Throughout the nineteenth century, the rapid spread of knowledge and literacy as well as the Industrial Revolution spurred the emergence of the middle class. Its demand for books promoted the development of the publishing industry, which capitalized on increased literacy and widespread compulsory education. Many early publishers were mostly interested in finding quality authors and publishing books of importance. But with the growth of advertising and the rise of a market economy in the latter half of the nineteenth century, publishing gradually became more competitive and more concerned with sales.

The Formation of Publishing Houses

The modern book industry developed gradually in the nineteenth century with the formation of the early “prestigious” publishing houses: companies that tried to identify and produce the works of good writers.12 Among the oldest American houses established at the time (all are now part of major media conglomerates) were J. B. Lippincott (1792); Harper & Bros. (1817), which became Harper & Row in 1962 and HarperCollins in 1990; Houghton Mifflin (1832); Little, Brown (1837); G. P. Putnam (1838); Scribner’s (1842); E. P. Dutton (1852); Rand McNally (1856); and Macmillan (1869).

Between 1880 and 1920, as the center of social and economic life shifted from rural farm production to an industrialized urban culture, the demand for books grew. The book industry also helped assimilate European immigrants to the English language and American culture. In fact, 1910 marked a peak year in the number of new titles produced: 13,470, a record that would not be challenged until the 1950s. These changes marked the emergence of the next wave of publishing houses, as entrepreneurs began to better understand the marketing potential of books. These houses included Doubleday & McClure Company (1897), the McGraw-Hill Book Company (1909), Prentice-Hall (1913), Alfred A. Knopf (1915), Simon & Schuster (1924), and Random House (1925).

Despite the growth of the industry in the early twentieth century, book publishing sputtered from 1910 into the 1950s, as profits were adversely affected by the two world wars and the Great Depression. Radio and magazines fared better because they were generally less expensive and could more immediately cover topical issues during times of crisis. But after World War II, the book publishing industry bounced back.

Types of Books

The divisions of the modern book industry come from economic and structural categories developed both by publishers and by trade organizations, such as the Association of American Publishers (AAP), the Book Industry Study Group (BISG), and the American Booksellers Association (ABA). The categories of book publishing that exist today include trade books (both adult and juvenile), professional books, elementary through high school (often called “el-hi”) and college textbooks, mass market paperbacks, religious books, reference books, and university press books. (For sales figures for the book types, see Figure 10.1.)

Trade Books

One of the most lucrative parts of the industry, trade books include hardbound and paperback books aimed at general readers and sold at commercial retail outlets. The industry distinguishes among adult trade, juvenile trade, and comics and graphic novels. Adult trade books include hardbound and paperback fiction; current nonfiction and biographies; literary classics; books on hobbies, art, and travel; popular science, technology, and computer publications; self-help books; and cookbooks. (Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, first published in 1950, has sold more than twenty-two million hardcover copies.)

Juvenile book categories range from preschool picture books to young-adult or young-reader books, such as Dr. Seuss books, the Lemony Snicket series, the Fear Street series, and the Harry Potter series. In fact, the Harry Potter series alone provided an enormous boost to the industry, helping create record-breaking first-press runs: 10.8 million for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and 12 million for the final book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2007).

Since 2003, the book industry has also been tracking sales of comics and graphic novels (long-form stories with frame-by-frame drawings and dialogue, bound like books). As with the similar Japanese manga books, graphic novels appeal to both youths and adults, as well as males and females. Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (1978) is generally credited as the first graphic novel (and called itself so on its cover). Since that time, interest in graphic novels has grown, and in 2006, their sales surpassed comic books. Given their strong stories and visual nature, many comics and graphic novels, including X-Men, The Dark Knight, Watchmen, and Captain America, have inspired movies. But graphic novels aren’t only about warriors and superheroes. Maira Kalman’s Principles of Uncertainty and Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother? are both acclaimed graphic novels, but their characters are regular mortals in real settings (see “Case Study: Comic Books: Alternative Themes, but Superheroes Prevail” on pages 352–353).

Professional Books

The counterpart to professional trade magazines, professional books target various occupational groups and are not intended for the general consumer market. This area of publishing capitalizes on the growth of professional specialization that has characterized the job market, particularly since the 1960s. Traditionally, the industry has subdivided professional books into the areas of law, business, medicine, and technical-scientific works, with books in other professional areas accounting for a very small segment. These books are sold through mail order, the Internet, or sales representatives knowledgeable about the subject areas.

