communications chapter 2
novels did not start out with a good reputation. one critic said they?
"pollute the imaginations"
today, _____ and _____ cost about three times what they cost 30 years ago, while _______ typically cost less than hardback editions of new books but more than paperback editions
paperbacks // hardbacks// e-books
where did the first books in the United States come from?
the first books in the US were imports, bought by the new settlers or ordered from England after the settlers arrived. (1620, imported books arrive in the colonies on the Mayflower)
three events in the 19th century ensured that the book publishing industry would prosper in the 20th century:
the passage of the International Copyright Law, the creation of publishing houses, and the establishment of compulsory education.
where do profits come from today?
the sale of subsidiary and international rights to movie companies, book clubs, foreign publishers, paperback reprint houses, video game makers and e-book publishers
technological advances in the last 40 years have led to seven important changes in the way books are produces, distributed and promotes:
1. because computers monitor inventory more closely, publishers can easily order new printings of books that are selling quickly so booksellers can keep the books in stock. 2. book publishing is an on-screen industry, publishers now receive most manuscripts from authors electronically via the internet. editors then send the books into production online. this means books can be formatted and printed anywhere, often overseas. 3. electronic graphics make books more interesting, and many book publishers are using online content to produce expanded versions of traditional books and to add materials that enhance a book's marketability. 4. publishers are using web sites and social media to promote their books and to advertise block busters. 5. large publishers are continuing to consolidate and the number of small publishers is decreasing. 6. many aspects of the publishing process, such as copyediting, photo research and design , are contracted to freelancers who work outside the publishing house. because publishing can be done online, book projects can be managed from any location. this means that publishers have fewer in-house employees today and much of the work is contracted and sent overseas. 7. to expand the market for books, publishers are exploring all aspects of digital delivery for e-books so that books can be made available on all mobile devices as well as in printed form.
coser and his colleagues describe the four main characteristics of book publishing in america:
1. the industry sells its products in a market that is often uncertain. 2. the industry is decentralized among a number of sectors whose operations bear little resemblance to each other. 3. a mixture of modern mass media production methods and craft-like procedures characterizes these operations. 4. the industry remains perilously poised between requirements and restraints of commerce and the responsibilities and obligations that it must bear as a prime guardian of the symbolic culture of the nation.
textbooks account for______of book publishing income
1/3
on august 2nd , 2010, book retailer amazon announced that for the first time, the company had sold more e-books in the previous three months than hardcover printed books--
143 kindle books for every 100 hardcovers.
In 1638, the colonists set up a press at Cambridge, Mass , and in ______ they printed America's first book, _________.
1640// The Bay Psalm Book (officially titled the whole book pf psalms.)
in _____, _____ _______, decided that Philadelphia needed a library. He asked 50 subscribers to pay 40 shillings each to a library company. the company imported 84 books which circulated among the subscribers. this circulating library was America's first
1731// Benjamin Franklin
by _____, ___ states had passed compulsory education laws. why was this important to book publishing?
1900// 31// this was important because schools had to buy textbooks, and education creates more children who can read. expanded public support for education also meant more money for libraries.
publishers that specialized in paper backs started in the ____ and ____: what were the three types and years they were created?
1930s and 1940s// Pocket books (1939), Bantam Books (1946) and New American Library (1948)
in _____, ___ ___ ___ introduced ameirca's first series of paperback best-sellers, called pocket books, which issued titles that had already succeeded as hardbound books. there were inexpensive (25 cents) and could fit into a pocket or purse.
1939// Robert de Graff
the creation of publishing houses in the ______ and ___ _____ centuries:
19th and early 20th// centralized the process of producing books.
in 2013, publishers sold how many e-books?
457 million
what are a few big factors in book marketing?
Amazon, and internet retailer and Barnes and Noble a chain bookstore.
in june 2012 what company did amazon buy to add books to its kindle tablet book series?
Avalon Books (publishes romances and mysteries)
what is the only chain book store in the U.S.?
Barnes and Noble
historians credit ______ _______ with selling Pamela by Samuel Richardson in 1744, the first novel published in the US, although since there wasn't an international copy write law (it was cheaper for colonial printers to freely reprint British novels and sell them rather than print American writers who demanded royalties), it was a British import that first had appeared in England in 1740.
Benjamin Franklin
1731
Benjamin Franklin creates the first lending library
what was the nations first all digital library called? where was it opened? and what year?
Biblio-Tech, opened in San Antonio, Texas in 2013
early book clubs such as __________, expanded the market for books and widened the audience
Book-of-the-Month
in 2011 ______ filed bankruptcy protection and eventually all the stores closed
Borders
humor was been a deurable category in book publishing since the days of humorist Mark Twain. Mark twain was made famous by, ________. Twain became a one man publishing enterprise. one reason his books sold well was because?
His short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County."// He was the first American author to recognize the importance of advance publicity. His novels were sold door to door, sales agents took advance the orders before the books were published so the published could estimate how many to print. Before 1900, more than 3/4 of the popular books people bought were sold door to door.
scholar _____ ___ ____ says that although poetry was never as popular as prose, the mid-1800s was "the great era of poetry...it was more widely read in those years than it has been since."
