How the Publishing Industry Got Started!

Before the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1436, which became commercially viable around 1450, there were only a few thousand manuscript books in Europe. By 1500, after only 50 years of printing, there were over Nine Million books. In this 3-part series, we explore how technological advances in the printing industry helped create and sustain the publishing industry and the impact of these factors on authors.

Many authors ask, “What is the publisher’s role today? While publishers played a crucial role in supporting authors, developing distribution channels and selling books initially, who do they serve now and are they doing their job well?” Finally, have publishers had a free ride on the back of technological advances in the last 500 years for which they can claim no credit, and which has enabled them to make more money and do less for authors?

A Publishing Audit: The Triumphs and Trials of Publishing

The marketing strategies developed by publishers evolved quickly in the first two hundred years as they overcame huge issues such as low literacy rates, distribution problems and exponential growth in competition for the small but growing book market. However, marketing strategies have changed little in the last 500 years and with the explosion in the number of books written each year and the number of authors seeking to be published, the shelf life for many books in book shops has dropped to 3 months, and the financial prospects for over 95% of authors is pretty grim. See our article The Publishing Industry is Booming while Authors are going Broke.

It enabled people to access knowledge that was unknown to them previously on every imaginable topic, including travel, novels, revolutionary ideas and ancient philosophy. The invention of the printing press changed the economics of publishing by greatly reducing the time and cost to print books. But while access to “low cost” books was a huge advance for publishing and for the distribution of information, this did not immediately lead to a tremendous increase in book sales.

Overcoming the initial obstacles to increasing book sales.

The biggest obstacle to increased book sales was the lack of an efficient and cost-effective distribution network that could reach the required target market, which was, of course, literate people who had the time and money to read books.

Across Europe, and the known world, distribution issues affected the market for books, which was not yet large enough in any one town or region to support a publishing industry.

In each town, the problem was that there were only a few literate people who could read and were wealthy enough to collect books. In short, a printer could quickly print 200 books, but there may only be 5 or 10 potential customers in that town.

When we look back on this time, we imagine that the invention of a technology that could mass produce books at a huge discount to previous methods would be a licence to print money. That’s what Gutenberg thought, too. However, he died a penniless bankrupt, which is an important reminder that it is not enough to produce an excellent product or even a vastly superior one, if you don’t get all the related aspects, such as marketing or distribution, right as well. That was the opening that entrepreneurial publishers saw and exploited, to the benefit of both printers and authors.

I’m sure you can see the similarities between the invention of the printing press and the Internet, and we discuss that in more detail in Part 3 : The Digital Revolution in Publishing: Opportunities and Challenges for Modern Authors  

By 1500, innovative publishers had developed effective methods for dealing with distribution, such as selling 5 copies of a book to the captains of ships in port, who then took them to their destination and sold them at a profit. This was the forerunner to developing a cost effective mass distribution network or you may see similarities with Amazon’s affiliate marketing strategy.

As the number of entrepreneurs entering the printing and publishing business grew, so the number of books being sold rose exponentially. Publishers soon recognised the necessity of promoting their books and authors to help them stand out in the crowd, which increased interest and, therefore, sales.

Once again, the publishing industry adopted many innovative methods to accomplish this, which included, for example, the new marketing strategy of newspaper advertising and sponsoring book reviews.

Read All About It: How Ads Wrote Newspapers’ Success Story

While writers in the 16th and 17th centuries made significant contributions to literature, they also encouraged more people to learn to read so they could experience the world through the power of reading. Many authors opted to self-publish at least some of their works, and today, many of the books in this category continue to be valued.

However, while their books are still highly regarded today and many authors gained fame from publishing their books, only a few authors managed to attain financial fortune during their lifetime. So if fame and awareness are your goal, self-publishing and traditional publishing can definitely assist you. But if you want more, that’s what this website and this new era publishing company are about.

 The list of authors who opted for self-publishing may surprise you. Here are just a few of them

The Write Choice: Traditional vs. Self-Publishing Realities

These authors are just a few examples of those who navigated the complexities of self-publishing during this era. These writers made a lasting impact on literature and culture, but unfortunately, it rarely made a big impact on their personal wealth.

We have no way of knowing how many self-published books of lesser quality from that period have disappeared and are now lost to posterity, but there are likely many more, and that means many more authors who did not earn a living income from writing.

It is a common myth that authors who choose the traditional publishing route are better off. This has been over hyped by the industry promoting the value of getting a “book deal” which is an advance against future royalties. See our article The Publishing Industry is Booming while Authors are going Broke for the true story. Of course they benefit by saving themselves from the challenges of learning about printing and , marketing, but they also have other challenges to overcome, such as the perennial problem of finding a publisher and, from the beginning, when they got one, they often fared no better financially in their lifetime than self-published authors.

In both cases, there are limited examples of writers who performed extremely well, but because more writers opted for traditional publishing rather than self-publishing, there were more successful writers in that category. However, the publishing industry has used this mathematical statistic to foster the myth that authors who choose traditional publishing do better, while actually doing less to help their authors be successful.  

The Pressing Future: Technology’s Enduring Role in Publishing

So far, we can see that technological innovation was from the beginning not just a major component in developing the publishing industry, but the key driver. And this technology led development has continued up to the present day.

In part 2 of this series, From Gutenberg to Gigabytes we will discuss how advances in technology led to some surprising changes in the way books were marketed in the 20th century and how these changes prepared the way for the digital revolution that was on the horizon.

In part 3, The Digital Revolution and Globalization of the Book Market we look at how the digital revolution dramatically changed societal attitudes and Reading Habits, the existential threat this poses to the publishing industry and the incredible opportunities it has created for authors and new era publishers.