108-514: A paperback ( softcover , softback ) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples . In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic. Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets , yellowbacks , dime novels , and airport novels . Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In
216-454: A dime novel publisher partially owned by brother and sister Joseph Meyers and Edna Meyers Williams and hired them to organize a new company called "Avon Publications". Avon copied the basic format established by Pocket Books but differentiated itself by emphasizing, as a book on collecting paperbacks says, "popular appeal rather than loftier concepts of literary merit." In 1953, Time magazine summarized its books as "westerns, whodunits, and
324-413: 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
432-678: A vending machine ; the first was set up outside Henderson's in Charing Cross Road and dubbed the "Penguincubator". Lane was also well aware of the Hamburg publisher Albatross Books and adopted many of its innovations. Most booksellers and authors were against the idea of paperbacks. They believed that paperbacks would result in individuals spending less money on books. Lane was very stubborn when it came to his company; he operated mainly on intuition and imagination. "He thrived in an atmosphere of crisis and came most fully alive under
540-413: 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
648-466: 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
756-410: A collection of reprinted material. Graphic novels may also be printed in trade paperback form. Publishers sometimes release popular collections first in a hardback form, followed by a trade paperback months later. Examples include Marvel Comics ' Secret War and DC Comics ' Watchmen . Japanese manga , when they are collected into volumes, are published in the tankōbon format, approximately
864-560: 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
972-456: 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
1080-404: 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
1188-410: A few years of publishing undistinguished novels, focused on the romance genre and became one of the world's largest publishers. At first, paperbacks consisted entirely of reprints, but in 1950, Fawcett Publications ' Gold Medal Books began publishing original fiction in mass–market paperback. It was revolutionary. The term paperback original applies to paperback original publications of fiction. It
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#17327729869751296-494: 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
1404-430: A fraction of the historical cost of a book, and were of a smaller format, 110 mm × 178 mm ( 4 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 7 in), aimed at the railway traveller. The Routledge's Railway Library series of paperbacks remained in print until 1898, and offered the traveling public 1,277 unique titles. The Continental market also supported examples of cheap paper-bound books: Bernhard Tauchnitz started
1512-485: 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
1620-466: 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
1728-628: A line of Fawcett paperbacks, and he felt original works would not be a violation of the contract. To challenge the contract, Fawcett published two anthologies— The Best of True Magazine and What Today's Woman Should Know About Marriage and Sex —reprinting material from Fawcett magazines not previously published in books. After these books were successfully published, Fawcett announced in December 1949 that in February 1950 it would publish "original fiction including westerns and mysteries at 25 cents in
1836-406: A medium-sized paperback of 129 mm × 198 mm ( 5 + 1 ⁄ 8 in × 7 + 3 ⁄ 4 in). This size has been used to distinguish literary novels from genre fiction . In the U.S., books of this size are thought of as smaller trade paperbacks (see below). A trade paperback (also called trade paper edition and trade ) is a higher-quality paperback book. If it
1944-541: A network of railways. These innovations enabled the likes of Simms and McIntyre of Belfast, Routledge & Sons (founded in 1836) and Ward & Lock (founded in 1854) to mass-produce cheap uniform yellowback or paperback editions of existing works, and distribute and sell them across the British Isles , principally via the ubiquitous W. H. Smith & Sons newsagent found at most urban British railway stations. These paper bound volumes were offered for sale at
2052-517: 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
2160-450: A paperback copy of Four Tragedies of Shakespeare . "Sometimes one can find Shakespeare on these shelves among the many lurid novels of juvenile delinquents," he comments. In 1945, Bantam Books was formed by Walter B. Pitkin Jr. , Sidney B. Kramer, and husband and wife Ian and Betty Ballantine as a mass-market paperback publisher. The fifth major 1940s publisher of mass-market paperbacks
2268-411: 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
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#17327729869752376-553: 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
2484-473: A pocket-sized format" in a series called Gold Medal Books. Publishers Weekly reported in May 1950 that Fawcett books were "similar in appearance and cover allure to many of the paperback reprints, but the story material [was] original and not reprinted from regular editions." It also said the authors would be paid a $ 2,000 advance with a guaranteed first printing of 200,000 copies. That same month Fawcett released
