Books

1
Books

• The Birth of the Mass Media

2
The Development of the Book and Mass
Communication

• Books allowed
• the spread of ideas
• the standardization of language and spelling
• the creation of mass culture
• Also helped bring about major social changes.

3

• Early Books and Writing
• Writing is thought to have originated around 3500
  B.C. in the Middle East, in either Egypt or
  Mesopotamia.
• Reading and writing allowed information to be
  stored and preserved.
• Reading and writing were elite skills held by
  people called scribes.

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• Pictographearliest form of writing was the which
  consisted of pictures of objects painted on rock
  walls.
• Ideographan abstract symbol that stands for an
  object or an idea
• Are more formalized than a pictograph.
• One symbol stands for each object or idea.
• Languages such as Chinese, Korean, and Japanese
  still make use of ideographs.
• Street signs still make use of.

5

• Phonographya system of writing in which symbols
  stand for spoken sounds rather than for objects
  or ideas developed around 2000 B.C.
• Alphabetsletters representing individual sounds
  were developed between 1700 B.C. and 1500 B.C.

6

• The Development of Paper
• Papyrusa primitive form of paper made from the
  papyrus reed
• developed by the Egyptians around 3100
• tended to crumble or be eaten by bugs
• Parchmentmade from the skin of goats or sheep
• replaced papyrus because it was more durable
• Papermade from cotton rags or wood
• invented by the Chinese sometime between 240 and
  105 B.C.
• spread throughout Europe during the 1300s,
  replaced parchment in the 1500s.

7

• Books before the Era of Printing
• Most books in Europe were religious texts
  hand-copied by monks, produced in the scriptoria,
  or copying rooms of monasteries.
• Rise of literacy in the thirteenth century
  increased demand for books.
• Demand for books greatly exceeded production.

8

• Books before the Era of Printing (cont.)
• Books were still hand-copied one at a time
• Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales
• By the fourteenth century books were becoming
  relatively common.
• Illuminated manuscriptsreligious texts
  embellished with pictures and elaborate
  calligraphy
• aided in the transmission of the message to
  nonliterate audiences

9
The Development of the Printing Press

• Printing was invented in China toward the end of
  the second century
• Images were carved into blocks of wood.
• Woodcuts could not be reproduced rapidly.
• Between 1050 and 1200 both the Chinese and the
  Koreans developed the idea of movable type
• With thousands of separate ideographs, printing
  was not practical.

10

• Johannes Gutenberg
• first European to develop movable type
• developed the first practical printing press by
  modifying a winepress
• Typemoldenabled printers to make multiple,
  identical copies of a single letter.
• Fontoriginally referred to a particular size and
  style of type
• today it refers to specific typefaces
• mass-produced type became available by 1600s

11

• Books and Standardized Language
• William Caxton (14221491) helped establish the
  rules for the English language
• worked to standardize word usage, grammar,
  punctuation, and spelling
• published books in English rather than in Latin
• Martin Luther
• translated the New Testament of the Bible into
  German in 1522

12

• Books in the New World
• First printing press in the New World was set up
  by the Spanish in Mexico City in 1539.
• Printing in North America began in 1640
  Whole Booke of Psalmes.
• Benjamin Franklin (1731) established one of the
  colonies early circulating (or subscription)
  libraries in Philadelphia.

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• Benjamin Franklins lending library
• Patrons had to pay 40 shillings initially, then
  10 shillings a year to continue borrowing
  volumes.
• Franklins patrons were businessmen and
  tradesmen.
• Nonreligious books that sold well included books
  on agriculture and animal husbandry, science,
  surveying, and the military.
• Samuel Richardsons Pamela, published in 1740,
  was the first English novel.

14
The Development of Large-Scale,
Mass-Produced Books

• Andrew Carnegie financed the construction of
  nearly 1,700 public libraries from 1900 to 1917.
• Serial novelspublished in installments, popular
  in the 1830s and 1840s
• less expensive than a whole book
• steady flow of income for publishers
• Dime novelsfirst paperbacks, heroic action
  stories that celebrated democratic ideals
• popular in the Civil War era, morale boosters

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• The steam-powered rotary press, invented in 1814,
  could print as many as 16,000 sections per day.
• In 1885, the Mergenthaler Linotype typesetting
  machine was introduced
• Allowed a compositor to type at a keyboard rather
  than pick each letter out by hand, thus further
  speeding up the printing process.

