There were 25,000 to 27,000 different publishers in the United States each year. Let us consider the activities of the most important and typical ones.
“The U.S. Government Press is the largest not only in the country, but in the entire book world. It publishes the publications of the federal government, the 48 states, all counties and municipalities, and all government agencies. The number of annual publications is up to 100 million copies of just print editions. At present (2007), it is also published electronically. Official materials and collections of documents constituted the bulk of government publications. Publications of archival materials of statesmen and government agencies occupied a large place. All U.S. government publications since 1960 were printed at the State Printing House.
The second largest government publishing organization was the Central Office of Foreign Policy Propaganda, or USIA for short. The purpose of this agency was to promote U.S. policy abroad and to inform the government of the attitudes of various countries toward the United States and their policies and the results of political and propaganda activities.
The USIA worked closely with the State Department, the Department of Defense, the Central Intelligence Agency, and other agencies. USIA produced a large number of books, pamphlets, magazines, and newspapers in various languages in a wide variety of countries, but mainly in Latin America and the developing countries of Asia and Africa.
In fact, there was only one relatively large non-commercial and Marxist publishing house in the United States: International Publishers, founded in 1924 by A. Trachtenberg. The publishing house is versatile in both subject matter and type of publication. Together with the American Institute for Marxist Research, founded in 1964, it published the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, and works on the history of the revolutionary struggle in various countries. “International Publishers also published scientific and popular scientific works by historians, philosophers, sociologists, and literary scholars of the Marxist persuasion. It published works of fiction and books for children and young adults.
University publishers occupy a special place among American publishing enterprises. The United States borrowed the tradition of organizing university publishing houses from Great Britain.
The first university publisher in the United States was established in 1869 at the University of Iell to provide the university with cheap textbooks, manuals, and scholarly books.
The goal of all university publishers is to produce literature for specialists in all fields of science. Their total annual output has reached approximately 8,000 titles. The largest of these is the University of Chicago Press; its catalog exceeded 3,000 titles. Twenty-five to thirty percent of all scientific and technical publications are published by universities. On average, they publish 2,500-3,000 book titles and 135 special journals per year. The average circulation of university scientific publications is 500-1500 copies; technical books – from 2 to 5 thousand copies.
University publishers also publish archives of prominent scientists, political and public figures. In cooperation with the American Association of Living Languages published works of American classics in scientific, academic type editions.
Among the commercial universal publishers, the largest was Doubleday Co. established in 1897 in New York City. Annually it published up to 700 titles of books in all branches of science and culture. Particular attention was paid to the production of works by contemporary American writers, as well as books for children and young adults.
The Dolphin Books (hardcover) and Anchor (paperback) series of books for self-education were in great demand among readers. Since 1962, in cooperation with the American Museum of Natural History, the publisher has published various types of publications on natural sciences and the journal Nature and People.
One of the leading publishers was also Macmillan & Co., founded in the U.S. in 1869 as a branch of the British publishing house of the same name. Since 1993 it became part of the Simon & Schuster group, headquartered in New York City. The publisher published textbooks for all types of educational institutions; popular science, art, medical, agricultural literature, publications on art, sports, cookery, etc. In 1919 a special section for children was opened here for the first time: since then, several thousand titles of children’s literature have been published. The series “Classics of Children’s Literature” was especially popular.
The largest publishing association, Simon & Schuster, has been in existence since 1924. Its affiliates published commercial presses, reference books, high school publications, school textbooks, and professional and legal literature.
Simon & Schuster, a major publishing association, has been in existence since 1924. Its divisions produced commercial publications, reference books, higher education publications, school textbooks, professional and legal literature.
One of the oldest general publishers is Harper & Rowe, which began publishing works by American and English writers and poets in 1817. Throughout the years the publisher has published novels, fiction series of world classics, modern fiction, school textbooks, and magazines. The publisher has carefully studied reader demand, and its titles have always been among the bestsellers.
Specialized publishers in the United States can be divided into two large groups: (1) publishers specializing in the publication of books in different branches of knowledge-multidisciplinary and (2) publishers with narrow specialization. In turn, each of these groups can be divided into two more: publishers of natural and technical profile and publishers of humanitarian profile.
The largest publisher is Mc Grove Hill Book Co, founded in 1900, which published scientific, popular science books and literature for self-education in all branches of knowledge. It published a large number of scientific journals and a popular children’s library, Science World. Annually the publishing house published about 300-400 books and more than 30 periodicals which was one fourth of all technical publications of the country.
The leading specialized publishers continued to be those that emerged as early as the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
“John Viley & Son, founded in 1828, continued to publish literature in all branches of exact and applied sciences. The annual output of the publishing house was more than 600 book titles and 21 journals.
