The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century (Stanford Business Books) [Hardcover]

Albert Greco (Author), Clara Rodriguez (Author), Robert Wharton (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0804750319 | ISBN-13: 978-0804750318 | Publication Date: October 4, 2006 | Edition: 1

Is publishing a cultural or commercial endeavor? Drawing on extensive data sets and applying the theoretical tools of both sociology and economics, The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century is the definitive social and economic analysis of the current state and future trends of the industry. This book examines the substantive issues, challenges, and problems confronting the diverse, and in many ways fragile, book publishing industry in the United States. The authors specifically emphasize the consumer, college textbook, and scholarly publishing components of the U.S. book publishing industry as they analyze the cultural and economic structure of the book publishing industry in the twenty-first century.

The book begins by charting the changes in the book publishing industry between 1945 and 2005, then goes on to examine industry specifics, strategies being employed for domestic and global competitiveness, and 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 examine 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.

Throughout the book, the tables provided 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. It also provides forecasts for the coming years, both units and revenues, for 2005-2009. 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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“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 book is a great resource for anyone trying to understand how the book industry works.”—Jim Milliot, Director of Business and News, Publishers Weekly

“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, Editor-in-Chief, Publishers Weekly

From the Inside Flap

Is publishing a cultural or commercial endeavor? Drawing on extensive data sets and applying the theoretical tools of both sociology and economics, The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century is the definitive social and economic analysis of the current state and future trends of the industry. This book examines the substantive issues, challenges, and problems confronting the diverse, and in many ways fragile, book publishing industry in the United States. The authors specifically emphasize the consumer, college textbook, and scholarly publishing components of the U.S. book publishing industry as they analyze the cultural and economic structure of the book publishing industry in the twenty-first century.
The book begins by charting the changes in the book publishing industry between 1945 and 2005, then goes on to examine industry specifics, strategies being employed for domestic and global competitiveness, and 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 examine 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.
Throughout the book, the tables provided 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. It also provides forecasts for the coming years, both units and revenues, for 2005-2009. 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.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Stanford Business Books; 1 edition (October 4, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804750319
• ISBN-13: 978-0804750318
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,600,461 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Report on Mainstream Book Publishing, November 30, 2006

By 

John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing in the 21st Century (Stanford Business Books) (Hardcover)

This book purports to answer the question, 'Is publishing a cultural or commercial endeavor.' The answer, of course, is a simple, 'Yes.' To the large corporation owning a publishing company the answer is 'mostly commercial.' To a unversity press (this book is published by Stanford University Press), the answer is probably somewhere in the middle. This book, for instance, is not likely to make the best seller charts. To a church owned press, or a self-published book the answer is probably 'mostly cultural.'

This book concentrates mostly on the larger companies, the publishers whose names we all know. There isn't much from the World War II soldier that has just decided to publish his memoirs, or the church that has put it's significant books on the web for anyone to read.

The general feeling about the industry is not good. The percentage of readers in the country has gone down. The small book stores are having to find niches where Barnes & Noble and WalMart don't compete. And all of this is true.

Then there's Harry Potter, where even the announcement of the title of the next book gets announced on the evening network TV news. And there were 172,000 new books published in the US in 2005; 375,000 published in the English Speaking World. New technologies makes small print runs more profitable. Internet marketing is as of yet, an unknown. As this book says in it's final sentence, 'The game changed in the summer of 1995 when Jeff Bezos opened Amazon.com; we just do not know whether the game changed for better or worse.

This book is one view of the book publishing industry in America. Anyone with a position of responsibility in the business will ignore it at their peril.