James D. Hart
grove press challenged book censorship by publishing __________ in 1959 and _______ in 1961. Both books had been banned in the U.S. as obscene.
Lady Chatterley's Lover// Tropic of Cancer
more publishers joined pocket books to produce paperbacks: list them.
New American Library (NAL), Avon, Popular Library, Signet and Dell.
book publishing today has become a highly competitive, corporate media industry driven by?
digital delivery
** NAL distinguished itself by being the first mass-market publisher willing to issue serious books by and about African Americans. list a few.
Richard Wright's, Native Son. Lillian Smith's, Strange Fruit and Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. Signet's unexpected hit in the 1950's was J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the Rye, still popular today.
the publication of by grove press of ______ in 1965 was another challenge to censorship. the book became a best-seller
The Autobiography of Malcolm X
subsidiary rights?
The rights to market a book for other uses- to make a movie or to print a character from the book on T-shirts, for example
what was the biggest seller of the 1700's?
Thomas Paine's revolutionary political pamphlet, Common Sense, which argued for the colonies independence from Great Britain. From January to March 1776, colonial presses published 100,000 copies of Paine's persuasive political argument-- one copy for every 25 people in the colonies. (a true best seller)
block buster
a book that achieves outstanding financial success
publishers pay authors what?
a royalty for their work
how many book titles do publishers in the United States publish every year?
about 200,000
how long does it take for books to be printed promoted and distributed in print and digital formats after they are written?
about a year
audiobooks
abridged or complete versions of classic books and popular new titles available on CDs and as internet downloads. (most audiobooks are sold as internet downloads.) people are into audiobooks on mobile devices because they are available easily.
until 2010, big chains such as borders and barnes and noble:
accounted for more than half of the bookstore sales of trade books. they bought mass-marketing techniques to the book industry, offering book buyers an environment that was less like the traditional cozy atmosphere of an independent bookstore and more like a department store.
today the author is only one part of publishing a book. departments at the publishing house called:
acquisitions, media, design, production, manufacturing, marketing and fulfillment all participate in the book publishing process.
_____ ____ _____ trade books: sold through bookstores and to libraries; designed for the general public; typically include, hard cover fiction, current nonfiction, biography, literary classics, cookbooks, travel books, art books, and books on sports, music, poetry, and drama. Juvenile trade books can be anything from picture books for children who can't read yet to novels for young adults.
adult and juvenile trade books
today, ________ _____ _______ trade books account for almost half of the books people buy, and ________ make up more than a third of all books sold.
adult and juvenile// textbooks
books fall into three main categories:
adult and juvenile// textbooks// professional and scholarly books.
because books cost so much to publish:
advances in technology can lower the cost of producing printed books, which benefits the industry.
what is an agents typical fee?
agents who represent authors collect fees from the authors they represent. typically an agents fee is 15 percent of the author's royalty.
small presses are, by definition:
alternative
1640
america's first book , the bay psalm book, is printed in cambridge mass.
what is a royalty?
an amount the publisher pays an author, based on an established percentage of the book's price; royalties run anywhere from 6 to 15 percent of the cover price of the book.
what is an advance?
an amount the publisher pays the author before the book is published. the number of books sold must pay off the advance before the author makes any more money.
successful publishers consistently do what?
anticipate both their competitors and the market
in 2012, random house and penguin merged into a new company called penguin random house which:
became the fifth largest book publisher in the world
why are most small presses today struggling to survive?
because they have limited distribution capabilities and dont have the money to invest in e-books.
publishing company consolidation:
began in the 1960's and this pattern of consolidation continues today.
to reduce their risks, many publishers look for:
blockbuster books (and best-selling authors) that they can sell through large-scale promotion campaigns
sales exploded for book publishing with the introduction of ?
book clubs and paperbacks, beginning in the 1920's.
1970s
book marketing changes significantly with the growth of retail bookstore chains
the most significant changes in ____ _____ in the past 40 years have been the growth of?
book marketing// bookstore chains and the subsequent competition from internet retailer Amazon.
beginning in 1920s:
book publishers dropped prices and introduced book clubs and paperbacks
1926
book-of-the-month club is founded, increasing the audience for books.
the introduction of paperbacks that sold for as little as 25 cents meant that:
books could reach people who had never owned a book before.
what are among the most popular titles on Amazon's Kindle readers?
books that are issued in a series and that are often read quickly-- such as romances and mysteries
what does the manufacturing supervisor do?
buys the typesetting, paper, and printing for the book.
before the 1960s, the book publishing industry was:
composed mainly of independent companies whose only business was books.
