40
votes
Why would one of Germany's leading publishers publish a novel by Jewish writer Stefan Zweig in 1939?
Samuel Fischer, who founded the S. Fischer Verlag in 1886 was also Jewish. After his death in 1934, his son-in-law Gottfried Bermann Fischer took over management of the publishing house, but in 1936 ...
- 44k
12
votes
Accepted
What does "Printed for..." mean?
The information points to a separation of the jobs of publisher/retailer on the one hand and the techical work of printing on the other.
For a long time after the invention of the printing press, ...
- 44k
10
votes
Is it common practice for cover art to be designed without direct input from the author?
In my experience, having worked in-house in the publishing industry for more than 10 years, it is quite usual for the cover to be decided by anyone other than the author. It's usually done through ...
- 318
9
votes
Accepted
How does a book become "an American classic"?
The noted science fiction author Samuel Delany has a lengthy discussion of the canonization process in his book About Writing. His conclusions are:
While there is a definite relationship between ...
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7
votes
Accepted
Are Barnes & Noble editions of public domain works of reliable quality?
Unlike, say, Dover Editions which are photoreproductions of public domain texts, the Barnes & Noble classic editions are, in fact, newly typeset texts. They don't give any attribution to their ...
- 3,005
7
votes
Accepted
Are Gutenberg books illegal to sell in Germany?
As the page Court Order to Block Access from Germany explains, the blocking has to do with differences between the EU and the USA related to the rules governing copyright:
in Germany, copyright lasts ...
- 44k
7
votes
How do The New York Times bestseller lists work?
The New York Times (thereafter NYT) has a pretty detailed explanation of their methodology.
First, the list does talk about retail sales (which is rather good news, but is not the case in other ...
- 1,908
6
votes
How does a book become "an American classic"?
Italo Calvino's "Why read the Classics" (2000)
Italo Calvino lists 14 "definitions" of a classic
Although (As mentioned in the comments) although the viewpoint of Italo Calvino is ...
- 409
6
votes
How can I find information about the editions of a book?
It depends on whether you are interested in lifetime editions or posthumous editions. There are, for example, three lifetime editions of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818, 1823, and 1831); but there ...
- 101
6
votes
Accepted
Formatting poetry books
The visual layout of a poem can sometimes be important to its meaning or interpretation. It's not a particularly common technique so, in a book of poetry, one might expect to find such poems alongside ...
- 21k
5
votes
Formatting poetry books
There is no "should", except perhaps for a publisher's objections, and poets have been playing with typographic and layout conventions for quite some time.
For a relatively early example, ...
- 44k
5
votes
How can I find information about the editions of a book?
Your question "How can I find information about the editions of a book?" has no simple general answer. There is a whole field of learning devoted to it: "bibliography". Basic questions in that field ...
- 3,975
4
votes
Why are some recently published book available on paper format but not on ebook?
The reason for some newly-published books being available on paper but not digitally is that the author can refuse to publish it as an e-book.
For example, when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ...
- 44k
4
votes
Why there are no annotations in Penguin English Library edition of "Moby-Dick"?
Although the Penguin English Library Imprint was originally introduced to issue ‘critical editions’ of works as a sister series to ‘Penguin Classics’ which at that time only dealt in translated works, ...
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4
votes
Are Barnes & Noble editions of public domain works of reliable quality?
I would not recommend the Barnes and Noble editions. To establish a sound version of a text, a good text editor or a reliable translator are essential. B & N does not use either of these, simply ...
- 22.1k
3
votes
Accepted
Why are some recently published book available on paper format but not on ebook?
In order for an author to participate in KDP Select, the book must be offered in electronic format only on Amazon, though it can be offered in other forms in other venues.
- 5,957
3
votes
Why does Great Illustrated Classics change details in its abridged versions?
Adaptations by nature leave out incidents and nuance, as well as rearrange the order of events in the original. The only principle seems to be to make the adaptation as appealing to the target ...
- 22.1k
3
votes
Is it common practice for cover art to be designed without direct input from the author?
I've worked in the publishing industry for over 15 years, and in my experience, authors have a lot of control over the covers of their books. The publisher would find a suitable illustrator, and then ...
- 31
3
votes
What does "Printed for..." mean?
"Printed for" mean "printed for some booksleller or several booksellers".
In this particular case, "Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown" are actually one bookseller, ...
- 377
3
votes
Accepted
How do publishers determine how much to charge for audiobooks relative to their printed version?
Taking your example of the Harry Potter audiobooks, I looked at the prices directly from the publisher, Bloomsbury Publishing. I compared the length of the paperbacks to the cost of the audiobooks, ...
- 1,354
2
votes
Why would Image Comics publish "Sunstone", after it was released as a webcomic?
I can think of a couple of reasons why a web comic might become published:
A single, physical, consolidated book is easier to read, rather than going from page to page to read a panel. It's also ...
- 1,733
2
votes
Accepted
Is there a list of book sales (or numerical rank) by author online?
There is no central repository for total sales numbers for books, so any composite list will be by approximation only. Their approaches, content and methods all differ and they make interesting ...
- 1,195
2
votes
What does "This title has Common Core connections" mean?
From your first link to McMillian, there are teachers' guides and activities guides available for the common core connected books. I'm not sure why the link on the page for the reading guide says '...
- 181
2
votes
Use of Fraktur in 19th Century English Print
The earliest English types by William Caxton were blackletter types, but the fact that most early printed material in England was written in Latin led to the adoption of Roman types for English ...
- 3,005
2
votes
Use of Fraktur in 19th Century English Print
Which edition? The 1862 and 1868 John Murray editions are not set in Fraktur.
In general Blackletter (the English word for Fraktur) was not used for setting
connected prose, but occasionally for ...
- 3,975
2
votes
Accepted
Gutenberg's press by different design
There has been speculation that the design of the Gutenberg press may have been inspired by the binder's nipping press since the codex form was well-established before the arrival of Gutenberg's press....
- 3,005
1
vote
How to find out if a translation exists?
In addition to Worldcat, I often find that Goodreads does a good job of coalescing translations of a work under the "other editions" tab.¹
That said, neither Goodreads nor Worldcat are ...
- 3,005
1
vote
Accepted
How to tell whether a book is worth reading?
To be honest, if there isn't some sort of gatekeeper - bookstore owner, professional reviewer, etc., then the pool of books you're looking at is always going to contain books of more variable quality ...
- 201
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