used their presses to run accounts of anti tax protests, demonstrations, riots, sermons, boycotts, and other antiauthority activities, further fueling revolutionary sympathies. In November 1765--when the tax was to take effect--the authorities were so cowed by the reaction of the colonists that they were unwilling to enforce it.
survival
Their were other reasons early settlers did not find books central to their lives. One was the simple fight for ____________. In the brutal and hostile land to which they had come, leisure for reading books was a luxury for which they had little time. People worked from sunrise to sunset just to live. If there was to be reading, it would have to be at night, and it was folly to waste precious candles on something as unnecessary to survival as reading.
wealth; status
in addition, books and reading were regarded as symbols of _______________ and ____________ and therefore not priorities for people who considered themselves to be pioneers, servants of the Lord, or anti-English colonists.
*disintermediation*
Another advantage is financial. Authors who distribute through e-publishers typically get royalties of 40% to 70%, compared to the 5% to 10% offered by tradtioonal publishers. This lets aspiring writers offer their booksfor as little as 99 cents or $2.99, making those works more attractive to readers willing to take a low-cost chance to find something and someone new and interesting - earning writers even more sales. Traditional book publishers say their lower royalty rates are mandated by the expense of the services they provide, such as editorial assiastance and marketing, not to mention the cost of production and distribution. The debate over self-versus traditional publishing is really a disagreement over the value of *______________________*, eliminating gatekeepers between artists and audiences. Eliminate the middlemen and more original content of greater variety from fresher voices gets to more people. Keep the middlemen and quality is assured, and while an occassional interesting work or new voice might be missed, the indusry's overall product remains superior. For books, disintermediation in the form of self-publication runs the gamut from completely self-published-and-promtoed works to self-publishing with an assist, with digital publishers providing a full range of service - copyediting, securing and commissioning artwork, cover design, promotion, and in some cases, distribution of traditional paper books to brick-and-mortar bookstores. And of course, there is a hybrid model, such as Amazon's Kindle Worlds, a self-publishing online platform for fan fiction where successful authors can be offered contracts and production and editing support from Amazoon Publishingg, the company's book division. Other major publishers such as Penguin and Harlequin now have sself-publishing divisions. In every week of 2015, 1/3 of the 100 best-sellign Kindle books were self-published, and over the last 5 years, nearly 40 self-published authors have sold 1 million copies of their e-books on Amazon.
*imprints*
Conglomeration: More than any other medium, the book industry into the 1970s and 1980s was dominated by relatively small operations. Publishing houses were traditionally staffed by fewer than 20 people, the large majority by fewer than 10. Today, however, although tens of thousands of businesses call themselves book publishers, only a very small percentage produces 4 or more titles a year. The industry is dominated now by the so-called Big 5 publishing houses - Penguin Random House (250 *_____________*, or individual book publishing companies), Hachette (23 imprints), HarperCollins (120 imprints), Macmillan (30 imprints), and Simon & Schuster (52 imprints) - and a few other large concerns, like Time Warner Publishing. Each of these giants was once, sometimes with another name, an indpendent book publisher. All are now part of large national or international corporate conglomerates. These major publishers control more than 80% of all U.S. book sales. Even e-publishing is dominated by the big companies, as all the major houses and booksellers maintain e-publishing units.
*cottage industry*
Opinion on the benefit of corporate ownership is divided. The positive view is that the rich parent company can infuse the imprint with necessary capital, enabling it to attract better authors or to take gambles on new writers that would, in the past, have been impossible. Another plus is that the corporate parent's other media holdings can be used to promote and repackage the books for greater profitability. Neither of these benefits is insignificant, argue many industry insiders, because book publishing is more like gambling than business. Even J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" book was rejected 12 times before finding a publisher. The negative view is that as publishing houses become just one in the parent company's long list of enterprises, product quality suffers as important editing and production steps are eliminated to maximize profits. Before conglomeration, publishing was often described as a *______________________*; that is, publishing houses were small operations, closely identified with their personnel - both their own small staffs and their authors. The cottage imagery, however, extends beyond smallness of size. There was a quaintness and charm associated with publishing houses - their attention to detail, their devotion to tradition, the care they gave to their facades (their reputations). The world of corporate conglomerates has little room for such niceties, as profit dominates all other considerations. Critics of corporate ownership see profits-over-quality at play in recent publishing practices, such as when publishers use "big data" from online e-book readership not only to determine which books get published, but also to help shape characters and story lines in books as they are being written, as well as when fans read online manuscripts and then vote on which should be published.
*linotype* *offset lithography*
The 1800s saw a series of important refinements to the process of printing, most notably the *________________* machine, a typewriter-like keyboard allowing printers to set type mechanically rather than manually, and *_________________________*, permitting printing from photographic plates rather than from heavy, fragile metal casts. The combination of this technically improved, lower-cost printing (and therefore lower-cost publications) and widespread literacy produced the flowering of the novel in the 1800s. Major U.S. book publishers Harper Brothers and John Wiley & Sons -- both in business today -- were established in New York in 1817 and 1807, respectively. And books such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" (1850), Herman Melville's "Moby Dick (1851), and Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" (1884) were considered by many of their readers to be equal to or better than the works of famous European authors such as Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Charles Dickens.
"Book club editions" "El-hi" "Higher education" "Mail-order books" "Mass market paperbacks" "Professional books" "Religious books" "Standardized tests" "Subscription reference books" "*Trade books*" "University press books"
The Association of American Publishers divides books into several sales categories: -"______________________" are books sold and distributed (sometimes even published) by book clubs. -There are more than 300 book club publishers in the US. -These organizations offer trade, professional, and more specialized titles - for ex: books for aviation aficionados and expensive republications of classic works. -The Book of the Month Club, started in 1926, is the best known; the Literary Guild and the Reader's Digest Book Club are also popular -"________" are textbooks produced for elementary and high schools -"_________________" are textbooks produced for colleges and universities -"___________________", such as those advertised on television by Time-Life Books, are delivered by mail and usually are specialized series (The War Ships) or elaborately bound special editions of classic novels. -"______________________" are typically published only as paperbacks and are designed to appeal to a broad readership; many romance novels, diet books, and self-help books are in this category. -" __________________" are reference and educational volumes designed specifically for professionals such as doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists, and managers. -"______________________" are volumes such as Bibles, Korans, and the Sruti. -"____________________" are guide and practice books designed to prepare readers for various examinations such as the SAT or the bar exam. -"__________________" are publications such as the "World Book Encyclopedia," atlases, and dictionaries bought directly from the publisher rather than purchased in a retail setting. -"*____________________*" include not only fiction and most nonfiction but also cookbooks, biographies, art books, coffee-table books, and how-to books. -"_______________________" come from publishing houses associated with and often under-written by universities. -They typically publish serious nonfiction and scholarly books. -Yale University Press and the University of California Press are two of the better-known university presses, and Cambridge University Press is the oldest publisher in the world.
