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81-446: The term is used by companies that offer subscription services to clients for example, telephone carriers , Internet service providers , and hosts. It is a measure of the revenue generated by one customer phone , pager , etc., per unit time, typically per year or month. In mobile telephony, ARPU includes not only the revenues billed to the customer each month for usage but also the revenue generated from incoming calls, payable within

162-413: A page is one side of a leaf. Because the actual format of many modern books cannot be determined from examination of the books, bibliographers may not use these terms in scholarly descriptions. While some form of book illustration has existed since the invention of writing, the modern Western tradition of illustration began with 15th-century block books , in which the book's text and images were cut into

243-413: A book for the printer, the typesetting part of the job has flowed upstream, where it is done either by separately contracting companies working for the publisher, by the publishers themselves, or even by the authors. Mergers in the book manufacturing industry mean that it is now unusual to find a bindery which is not also involved in book printing (and vice versa). If the book is a hardback its path through

324-466: A book is printed, the pages are laid out on the plate so that after the printed sheet is folded the pages will be in the correct sequence. Books tend to be manufactured nowadays in a few standard sizes. The sizes of books are usually specified as "trim size": the size of the page after the sheet has been folded and trimmed. The standard sizes result from sheet sizes (therefore machine sizes) which became popular 200 or 300 years ago, and have come to dominate

405-560: A continuous roll of paper, and can consequently print more copies in a shorter time. As the production line circulates, a complete "book" is collected together in one stack of pages, and another machine carries out the folding, pleating, and stitching of the pages into bundles of signatures (sections of pages) ready to go into the gathering line. The pages of a book are printed two at a time, not as one complete book. Excess numbers are printed to make up for any spoilage due to make-readies or test pages to assure final print quality. A make-ready

486-456: A cover. By extension, book refers to a physical book's written, printed, or graphic contents. A single part or division of a longer written work may also be called a book , especially for some works composed in antiquity: each part of Aristotle 's Physics , for example, is a book. It is difficult to create a precise definition of the book that clearly delineates it from other kinds of written material across time and culture. The meaning of

567-404: A definite number of volumes (such as a multi-volume novel), in contrast to serial or periodical publications . The history of books became an acknowledged academic discipline in the 1980s. Contributions to the field have come from textual scholarship , codicology , bibliography , philology , palaeography , art history , social history and cultural history . It aims to demonstrate that

648-649: A figure that is significantly larger than ARPU. For example, in the case of a subscription game that has a free to play version, the ARPPU, measured by accounts, is the subscription price, diluted slightly by free trials. A related measure is the ARPDAU (Average Revenue Per Daily Active User). Other common measure is ARPC (Average Revenue Per Customer), some customers generate higher revenue than other because these customer contract more telecommunications services or generate more use than other customers and so these customer have

729-494: A form with defined boundaries; and "information architecture" like linear structure and certain textual elements) that form a "hierarchy of the book", in which formats that fulfill more criteria are considered more similar to the traditional printed book. Although in academic language a monograph is a specialist work on a single subject, in library and information science the term is used more broadly to mean any non-serial publication complete in one volume (a physical book) or

810-416: A higher ARPC, than others customers for the same telecommunication company. Average margin per user (AMPU) is another criterion for measuring the success of telephone companies . The central premise is that by attention to the margin produced per sold unit, not the amount of cash ( revenue ) earned from each customer, one can afford low volumes and still have a healthy company. High volumes can also bring

891-485: A hole through which a string could pass, and with these the sheets were tied together with a string to bind like a book. In woodblock printing, a relief image of an entire page is carved into blocks of wood, inked, and used to print copies of that page. It originated in the Han dynasty before 220 AD, used to print textiles and later paper, and was widely used throughout East Asia . The oldest dated book printed by this method

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972-466: A layer of whitewash applied before writing. New World codices were written as late as the 16th century (see Maya codices and Aztec codices ). Those written before the Spanish conquests seem all to have been single long sheets folded concertina-style, sometimes written on both sides of the local amatl paper. Manuscripts, handwritten and hand-copied documents, were the only form of writing before