1891
congress passes the international copyright la of 1891, which requires publishing houses to pay royalties to all authors
large publishers are continuing to do what, causing what?
consolidate causing small publishers to decrease
what does the designer do?
decides what a book will look like, inside and out. they also choose the typefaces for the book, and determine how the pictures, boxes and headings will look and where to use color. they also create a concept for the book's cover and help out with the format for the e-book.
was mainly popular after the civil war were _____ ______. (americas earliest paperbacks) they often featured serial characters, like many of today's mystery novels. most of them cost only a nickel but some early paperbacks were as expensive as 25 cents.
dime novels
how did american book publishing grow?
early publishers widened their audience by publishing political pamphlets, novels, poetry and humor.
e-books
electronic books; e-books account for 11 percent of all book sales in the U.S.; two audiences that benefit best from e-books are young people who dread going to the library, and older people who like the convenience of large type on demand, and do not want to lug around heavy books.
1900
elementary education becomes compulsory, which means increased literacy and more demand for textbooks
internet retailing has:
expanded the book market and has introduced competitive pricing.
Grove Press Tests Censorship
grove published explicit content in 1959 and 1961, the legal fees to defend Miller's book against charges cost Grove more than $250,000 but eventually the US supreme court cleared the book in 1964.
1620
imported books arrive in the colonies on the mayflower
how do books get published?
in most cases, books start with the author, who proposes a book to an acquisitions editor, usually an outline with a few sample chapters. often an agent will negotiate the contract for the book. however some authors negotiate their own contracts.
after the ____ _____ ___ ___ _____ all authors, foreign and American, had to give their permission for their works to be published. for the first time, american authors cost publishing house the same amount as foreign authors. this motivated publishers to look for more american writers. in fact, after 1894, american writers published more novels in the US than foreign writers did
international copyright law of 1891.
why has amazon become a major factor in bookselling?
it can buy in huge volume and sell books cheaper.
what does the acquisitions editor do?
looks for potential authors and projects and works out an agreement with the author. they can also represent the company at book auctions and negotiate sales of subsidiary rights.
what does the production editor do?
manages all the steps that turn a manuscript into a book. they also set up a schedule to make sure all the production work gets done on time.
what does the marketer do?
marketing is an essential part of selling a book. it is handled by many departments, advertising designs ad for the book. promotion sends the book to reviewers. sales representatives visit book stores and college campuses to tell book buyers about the book. fulfillment makes sure that books get to the book stores on time.
1948
new american library begins publishing serious fiction by and about African Americans
many small presses exist:
outside of the new york city orbit
early publishers widened their audience by publishing
political pamphlets, novels, poetry and humor
publishers have always been torn between the goal of
preserving the country's intellectual ideas and the need to make money
_____ ____ _________ _____: a university press book is one that a university publishes. these presses produce mainly scholarly materials in hard cover and softcover. most scholarly books are sold through direct mail and in college book stores.
professional and scholarly books
many new owners of publishing houses try to bring some predictability to the market, says coser..
publishers attempt to reduce.. uncertainty.. through concentrating on 'sure-fire' blockbusters, through large-scale promotion campaigns or through control over distribution, as in marketing or paperbacks. In the end, however, publishers rely on sales estimates that may be as unreliable as weather forecasts in Maine."
publishing houses try to limit uncertainty by
publishing blockbusters and by spending money on promotional camaigns
1960
publishing houses begin to consolidate, concentrating power in a few large corporations
1939
robert de graff introduces pocket books, america's first series of paperback books
what happens if you drop a products price drastically?
sales explode
forecasts for growing profits in book publishing in the 1960s made the industry attractive to corporations looking for new places to invest. the rising of _________ ____ ______ ______ from the post world war 11 baby boom made some areas of publishing especially ______, lucrative investments for media companies that had not published books before.
school and college attendance// textbooks
what are two ways publishers acquire books?
some authors submit manuscripts "over the transom" which means they send unsolicited manuscript to a publishing house, hoping the publisher will be interested. (most of the larger publishers refuse to read unsolicited manuscripts. and the other, most popular way, is a book submitted by an agent.
what is an important element of small press success?
specialization and targeting marketing
consolidation means the giants in today's publishing industry are demanding increasingly higher profits. the companies look for extra income in three ways:
subsidiary and international rights, block buster books, and chain and internet marketing.
small press often operate with as few as
ten employees
__________: are published for elementary and secondary school students (called the "el-hi" market) as well as for college students. very little difference exist between textbooks and trade books, often the only real difference is that textbooks include apparatus (test questions, chapter summaries, and extra assignments.
textbooks
the nations larger publishing houses publish most of the books sold each year but there are a few smaller publishing houses, what is the advantage to the smaller publishing houses?
their size means they can specialize in specific topics , such as environment or bicycling or poetry.
publishing houses that began in the 18th century carried on into the 19th and 20th century. to begin with they were nothing like today's multimedia corporations. how did publishing houses work in the 19th century?
these pioneering companies housed all aspects of publishing under one roof: they sought out authors, reviewed and edited copy, printed and sold the books.
1776
thomas paine publishes the revolutionary pamphlet common sense
_______ wrote 1/3 of all the early american novels and they also bought most of them.
women
what does the media editor do?
works with the author to create digital materials to enhance the book. this could be an e-book version, or any other multimedia such as archival photographs, slide shows, or video. for textbooks, this might mean a website where students can take sample test and download chapter outlines and instructors can access videos and exercises to use in the classroom.