Books …

… and

magazines

What is a book?Is it this?

What about this?

Or this?

I can read books here. Wouldn’t this count too?

• No standard definition can encapsulate the changes taking place in how we read books.

• But our idea of it is so strong because the definition of books has stayed the same for more than 500 years, much longer than any other medium.

• Johannes Gutenberg – Inventor of movable type, leading to mass production of books for the first time. First book was The Bible published in 1455.

• In only a few decades, printing presses could be found in every major city in Europe.

• Scientists could more easily see and learn what colleagues were doing, propelling the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s

• Increase in knowledge led to a new era of knowledge and the arts called the Renaissance.– Led to widespread

literacy and social reform, such as the Reformation

• Thomas Paine – His 1776 pamphlet Common Sense called for America to break free from England. One out of 10 colonists bought it, spurred independence sentiments.

Effects on America

• James Fenimore Cooper – Wrote The Spy, Last of The Mohicans; first American to establish a literary identity for the new nation; explored frontier as uniquely American setting

• Harriet Beecher Stowe – Her 1852 book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, helped spread anti-slavery opinion in U.S.; sold 200,000 copies in first few months of release.

• Rachel Carson – Wrote Silent Spring in 1962, which alerted public to danger of pesticides, other dangers of chemicals; book acted as launching pad to the modern environmental movement.

• Upton Sinclair – Wrote The Jungle in 1906 that exposed the unsafe conditions of Chicago’s gruesome meatpacking industry, directly led to creation of the Food and Drug Administration.

Two books and their defining power

• The Bible – Book that establishes the history, teachings of the Christian faith, was the first book ever published, still the best-selling book of all-time with an estimated 2.5 billion copies sold.

• The Origin of Species – Written by Charles Darwin in 1859, established the principle of natural selection, that humans evolved over time.

To be considered a presidential contender, you have to publish a book.

2006 2010

Both 2012 candidates had books that were national best-sellers

• Book Industry– U.S. publishers made $15 billion in revenue in

2012– E-books make up 20 percent of sales

• Major Publishing Houses– Simon & Schuster– Doubleday– HarperCollins– Penguin

• Consolidation– Random House part of Bertelsmann, which

owns Bantam, Dell and Doubleday– Simon & Schuster bought by CBS Corp.– HarperCollins bought by NewsCorp.

• University Presses– University-sponsored book

publishing operations, traditionally focus on scholarly work

– Oxford University Press was first in 1478, only two decades after Gutenberg

– Harvard press published science landmark The Double Helix, and the ‘20s poetry of Ezra Pound

– University presses have dwindled recently

• TCU still has its own press, but SMU’s closed in 2010

Changing Times

• Wikipedia– Created by Jimmy Wales in 2001– 4.3 million articles in English– Articles written, edited by users

• Amazon.com– Created by Jeff Bezos in 1994– Sold books online out of garage– 2010 sales topped $61 billion

• Kindle– In 2007, Bezos

introduced e-book reader called Kindle.

– Held up to 200 books without illustrations.

– First batch sold out in five and a half hours.

– Amazon released Kindle 2 in 2009, Kindle 3 in 2010 and Kindle Fire in 2011.

– Prompted release of others like Nook, iPad

• Google Print Library– Search engine company decided in 2005 to

digitize entire collection of libraries at Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, Michigan and New York Public Library

– Collection of 15 million titles would be available on searchable database

– Despite assurances that books with copyright would be sent to seller’s site, book publishers remain leery.

• Stephen King – His 2000 e-book, “Riding the Bullet” downloaded 400,000 times.

• This generated buzz for e-books, but it didn’t last. Barnes & Noble shut down e-book store in 2003.

• After Kindle, Barnes & Noble re-opened e-book store in 2009.

• Trade books– General-interest titles like

fiction, nonfiction

• Textbooks– Educational, professional or

reference title

– William McGuffey created first textbook, The McGuffey Reader, in 1836.

• Mid-list– Books with smaller run,

promotion

– Considered way of future as high-profile titles are too expensive

• Out of print – A book unavailable because slow sales don’t warrant printing new copies.

• Alliterate – Choosing not to read although able to do so, which studies show more people are becoming.

MagazinesFrom the serious to the frivolous, from the erotic to the obscure, magazines don’t fade from view easily.

• Magazines were one of the first truly national items.

• Railroads transported them across country.

• Benjamin Franklin bought one of first magazines, Pennsylvania Gazette, in 1729.

• Franklin’s magazine eventually became The Saturday Evening Post, started in 1821.

• The Post contributed to early U.S. literature, printing works by Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Harriet Beecher Stowe.