1053-517: A number of social consequences, including censorship . The modern book industry has seen several major changes due to new technologies, including ebooks and audiobooks (recordings of books being read aloud). Awareness of the needs of print-disabled people has led to a rise in formats designed for greater accessibility , such as braille printing and large-print editions. Google Books estimated in 2010 that approximately 130 million total unique books had been published. The word book comes from

1134-649: A paid subscription model is being favoured by more publishers who see it as a comparatively stable income stream. In the field of academic publishing , the subscription business model means that articles of a specific journal or conference proceedings are only available to subscribers. Subscriptions are typically sold to universities and other higher education institutions and research institutes , though some academic publishers also sell individual subscriptions or access to individual articles. In contrast with other media such as newspapers , subscription fees to academic publishers generally do not go towards supporting

1215-411: A paragraph or more. The size of a book is generally measured by the height against the width of a leaf, or sometimes the height and width of its cover. A series of terms commonly used by contemporary libraries and publishers for the general sizes of modern books ranges from folio (the largest), to quarto (smaller) and octavo (still smaller). Historically, these terms referred to the format of

1296-553: A particular book. The earliest forms of writing were etched on tablets, transitioning to palm leaves and papyrus in ancient times. Parchment and paper later emerged as important substrates for bookmaking, introducing greater durability and accessibility. Across regions like China , the Middle East , Europe , and South Asia , diverse methods of book production evolved. The Middle Ages saw the rise of illuminated manuscripts, intricately blending text and imagery, particularly during

1377-440: A perpetual licensing model to a subscription model, known as " software as a service ". This move has significant implications for sales and customer support organizations. Over time, the need to close large deals decreases, resulting in lower sales costs. However, the size of the customer support organization increases so that the paying customers stay happy. Consumers may find subscriptions convenient if they believe they will buy

1458-422: A predictable and constant revenue stream from subscribed individuals for the duration of the subscriber's agreement. Not only does this greatly reduce uncertainty and the riskiness of the enterprise, but it often provides payment in advance (as with magazines, and concert tickets), while allowing customers to become greatly attached to using the service and, therefore, more likely to extend by signing an agreement for

1539-404: A product regularly and might save money. The customer saves time for repeated delivery of the product or service. Subscriptions which exist to support clubs and organizations call their subscribers "members" and they are given access to a group with similar interests. Subscription pricing can make it easier to pay for expensive items since they can often be paid for over time and thus can make

1620-576: A psychological phenomenon may occur when a customer renews a subscription, that may not occur during a one-time transaction: if the buyer is not satisfied with the service, he/she can leave the subscription to expire and find another seller. Because customers may only need or want some of the items received, this can lead to waste and an adverse effect on the environment, depending on the products. Greater volumes of production, greater energy and natural resource consumption , and subsequently greater disposal costs are incurred. Subscription models also create

1701-406: A publishing company in order to be put on the market by distributors and bookstores. The publisher negotiates a formal legal agreement with authors in order to obtain the copyright to works, then arranges for them to be produced and sold. The major steps of the publishing process are: editing and proofreading the work to be published; designing the printed book; manufacturing the books; and selling

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1782-443: A significant edge until competition forces prices down. Telecom analysts is traditionally highly focused on ARPU because the typical telco has had huge infrastructure costs that needs to be serviced by a considerable ARPU. Another use of "AMPU" in some telephone companies (in particular Telenor ) is Average Minutes Per User, meaning the amount of time (measured in minutes) the average subscriber talks (or listens) in their phones. That

1863-428: A single purchase. In addition, subscription models increase the possibility of vendor lock-in , which can have fatally business-critical implications for a customer if its business depends on the availability of software: For example, without an online connection to a licensing server to verify the licensing status every once in a while, a software under a subscription-model would typically stop functioning or fall back to

1944-720: A whole season. Thus, a one-time sale of a product can become a recurring sale and build brand loyalty . Industries that use this model include mail order book sales clubs and music sales clubs, private web mail providers, cable television , satellite television providers with pay television channels, providers with digital catalogs with downloadable music or eBooks, audiobooks, satellite radio , telephone companies , mobile network operators , internet providers, software publishers , websites (e.g., blogging websites), business solutions providers, financial firms, health clubs , lawn mowing and snowplowing services, pharmaceuticals , renting an apartment, property taxes, as well as