Textbooks

The most widely read secular book in U.S. history was The Eclectic Reader, an elementary-level reading textbook first written by William Holmes McGuffey, a Presbyterian minister and college professor. From 1836 to 1920, more than 100 million copies of this text were sold. Through stories, poems, and illustrations, The Eclectic Reader taught nineteenth-century schoolchildren to spell and read simultaneously—and to respect the nation’s political and economic systems. Ever since the publication of the McGuffey reader (as it is often nicknamed), textbooks have served a nation intent on improving literacy rates and public education. Elementary school textbooks found a solid market niche in the nineteenth century, while college textbooks boomed in the 1950s, when the GI Bill enabled hundreds of thousands of working- and middle-class men returning from World War II to attend college. The demand for textbooks further accelerated in the 1960s as opportunities for women and minorities expanded. Textbooks are divided into elementary through high school (el-hi) texts, college texts, and vocational texts.

In about half of the states, local school districts determine which el-hi textbooks are appropriate for their students. In the other half of the states, including Texas and California—the two largest states—statewide adoption policies determine which texts can be used. If individual schools choose to use books other than those mandated, they are not reimbursed by the state for their purchases. Many teachers and publishers have argued that such sweeping authority undermines the autonomy of individual schools and local school districts, which have varied educational needs and problems. In addition, many have complained that the statewide system in Texas and California enables these two states to determine the content of all el-hi textbooks sold in the nation because publishers are forced to appeal to the content demands of these states. However, the two states do not always agree on what should be covered. In 2010, the Texas State Board of Education adopted more conservative interpretations of social history in its curriculum, while the California State Board of Education called for more coverage of minorities’ contributions in U.S. history. The disagreement pulled textbook publishers in opposite directions. The solution, which is becoming increasingly easier to implement, involves customizing electronic textbooks according to state standards.

Unlike el-hi texts, which are subsidized by various states and school districts, college texts are paid for by individual students (and parents) and are sold primarily through college bookstores. The increasing cost of textbooks, the markup on used books, and the profit margins of local college bookstores (which in many cases face no on-campus competition) have caused disputes on most college campuses. A 2011–12 survey indicated that each college student spent an annual average of $420 on required course texts, including $296 on new textbooks and $124 on used ones.13 (See Figure 10.2.)

As an alternative, some enterprising students have developed Web sites to trade, resell, and rent textbooks. Other students have turned to online purchasing, either through e-commerce sites like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and eBay, or through college textbook sellers like eCampus.com and textbooks.com, or through book renters like Chegg.

Mass Market Paperbacks

Unlike the larger-size trade paperbacks, which are sold mostly in bookstores, mass market paperbacks are sold on racks in drugstores, supermarkets, and airports as well as in bookstores. Contemporary mass market paperbacks are often the work of blockbuster authors such as Stephen King, Nora Roberts, Patricia Cornwell, and John Grisham and are typically released in the low-cost (under $10) format months after publication of the hardcover version. But mass market paperbacks have experienced declining sales in recent years and now account for less than 6 percent of the book market, as e-books have become the preferred format for low-cost, portable reading.

Paperbacks became popular in the 1870s, mostly with middle- and working-class readers. This phenomenon sparked fear and outrage among those in the professional and educated classes, many of whom thought that reading cheap westerns and crime novels might ruin civilization. Some of the earliest paperbacks ripped off foreign writers, who were unprotected by copyright law and did not receive royalties for the books they sold in the United States. This changed with the International Copyright Law of 1891, which mandated that any work by any author could not be reproduced without the author’s permission.

The popularity of paperbacks hit a major peak in 1939 with the establishment of Pocket Books by Robert de Graff. Revolutionizing the paperback industry, Pocket Books lowered the standard book price of fifty or seventy-five cents to twenty-five cents. To accomplish this, de Graff cut bookstore discounts from 30 to 20 percent, the book distributor’s share fell from 46 to 36 percent of the cover price, and author royalty rates went from 10 to 4 percent. In its first three weeks, Pocket Books sold 100,000 books in New York City alone. Among its first titles was Wake Up and Live by Dorothea Brande, a 1936 best-seller on self-improvement that ignited an early wave of self-help books. Pocket Books also published The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie; Enough Rope, a collection of poems by Dorothy Parker; and Five Great Tragedies by Shakespeare. Pocket Books’ success spawned a series of imitators, including Dell, Fawcett, and Bantam Books.14

A major innovation of mass market paperback publishers was the instant book, a marketing strategy that involved publishing a topical book quickly after a major event occurred. Pocket Books produced the first instant book, Franklin Delano Roosevelt: A Memorial, six days after FDR’s death in 1945. Similar to made-for-TV movies and television programs that capitalize on contemporary events, instant books enabled the industry to better compete with newspapers and magazines. Such books, however, like their TV counterparts, have been accused of circulating shoddy writing, exploiting tragedies, and avoiding in-depth analysis and historical perspective. Instant books have also made government reports into best-sellers. In 1964, Bantam published The Report of the Warren Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy. After receiving the 385,000-word report on a Friday afternoon, Bantam staffers immediately began editing the Warren Report, and the book was produced within a week, ultimately selling over 1.6 million copies. Today, instant books continue to capitalize on contemporary events, including the inauguration of Barack Obama in 2009, the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton in 2011, and Superstorm Sandy in 2012.

