Re-Inventing the Book

Re-Inventing the Book: Challenges from the Past for the Publishing Industry chronicles the significant changes that have taken place in the publishing industry in the past few decades and how they have altered the publishing value chain and the structure of the industry itself.

The book examines and discusses how most publishing values, aims, and strategies have been common since the Renaissance. It aims to provide a methodological framework, not only for the understanding, explanation, and interpretation of the current situation, but also for the development of new strategies.

The book features an overview of the publishing industry as it appears today, showing innovative methods and trends, highlighting new opportunities created by information technologies, and identifying challenges. Values discussed include globalization, convergence, access to information, disintermediation, discoverability, innovation, reader engagement, co-creation, and aesthetics in publishing.

• Describes common values and features in the publishing industry since the Renaissance/invention of printing
• Proposes a methodological framework that helps users understand current publishing issues and trends
• Focuses on reader engagement and participation
• Proposes and discusses the publishing chain, not only as a value chain, but also as an information chain
• Considers the aesthetics of publishing, not only for the printed book, but also for digital material

Students, researchers and professionals in publishing, particularly academic publishing; academic librarians

• Series Page
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• 1. Introduction: The continuing revolution of Gutenberg
  • 1.1. The continuing revolution of Gutenberg: the publishing industry at a turning point
  • 1.2. New worlds for old strategies, new words for old values
  • 1.3. Toward a methodological and theoretical framework for publishing
  • 1.4. The structure of the book
• 2. Reimagining the book: Aesthetics in publishing
  • 2.1. Setting the scene: from illustration to new multimedia technologies. Approaches and trends
  • 2.2. The artistic identity of the book. Publishers, readers and the democratization of taste
  • 2.3. The aesthetics publishing chain–circle and its explanations
  • 2.4. Reconstructing the book: the value of the paratext
  • 2.5. Reader participation and personalized copies: new aesthetic and business models
  • 2.6. Reconsidering the boundaries of the book: convergence
  • 2.7. Recalling Renaissance woodcuts: from painted prints of Renaissance to colouring books of the digital era
  • 2.8. Why aesthetics in publishing is still important. The aesthetic capital
• 3. Reengaging readers, rediscovering strategies
  • 3.1. Reader engagement and the emergence of publishing strategies
  • 3.2. Lessons from the past: reader participation in the publishing chain. Case studies from Renaissance and the Baroque
  • 3.3. Readersourcing
  • 3.4. Rediscovering preorders
  • 3.5. From patronage to crowdfunding
  • 3.6. Short forms, serialization, series and bestsellers from Renaissance to the digital age
  • 3.7. Other business and publishing models
  • 3.8. Redefining online communities of readers
  • 3.9. Epilogue: the unexpected in publishing
• 4. Re-discussing the publishing chain as information value chain-circle
  • 4.1. Information as an agent of change in the publishing industry
  • 4.2. Inside the page: information mechanisms of the page
  • 4.3. Renaming experience: from the publisher’s intuition to data
  • 4.4. Books everywhere: from libelli portatiles to mobiles
  • 4.5. Rediscussing the information publishing chain–circle
• 5. Redefining publishing: Challenges from the past
  • 5.1. Re-discovering strategies, re-considering values
  • 5.2. Keep reinventing: challenges from the past for the publishing industry
  • 5.3. A comment as epilogue. Time and the book (or reinventing ourselves)
• Timeline
• Index