Bookselling

The book trade existed from antiquity, the first evidence of the sale of books is found in the Greek poet Eupolides , from the 5th century BC. e. special words appear to denote the profession of bookseller (Greek bibliopoles , lat. librarius ). In Rome, the existence of bookselling is testified from the middle of the 1st century BC. e. . The Roman book trade was quite developed and encompassed the entire empire to the most remote provinces; book runs reached 1000 copies. Initially, books were sold in the form of scrolls, since the 2nd century the parchment code became the main form. The concept of copyright or publishing did not exist. After the fall of Rome, the book trade gradually fell into decline. Copying and distribution of manuscripts resumed in the early Middle Ages in the monastery scriptoria . ^[2]

The book trade began to develop significantly after the invention of printing , and especially after the spread of mass general education .

Since the 15th century, with the beginning of industrial printing, the foundations of book trade as an organized industry have been laid. At the same time, at least until the end of the 17th century, the book trade was poorly separated from printing and was in the hands of large book publishers , most often of hereditary firms.

Bookmaker and bookseller Johann Mentelin (c. 1410-1478) was the first to establish a wholesale warehouse for books, and began to publish printed bookselling advertisements. The Nuremberg book printer and bookseller Anton Koberger (c. 1445-1513) opened bookstores as branches of his printing workshop in many of the largest cities in Europe; he subsequently handed over the publication of books to foreign companies, laying the foundation for contractual relations for the supply of circulations. At the same time, the first wholesale book fair in Frankfurt am Main appeared , retaining the status of the most important European book fair until the end of the 17th century.

France

The development of census for secular purposes in France began in the 13th century following the founding of the University of Paris . All those involved in the manufacture and sale of manuscripts constituted one corporation under the name of the "University Jury Book Copywriters " ( Clerics en librairie juries de L'Université ). In 1292, there were 24 scribes, 17 bookbinders and 8 sellers of manuscripts in Paris. The University of Paris monitored the activities of the census-takers and sellers society, set prices for books, and penalized those responsible. In 1275, the university ordered book sellers to take the oath that they would abide by the rules when buying and selling manuscripts. The first condition for the circulation of the book was set so that the price and name of the author were indicated on it. According to the statute of 1323, only those who were able to pass the exam before being deputed from the university, make 100 livres of bail and present evidence of good reputation were allowed to the profession of bookseller. Before the invention of printing, at least 10,000 scribes worked in Paris and Orleans. The demand for books was great, although books were very expensive.

In July 1618, Louis XIII issued the Rules for Book Trade and Printing ( Règlement sur la Librairie et l'Imprimerie du 9 juillet ), which reduced the number of privileged members of the university organization of clerks in Paris to 80, and for new members (equally typographers, bookbinders and booksellers) the condition for joining the organization was set knowledge of the Latin, Greek and French languages ​​and the customs of book trade, as well as seven-year preliminary practice. Louis XIV edicts 1649 and 1686 to the smallest detail regulated the book trade, strict censorship was introduced. The number of booksellers in Paris was limited to 80, and the number of typographers had to be brought to 36, other cities could also have only a predetermined number of booksellers and typographers. Under Louis XV, members of the corporation of booksellers and typographers were still considered members of the university, the policy of restricting membership in the corporation and restrictions on printing and bookselling as a whole, including the sale of print products as a whole, continued (no more than 120 people approved for this job by the police).

Russia

Typography in Russia was founded under Ivan the Terrible - in 1553 the Moscow Printing House was founded, and in 1564 Ivan Fedorov completed the printing of the first dated book, The Apostle . At that time, books of exclusively religious content were printed in Russia. Only in the second half of the 17th century did secular books appear, but they occupied a significant share in the book repertoire only in the 18th century. With the beginning of the reign of Catherine II, typography became more widespread. However, the book trade in Russia could not be very successful, the booksellers suffered losses, and in general, the Russian book trade was far from prosperous.

The first announcement of the sale in the academic shop "History of Edessa" dates from 1729; the shop existed at the Academy of Sciences, it was managed by the Germans, who concluded contracts in German. With some reservations, it is believed that in 1768 there was only one bookstore in Russia; the opening of new stores did not go unsteadily: in 1771, 2 were opened, in 1775 - 1, in 1780 - 3 ... in 1798 - 2 stores. However, the first announcement of a Russian book store appeared only in 1783 ^[3] .

One of the main figures that influenced the further development of the book trade were the publishers Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov and Alexander Filippovich Smirdin , who reformed the book trade, promoted its development in other cities, and contributed to lowering the cost of books, which expanded the readership in Russia. The reforms of Alexander II had a positive impact on literacy, and thereby on the development of bookselling. Already in 1885 in St. Petersburg there were 327 bookstores and shops, in Moscow - 224, in the provinces - from 1 to 70.

• The bookstore is the main form of trade in the old days; have spread (especially recently) and still.
• Bookstores - until recently, were the main form of book distribution. So, in the Soviet Union they sold up to 60% of book production ^[4] .
  • Second-hand bookstores ( used bookstore )
• Catalog trade ( book-mail , trade in online stores ). Book catalogs first appeared in Germany in the 16th century ^[5] . Since the 19th century, catalogs (in Russia - bookselling , bookselling registers ) have become an indispensable part of the book trade.
• Book - keeping - the sale of books and other printed publications is peddling. Through the bookseller in the XVII-XIX centuries, unauthorized compositions and pamphlets massively dispersed, in Russia - popular prints . ^[6]
• Trading through book machines .
• Book fairs . At the beginning of the XXI century, there were about 300 book fairs in the world ^[7] , including the oldest Frankfurt and Leipzig and the largest Moscow in Russia.
• E-bookselling - trading in electronic books . Since 2007, when e-paper technology and reading devices based on it entered the mass market, the e-book market is booming. So, as of 2013, 14% of book sales in the UK accounted for electronic books ^[8] .

