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In response to Andrew Benjamin Bricker's demonstration of the usefulness of printers' ornaments in the identification of the pseudonymous "A. Moore," this note suggests that printers' waste is another method. The Trade Sale Catalogues in the John Johnson Collection in the Bodleian Library show that booksellers preserved printed waste sheets of their own publications. There is no evidence that they retained such sheets of the publications of others. This strongly suggests that possession of waste is an indication of responsibility for publication. The note gives two examples of such methodology, one showing Thomas Warner having published as A. Moore, and the other showing John Baker publishing anonymously. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In Turkey, the Tevhid-i Tedrisat Law (March 3, 1924), which came into force with the establishment of the Republic and aimed at bringing education completely under the control of the state within the framework of a common curriculum, and the process of transition from the Arabic to the Latin script, the so-called 'Letter Revolution" in 1928, led to radical changes in book printing and literacy. This paper analyzes the basic characteristics and changes in the practice of selling books in Arabic script from peddlers to booksellers. The study is limited to Diyarbakır. For the study, in-depth interviews were conducted with three booksellers in Diyarbakır, with people who worked in bookselling at different times, and with madrasa teachers who visited the bookstores. As places of religious and, to some extent, literary education, madrasas were one of the most important institutions that contributed to the formation of an literate community. Bookstores were one of the places where this community socialized. They served as a place where madrasa teachers could exchange ideas about books and, in case of disagreement, take the relevant books from the shelves and discuss them. For this reason, changes in the book trade will also make important contributions to the analysis of changes in the literacy tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to establish some preliminary numbers for the survival rates of some different kinds of cheap print, especially ballads and chapbooks, from the second half of the eighteenth century. The basic method is to compare contemporary booksellers' lists with modern records of surviving copies, especially ESTC. An important question is whether survival rates can be correlated with price and/or type of content, and whether the publications of certain booksellers have survived better than others. Methodological problems of such a study include variation in sample size, and especially the unreliability of results based on very small samples, and the critical role of collectors in ensuring that publications of this kind survived at all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the phenomenon of the gift enterprise bookstore in the mid-nineteenth-century United States. An early form of premium marketing, the gift-book enterprise promised to reward each book purchase with a surprise 'gift', ranging from pencils to dress patterns to cutlery to jewellery. A novel form of marketing books, the gift enterprise bookstore teetered on a thin line between sensation and sham. Although decried as form of illegal lottery gambling and beset by accusations of dishonesty, gift-book enterprises grew immensely popular. Drawing on extensive archival research on one of the most successful gift-book enterprises, the bookstores of G.G. and D.W. Evans--operating in urban centres from 1856-1861--this article examines gift enterprise bookselling in the context of mid-nineteenth-century American print cultures. As savvy entrepreneurs, the Evans' leveraged the national reach and perceived authority of the newspaper by engaging in debates over the morality and legality of the business in the columns of widely-circulating papers and capitalised on editorial and reprinting practices to endorse their business model and market their bookstores. In addition, in lengthy bookseller catalogues distributed across the nation, the Evans' created a bookstore in print and shaped inclusive imagined and real communities of readerbook buyers. Examining the print culture of Evans' gift-book enterprise offers new insights into nineteenth-century book marketing and the ways in which gift enterprise bookselling was intimately connected to and inseparable from contemporary print forms, networks, and practices. Taking the gift-book enterprise seriously expands the histories of American bookselling and decentres the dominant focus on large publishers. In addition, the gift-bookstore phenomenon highlights how bookselling is always entwined with larger cultural dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although protected by the law on fixed prices for books, independent bookshops in France have struggled to maintain their market share against bookselling giants such as Amazon and the chains. In trying to do so, they have developed a rhetoric based on the singularity of the experience in physical shops, stressing a sense of intimacy akin to that associated with the domestic sphere. Their being independent – no matter how slippery the notion – has also been a key argument. Using Pierre Bourdieu's theory of symbolic goods, this paper aims to show that this strategy has been effective in singling out something that 'only' independent retail can provide, something that proves particularly attractive to certain categories of customers. The article draws on semi-structured interviews carried out with owners of small and medium-sized independent bookshops, together with observation during events and debates, to provide some insight into a key element of physical bookshops' resilience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is dedicated to the study of the dissemination of Spanish books—books written in Spanish—during the 16th century in Brussels. This study is based on an inventory of the bookseller-printer Michiel van Hamont made in 1569, at the request of the authorities searching for heretical books. This is the first survey conducted on this subject. Spanish books that have effectively circulated within the Southern Netherlands, have generally been neglected by scholars. They mainly focused their attention on local production (which books were printed by whom) and export to the Iberian World (Kingdom of Spain and Americas). They studied the rise of Antwerp as a major centre of Spanish vernacular editions and its role in the dissemination of Spanish books. The first findings in this paper show that the distribution of Spanish books in Brussels in the mid-sixteenth century is merely a marginal phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the publishing of Isaac Watts’s Divine Songs in London between 1715, the year of its first edition, and 1835. The paper stresses the continuity between the publishing and advertising of this collection of children’s songs during the author’s lifetime, when it was issued by a group of small to modest dissenting booksellers, and its publication, after Watts’s death, by a conger surrounding the powerful Longman firm. It examines attempts by both sets of booksellers to present their printings of Watts’s texts as authentic. It then describes the standardisation of the content, (material) paratexts and pricing of the books they offered, ultimately defining them, because of their specificity as print-cultural products as well as in terms of their producing instances, as a continuous line of printings, which, on account of their producers’ social-commercial and/or proprietary links to Watts and his texts, can be characterised as “genuine”. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aphra Behn's relationship with her publishers has frequently been characterized as gendered and unequal, framing Behn as a powerless woman deliberately exploited by "literary pimps" such as Samuel Briscoe and Charles Gildon. This notion plays into both the well-established "actress/writer as prostitute" trope and the idea of Grub Street hackery. But this implication of a sleazy and exploitative commercial relationship between writer and publisher, and moreover one inflected by sex, relies on uninspected assumptions about the book trade. Was Behn as professional writer really treated any differently because of her sex? This paper investigates the relationship between Behn and the booksellers by looking at the usual practices of the book trade itself. It considers Behn's imprints both during her lifetime in the 1670s and 1680s and in the decade after her death, arguing for a better understanding of the post-Restoration trade. Successful practitioners (women as well as men) necessarily served their own commercial interests, valuing the marketable and profitable above the literary. Viewed in this context, Behn's printed output and her treatment by publishers, in life and after death, owed more to the habits of the book trade than to her sex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the eighteenth century transactions at The Boston Bookstore of bookseller Benjamin Guild in Massachusetts based on the manuscript daybook maintained by Guild. Topics explored include the sale of books on politics and religion to early American readers, observations on the pricing structure of the bookstore, and the non-book items sold by Guild which range from quills to ink powder.

Despite the loss of much-loved bricks and mortar retailers, little has been said about how shopping contributes to well-being. Yet notions of social connectivity and cultural participation figure increasingly in attempts to define social well-being. Using ethnography at a cooperative, independent bookshop, observations at bookshop events and 30 bookseller interviews, and analysis of the diversity and geographies of UK-wide independent bookshops, this paper finds that independent booksellers must now be ‘skilled capitalists’, requiring an increasing array of skills and resources and a commercial disposition in order to survive in a highly competitive market that favours fast, high volume selling. Analysis of bookshop locations shows that high-street book shopping choice is restricting as numbers and variety of bookshops decrease, with a troubling rise in ‘independent bookshop deserts’. The paper argues that compared to other book retailers, independent bookshops are unparalleled in their ability to produce well-being: providing a socially valuable ‘socially connective retail’ that is present, participatory and particular. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Adapting to the digital age is a challenge for booksellers, resulting in paradoxical practices of providing digital books through brick-and-mortar stores, but also spurring innovations in the book trade. This article examines the digital operations of four Norwegian booksellers, looking specifically at how the combined forces of digitalization, internationalization and industry regulations affect their operations. Based on research interviews and business statistics, the paper finds that two of the selected booksellers represent an omnichannel business model, which includes seeking strategic benefits by combining digital and physical operations. The other two have a digital-only business model, offering digital content in novel ways, but struggling somewhat to gain the full advantage of their approach due to industry competition and regulatory hindrances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the recent rise of popular ‘blockbuster’ books written by international development industry insiders and produced by commercial publishers. The paper explores a set of common stylistic devices found within this emerging genre. Though each book is different, a key trope is the story of an author's earlier professional life—the hard lessons and gritty insights that have supposedly emerged from it—that normally underpins each narrative. By living the challenges involved in development work at first hand, and by making mistakes and experiencing epiphanies along the way, these author-professionals want readers to know that they have found out the hard way that long-cherished beliefs about development now need to be questioned. Readers are invited to relive these lessons and epiphanies, and to think and act differently about development by upholding a highly pragmatic form of development professionalism. Combining elements of research monograph, self-help book and personal memoir, these development blockbuster books can be understood not only as commodities, but also as part of the development gift. The authors promise a gift of experience but, in reality, these books are mundane commodities enmeshed in capitalist exchange relations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The difficulties associated with the creation of a large database of book prices include giving effective answers to questions such as how prices were formed during the various steps of the production process (sedimentation of production costs, costs related to the sale) or what the nature of the assigned value is (estimated in the case of used books, or of stock inventories, or the result of special conditions offered to specific customers, etc.). But first it is necessary to reflect on the interpretation given to the figures provided by the heterogeneous documentation which supports the creation of such a database. The many reference currencies in which these prices are expressed, depending on the monetary area of action of the economic operators (printers, booksellers, customers) are likely to confuse and mislead if their exact meaning is not clearly understood. This problem becomes even more urgent when, for example, the primary sources are the private notes of a collector who recorded how much he had paid for a book, or when two different currencies in place or in time have the same name. This aspect is also crucial in comparing different places and markets. Was the