2592-426: A print run of about 10,000 copies each were: This list includes seven novels, the most recent being six year old ( Lost Horizons , 1933), two classics (Shakespeare and Wuthering Heights , both out of copyright), one mystery novel, one book of poetry ( Enough Rope ), and one self-help book. The success of Pocket Books led to others entering the market. In 1941, American News Company , a magazine distributor, bought
2700-406: 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
2808-407: A reprint and one original, with two covers and two title pages. In 1952, husband and wife publishers Ian and Betty Ballantine left Bantam Books and founded their own publishing house, Ballantine Books , to publish paperbacks simultaneously with their publication in hardcover by traditional publishers. Their first book, Cameron Hawley 's Executive Suite , published January 1, 1952 at 35 cents in
2916-476: A smaller profit per unit. First editions of many modern books, especially genre fiction , are issued in paperback. Best-selling books, on the other hand, may maintain sales in hardcover for an extended period to reap the greater profits that the hardcovers provide. The early 19th century saw numerous improvements in the printing, publishing and book-distribution processes, with the introduction of steam-powered printing presses, pulp mills, automatic type setting, and
3024-470: A very long list of pocket editions, James Hilton 's Lost Horizon is often cited as the first American paperback book. However, the first mass-market, pocket-sized, paperback book printed in the U.S. was an edition of Pearl Buck 's The Good Earth , produced by Pocket Books as a proof-of-concept in late 1938, and sold in New York City. The first ten Pocket Book titles published in May 1939 with
3132-442: A wide readership of men and women serving in the military or employed as shift workers; paperbacks were cheap, readily available, and easily posted and carried. Furthermore, people found that restrictions on travel gave them time to read more paperbacks. Four-color printing (invented in 1906) and lamination (invented in 1936) developed for military maps made the paperback cover eye catching and kept ink from running as people handled
3240-460: 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
3348-719: 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
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3456-629: 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),
3564-402: Is a softcover edition of a previous hardcover edition and is published by the same house as the hardcover, the text pages are normally identical with those of the hardcover edition, and the book is almost the same size as the hardcover edition. The pagination is the same, so that references to the text will be unchanged: this is particularly important for reviewers and scholars. The only difference
3672-458: 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:
3780-509: 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;
3888-401: Is not expected to be a major seller and the publisher wishes to release the book without a large investment. Examples include many novels and newer editions or reprintings of older books. Because paperbacks tend to have smaller profit margins , many publishers try to balance the profit to be made by selling fewer hardcovers against the potential profit to be made by selling more paperbacks with
3996-434: Is not usually applied to original non–fiction publications, although paperback publishers also began issuing original non–fiction titles. Fawcett, an independent newsstand distributor, in 1945, negotiated a contract with New American Library to distribute its Mentor and Signet titles. That contract prohibited Fawcett from becoming a competitor by publishing its own paperback reprints. Roscoe Kent Fawcett wanted to establish
4104-450: Is particularly true of first novels by new authors. The mass-market paperbacks sold in airport newsstands have given rise to the vaguely defined literary genre of the " airport novel ", bought by travelers to read while they sit and wait. Mass-market paperbacks also have offered collections of comic strips and magazine cartoon series, such as Ernie Bushmiller 's Nancy and Chon Day 's Brother Sebastian . The term B-format indicates
4212-498: 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
4320-452: 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
4428-477: Is the soft binding; the paper is usually of higher quality than that of a mass-market paperback, often being acid-free paper . In the United States, the term trade paperback also encompasses the medium-sized paperbacks described as B-format, above. British trade paperbacks are 135 mm × 216 mm ( 5 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 8 + 1 ⁄ 2 in). Trade paperbacks did not enter
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4536-527: 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
4644-464: The Penguin Books imprint. They adopted many of Albatross's innovations, including a conspicuous logo, using only type on the cover, and color-coded covers for different genres. The first book on Penguin's 1935 list was André Maurois ' Ariel . Lane intended to produce inexpensive books. He purchased paperback rights from publishers, ordered large print runs (such as 20,000 copies—large for
4752-802: 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
4860-467: 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
4968-487: 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