16
Buying and Selling Books

• In 2005, Amazon.com3.7 million titles available
• giant superstores carry 50,000 to 150,000 titles.
  
• Publisherscompanies that buy manuscripts from
  authors and turn them into books
• 20 companies publish nearly 80 of all books
  today
• regional publishers are buying up small,
  independent publishing houses
• international conglomerates buying up major
  national publishing companies

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• The top five publishers in the world are
• McGraw-Hill
• Random House
• Harcourt Education
• Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck
• Scholastic

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• University and small pressespublish books that
  serve a limited geographic or subject area or an
  academic discipline
• Vanity pressesprint books with the author paying
  all the costs of publication and distribution
• very little return for authors
• The Government Printing OfficeOne of the
  nations biggest publishers
• most of its titles are government reports (9/11
  Commission Report was a best-seller)
• Authors
• responsible for original manuscript, and all
  changes leading up to the proofthe print-ready
  copy of the book

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• Booksellers
• The Ingram Book Groupnations largest book
  wholesaler
• distributes 175 million books and audiobooks to
  more than 30,000 retail outlets
• Barnes Nobles revenues total more than 5
  billion a year
• in the United States, operates under the Barnes
  Noble and B. Dalton names, along with
  Barnesandnoble.com
• controls about 17 of the retail book business
  in the United States

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• The Textbook Business
• Barnes Noble did more than 1.5 billion in
  business in 2005 through its more than 500 campus
  bookstores.
• Stores give the schools theyre associated with a
  cut of the sales.
• With used textbooks, neither the publisher nor
  the author get a cut of the sales, only the
  bookstore.

21
Books and Culture

• Great Books versus Popular Books
• The 1850s saw the publication of Nathaniel
  Hawthornes The Scarlet Letter, Herman Melvilles
  Moby-Dick, and Walt Whitmans Leaves of Grass.
• All were outsold by domestic novelsbooks written
  by and for women that told of women who overcame
  tremendous hardships and ended up in prosperous
  middle-class homes.

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• 54.9 of all popular paperback fiction sold in
  America are categorized as romances.
• Classics continue to sell
• Catcher in the Rye, sells about 250,000 copies a
  year.
• The Lord of the Rings, initially published in
  England in 1954, has now sold more than 100
  million copies (11 million in 2002 alone).

23

• Harry Potter Breaks the New York Times
  Best-Seller List
• February 2000first three Harry Potter books were
  all on the hardback fiction list
• Publishers complainedbooks aimed at children
  were overshadowing authors writing for an adult
  audience
• New York Times created a separate best-seller
  list for childrens books
• eventually created three new childrens lists
• Harry Potter had positive effects on the sales of
  similar books and increased the number of
  actively reading children.

24
Books and Censorship

• Book Banning
• In the U.S. most book censorship efforts are
  local in scope.
• Judy Blume
• ten books on the Publishers Weeklys list of the
  top 200 childrens paperbacks of all times
• controversial topics include adolescence
• message that banning sends to young people upsets
  Blume

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• Salman Rushdie
• released the The Satanic Verses in 1988
• Satanic Verses banned in India in the fall of
  1988 caused rioting in Pakistan in 1989
• received a death sentence, or fatwa, from Irans
  Ayatollah Khomeini for the books blasphemous
  content
• forced into hiding by fatwa
• was never attacked, but several people connected
  to Rushdie and the book were killed or injured

26
The Future of Books

• Books and the Long Tail
• Amazon.com began operations in July 1995.
• The Web was the only practical way to offer the
  variety that the company sought.
• The Amazon site tracks customers interests
  through using cookies.
• Readers likely to use the Internet and have
  computer access.
• Finding books online can be easier than finding
  them in a bookstore.

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• Electronic Publishing and Printing-on-Demand
• Electronic distribution has also become a popular
  format
• allows customers to download titles
• Electronic Textbooks
• have an advantage over print editions, since
  textbooks tend to be updated frequently
• provides for flexibility, still have some
  challenges
• Printing-on-Demand
• physical book isnt printed until its ordered
• requires banks of large-capacity printers