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The COVID-19 pandemic has caused uncertainties about the book publishing business with publishers experiencing decline in book sales. Although sales via online platforms and the distribution of educational digital content accelerated substantially, it was still unable to obscure the negative impact experienced by publishers. As a result, they faced challenges to sustain and survive, and that led to the question of where the industry was heading in the future. Overall, this study explores its condition in Malaysia. The idea is to gain insight into how far the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted local publishers and what their views are on the future direction of the industry. In doing so, interviews with key personnel of local publishers in trade and school-oriented publishing sectors were conducted. Based on the findings, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected negatively on their business. The trend of online bookselling, however, has shown significant growth, and the majority of publishers concentrated on enhancing online channels through their own e-commerce websites or other e-commerce platforms. For schoolbook publishers, efforts have been made to increase the supply of digital materials for the purpose of teaching and learning at home. Apart from that, some interviewees also highlighted being more cautious in their publication planning. About their views on where the industry is heading in the future, some realized that it would be rather challenging for the industry to grow exponentially but remain optimistic. However, in order for them to survive, some observed that it is necessary for them to change by considering expanding toward other business opportunities as a content provider rather than solely as a publisher who depends on books publishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a transcript of a recently discovered booklist from a 1585 lawsuit at the Court of Common Pleas. This list describes a large book sale made on 3 May 1584 to two chapmen named John Herne and Thomas Jackson. It throws light on the Elizabethan book trade and the litigation practices of London booksellers, and it contains rare evidence on the trade prices of early modern books. It also records the earliest known purchase of Edmund Spenser's celebrated Shepheardes calendar (first published in 1579). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The objective of this work is to understand the impact that the pandemic has brought to the book industry in Brazil. Through a qualitative methodology, secondary data on the production and sales of books in the period were collected; changes in the management strategies of publishers, especially independent ones; the growth of publications in digital format and the changes in the relationship between books and readers. Challenges and opportunities faced by the main characters in the editorial process, including publishers, the distribution market, influencers and readers were identified on this work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the 2020 U.S. College Book Price Index compiled from books reviewed in "Choice Reviews" during 2020. Topics discussed include number of titles, dollar amounts, percentages, and average price for books in each "Choice Reviews" subject category for 2020, percentage change between 2019 and 2020, and Adult Mass-Market Paperbacks as the only category exhibiting an increase.

Book sale catalogues are the main source in the history of the book trade. Its advertising nature allows us to approach the rhythms of the book market, and guides on the strategies used by booksellers to reach their customers. The ephemeral nature of these materials has prevented, however, to know their impact on commercial life or even determine the frequency of their use by booksellers. Based on a database that registers more than 500 catalogues published for the Argentine cultural space between 1850 and 1920, this article analyzes the rise of these materials, reveals their origins and producers, and highlights some of their transformations in a long time. The study thus emphasizes the need to recognize bookshop's sales catalogues as a leading material in the consolidation of a printed culture in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the 2019 U.S. College Book Price Index. Topics discussed include the overall average price for books in the Humanities, Sciences, and Social & Behavioral Sciences; number of titles, dollar amounts, percentages, and average price for books in each "Choice Review" subject category for 2019; and percentage change between 2018 and 2019.

As a first step towards more research in the field of Jewish private libraries and Hebrew auction catalogues, this zuta focuses on the understudied corpus of 18th-century Hebrew book sales catalogues printed in the Dutch Republic. It is not always clear if these 18th-century catalogues contain collections from private libraries or retail stocks of publishers, printers, or booksellers. In this article I will analyse and compare the title pages of several catalogues, in order to understand the meaning of the phrase ʿal yede in relation to ownership of the catalogued collections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to propose a shared platform service that can deal with used books based on small stores. The volume of used book market has more than doubled since the book price system, and large bookstores are actively participating in the used book market. Used book sharing platform is an advanced form of online used book direct trade and can be easily used by installing applications on the user's mobile phone. The second-hand book sharing platform is not a shared platform that creates a huge profit-making enterprise, but a future-oriented shared platform that can benefit all users of the platform. If the shared platform, which is the core of the fourth industrial revolution, is applied to almost all small stores and utilized as a hub for second-hand book transactions, it will establish itself as a more reasonable market for second-hand book transactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers information on the 2018 U.S. College Book Price Index compiled from reviews of books published in "Choice Reviews" during 2018. Topics discussed include the overall average price for books in the Humanities, Sciences, and Social & Behavioral Sciences for 2018, increase in the average 2018 reference book price over the previous year, and light average price decreases in 2017 shown by both British Academic Books and U.S. College Books.