2025-460: A work: for example, it may contain only drawings, engravings, photographs, puzzles, or removable content like paper dolls . It may also be left empty for personal use, as in the case of account books , appointment books, autograph books , notebooks , diaries and sketchbooks . Books are sold at both regular stores and specialized bookstores, as well as online for delivery, and can be borrowed from libraries . The reception of books has led to

2106-719: Is The Diamond Sutra (868 AD). The method (called woodcut when used in art) arrived in Europe in the early 14th century. Books (known as block-books ), as well as playing-cards and religious pictures , began to be produced by this method. Creating an entire book was a painstaking process, requiring a hand-carved block for each page, and the wooden blocks could crack if stored for too long. The Chinese inventor Bi Sheng made movable type of earthenware c.  1045 , but there are no known surviving examples of his printing. Around 1450, Johannes Gutenberg independently invented movable type in Europe, along with innovations in casting

2187-629: Is a possible precursor of modern bound books. The etymology of the word codex (block of wood) suggests that it may have developed from wooden wax tablets. Scrolls made from papyrus were first used for writing in Ancient Egypt , perhaps as early as the First Dynasty , although the earliest evidence is from the account books of King Neferirkare Kakai of the Fifth Dynasty (about 2400 BC). According to Herodotus (History 5:58),

2268-420: Is also called Minutes-Of-Use or MOU. ARPU is widely used by Internet Protocol television ( IPTV ) service providers. Subscription business model The subscription business model is a business model in which a customer must pay a recurring price at regular intervals for access to a product or service . The model was pioneered by publishers of books and periodicals in the 17th century, and

2349-431: Is also used in the video game industry for games that support microtransactions or are offered as games as a service , as similarly, the bulk of revenue in such games comes from a small percentage of the overall population. There is a trend by telecommunications and Internet companies and their suppliers to sell extra services to users and a lot of the promotion that is used by the companies talks of increased ARPU for

2430-429: Is determined. Then that figure is divided by the number of units. Because the number of units can vary from day to day, the average number of units must be calculated or estimated for a given month to obtain the most accurate possible ARPU figure for that month. Also related is the ARPPU (Average Revenue Per Paying User), which is calculated by dividing up the revenue amongst the users who paid anything at all. That yields

2511-458: Is from Martial , in his Apophoreta CLXXXIV at the end of the first century, where he praises its compactness. However, the codex never gained much popularity in the pagan Hellenistic world, and only within the Christian community did it gain widespread use. This change happened gradually during the 3rd and 4th centuries, and the reasons for adopting the codex form of the book were several:

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2592-509: Is given by UNESCO : for the purpose of recording national statistics on book production, it recommended that a book be defined as "a non-periodical printed publication of at least 49 pages, exclusive of the cover pages, published in the country and made available to the public", distinguishing them from other written material such as pamphlets . Kovač et al. have critiqued this definition for failing to account for new digital formats. They propose four criteria (a minimum length; textual content;

2673-433: Is important to have full access even to old files for decades). Also, consumers may find repeated payments to be onerous. Subscription models often require or allow the business to gather substantial amounts of information from the customer (such as magazine mailing lists), and this raises issues of privacy . A subscription model may benefit the software buyer if it forces the supplier to improve its product. Accordingly,

2754-425: Is limited to paying subscribers. In addition to the freemium model, other subscription pricing variations are gaining traction. For instance, the tiered pricing model is frequently used in software as a service (SaaS) platforms, offering customers different access levels and features based on their subscription tier. This model is particularly effective for tailoring services to customer requirements. Another approach

2835-482: Is now used by many businesses, websites and even pharmaceutical companies in partnership with governments. Rather than selling products individually, a subscription offers periodic (daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, semi-annual, yearly/annual, or seasonal) use or access to a product or service , or, in the case of performance-oriented organizations such as opera companies , tickets to the entire run of some set number of (e.g., five to fifteen) scheduled performances for