5076-471: The spinner rack , a metal pole with a four-sided wire frame designed to vertically hold rows of racks of paperback books. Retail store owners no longer had to devote feet of valuable counter space to low-profit paperbacks. Dozens of paperbacks could be displayed vertically in five or six square feet of floor space. (Similar racks were available for magazines and comic books.) By the late 1940s, paperback spinner racks were ubiquitous in large and small towns across
5184-438: The 1940s. The books measured 6.5" by 4.25" (16.5 cm by 10.8 cm), had full-color covers, and cost 25 cents. Eventually in the 1950s the height increased by 0.5" (1.4 cm) to 7" (18 cm). The width remained the same because wire display racks used in many locations could not hold wider books. With the larger size came a higher price, first 35 cents and then 50 cents. Because of its number-one position in what became
5292-738: The 7" height simultaneously with Houghton Mifflin 's $ 3.00 hardcover edition, was a success for both publishers. Of their next nine novels, two were published simultaneously by Houghton Mifflin and one by Farrar, Straus & Young and six were stand-alone originals. In 1953, Dell announced its line of originals, Dell First Editions, and published its first novels by Walt Grove, Frederic Brown , and Charles Einstein . Genre categories began to emerge, and mass-market book covers reflected those categories. Mass-market paperbacks influenced slick and pulp magazines . The market for cheap magazines diminished when buyers began to buy cheap books instead. Authors also found themselves abandoning magazines and writing for
5400-470: The American market until around 1960. Unlike mass-market paperbacks they are distributed by their original hard-cover publishers directly to book stores, not through magazine distributors to other retailers. Trade paperbacks are often used to reprint several issues of a comic series in one volume, usually an important storyline or the entire series, and the name trade paperback has become synonymous with
5508-589: The Canadian mass-market book trade in the early 1960s, with its "Canadian best seller library" series, at a time when Canadian literary culture was beginning to be popularized, and a call for a Canadian author identity was discussed by the Canadian people. The mass-market paperback is a small, usually non-illustrated, inexpensive bookbinding format. This includes the A-format books of 110 mm × 178 mm ( 4 + 3 ⁄ 8 in × 7 in), in
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#17327729869755616-513: The Collection of British and American Authors in 1841. These inexpensive, paperbound editions, a direct precursor to mass-market paperbacks, eventually ran to over 5,000 volumes. Reclam published Shakespeare in this format from October 1857 and went on to pioneer the mass market paperbound Universal-Bibliothek series from 10 November 1867. The German publisher Albatross Books revised the 20th-century mass-market paperback format in 1931, but
5724-798: 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
5832-470: The North American market. To reach an even broader market than Lane, he used distributors of newspapers and magazines to distribute his books because they had a lengthy history of being aimed (in format and distribution) at mass audiences. Pocket Books were not available in book stores because they did not carry magazines. Pocket Books established the format for all subsequent paperback publishers in
5940-666: The United Kingdom, and the "pocketbook" format books of a similar size, in the United States. Mass-market paperbacks usually are printed on cheap paper. They are commonly released after the hardback edition and often sold not only at bookstores, but also where books are not the main business, such as at airports , drugstores , and supermarkets. In 1982, romance novels accounted for at least 25% of all paperback sales. In 2013, 51% of paperback sales were romance. Many titles, especially in genre fiction, have their first editions in paperback and are never published in hardcover; this
6048-754: The United States, Robert de Graaf created the Pocket Books label in 1939, partnering with Simon & Schuster to issue a similar line of reprints. Because at first Pocket Books was the only publisher of paperbacks, the term "pocket book" became synonymous with paperback in English-speaking North America. (In France, the term livre de poche , which translates as "pocket book", was used and is still in use today.) De Graaf, like Lane, negotiated paperback rights from other publishers, and produced many runs. His practices contrasted with those of Lane by his adoption of illustrated covers aimed at
6156-460: The United States, in every local grocery store, drug store, dime store , and bus and train station, displaying everything from best sellers and mysteries and westerns to classics and Shakespeare. In 1955, in William Inge 's Broadway play Bus Stop , it did not seem unbelievable that a long-distance bus traveller stranded by a snowstorm in an out-of-the-way cafe walks to a shelf and picks up
6264-403: The United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes. Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to
6372-441: 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
6480-488: The approach of World War II cut the experiment short. Albatross's innovations included a standardized size, use of new sans-serif fonts, use of logo and type on the cover without an illustration, and color-coding the covers by genre. In 1935, British publisher Allen Lane , investing his own capital, initiated the paperback revolution in the English-language book market by releasing ten reprint titles to launch
6588-412: 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