Despite the UK government's Northern Powerhouse agenda, the UK literary industry remains staunchly focused on a predominantly London-base. When it comes to Northern writers, representations of the North in contemporary literature and Northern voices on the stage, small and big screens, UK government has suggested that the literary industry is guilty of persistently underrepresenting the 55.4 million members of the public who live outside the capital city. This research adopts a case study approach to the problem, examining one regional creative industry award, the Northern Writers' Awards (NWAs), as a potential model of intervention for enhancing participation, professional development and talent pipelines of Northern writers to the wider UK literary industry. The research analyses how and why the NWAs: enable career development opportunities for creative talent through partnership-based training and knowledge exchange; retain the economic impact of regional creative talent to improve the economy of the North by developing creative writers within the region; and enhance diversity in the UKwriting industry by addressing issues of representation and by reaching writers from all backgrounds across the North. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A bstract This empirical study examines long-term and current book market trends and important factors affecting scholarly book prices in science, technology, and medicine (STM). It analyzes the market demand, supply, and prices of STM books and how they affect academic libraries' budgets. A semilogarithmic econometric model is formulated to explore the factors that affect STM book prices. Various product features, including book length, cover type, format, supplier types, and publication locations, are examined. The empirical results are mostly statistically significant, particularly for some key factors. The overall findings of this study have policy implications for academic libraries' books collections and acquisitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to investigate where Taiwan’s Publishing Market would have been ranked, had Taiwan been included in the Map of 23 largest book markets in the world presented by Wischenbart in 2014. The results of the study showed: (1) The total new titles published were 1839/million residents, which would have been ranked 2nd; (2) The per capital spending on books was €39.75, which would have been ranked 17th; and (3) Taiwan’s GDP (PPP) per capital was $42,201 International Dollars, which would have been ranked 10th. i.e. Taiwan’s Publishing Market is alive, vibrant, and deserved to be recognized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Printed advertisements and lists of books for sales were used by publishers and booksellers in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries respectively to promote and increase the sale of books in distant markets. This article proposes an overall interpretation of the uses of these catalogues in the trade in books, the purposes they were designed to fulfil, and the reading public(s) they aimed to reach. Specific attention is paid to the book prices which are found in about 30% of the surviving printed catalogues. These represent a reliable testimony to the pricing policies some of the most important publishing firms, and the segments of the market they intended to serve. The catalogues are therefore among the main sources for our understanding of the mechanisms of the early modern book trade and its economic structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the 2017 U.S. College Book Price Index which updates 2016 compilation which covered the years 2014 to 2016. Topics include the overall average price for books in the Humanities, Sciences, and Social and Behavioral Sciences, number of titles, dollar amounts, percentages and average price for books in each "Choice Reviews" subject category, and prices throughout all of the subject categories.

The article discusses the report "The Contribution of the Publishing Industry to the UK Economy" published by the Publishers Association (PA) on December 4, 2017. Topics include the contribution of the book and academic journal publishing industry to the British economy, the advent and sales increase of online books and the custom-made platforms like knowledge management systems and database management services for academic institutions and commercial firms provided by the publishers.

BISG's Subject Codes committee follows a structured, consensus-driven process to update and maintain more than 4500 subject headings. The latest version added 93 subject codes, changed 68 literals, reactivated a previously inactive code, and deactivated 11 subjects. Changes affected 22 of the 54 main subject areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the essential part that the written culture plays in the development of society, there is a clear need to approach the book market as a special one. It is reflected in public policies, through regulations which sustain and promote the book. Among these regulations, the fixed book price law has a special place. The current research aims to highlight the stipulations of some fixed book price laws in European countries and their implications on the book market. The Romanian book market registered a strong decline starting 2011, and although at present a slight growth is visible, the market did not come back to the level it had reached before the economic crisis. There are less book buyers and readers now. Representative editors and distributors in Romania sustain the implementation of a fixed book price law as a solution to revive the Romanian book market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the price effects of the merger of two major U.K. book retailers. We use a dataset containing monthly scanner data on a sample of 200 books in 50 local markets for four years around the merger. We compare the price changes after the merger in shops located in areas where both chains were present before the merger and in areas where only one chain was present. We also investigate the country-wide effect of the merger. We find that the merger did not result in any price increase either at the local or at the national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

E-book sales surged after Amazon introduced the Kindle e-reader at the end of 2007 and accounted for about one quarter of all trade book sales by the end of 2013. Amazon's aggressive (low) pricing of e-books led to allegations that e-books were bankrupting brick and mortar book booksellers. Amazon's commanding position as a bookseller also raises concerns about monopoly power, and publishers are concerned about Amazon's power to displace them in the book value chain. I find little evidence that e-books are primarily responsible for the decline of independent booksellers. I also conclude that entry barriers are not sufficient to allow Amazon to set monopoly prices. Publishers are at risk from Amazon's monopsony (buyer) power and so sought 'agency' pricing in an effort to raise the price of ebooks, promote retail competition, and reduce Amazon's influence as an e-retailer. (In the agency pricing model, the publisher specifies the retail price with a commission for the retailer. In a traditional, 'wholesale' pricing model, publishers sell a book to retailers at a wholesale price and retailers set the retail price.) Although agency pricing was challenged by the Department of Justice, it may yet prevail in some form as an equilibrium pricing model for e-book sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The publishing industry spends much of its time worrying about books--prices, print runs, discounts, their scholarly arguments, level of publicity, and so forth. With such a range of concerns, it is easy to forget that at the heart of publishing, and every industry, are human beings. In this article, we look at the four cardinal virtues--prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance--and argue that if we bear these in mind when working with our colleagues, the quality and sales of books and journals produced will increase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]