“Van Nostrand began operations in 1848 and specialized in the publication of science and military literature. Its “Scientific Series” is well known. In military literature, books on tactics and strategy, military history, and fortification were published. Metallurgy, chemistry, power engineering, and railroading were the main subjects of Van Nostrand publications. The “Modern Science and Technology” series was also very well known, as well as many reference universal and sectoral publications.
Among the large multidisciplinary natural science and technical publishing houses, in addition to the old firms, there were new, no less famous ones that began their activities in the forties of the twentieth century. Akademik Press and Pergamon Press were among them. Akademik Press was founded in 1941 with the purpose of publishing books and journals for the wider information of scientists. The first one was the journal “Biology Archive” issued in 1942. Gradually the publishing house broadened its program and started to publish serial publications, scientific treatises and monographs, scientific journals in all the fields of natural sciences, medicine, physics, metallurgy, mathematics, and aeronautics. Since 1970, the Seminar Press has published scientific publications in archaeology, geography, linguistics, political economy, and sociology. It was widely known to scholars throughout the world, and printed translations of scientific works. It had branches in France, England, India, Italy, etc.
Pergamon Press was founded in 1948. It published more than 120 scientific periodicals and up to 40 hard-cover book series in all fields of science, engineering, and medicine. In addition, the firm also published a series of paperback books intended for the general public.
“Pergamon Press was essentially an international publisher. It had two centers – in London and New York – and branches in various countries: Australia, France, the USSR, Japan, India, etc. The publishing house published books by order of UNESCO, International Geophysical and Geodesic Union, International Council of Scientific Unions. It is the official publisher of such international organizations as the Geochemical Society, International Biochemical Union, International Geophysical Year, etc.
Among publishers of humanitarian profile there were those that published only (or mainly) fiction and were associated with a certain circle of writers. Among them the publishing house “Ch. Scribner’s Sons, founded in 1846, is particularly interesting. The publisher published school textbooks, magazines, but his interests were mainly concentrated in the field of fiction. Many famous writers received “a ticket to life” with Scribner: H. Wolfe, S. Fangerald, E. Hemingway, etc.
One of the largest publishing associations in the United States is Harcourt Brace and Company, founded in 1919 in San Diego by W. Jovanovitch (headquartered in New York). The main specialization of the association is educational professional literature for high schools, colleges and universities. Total book output of the association in the late 1980s was close to 5,000 titles.
In the early 1970s in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the American literary critic C. Proffer and his wife founded the publishing house Ardis. It was publishing Russian books in English and Russian – works by Russian writers of the 19th and 20th centuries, modern authors, including previously unpublished materials on Russian history, and studies by Russian and Anglo-American Russians. Ardis editions are equipped with extensive commentaries and reference sources. Thematic anthologies for students and specialists in Russian studies are also well-known. “Ardis also published the Russian Literature magazine.
A large group of U.S. publishers specialized in reference works.
The largest of these was Encyclopedia Britannica. The publisher had two main offices, in Chicago and London, and offices in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Finland, France, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden. “Encyclopedia Britannica published the Encyclopedia Britannica. In 1968 a facsimile reproduction of the first edition was undertaken to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the publication. In addition to this main edition, the firm published similar encyclopedias in Spanish and Portuguese.
In addition to reference literature intended for scholars, the publisher published reference books for the general reader, a one-volume encyclopedic dictionary, The Lincoln Library of Essential Information, The American Encyclopedia, and The 20th Century Encyclopedia. “Compton’s Illustrated Encyclopedia for adults and children. “Encyclopedia of the World’s Books” – for young people, “Britannica to Teenager,” and “Britannica Preschool Library” – multi-volume encyclopedias for children.
In 1972 Norman Ross founded a publishing house specializing in the publication of reference books and microfilms. In 1991 the publisher began publishing editions on Slavic studies. Among them are two previously unpublished volumes of “Russian Biographical Dictionary”, bibliographical dictionary “Slavic Studies in the USSR”, “History of World Slavic Studies”, “Dictionary of Russian Foreign Writers” by V. F. Bulgakov, etc. The publishing house is also an international distributor of newspapers on microfilm from more than 40 countries for libraries all over the world.
There were publishing houses specializing in the publication of book-literature. The oldest among them was “R. Bauker Ê°”, founded in 1876. It published literature on the history and current state of books, bibliography, and librarianship. Since 1876 the “Library Journal” (“Laybreary Journal”), dedicated to the theory and practice of bibliography and library science, and “Publishers Weekly” – “Publishers Weekly” are published.
