The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century - Hardcover

Greco, Albert N.; Rodríguez, Clara E.; Wharton, Robert M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0804750319 ISBN 13: 9780804750318

Publisher: Stanford Business Books, 2006

Synopsis

This is the definitive social and economic analysis of the current state and future trends of the American book publishing industry, with an emphasis on the trade, college textbook, and scholarly publishing sectors. Drawing on a rich and extensive data, the thoughtful analysis presented in this book will be valuable to leaders in publishing as well as the scholars and analysts who study this industry.

About this title

Review

"This book is a great resource for anyone trying to understand how the book industry works."--Jim Milliot

"Publishing has always played a substantive role in the dissemination of information. Thanks to The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century, we finally have a valuable introduction to the U.S. book publishing industry in our contemporary times. Greco has a reputation for raising tough questions and then carefully analyzing an enormous amount of data to clearly answer those questions. This book will not disappoint; it's an impressive achievement, and even with my 30 years in the industry, I learned a great deal."--Tom Radko "Editor, Journal of Scholarly Publishing "

"This thorough and engrossing book explains everything about the book business in a way that will satisfy "insiders" and "civilians" alike. Greco, Rodríguez, and Wharton explain how corporate takeovers, changing habits, and a "bottom-line" mentality have influenced the way we make books--and buy them. Comprehensive and full of facts, The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century examines the power of publishing, and does its math. Anybody who has ever bought a book should now buy this one."--Sara Nelson

Synopsis

Is publishing a cultural or commercial endeavor? Drawing on extensive data sets and applying the theoretical tools of both sociology and economics, this book examines the substantive issues, challenges, and problems confronting the diverse and in many ways fragile book publishing industry in the United States, and presents the definitive social and economic analysis of its current state and future trends. The authors specifically emphasize the consumer, college textbook, and scholarly publishing components as they analyze the cultural and economic structure of the industry in the 21st century. The book begins by charting the changes that occurred between 1945 and 2005, then goes on to examine industry specifics, strategies being employed for domestic and global competitiveness, the economics of publishing, and the impact of technology. Through in-person interviews and a broad sampling of people from every sector of the industry it examines the demographic trends in play. The temperature of the current publishing culture is presented in a chapter titled "I'm Glad I'm Not an Author..."

The book ends by looking forward, highlighting the trends likely to impact the growth of the industry in the future. The tables provided throughout the book track the industry from 1945 until 2005, and give the reader a snapshot of the data year by year and category by category: bestsellers, average book prices, U.S. bookstore sales, average sales by category, and the demographic breakdown of readers. Forecasts of both units and revenues are provided for the coming years, 2005-2009. The thoughtful analysis presented here will be valuable to leaders in publishing as well as the scholars and analysts who study this industry.

Edition details

• Publisher: Stanford Business Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0804750319
• ISBN 13: 9780804750318
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280