Germany, Austria

The publisher Vadim Meshcheryakov, having registered a publishing house in Austria, spoke about the insurmountable prejudice of local book distributors to immigrants from Russia and the unwillingness to work with new publishers, especially Russian ^[9] , a similar situation was observed in Germany:

There are only seven distributors, in Germany, and you need to ... they don’t take everyone, they don’t work with everyone, and you can’t get directly to the shops besides them. Therefore, with them it was just not necessary to agree (as this word has been with us in recent years, not to “agree” in this regard), to agree - to show that you can do something, that your books are sold and interesting.

- " Publishing House Meshcheryakova " ^[10]

Ukraine

In the early 2000s, most of the Ukrainian book market was filled with pirated copies ^[11] . In 2011, in Crimean stores, selling a week of eleven books of one title was called an amazing success ^[12] .

Russia

To date, bookselling in Russia is in the process of its development. Numerous, small bookselling companies are unable to compete with the giants of the book business. In 2006, there were about 2500 bookstores in Russia , that is, one for 50-60 thousand people. In the European Union, there is one bookstore for every 10 thousand people.

With the widespread use of the Internet, book lovers have the opportunity to order their books through online stores .

Book dealers from various regions of Russia, including non-professional dealers - owners of home libraries or small book collections, as well as authors and publishers can display their books (new and old publications) on various trading platforms on the Internet. Thus, the Internet can serve as an impetus for the development of bookselling without geographical restrictions. Each bookseller, even from the most remote corner of Russia, has the opportunity to find his reader and increase sales outside his region.

The volume of the Russian book market in 2008, according to employees of the Federal Agency for Press and Mass Media , amounted to about three billion dollars ^[13] . By 2010, according to Sergei Kudryavtsev, general director of the Gilea publishing house, the book trade in Russia was concentrated in the Biblio-Globus , Ozon.ru, and the State Unitary Enterprise “ Moscow Book House ” ^[14] . According to the " Federal Agency for Press and Mass Communications " published in the annual industry report ^[15] :

• ... almost a third of the country 's publishers publish books in a year with a total circulation not exceeding 1 thousand copies, and the annual circulation of more than 3/4 (80.2%) of publishing houses existing in Russia does not exceed 12,000 copies. Only two percent of publishers have a combined annual circulation of more than 500 thousand copies.
• ... of the 5884 publishing houses operating in Russia, more than a third (35.2%) are publishers who published in 2012 only one book. Publishers that have published less than 12 books per year (that is, on average less than one book per month) comprise more than 3/4 (77.5%) of all publishing organizations in Russia. And only less than one percent of publishers publish more than 500 book titles per year.
  - “The Book Market of Russia”, 2013.

Since the beginning of the 90s, the book business of Russia has been characterized by the use of one-day firms , which are most often created for cashing out profits ^[16] . Employees of the Mann, Ivanov and Ferber business literature publishing house claimed that by the end of the 2000s , they were looking for books that sold at least 3000 copies a year ^[17] .

• Comprehensive Bookselling Index Cipher
• Secondhand science

• E.A. Rostovtsev. History of book business . - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Polytechnic University, 2007. - T. 1. Archival copy of April 16, 2014 on the Wayback Machine
• E.A. Rostovtsev. History of book business . - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Polytechnic University, 2009. - T. 2. Archival copy of April 16, 2014 on the Wayback Machine
• E.A. Rostovtsev. History of book business . - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Polytechnic University, 2011. - T. 3. - 128 p. - ISBN 978-5-7422-2656-7 . Archived April 16, 2014 on Wayback Machine
• E.A. Rostovtsev. History of book business . - St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Polytechnic University, 2012. - T. 4. Archival copy of April 16, 2014 on the Wayback Machine
• H. Novombergsky Press Release in France, Germany, England and Russia - Lectures delivered at the Russian Higher School of Social Sciences in Paris.// Printing house of F. Weissberg and P. Gershunin. St. Petersburg, 1906, 303 p.
• PC. Simony Materials for the history of Russian book trade in the XVII-XIX centuries . - St. Petersburg, 1906.

• Book trade // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
• Book trade // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.
• Book trade - an article from the Encyclopedic Dictionary "Book Science" - M .: Sov. Encyclopedia, 1982, - 664 p.
• Book trade - an article from the Dictionary of Antiquity. - Translation from German. M .: Progress. Leipzig Bibliographic Institute . 1989
• Typography and bookselling in the Dictionary of the History of Russian Culture
• Book trade in Moscow - an article from the Moscow Encyclopedic Directory - M .: Big Russian Encyclopedia . 1992
• Book trade in St. Petersburg - an article from “St. Petersburg. Petrograd. Leningrad ”- M.: Big Russian Encyclopedia. Ed. Collegium: Belova L.N., Buldakov G.N., Degtyarev A. Ya. et al. 1992
• Bookselling bibliography // Big Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ch. ed. A.M. Prokhorov . - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1969-1978.

• Book Industry Magazine
• Book Herald No. 1-24, 1863
• Book passions in Russian // weekly “ Delo ” No. 11 2006
• A selection of materials about the book trade - Book Publishing magazine