Academic and professional publishing, by Ian Borthwick, Robert Campbell and Robert Pentz, Witney, UK, Chandos Publishing, 2012, 510 pp., £60.00 (soft cover), ISBN 978-1-84334-669-2
Book production, by Adrian Bullock, Abingdon, UK, Routledge, 2012, 197 pp., A$57.00 (soft cover), ISBN 9-780-41559-380-9, (available from Palgrave Macmillan Australia)
The librarian's guide to micro publishing: Helping patrons and communities use free and low-cost publishing tools to tell their stories, by Walt Crawford, Medford, NJ, Information Today, 2012, 172 pp. US$49.50 (soft cover), ISBN 978-1-57387-430-4
The publishing business: From p-books to e-books, by Kelvin Smith, Lausanne, AVA Publishing, 2012, 208 pp., £26.95 (soft cover), ISBN 978-2-94041-162-7 (available from Thames and Hudson Australia)
Steam-powered knowledge: William Chambers and the business of publishing, 1820-1860, by Aileen Fyfe, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012, 313 pp., US$50.00 (hard cover), ISBN 978-0-22627-651-9
Publishing overall, and print publishing especially, is in a state of great flux. Large commercial publishers such as Random House and Penguin have merged, reducing the conglomerates once known as the Big Six to five. Wild-West, get-rich-type stories by novelists such as Amanda Hocking – who proved herself through digital self-publishing to land a contract with St Martin's Press, complete with a US$2.1 million advance – abound. EL James of Fifty Shades of Grey is another, having started her trilogy as Twilight fan fiction. Public libraries battle with some publishers who do not wish their e-books to be borrowed. Academic libraries have launched publishing presses for scholarly work. Yes, publishing is in a state of great flux, yet publishers and associated industries have experienced rapid and seismic change before. Then again, some aspects of publishing, such as the peer-review process for scholarly journals, have remained mostly constant since publishing's origins in the mid-eighteenth century.
These five books examine different aspects of publishing, from the revolution of print for the masses in Victorian Edinburgh, thanks to the harnessing of steam for production by brothers William and Robert Chambers, to a contemporary examination of academic and professional publishing, to how print books are actually made, to a near-coffee-table textbook of current publishing practices, and all the way to public libraries helping their communities to produce niche publications for an audience from one to 500 readers.
The Librarian's Guide to Micro Publishing by Walt Crawford is a clear and practical guide to how libraries can help their communities to publish. For example, genealogists or local-history groups may wish to produce a publication that would be unfeasible via traditional publishing. Crawford suggests that the cost to the library would be low and could be as basic as provision of copies of his book. Crawford is the perfect author for this topic, given his experience in micropublishing – he has produced several books since 2007 – and has experience in traditional publishing, too. In his first and two final chapters, he sets out why libraries should become involved in micropublishing. While this reviewer is not entirely convinced that facilitating micropublishing is an unmet need in and desirable for Australian public libraries (academic libraries seem to fit more), Crawford mounts a good defence for doing so. More importantly, his volume sets out how to achieve publication, step by step, using Microsoft Word to prepare the manuscript. One of the intriguing aspects of the book is that he costs standard self-publishing for 500 books and more at a price around the US$8000 mark. His micropublishing process is far cheaper.
Although the title is aimed at the library sphere, this book is recommended for most public and academic libraries, because it is a wonderfully straightforward manual to help anyone, librarian or not, achieve micro-production of print books.
Shifting from micropublishing to print publication by the traditional publisher, Book Production by Adrian Bullock is a manual for those in the publishing industry, or those students aiming to join it. The author has been principal lecturer for publishing programmes at Oxford Brookes University for over 20 years. Though indisputably a technical tome, this volume sets itself apart with its remarkably accessible language; this reviewer has no background in book production and might have initially gulped when, for example, she skimmed the contents, which included over 40 pages concentrating on paper types and paper defects with names such as Fish Eye and Contraries, but the writing is so clear she is now confident she could hold her own during a conversation at a book-production cocktail party (should book-production types actually talk about work processes at a social gathering).