price expressed in money of account or in coined money? In domestic or foreign currency? Is it possible to relate two prices expressed in different currencies? The purpose of this paper is therefore to explore in greater depth some of the economic-monetary aspects of Renaissance Europe in order to help clarify any doubts or misreadings by building a reliable picture of the various types of currency used in Europe between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This is an essential step to subsequently address the possibility of comparing prices expressed in different currencies as they emerged on different markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the history, membership, and rules of the Heath Book Club operating near Wakefield, Yorkshire, in the 1850s in order to gain insight into the lives of readers during the Victorian period. Members included several wealthy landowners, clergymen, and other prominent residents, as well as a few professionals and one tradesman. As members of a book club, readers had access to otherwise hard-to-attain books. As a social network, the book club may have provided additional economic, social, or political returns to the members. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jane Austen's first publication was, the author believes, a letter signed Sophia Sentiment, which appeared in March 1789 in the ninth issue of the Oxford periodicalThe Loiterer, edited by her elder brother James. In the author’s edition of Austen's juvenilia, published by Cambridge University Press in 2006, he considered, with due caution, the arguments for and against ascribing this letter to Austen. In the present essay, he takes a less diffident approach, outlining how Austen came to write a short but characteristically witty and irreverent piece that would be her first appearance in print. Sophia Sentiment's three-paragraph letter is a teasing reproach to “the Author of the Loiterer” for having produced a journal that neglects women's interests. Austen creates a parody of the voracious but indiscriminate female reader. Sophia Sentiment is, she boasts, a “great reader” who has got through “some hundred volumes of Novels and Plays”, as well as “all the entertaining papers of our most celebrated periodical writers”. The ninth issue ofThe Loitererwas the first to be sold by booksellers in Bath and Reading, as well as Oxford, London and Birmingham, giving Jane Austen, if she was indeed “Sophia Sentiment”, her print debut in five English towns. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the acquisitions records of the New York Society Library, which include correspondence between the Library and booksellers, receipts, lists of books purchased or needed, and records of trustee meetings, in order to ascertain how the Library established policies for acquiring books, and how these may have changed over time. It argues that, as membership of the Library increased, collection practices changed, and did so with the intent of appealing to and pleasing a broader subset of readers, in part to stabilize the Library's financial position. Coupled with data from the Library's surviving circulation records, which date from 1789 to 1792 and from 1799 to 1806, these bookseller records provide insight into the information-seeking behaviours of readers, and how the Library worked to meet the dual demands of entertaining and informing. The Library's goal - getting the most in-demand contemporary works at the lowest cost - was a necessary one as the cultural landscape shifted and competitor libraries came into existence. Even as the Society Library held to the principle of supplying readers with intellectually useful books, the acquisitions records show that, as its members' tastes changed, the Library had to evolve in order to attract and keep members, and so fulfil its financial commitments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the issue of the understanding of the book-selling situation as Swedish booksellers see it. It pursues the answers to the following questions: 1. What are the perceptions of Swedish booksellers of the impact of e-books on their business? 2. What drivers are important for Swedish booksellers for adopting and developing e-book sales through their own sales channels? 3. What do they perceive as barriers to e-book selling through their own channels? The authors have employed the analysis of the secondary statistical data and a survey of Swedish booksellers to answer their questions. The results of the investigation have shown that the Swedish booksellers do not feel their bookshops, or business in general, are threatened by e-books. The opinions on e-books do not differ between the few selling e-books and others who do not offer this product. The reasons for selling e-books are well-functioning routines and personal interest in the product. The reasons for not selling the books are the lack of demand and technical resources as well as contractual agreements with e-book publishers or vendors. So, technical resources for e-booksales, routines, and contracts with publishers are the main premises for this activity. The biggest barriers to e-booksales are: a) the price as one can see not only in the answers of the booksellers, but also in the drop of sales obviously related to the rise of prices during 2014; b) lack of demand from customers who do not enquire about e-books in bookshops. This leads to the belief that e-books will be sold mostly online either directly from publishers and authors or through online booksellers. However, an equal number of booksellers believe that physical bookshops will be selling printed books and e-books in the future. The future of e-books seems to be quite secure and non-threatening to printed books from the point of view of booksellers. The growth of e-book sales is quite slow and the respondents believe that it will increase at a moderate rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nelson Ball (1942– ), in addition to being an important Canadian poet, small press publisher, and bookseller, was an editor of little magazines in the 1960s. He co-founded and edited Volume 63 (1963–1967) and individually founded and edited Weed (1966–1967) and Hyphid (1968). This index provides full bibliographic data for each magazine (including dates, locations, and editors) and full listings of contributors and works (including information original to the magazines that identified from where a given contributor was writing). It also indexes advertisements for books, presses, magazines, and bookstores that appeared in the magazines to make possible the mapping of international small press distribution networks as they have been constructed through little magazines. This index includes an introduction that provides historical context for Ball’s small press practice and is intended to supplement existing bibliographies of Ball’s activities to continue building a literary, book-historical, and bibliographic record of his works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]