2916-498: Is the book's front matter , which includes all textual material after the front cover but not part of the book's content such as a foreword, a dedication, a table of contents and publisher data such as the book's edition or printing number and place of publication. Between the body copy and the back cover goes the end matter which would include any indices, sets of tables, diagrams, glossaries or lists of cited works (though an edited book with several authors usually places cited works at

2997-452: Is the preparatory work carried out by the pressmen to get the printing press up to the required quality of impression . Included in make-ready is the time taken to mount the plate onto the machine, clean up any mess from the previous job, and get the press up to speed. As soon as the pressman decides that the printing is correct, all the make-ready sheets will be discarded, and the press will start making books. Similar make readies take place in

3078-494: Is the usage-based pricing model, which calculates charges based on the extent of service or product utilization by the customer. This model is becoming increasingly prevalent, especially in services where customer usage varies significantly. There are different categories of subscriptions: In publishing, the subscription model typically involves a paywall , paysite , or other "toll-access" system (named in opposition to open access ). As revenues from digital advertising diminish,

3159-527: The Old English bōc , which in turn likely comes from the Germanic root * bōk- , cognate to " beech ". In Slavic languages like Russian , Bulgarian , Macedonian буква bukva —"letter" is cognate with "beech". In Russian , Serbian and Macedonian , the word букварь ( bukvar' ) or буквар ( bukvar ) refers to a primary school textbook that helps young children master

3240-802: The Phoenicians brought writing and papyrus to Greece around the 10th or 9th century BC. Whether made from papyrus, parchment, or paper, scrolls were the dominant writing medium in the Hellenistic , Roman, Chinese, Hebrew , and Macedonian cultures. The codex dominated in the Roman world by late antiquity , but scrolls persisted much longer in Asia. The codex is the ancestor of the modern book, consisting of sheets of uniform size bound along one edge and typically held between two covers made of some more robust material. Isidore of Seville (died 636) explained

3321-467: The internet means that new information is often published online rather than in printed books, for example through a digital library . " Print on demand " technologies, which make it possible to print as few as one book at a time, have made self-publishing (and vanity publishing ) much easier and more affordable, and has allowed publishers to keep low-selling books in print rather than declaring them out of print. Presently, books are typically produced by

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3402-798: The Mughal era in South Asia under the patronage of rulers like Akbar and Shah Jahan. Prior to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible , each text was a unique handcrafted valuable article, personalized through the design features incorporated by the scribe, owner, bookbinder, and illustrator. Its creation marked a pivotal moment for book production. Innovations like movable type and steam-powered presses accelerated manufacturing processes and contributed to increased literacy rates. Copyright protection also emerged, securing authors' rights and shaping

3483-441: The absence of make readies and of spoilage. Digital printing has opened up the possibility of print-on-demand, where no books are printed until after an order is received from a customer. After the signatures are folded and gathered, they move into the bindery . In the middle of last century there were still many trade binders—stand-alone binding companies which did no printing, specializing in binding alone. At that time, because of

3564-460: The analyst knows who is an active customer and who recently churned. Additional benefits include a higher average customer lifetime value (ACLV) than that of nonrecurring business models, greater customer inertia and a more committed customer base as it transitions from purchase to opt-out decisions, and more potential for upselling and cross-selling other products or services. Some software companies such as Adobe and Autodesk have moved from

3645-412: The bindery will involve more points of activity than if it is a paperback. Unsewn binding is now increasingly common. The signatures of a book can also be held together by " Smyth sewing " using needles, "McCain sewing", using drilled holes often used in schoolbook binding, or "notch binding", where gashes about an inch long are made at intervals through the fold in the spine of each signature. The rest of

3726-399: The binding process is similar in all instances. Sewn and notch bound books can be bound as either hardbacks or paperbacks. "Making cases" happens off-line and prior to the book's arrival at the binding line. In the most basic case-making, two pieces of cardboard are placed onto a glued piece of cloth with a space between them into which is glued a thinner board cut to the width of the spine of

3807-402: The book as an object, not just the text contained within it, is a conduit of interaction between readers and words. Analysis of each component part of the book can reveal its purpose, where and how it was kept, who read it, ideological and religious beliefs of the period, and whether readers interacted with the text within. Even a lack of such evidence can leave valuable clues about the nature of