• Would later be known by Norman Rockwell covers, like this from 1916.

• Muckrakers– Magazines became

forum for investigative journalism in early 1900s.

– Ida Tarbell wrote a 19-part series in 1902 for McClure’s that exposed monopoly of Standard Oil.

– Theodore Roosevelt derided them as “muckrakers,” a term they wore with pride.

• Photojournalism– Magazines, in their

infancy, were only text.

– Harper’s Weekly in the Civil War sent artists to draw scenes of the battlefields.

– This image in 1867 captured recently freed slaves voting for the first time.

• Top 10 U.S. magazines by circulation, 2012

– 1. AARP The Magazine 22.7 million

– 2. AARP Bulletin 22.4 million

– 3. Game Informer 7.8 million

– 4. Better Homes & Gardens 7.6 million

– 5. Reader’s Digest 5.5 million

– 6. Good Housekeeping 4.3 million

– 7. Family Circle 4.14 million

– 8. National Geographic 4.12 million

– 9. People 3.6 million

– 10. Woman’s Day 3.3 million

• The New Yorker began in 1925 by Harold Ross as a sophisticated humor magazine.

• It eventually veered into serious journalism, pioneered personality profile.

• Today considered one of America’s most prestigious magazines.

• National Geographic– The National

Geographic Society in 1888 decided to create a publication for members.

– Editor Gilbert Grosvenor drew an 1899 map to the South Pole.

– Later, it would take lead in magazine photography.

• Life– Expanded on photo

emphasis from its first ever cover in 1936 by famed photographer Margaret Bourke-White.

– Life became known for its spell-binding photography.

– Folded as a magazine in 2000. Efforts to turn it into an online magazine have failed.

• Time– Founder Henry Luce started

the era of the newsmagazine in 1923.

– Gave a compilation of week’s news with irreverent writing that set it apart from newspapers

– Known for “Person of Year”

– Spawned other news outlets like Newsweek, U.S. News and World Report

• Supermarket tabloids– Magazines that focus

on celebrity gossip and oddball news, including more than a few stories about aliens.

– National Enquirer most well-known of these with a circulation of 700,000

• Sarah Josepha Hale– Created first mainstream

publication for women, Ladies’ Magazine, in 1828.

– Meant to be uplifting to women, give advice on fashions, morals, taste

– Attracted writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

• Women’s magazines are now huge industry

• Top women’s magazines were called “Seven Sisters.” Only six remain:– Better Homes & Gardens

– Family Circle

– Good Housekeeping

– Ladies’ Home Journal

– Redbook

– Woman’s Day

– (Rosie, which used to be McCall’s, is now defunct)

• Men’s magazines– First Esquire magazine

in 1933 attracted upscale men.

– Had pinups of women but also fiction by stars like Ernest Hemingway

– Hugh Hefner created Playboy in 1953, which featured female nudity as well as first Q&As of celebrities

– Titles today include Maxim, FHM, Stuff

• All You, a woman’s magazine, was started by Bella Price in 2004 to be sold only in Wal-Mart.

• Rather than upscale models, clothing, All You focuses on budget-conscious women.

• Sales began at 500,000 causing a competitor to start another Wal-Mart only magazine.

• Sponsored magazines– Unlike consumer

magazines found on newsstands, sponsored magazines belong to members of groups, like Smithsonian or National Geographic

– AARP The Magazine, the most circulated magazine in America, is a sponsored magazine.

• Trade journals– Magazines that relate

to a specific company or industry

– Examples include Chemical Week, Advertising Age, AutoWeek

– Newsletters also fill this need, but can get obscure like Beverage Digest, Food Chemical News

• Ownership concentration– Like all other media, magazines have combined into a few major owners

• Time: Entertainment Weekly, Fortune, InStyle, Money, Sports Illustrated, Time

• Hachette Filipacci: Car & Driver, Elle, Woman’s Day

• Conde Nast: Glamour, GQ, New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue

• Hearst: Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Good Housekeeping, Oprah, Redbook, Seventeen

• Meredith: Better Homes and Gardens, Ladies’ Home Journal, Family Circle, Fitness

• Regional magazines– Some magazines cover

just a city, state or area

– Dallas has D Magazine, and Fort Worth has Fort Worth, Texas magazine.

– One of the most successful regional magazines is Texas Monthly founded by Michael Levy in 1973.

• The cover– A magazine cover can

be serious, provocative, sexy, funny or sad.

– Impacts newsstand sales more than any other part of magazine

– This one from humor magazine National Lampoon in 1973 is considered one of the best ever.