2/11/18

A Short History of Books

 First book: 1644 The Whole Booke of Psalms

 1732 Poor Richards Almanack by Ben Franklin
 First novel: 1740 Pamela by Samuel Richardson
 1765: Printers revolt after passage of Stamp Act, to control expression in restless colonies
 Thomas Paine's Common Sense: pamphlets motivated and coalesced political dissent,
challenging British right to govern the colonies
 US literacy is now at 90%
 1884: linotype machine (set type mechanically)
 1875: Offset lithography made it possible to print from photographic plates
 Lower cost printing combines with literacy=novel
 Paperback books 1935: Allen Lane founded Penguin Books and invented the paperback
 Today more than 60% of all books sold are paperbacks

Books and Their Audiences

 The Book Industry

o 300,000 titles (was 3 million titles, trad. & non. trad., as of the last edition of the book.
Can you explain this???) published in North America each year
o Readers buy 2.5 billion books
o Generate $15 billion (big drop! Was 33 billion in sales in the last edition)
 Books are the least “mass” medium…titles can be targeted towards broad or narrow audiences.
New and innovative ideas are likely to appear in books.
 The cultural value of the book
o Books are:
 Agents of social and cultural change
 Important cultural repository
 Windows on the past
 Important sources of personal development
 Good source of entertainment, escape, and personal reflection
 More individual personal activity than consuming advertiser supported media
 Mirrors of culture
 Censorship
o Books are targeted because of their influence as cultural repositories and agents of
social change
o Book publishers’ obligations demand they resist censorship

2/13/19

Books and Their Audiences (contiuned)

 Aliteracy as Self-censorship
 o Aliteracy means you can read, but you don’t

Scope and Structure of the Book Industry

 Categories of books
o Book club editions
o El-hi (textbooks for elementary and high school)
o Higher education (college)
o Mail order books
o Mass market paperbacks
o Professional books
o Religious books
o Standardized tests
o Subscription reference books
o Trade books: paperback books that are larger ex: game of thrones, not the mass market
size
o University press: research

Trends and Convergence in Book Publishing

 E-publishing: helps with the issue of inventory

 E-books: Accounts for 30% of trade publishes sales Good outlet for first time authors. Has a
financial advantage over traditional publishing
o Writers get 40-70% of royalties
o The issue is the argument re:disintermediation (get rid of the middle man)
 Print on demand (POD)
o No remainders: way too many published now must sell for cheap
 Cottage industry: rug makers, going to edit a book lovingly and put out about 20-30
 Subsidiary rights: synergy, tie-in novels (the movies/shows came first)
 Instant books: lack true substance, when someone doesn’t know about a person
 Paid Product placement: Hershey multiplication book
 Hollywoodization: only books that have such potential will receive publishing deals, only if book
can be made into a something else like a movie

CH 4

Newspapers

 Newspapers are going through a disruptive transition

 Acta Diurna written on tablet and posted
 Corantos: printed in Holland (1620) imported to Britain, todays newspapers have their roots
from this newspaper in the 17th century
 Diurnals are true forerunners of daily newspapers
 Publick Occurences Both Foreign and Domestick
o Lasted one day
o The country's first newspaper
 o Critical of royal government
o Didn’t have his license
o Colonial Newspapers
o

In 1734 publisher John Peter Zenger criticized New York’s royal governor in the Journal

 Was jailed for seditious libel

 Got off because the words the jury felt his WORDS were true (he WAS guilty
under British law)
 Set up the idea that truth is a defense is from libel.

2/18/19

A Short History of Newspapers (continued)…

 New York Sun was the first exampled of the penny press
 Freedoms Journal the first African American newspaper
o North Star was the most influential AFAM paper before the civil war
o The Chicago Defender the most influential AFAM newspaper after the civil war was, that
encouraged them to migrate to the north
 6 New York papers decided to pool efforts to share expenses and formed the first wire service
The New York Associated Press, this increased the depth and scope of coverage and saved
money
 Yellow Journalism, named after the Yellow Kid, lots of illustrations, relied on cartoons and color

Scope and Structure of the Newspaper Industry

 Wall street journal is the oldest national newspaper

 Joint operating agreements (JOAs): in the same building but two different papers, this has
helped keep newspapers alive
 Concentration of ownership (newspaper chains)

2/20/19

Magazines

A Short History of Magazines

 Magazines come from Britain, first few were for elites that could read, mostly reprints of British
articles, no organized postal service
 Andrew Bradford publish American Magazine the first magazine on American soil
 Magazine growth was encouraged by: (the magazine industry grew)
o Cheaper printing
o Literacy
o Social movements
  The time of significant beginnings
 Reasons for the growth:
o Widespread literacy postal act of 1879: mail mags at 2 nd class postage rates
o Spead of railroads
o Reduction of cost
o Industry: people have leisure time and money to spend
 Womens mag and suffrage, but also how to for homemakers. Perfect marriage between brand
products and women's mags
 Magazines were Americas first national mass medium
 Muckraking: crusading journalism, advocating for change
 Family subscribers between 1900 and 9145 200,00 too more than 32 million
 The crisis (founded by W.E.B. DuBois in 1910 to be the voice of the NAACP)
 The Era of Specialization
o Own personal interest
 TV changed magazines
 Magazines stated the trench of niche marketing

Scope and Structure of the Magazine Industry

 Contemporary magazines divided into 3 types

o Trade, professional and business mags
 Related to your profession
 Ex: law, dentist, video games
o Industrial, company and sponsored mags
 In a sorority get their mags
o Consumer mags

2/25/19

Magazine Advertising

 Split runs: editorial content varies according to region ex: TIME magazine
 Single sponsor magazines: one advertiser only
 Accountability guarantees: promising that readers will recall advertising to a certain level
 Circulation: the total number of issues of a magazine sold
o Subscriptions: 85% of sales
o Single copy sales: less reliable, pay full copy for an issue
o Controlled circulation: providing magazines for free to a set demographic ex: AIRLINE,
you can’t subscribe to these
 Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) established to provide reliability to announced circulation
figures; became the alliance for audited Media in 2012
o Pass along readership is also measures
 Custom Magazines: designed for an individual company, likely buyers
1. BRAND MAGAZINES: consumer magazines, variety of general interest, published by a
retail business for readers, want to maintain their relationships
2. MANALOGUE: a designer catalogue designed to look like a magazine