3888-430: The book, a technical term used by printers and bibliographers to indicate the size of a leaf in terms of the size of the original sheet. For example, a quarto was a book printed on sheets of paper folded in half twice, with the first fold at right angles to the second, to produce 4 leaves (or 8 pages), each leaf one fourth the size of the original sheet printed – note that a leaf refers to the single piece of paper, whereas

3969-518: The book. The overlapping edges of the cloth (about 5/8" all round) are folded over the boards, and pressed down to adhere. After case-making the stack of cases will go to the foil stamping area for adding decorations and type. Bookselling is the commercial trading of books that forms the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. Accessible publishing is an approach to publishing and book design whereby books and other texts are made available in alternative formats designed to aid or replace

4050-631: The books, including marketing and promotion. Each of these steps is usually taken on by third-party companies paid by the publisher. This is in contrast to self-publishing , where an author pays for the production and distribution of their own work and manages some or all steps of the publishing process. English-language publishing is currently dominated by the so-called "Big Five" publishers: Penguin Random House , Hachette Book Group , HarperCollins , Simon & Schuster , and Macmillan Publishers . They were estimated to make up almost 60 percent of

4131-492: The creation of the content: the scientific articles are written by scientists and reviewed by other scientists as part of their work duties. The publisher does not pay the paper authors and reviewers. In this light, the subscription model has been called undesirable by proponents of the open access movement. Academic publications that use the subscription model are called "closed-access" in opposition to their open-access counterparts. Businesses benefit because they are assured

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4212-458: The dominance of letterpress printing, typesetting and printing took place in one location, and binding in a different factory. When type was all metal, a typical book's worth of type would be bulky, fragile and heavy. The less it was moved in this condition the better: so printing would be carried out in the same location as the typesetting. Printed sheets on the other hand could easily be moved. Now, because of increasing computerization of preparing

4293-687: The earliest written records were made on tablets. Clay tablets (flattened pieces of clay impressed with a stylus ) were used in the Ancient Near East throughout the Bronze Age and well into the Iron Age , especially for writing in cuneiform . Wax tablets (pieces of wood covered in a layer of wax) were used in classical antiquity and throughout the Middle Ages . The custom of binding several wax tablets together (Roman pugillares )

4374-483: The end of each authored chapter). The inside back cover page, like that inside the front cover, is usually blank. The back cover is the usual place for the book's ISBN and maybe a photograph of the author(s)/ editor(s), perhaps with a short introduction to them. Also here often appear plot summaries, barcodes and excerpted reviews of the book. The body of the books is usually divided into parts, chapters, sections and sometimes subsections that are composed of at least

4455-589: The end of the Middle Ages, the papal library in Avignon and Paris library of the Sorbonne held only around 2,000 volumes. The rise of universities in the 13th century led to an increased demand for books, and a new system for copying appeared. The books were divided into unbound leaves ( pecia ), which were lent out to different copyists, so the speed of book production was considerably increased. The system

4536-424: The folding and binding areas, each involving spoilage of paper. Recent developments in book manufacturing include the development of digital printing. Book pages are printed, in much the same way as an office copier works, using toner rather than ink. Each book is printed in one pass, not as separate signatures. Digital printing has permitted the manufacture of much smaller quantities than offset, in part because of

4617-702: The form of writing or images. Modern books are typically in codex format, composed of many pages that are bound together and protected by a cover ; they were preceded by several earlier formats, including the scroll and the tablet . The book publishing process is the series of steps involved in their creation and dissemination. As a conceptual object, a book refers to a written work of substantial length, which may be distributed either physically or digitally as an ebook . These works can be broadly classified into fiction (containing invented content, often narratives) and non-fiction (containing content intended as factual truth). A physical book may not contain such

4698-526: The format was more economical than the scroll, as both sides of the writing material can be used; and it was portable, searchable, and easier to conceal. The Christian authors may also have wanted to distinguish their writings from the pagan and Judaic texts written on scrolls. The codices of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica had the same form as the European codex, but were instead made with long folded strips of either fig bark ( amatl ) or plant fibers, often with

