Chapter 3 outline: Books and Magazines

Chapter 3 outline

Books and Magazines

n  Early Print Media

Ø  Greek epics (Odyssey)

Ø  Japanese Tale of Genji

Ø  Chinese printing blocks

Ø  Importance of monks

Ø  Gutenberg press

Ø  Growth of literacy

Ø  Ideas about life and work

n  The Gutenberg Revolution

Ø  Gutenberg Bible (1455)

Ø  Mass production of books,
newspapers at low cost

Ø  Beyond religious works:
chapbooks, entertainment

Ø  Libraries and bookstalls

n  First lending library in 1602; England

n  First American Print Media

Ø  Bay Psalm Book (1640)

Ø  Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732)

Ø  Paine’s Common Sense

Ø  Subscription libraries

Ø  Magazines, miscellanies

Ø  Copyright Act of 1790

n  Royalties

n  First American Print Media

Ø  Publishers took up political causes: ‘Federalist Papers’

Ø  Literary miscellanies:
Saturday Evening Post (early 1800s)

Ø  Illustrated weeklies: Harper’s Weekly introduced Civil War drawings

n  First American Print Media

Ø  Last of the Mohicans (1826)

Ø  Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852)

Ø  Dime novels: Horatio Alger

Ø  The Postal Act of 1879

Ø  New genres, ‘pulp’ fiction

n  Muckraking

Ø  Investigative reporting

Ø  Reformers sought justice

Ø  McClure’s, Ida Tarbell
and Standard Oil

Ø  Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle

Ø  Muckraking led to
major legislation

n  Pure Food and Drug Act

n  Modern Magazines

Ø  After 1920s, magazines competed with radio and film

Ø  Some magazines tried mass appeal; others targeted narrow, loyal audiences

Ø  Advertising shifted to television

Ø  Decline of newsmagazines (Life, Time, Newsweek)

n  Modern Magazines

Ø  Proliferation of
specialized magazines

Ø  Today, there are
almost 20,700 magazines

Ø  Desktop publishing & Web lowered barriers to entry

n  Book Publishing Giants

Ø  As printing costs declined, publishing grew

Ø  ‘Book’ rate for mailing books

Ø  World War II ushered
in paperback era

Ø  Definition of “book” is changing

n  Book Publishing Giants

Ø  Publishing industry uneasy

n  Chains publishing own books

n  E-publishing by nonprofits

n  Books on demand

n  Amazon and its Kindle

n  Google Edition, Apple iPad

n  From Chapbook to E-book

n  After Gutenberg

Ø  Rotary press

Ø  Photoengraving

Ø  Offset printing

Ø  Computer to plate

Ø  Print on demand

Ø  Bar-code and “QR” scanners

•    E-publishing

Ø  Google’s digitization of books

Ø  Kindle’s impact

Ø  E-commerce(Amazon)

Ø  Printing books on demand

Ø  Online self-publishing

Ø  Free, low-cost digital books

n  E-publishing

Ø  Readers mixed on e-books

Ø  E-readers getting popular

Ø  Problems with e-books

n  Piracy, illegal swapping

Ø  Hard to read online

Ø  Magazines moving online

Ø  Libraries of tomorrow

n  Industry: Going Global

Ø  Magazines target readers

Ø  Audience = circulation X readers per copy

Ø  They get most of their revenue (60%) from ads

Ø  Some magazines are subscription only; trade magazines

n  Circulation & Advertising

Ø  Some magazines struggling

Ø  Circulation has dropped

Ø  So has advertising

Ø  Influence of magazine wholesalers, distributors

n  Exception: Wal-Mart bypasses distributors

n  Book Publishing Economics

Ø  Search for best sellers

Ø  Publishing houses

Ø  Physical and online stores

Ø  Increase in
books-on-demand

Ø  Consumers keep their purchased books

n  Magazine & Book Genres

Ø  Magazines for every taste

n  Even small-circulation magazines can be profitable

Ø  Major book categories

n  Trade, professional, textbooks, paperback, religious, book club, mail-order, multimedia, scholarly presses

Ø  Top book genre is fiction

n  Literacy: Culture of Print

Ø  Books: ideas vs. commodities

Ø  Redefining role of magazines

Ø  Distribution issues

Ø  Intellectual property
and copyright

Ø  Censorship, free speech,

First Amendment