The book is divided into two parts: the first deals with project management of book production, and the second examines the raw materials used to develop and create print on paper. It is highly recommended for further-education and academic libraries and their institutions that offer publishing or book-industry courses.
In fact, Book Production is listed in the ‘Further Resources’ section of The Publishing Business: From p-Books to e-Books. Like Book Production, The Publishing Business is a textbook, aiming to establish a sound foundation for those interested in the publishing industry. This book is handsomely designed with lashings of colour, glossy pages, pull quotes that sometimes sit on whole pages and a magazine-column layout. Though a textbook, The Publishing Business could easily sit on public library shelves as well as senior high-school and TAFE college shelves. The book is so visually inviting that one could casually display it on a home or office coffee table. But beyond its looks, this volume gives a whole-picture view of publishing, including history, editorial processes, design, and both print and digital publishing. Fittingly, an early chapter investigates writers, readers and intermediaries such as literary agents. Without the writer, the publisher would have nothing to produce; without the reader, neither the writer nor the publisher would have an audience. Each chapter finishes with a case study, such as print and digital processes at university presses. Discussion questions are also offered, though no answers are provided.
Steam-Powered Knowledge by Aileen Fyfe investigates a particular period in publishing (1820–1860) through the story of two brothers who started to publish first in Edinburgh, then London and then abroad. Not only was steam used in the production of print, but also steamships used for print distribution. Steam-Powered Knowledge is a story of the W&R Chambers Publishing firm, but is also a rag-to-riches tale. The brothers lived and worked in a period when printed material was comparatively rare, until publishers such as themselves started to produce for and distribute to a mass market.
This book is recommended for academic and further-education libraries that offer a publishing course. It would also be useful to the same demographic for business history, and could easily be incorporated into larger public libraries on the basis of either its biographical or business-history approach. The volume is entertaining, informative, accessible and well indexed.
Academic and Professional Publishing is perhaps the most obvious publishing book in this small collection. The preface notes that the book is designed to provide readers with a ‘comprehensive update on the widespread changes in academic and professional publishing’ (1), and this aim is definitely achieved. Throughout the volume, chapters are interrelated so that one chapter that mentions, say, libraries will indicate a full chapter on the topic is also available. That said, the chapters easily stand alone, and each has an abstract indicating perhaps that the book is more to be consulted as needed than read as a whole. Even with this design, the book is engaging, and reading chapters consecutively is no hardship.
The breadth covered by this book is great, including common scholarly publishing aspects such as peer review and metrics, but also less common topics such as libraries, licensing and metadata. When the editors state that a comprehensive investigation is their aim, they do not lie. Often books merely about scholarly communication focus on the author, on peer review and on how to please an editor. This volume includes some of that focus, but it also looks at the user/reader (often a researcher), investigates whether journals have a future and gives an overview of the publishing side of the scholarly communication relationship. For example, chapters are devoted to business models and finance, editorial and production workflows, and career development in academic and professional publishing. The chapter on career development, starting with entry-level roles, interested this reviewer who had previously imagined those whose hearts are set on publishing are set on the so-called glamour of fiction. Yet a significant number of people get their start in academic publishing, and too much knowledge of a sector (such as being a chemistry expert for a chemistry journal) can be a drawback.
Chapter 13 is about the evolving role of libraries in the scholarly ecosystem, and of particular interest to those working in academic libraries. Throughout the volume, the library is acknowledged at times, whether positively as a partner or negatively as a hindrance or obsolescence. For the casual library reader, though, a number of concerns of the publishing industry converge with those of libraries, such as discovery and sustainability. Academic and Professional Publishing is highly recommended for academic and research libraries.
These five books give a good insight into sections of the publishing sector. For libraries, The Librarian's Guide to Micro Publishing and Academic and Professional Publishing are particularly singled out for recommendation, since each addresses the library aspect of publishing. Then again, if publishers refused to or could not publish, how could libraries exist?