4779-426: The functionality of a freemium version, thereby making it impossible (to continue) to use the software in remote places or particularly secure environments without internet access, after the vendor has stopped supporting the version or software, or even has gone out of business leaving the customer without a chance to renew the subscription and access his data or designs maintained with the software (in some businesses it

4860-893: The industry. British conventions in this regard prevail throughout the English-speaking world, except for the US. The European book manufacturing industry works to a completely different set of standards. Hardcover books have a stiff binding, while paperback books have cheaper, flexible covers which tend to be less durable. Publishers may produce low-cost pre-publication copies known as galleys or "bound proofs" for promotional purposes, such as generating reviews in advance of publication. Galleys are usually made as cheaply as possible, since they are not intended for sale. Some books, particularly those with shorter runs (i.e. with fewer copies) will be printed on sheet-fed offset presses, but most books are now printed on web presses , which are fed by

4941-470: The invention and widespread adoption of print. Advances were made in the techniques used to create them. In the early Western Roman Empire , monasteries continued Latin writing traditions related to Christianity , and the clergy were the predominant readers and copyists. The bookmaking process was long and laborious. They were usually written on parchment or vellum , writing surfaces made from processed animal skin. The parchment had to be prepared, then

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5022-425: The late 19th century. They could set more than 6,000 letters per hour and an entire line of type at once. There have been numerous improvements in the printing press. In mid-20th century, European book production had risen to over 200,000 titles per year. During the 20th century, libraries faced an ever-increasing rate of publishing, sometimes called an information explosion . The advent of electronic publishing and

5103-401: The market for general-readership books in 2021. Book design is the art of incorporating the content, style, format, design, and sequence of the various elements of a book into a coherent unit. Modern books are organized according to a particular format called the book's layout . Although there is great variation in layout, modern books tend to adhere to a set of rules with regard to what

5184-544: The next period close to when the current agreement expires. In an integrated software solution, for example, the subscription pricing structure is designed so that the revenue stream from the recurring subscriptions is considerably more significant than the revenue from simple one-time purchases. Some subscription schemes (like magazines) also increase sales by not allowing subscribers to accept or reject any specific issue. This reduces customer acquisition costs and allows personalized marketing or database marketing . However,

5265-489: The operators. It typically manifests in the form of value-added services such as entertainment being sold to customers especially in markets where the primary service offered to the customer, such as the telephony or Internet service, is sold at a commodity rate. To calculate ARPU, a standard time period must be defined. Most telecommunications carriers operate by the month. The total revenue generated by all units (paying subscribers or communications devices) during that period

5346-437: The opposite effect. This can be illustrated by subscribing to a service for mowing lawns. The effective use of a single mower increases when mowing for a collection of homes; instead of every family owning a lawnmower that is not used as much as the service-providing mower, the use of resources for producing lawnmowers, therefore, decreases while lawns stay cut. Book A book is a medium for recording information in

5427-433: The parts of the layout are and what their content usually includes. A basic layout will include a front cover , a back cover and the book's content which is called its body copy or content pages . The front cover often bears the book's title (and subtitle, if any) and the name of its author or editor(s). The inside front cover page is usually left blank in both hardcover and paperback books. The next section, if present,

5508-478: The popularity of ereaders and accessibility features. While discussions about the potential decline of physical books have surfaced, print media has proven remarkably resilient, continuing to thrive as a multi-billion dollar industry. Additionally, efforts to make literature more inclusive emerged, with the development of Braille for the visually impaired and the creation of spoken books, providing alternative ways for individuals to access and enjoy literature. Some of

5589-425: The product seem more affordable. On the other hand, most newspaper and magazine-type subscriptions are paid upfront, which may prevent some customers from subscribing. Fixed prices may be an advantage for consumers who frequently use those services. However, it could disadvantage a customer who plans to use the service frequently but later does not. The commitment to paying for a package may have been more expensive than

5670-400: The publishing landscape. The Late Modern Period introduced chapbooks , catering to a wider range of readers, and mechanization of the printing process further enhanced efficiency. The 20th century witnessed the advent of typewriters, computers, and desktop publishing, transforming document creation and printing. Digital advancements in the 21st century led to the rise of ebooks, propelled by