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#17327729869756696-399: 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
6804-402: 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
6912-430: 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
7020-441: The book. A revolving metal rack (invented in 1906), designed to display a wide variety of paperbacks in a small space, found its way into drugstores , dimestores , and markets. During World War II, the U.S. military distributed some 122 million " Armed Services Editions " paperback novels to the troops. After the war, the former servicemembers' familiarity with paperbacks helped popularize the format. Two new developments changed
7128-518: 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
7236-631: 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
7344-407: The challenge of great dilemmas." He was a creative genius that once he had an idea he would not stop until it came to fruition. Once he decided on creating paperbacks he set about in deciding what the books should look like and finding a name. He had decided that the books would be reprints so he also needed to approach other publishers to see if they and their authors would be willing to sublease
7452-753: The death of his uncle. After conflict with the board of directors who were wary at first—for fear of being prosecuted—of publishing James Joyce 's controversial book Ulysses , Lane, together with his brothers Richard and John, founded Penguin Books in 1935 as part of the Bodley Head. Penguin Books became a separate company the following year. The legend goes that on a train journey back from visiting Agatha Christie in 1934, Lane found himself at Exeter St Davids station with nothing available worth reading. He conceived of paperback editions of literature of proven quality which would be cheap enough to be sold from
7560-458: 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
7668-687: 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 )
7776-483: 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
7884-589: 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
7992-506: The first four Gold Medal books, original novels by W. R. Burnett , Sax Rohmer , Richard Himmel, and John Flagg - one western and three mysteries/adventure novels. Fawcett's action led to immediate controversy, with an executive Vice president of Pocket Books attacking the whole idea, a literary agent reporting that one hardcover publisher threatened to boycott his agency if he dealt with mass market publishers, and Doubleday 's LeBaron R. Barker claiming that paperback originals could "undermine
8100-424: 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
8208-527: The font was changed to Times New Roman. His Pelican Books were non-fiction books. Penguins were meant to entertain while Pelicans were meant to enlighten. In the 1950s his company had grown so much that it had major outposts in both Australia and the United States. Lane's management style put him and the individuals in charge in his United States office at odds. These individuals eventually left Penguin books and started their own publishing companies: Bantam Books and New American Library . The paperback venture
8316-526: 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
8424-404: The impermanence of paperbacks by telling readers if you "enjoyed it so much you may wish to own it in a more permanent edition", they could return the 25 cent book to Pocket Books with an additional 70 cents and it would send them a copy of the 95 cent Modern Library edition "substantially bound in durable cloth." Since the mid-20th century, paperbacks can also be the preferred medium when a book
8532-893: 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
8640-470: 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
8748-665: The kind of boy-meets-girl story that can be illustrated by a ripe cheesecake jacket [cover]". The next year Dell Publishing , which was founded in 1921 by George T. Delacorte Jr. to publish pulp magazines , joined with Western Publishing to publish Dell Books . Like Avon, Dell followed the basic format established by Pocket Books. But within that format, "Dell achieved more variety than any of its early competitors [with its] . . . instantly identifiable format of vibrant airbrushed covers for its predominantly genre fiction", specialized logos and special features like maps and lists of characters. World War II brought both new technology and
8856-425: 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
8964-464: The lower cost of paperbacks. In the early days of modern paperbacks, the 1930s and 1940s, they were sold as a cheaper, less permanent, and more convenient alternative to traditional hardcover books, as the name of the first American paperback publisher, Pocket Books, indicates. In addition, the Pocket Books edition of Wuthering Heights , one of the first ten books it published in 1939, emphasized
9072-454: The market - Lion Books and Pyramid Books (both 1949), Fawcett Gold Medal Books (1950), Ace Books and Ballantine Books (both 1952), and Berkley Books (1955). U.S. paperbacks quickly entered the Canadian market. Canadian mass-market paperback initiatives in the 1940s included White Circle Books, a subsidiary of Collins (UK.); it was fairly successful but was soon outstripped by the success of Harlequin which began in 1949 and, after
9180-401: 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