Religious Books

The best-selling book of all time is the Bible, in all its diverse versions. Over the years, the success of Bible sales has created a large industry for religious books. After World War II, sales of religious books soared. Historians attribute the sales boom to economic growth and a nation seeking peace and security while facing the threat of “godless communism” and the Soviet Union.15 By the 1960s, though, the scene had changed dramatically. The impact of the Civil Rights struggle, the Vietnam War, the sexual revolution, and the youth rebellion against authority led to declines in formal church membership. Not surprisingly, sales of some types of religious books dropped as well. To compete, many religious-book publishers extended their offerings to include serious secular titles on such topics as war and peace, race, poverty, gender, and civic responsibility.

Throughout this period of change, the publication of fundamentalist and evangelical literature remained steady. It then expanded rapidly during the 1980s, when the Republican Party began making political overtures to conservative groups and prominent TV evangelists. After a record year in 2004 (twenty-one thousand new titles), there has been a slight decline in the religious-book category. However, it continues to be an important part of the book industry, especially during turbulent social times.

Reference Books

Another major division of the book industry—reference books—includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlases, almanacs, and a number of substantial volumes directly related to particular professions or trades, such as legal casebooks and medical manuals.

The two most common reference books are encyclopedias and dictionaries. The idea of developing encyclopedic writings to document the extent of human knowledge is attributed to the Greek philosopher Aristotle. The Roman citizen Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE) wrote the oldest reference work still in existence, Historia Naturalis, detailing thousands of facts about animals, minerals, and plants. But it wasn’t until the early eighteenth century that the compilers of encyclopedias began organizing articles in alphabetical order and relying on specialists to contribute essays in their areas of interest. Between 1751 and 1771, a group of French scholars produced the first multiple-volume set of encyclopedias.

The oldest English-language encyclopedia still in operation, Encyclopaedia Britannica, was first published in Scotland in 1768. U.S. encyclopedias followed, including Encyclopedia Americana (1829), The World Book Encyclopedia (1917), and Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia (1922). Encyclopaedia Britannica produced its first U.S. edition in 1908. This best-selling encyclopedia’s sales dwindled in the 1990s due to competition from electronic encyclopedias (like Microsoft’s Encarta), and it went digital, too. Encyclopaedia Britannica and The World Book Encyclopedia (which still produces a printed set) are now the leading digital encyclopedias, although even they struggle today as young researchers increasingly rely on search engines such as Google or online resources like Wikipedia to find information (though many critics consider these sources inferior in quality).

Dictionaries have also accounted for a large portion of reference sales. The earliest dictionaries were produced by ancient scholars attempting to document specialized and rare words. During the manuscript period in the Middle Ages, however, European scribes and monks began creating glossaries and dictionaries to help people understand Latin. In 1604, a British schoolmaster prepared the first English dictionary. In 1755, Samuel Johnson produced the Dictionary of the English Language. Describing rather than prescribing word usage, Johnson was among the first to understand that language changes—that words and usage cannot be fixed for all time. In the United States in 1828, Noah Webster, using Johnson’s work as a model, published the American Dictionary of the English Language, differentiating between British and American usages and simplifying spelling (for example, colour became color and musick became music). As with encyclopedias, dictionaries have moved mostly to online formats since the 1990s, and they struggle to compete with free online or built-in word-processing software dictionaries.

University Press Books

The smallest division in the book industry is the nonprofit university press, which publishes scholarly works for small groups of readers interested in intellectually specialized areas, such as literary theory and criticism, history of art movements, contemporary philosophy, and the like. Professors often try to secure book contracts from reputable university presses to increase their chances for tenure, a lifetime teaching contract. Some university presses are very small, producing as few as ten titles a year. The largest—Oxford University Press—publishes more than six thousand titles a year and has offices in fifty countries. One of the oldest and most prestigious presses in the United States is Harvard University Press, formally founded in 1913 but claiming roots that go back to 1640, when Stephen Daye published the first colonial book in a small shop located behind the house of Harvard’s president.

University presses have not traditionally faced pressure to produce commercially viable books, preferring to encourage books about highly specialized topics by innovative thinkers. In fact, most university presses routinely lose money and are subsidized by their university. Even when they publish more commercially accessible titles, the lack of large marketing budgets prevents such books from reaching mass audiences. While large commercial trade houses are often criticized for publishing only blockbuster books, university presses often suffer the opposite criticism—that they produce mostly obscure books that only a handful of scholars read. To offset costs and increase revenue, some presses are trying to form alliances with commercial houses to help promote and produce academic books that have wider appeal.