5751-506: The regulatory interconnection regime. Digital media and social media companies, which often rely on advertising revenue generated by users with free accounts, pay particularly close attention to their ARPU. Variations in ARPU reflect changes in the companies' ability to generate revenue and heavily impact their stock prices. That provides the company a granular view at a per user or unit basis and allows it to track revenue sources and growth. ARPU

5832-577: The same block. Techniques such as engraving , etching , and lithography have also been influential. The methods used for the printing and binding of books continued fundamentally unchanged from the 15th century into the early 20th century. While there was more mechanization , a book printer in 1900 still used movable metal type assembled into words, lines, and pages to create copies. Modern paper books are printed on paper designed specifically for printing . Traditionally, book papers are off-white or low-white papers (easier to read), are opaque to minimize

5913-445: The show-through of text from one side of the page to the other and are (usually) made to tighter caliper or thickness specifications, particularly for case-bound books. Different paper qualities are used depending on the type of book: Machine finished coated papers , woodfree uncoated papers , coated fine papers and special fine papers are common paper grades. Today, the majority of books are printed by offset lithography . When

5994-413: The system requires that the business have an accurate, reliable, and timely way to manage and track subscriptions. From a marketing-analyst perspective, the vendor has the added benefit of knowing the number of currently active members since a subscription typically involves a contractual agreement. This so-called 'contractual' setting facilitates customer relationship management to a large extent because

6075-537: The techniques of reading and writing. It is thus conjectured that the earliest Indo-European writings may have been carved on beech wood. The Latin word codex , meaning a book in the modern sense (bound and with separate leaves), originally meant "block of wood". An avid reader or collector of books is a bibliophile , or colloquially a "bookworm". In its modern incarnation, a book is typically composed of many pages (commonly of paper , parchment , or vellum ) that are bound together along one edge and protected by

6156-715: The term has changed substantially over time with the evolution of communication media. Historian of books James Raven has suggested that when studying how books have been used to communicate, they should be defined in a broadly inclusive way as "portable, durable, replicable and legible" means of recording and disseminating information, rather than relying on physical or contextual features. This would include, for example, ebooks, newspapers , and quipus (a form of knot-based recording historically used by cultures in Andean South America ), but not objects fixed in place such as inscribed monuments. A stricter definition

6237-401: The then-current relation between a codex, book, and scroll in his Etymologiae (VI.13): "A codex is composed of many books; a book is of one scroll. It is called codex by way of metaphor from the trunks ( codex ) of trees or vines, as if it were a wooden stock, because it contains in itself a multitude of books, as it were of branches". The first written mention of the codex as a form of book

6318-482: The traditional newspapers, magazines, and academic journals . Renewal of a subscription may be periodic and activated automatically so that the cost of a new period is automatically paid for by a pre-authorized charge to a credit card or a checking account. A common variation of the model in online games and on websites is the freemium model, in which the first tier of content is free. Still, access to premium features (for example, game power-ups or article archives)

6399-508: The type based on a matrix and hand mould . This invention gradually made books less expensive to produce and more widely available. Early printed books, single sheets and images which were created before 1501 in Europe are known as incunables or incunabula . Steam-powered printing presses became popular in the early 19th century. These machines could print 1,100 sheets per hour, but workers could only set 2,000 letters per hour. Monotype and linotype typesetting machines were introduced in

6480-449: The unbound pages were planned and ruled with a blunt tool or lead, after which the text was written by a scribe , who usually left blank areas for illustration and rubrication . Finally, it was bound by a bookbinder. Because of the difficulties involved in making and copying books, they were expensive and rare. Smaller monasteries usually had only a few dozen books. By the 9th century, larger collections held around 500 volumes and even at

6561-431: Was maintained by secular stationers guilds, which produced both religious and non-religious material. In India, bound manuscripts made of birch bark or palm leaf had existed since antiquity. The text in palm leaf manuscripts was inscribed with a knife pen on rectangular cut and cured palm leaf sheets; coloring was then applied to the surface and wiped off, leaving the ink in the incised grooves. Each sheet typically had

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