9288-401: The nature of the mass-market paperback business. One was the decision by publishers to publish more recent best selling books than the older books originally published by Pocket Book. They sought reprint rights on new books and soon found themselves in competition for the biggest sellers, leading to bidding against each other for the rights and costing them more money. The second development was
9396-415: The paperback market. The leading paperback publishers often hired experienced pulp magazine cover artists, including Rudolph Belarski and Earle K. Bergey , who helped create the look and feel of paperbacks and set an appealing visual standard that continues to this day. Scores of well-known authors were published in paperback, including Arthur Miller and John Steinbeck . McClelland and Stewart entered
9504-433: 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,
9612-478: 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
9720-484: The publishing company Bodley Head as an apprentice to his uncle and founder of the company John Lane . In the process, he and the rest of his family changed their surname to Lane to retain the childless John Lane's company as a family firm. Lane married Letitia Lucy Orr, daughter of Sir Charles Orr , on 28 June 1941 and had three daughters: Clare , Christine, and Anna. He was knighted in 1952. He rose quickly at Bodley Head, becoming managing editor in 1925 following
9828-400: 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
9936-496: The reading process. It is particularly relevant for people who are blind, visually impaired or otherwise print-disabled . Alternative formats that have been developed to aid different people to read include varieties of larger fonts , specialized fonts for certain kinds of reading disabilities , braille, ebooks, and automated audiobooks and DAISY digital talking books. Allen Lane Sir Allen Lane CH (born Allen Lane Williams ; 21 September 1902 – 7 July 1970)
10044-556: The rights of the books. He was quoted as saying, "I have never been able to understand why cheap books should not also be well designed, for good design is no more expensive than bad." Edward Young designed the horizontal bands and used Gill Sans Bold for the title's letting. He was also sent to the Zoo in Regents Park to sketch penguins for the cover. Allen Lane wanted a cover design that was consistent and easily recognizable. In 1937
10152-577: 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
10260-445: 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
10368-423: The size of a trade-sized book. The most common tankōbon sizes are Japanese B6 (128 × 182 mm) and ISO A5 (148 × 210 mm). Book A book is a medium for recording information in 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
10476-537: 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
10584-715: 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
10692-401: 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
10800-473: The time) to keep unit prices low, and looked to non-traditional book-selling retail locations. Booksellers were initially reluctant to buy his books, but when Woolworths placed a large order, the books sold extremely well. After that initial success, booksellers showed more willingness to stock paperbacks, and the name "Penguin" became closely associated with the word "paperback" in Great Britain. In
10908-508: 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
11016-449: 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
11124-458: The whole structure of publishing." Sales soared, prompting Gold Medal editorial director Ralph Daigh to comment later, "In the past six months we have produced 9,020,645 books, and people seem to like them very well." In 1950 Gold Medal published 35 titles, in 1952, 66. Other paperback publishers saw Gold Medal's success and began to emulate it. Publishers Weekly reported in May 1952 that Avon had included three originals in its April releases and
11232-641: Was New American Library . Originally Penguin USA, it became a separate publisher in 1948 as the New American Library of World Literature when it separated from Penguin and Victor Weybright and Kurt Enoch took over. Its original focus was classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction. Eventually it shortened its name to New American Library and published books in the Mentor and Signet lines. New paperback publishers continued to enter
11340-464: Was a British publisher who together with his brothers Richard and John Lane founded Penguin Books in 1935, bringing high-quality paperback fiction and non-fiction to the mass market. In 1967 he started a hardback imprint under his own name, Allen Lane. Allen Lane Williams was born in Bristol , to Camilla (née Lane) and Samuel Williams, and studied at Bristol Grammar School . In 1919 he joined
11448-544: Was extremely successful, and he expanded into other areas such as Pelican Books in 1937, Puffin Books in 1940 and the Penguin Classics series in 1945. Lane was responsible for the decision to publish an unexpurgated edition of D. H. Lawrence 's Lady Chatterley's Lover as a means of testing the Obscene Publications Act 1959 . In 1965, during an attempt by chief editor Tony Godwin and
11556-431: 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
11664-455: Was seeking more. It added that Dell was " 'thinking about' some systematic programs of original publishing," Lion Books had "a definite original publishing program in the works", and that Graphic had begun publishing originals about a year earlier. Bantam, Pocket Books, and New American Library said they were not going to publish originals. Also in 1952, Ace began publishing Ace Double Novel Books, two books printed in one volume for 35 cents, one
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