The second major publisher of book science literature is W. Wilson Co. It began as a small bookshop, opened in 1838. Now it is a huge enterprise, which combines book publishing, bookselling and bibliographic plant. The publishing house issued more than 20 bibliographic editions and literature on various issues of library science, bibliography, books.
Special publishers produced literature for “hippies”, for members of various sects, etc. There were publications for various ethnic groups, producing literature in 40 languages. In 1936, the Indian Press, a special publisher of books and magazines for Native Americans, was founded.
Each year the number of publishers that published books for black readers, not only those living in the United States but also in the new African states, increased. These publishers published books in English, French, and Spanish, as well as in the languages of various African nationalities. Black Academic Press, Black Star Publishers, and Afro-American Publishing Co. are considered the largest.
In 1976, 750 U.S. publishers specialized in the production of paperback books alone, with the 13 largest firms accounting for 90% of that output. The largest of them – Bantam Books – was founded in 1945. In 1946 it produced 20 titles of pocket books at the usual price – 25 cents. Now it is a real “book factory,” producing up to 400 titles annually with a circulation of up to 500 million copies. It was the first American publisher to undertake the production of “instant editions,” i.e., topical books providing immediate information on sensational events. For example, the book The End of the President (68 pages, 64 photographs) was published five days after the resignation of R. Nixon with a print run of 260,000 copies. Since 1980, the publishing house has been wholly owned by the West German concern Bertelsmann.
The second largest and oldest publisher in the field, Avon Books, published 28-30 titles a month, with average circulation of up to 7 million copies.
Topics and types of publications. After a long period of stabilization, in the early 1960s the output of books began to increase rapidly. In 1965 there were 54,378 titles, in 1966 58,517, in 1970 – 79,530; in 1980. – 85 220. Then there was a decline. In 1985 there were 50,070 titles, in 1990 44,218, and in 1993 49,572.
In 1960, the first place in the number of titles was occupied by fiction publications (16.2%), the second place by books for children and youth (11.5%), natural science publications accounted for 7.2%. In the following decades in the structure of book output there was a pronounced tendency to increase the share of scientific literature, as a result of which sociology and economics (16.3%) took first place, and fiction accounted for only 8.7% of the total number of publications. Literary studies, history, philosophy, psychology, and sports publications increased rapidly (in terms of the number of titles). The output of scientific, technical and medical literature grew more rapidly than that of fiction and children’s literature.
By the number of sold copies the first place belonged to fiction, which accounted for a quarter of the total number of sold hardcover books and 65% of the paperbacks.
If we consider the structure of book output by type of publication, then the first place belonged to textbooks. The latter accounted for 40% of the total number of publications. More than 400 publishers were involved in their production, of which no more than 10 were large ones.
A considerable amount of religious literature was published in the United States. Catholic church organizations alone owned more than a thousand presses and 30 major publishing houses. All commercial publishers produced religious literature. Several tens of millions of copies of religious publications entered the book market each year.
There was another “thematic” trend, not always registered by official statistics, but nevertheless quite developed: there were a significant number of publications devoted to the problems of sex and the “sexual revolution”.
The share of translated editions was 3% of the total output. In this area the United States lagged far behind the USSR, Germany and Japan. But it should be kept in mind that for the American reader there is no language barrier in relation to the authors of other countries writing in English.
Most of all fiction was translated (29% of the total output of translated editions), then scientific works on philosophy and social sciences – 17%, natural science and technical works – 16%, publications on geography, history – 12%, art – 12%, religion – 10%. Altogether from 1917 to 1980 about 600 titles of works by pre-revolutionary Russian and Soviet writers were published in the United States, while 6405 titles of books by American authors were published in the USSR during this period.
The book publishing industry in the United States, like in many other countries, distinguishes between two main types of publications – books in bindings and pocket books in paperbacks (“paperback” or “paperback”). A variety of paperback pocketbooks are “comic books” and “digest books. In the United States, paperback publishing has become an independent branch of book production and a major type of book production. In 1979, these titles accounted for 25-35% by title and 75% of all books sold in the country. Most of them were first editions rather than reprints of hardcover books. Since the mid-1970s there has been an increase in the number of editions of special literature in the form of paperback pocket books, and a series of publications on the humanities, socio-political, natural, and technical sciences have appeared. Textbooks also began to appear in the form of paperback books. The share of special literature in 1979 was 90.8% of the total issue of paperback books. The readership address has changed accordingly: nine out of ten paperback editions were intended for the specialist reader.
Since the 1960s “reprints” – facsimile reproductions of old and modern editions not only in the United States, but also in other countries – have become increasingly widespread in the United States. A significant number of such publications were “reprints” of Russian and Soviet editions, in particular bibliographic reference books.
An important trend in the American book industry was the publication of electronic editions on CD-ROM.