People ask me whether there are any good books written on the publishing industry and of course there are. There are also many research reports that to varying degrees profile the industry and segments of the industry. With the aid of Booksinprint - I found the exercise of narrowing down my 'publishing books' selection intolerable on Amazon.com - I have built a small bookstore containing books about the publishing industry. The Amazon bookstore application building is brain numbingly easy to implement and I don't see why anyone wouldn't have a store on their own site.
You will notice I have placed the block on the upper right of my blog page. Here is the link.
The downside for me is that many of my readers are RSS subscribers so won't be seeing the Bookstore block. My attempt to add some xml script to the RSS feed has thus far been farcical but as a history major I should get points for trying. I shall not give up. As an Amazon 'associate' I get a small commission which will help pay for food for the company mascot.
Feel free to recommend some titles but please make use of the store especially if you are in need of some expensive research publications.
4 comments:
Than you for your excellent idea. I woud like to suggest the following titles_
1)Books in the Digital Age: The Transformation of Academic and Higher Education Publishing in Britain and the United States, by John B. Thompson ISBN-13: 978-0745634784
2)Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, by Laura J. Miller
ISBN-13: 978-0226525914
3)The Mathematics of Bookselling: A Monograph, by Leonard Shatzkin
ISBN-13: 978-0878380251
4)In Cold Type: Overcoming the Book Crisis, by Leonard Shatzkin
ISBN-13: 978-0878380268
5)The Nature of the Book: Print and Knowledge in the Making, by Adrian Johns
ISBN-13: 978-0226401225
6)The Book History Reader, by David Finkelstein (Editor), Alistair McCleery(Editor),
ISBN-13: 978-0415226585
7)The History and Power of Writing (Paperback)
by Henri-Jean Martin (Author), Lydia G. Cochrane (Translator)
ISBN-13: 978-0226508368
8)The Coming of the Book: The Impact of Printing 1450-1800 (Verso Classics, 10) (Paperback)
by Lucien Febvre (Author), Henri-Jean Martin (Author), David Gerard (Translator)
ISBN-13: 978-1859841082
9)The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe, by Elizabeth L. Eisenstein
ISBN-13: 978-0521607742
10)The Order of Books: Readers, Authors, and Libraries in Europe Between the 14th and 18th Centuries, by Roger Chartier
ISBN-13: 978-0804722674
11)Cultures of Print: Essays in the History of the Book (Studies in Print Culture and the History of the Book), by David D. Hall
ISBN-13: 978-1558490499
12)The Columbia Guide to Digital Publishing, by William Kasdorf (Editor)
ISBN-13: 978-0231124997
13) Print-on-Demand Book Publishing: A New Approach To Printing And Marketing Books For Publishers And Self-Publishing Authors, by Morris Rosenthal
ISBN-13: 978-0972380133
I cheked all the titles at amazon.com
I hope you will find some interest in these suggestions
Jose Afonso Furtado
What a very good list, and I guess that you are improving it, since several of Jose Furtado's recommendations are now included. Eisenstein's magnum opus is definitely one to read. I must in fact re-read it. You might want to include the somewhat subversive
How to Talk About Books You Have not Read (Bayard) ISBN: 9781596914698
and
The Wealth of Networks (Benkler) ISBN 9780300110562
Neither of these books is strictly about Publishing-as-such but they shed a great deal of light on the subject.
You know, there are people who read this blog who are in direct competition with Amazon and might take umbrage at this wonderful new idea of yours.
Anon,
I see that however, I doubt that most independent booksellers would be interested in selling only books about publishing. If I wanted to put up all my favorites or add NYTimes bestsellers then I think there could be some consternation. Secondly, while I did spend some time pulling this together I doubt very much that I will see more than 10 items sold in a year. Maybe I can report on that at some point. So, on both points I could hardly claim to be competitive to the non-Amazon booksellers.
Lastly, a large part of my motivation was to see just how simple it is to set up a store. It was easy except for the selection process. I had to consult BooksinPrint.com download my list of ISBNs and then add them to the store set-up wizard. Amazon's search is too clumsy.
You might also be happy to know that I never shop at Amazon myself.
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