Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-9866
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358 1
Raul Marcó del Pont LalliRaul Marcó del Pont Lalli
Doctorando y maestro en Ciencias
Antropológicas, Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana Iztapalapa, México. Editor
técnico del Instituto de Geografía de la
UNAM.
edito@geografia.unam.mx
https://orcid.org/000-003-0483-2915
How to cite this article: del Pont, Raul (2024). Before Amazon. Publishing Industry
and Cultural Mutations. Revista Interamericana de Bibliotecología, 47(1), e354358.
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
Recibido: 2023-18-06/ Aceptado: 2023-30-11
Abstract
Amazon has radically changed the publishing world. And this transformation is so
profound that everything done before by the publishing industry today is seen as the
product of an apathetic industry, chronically indifferent to change. Nothing could be
further from the truth, as this text tries to highlight, and in an attempt to demystify
this view, it recovers four moments and areas of the past history of publishing, all
with transformative effects that still influence our practices: labor, intellectual prop-
erty, Christmas celebrations and mass consumption.
Keywords: Book history; capitalism; cultural studies; retail shopping; supermarkets.
Before Amazon.
Publishing Industry and Cultural Mutations*
© 2024 Universidad de Antioquia. Publicado por Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia.
* Esta investigación deriva de la tesis de doctorado en la Universidad Autónoma Metro-
politana-Iztapalapa, CDMX, titulada Libros y academia en México. .
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358 1
Raul Marcó del Pont LalliRaul Marcó del Pont Lalli
Doctorando y maestro en Ciencias
Antropológicas, Universidad Autónoma
Metropolitana Iztapalapa, México. Editor
técnico del Instituto de Geografía de la
UNAM.
edito@geografia.unam.mx
https://orcid.org/000-003-0483-2915
How to cite this article: del Pont, Raul (2024). Before Amazon. Publishing Industry
and Cultural Mutations. Revista Interamericana de Bibliotecología, 47(1), e354358.
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
Recibido: 2023-18-06/ Aceptado: 2023-30-11
Abstract
Amazon has radically changed the publishing world. And this transformation is so
profound that everything done before by the publishing industry today is seen as the
product of an apathetic industry, chronically indifferent to change. Nothing could be
further from the truth, as this text tries to highlight, and in an attempt to demystify
this view, it recovers four moments and areas of the past history of publishing, all
with transformative effects that still influence our practices: labor, intellectual prop-
erty, Christmas celebrations and mass consumption.
Keywords: Book history; capitalism; cultural studies; retail shopping; supermarkets.
Before Amazon.
Publishing Industry and Cultural Mutations*
© 2024 Universidad de Antioquia. Publicado por Universidad de Antioquia, Colombia.
* Esta investigación deriva de la tesis de doctorado en la Universidad Autónoma Metro-
politana-Iztapalapa, CDMX, titulada Libros y academia en México. .
2[Raul Marcó del Pont L alli] Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-9866
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
Antes de Amazon. Industria
editorial y mutaciones culturales
Resumen
Amazon ha cambiado radicalmente el mundo editorial, y esta
transformación es tan profunda que todo lo que se ha hecho
hasta ahora en la industria editorial es visto como el produc-
to de una industria apática, crónicamente indiferente al cam-
bio. Nada más lejos de la realidad, como trata de poner de
manifiesto este texto que, en un intento de desmitificar esta
visión, recupera cuatro momentos y ámbitos de la historia
pasada de la edición, todos ellos con efectos transformadores
que aún influyen en nuestras prácticas: el trabajo, la propie-
dad intelectual, las fiestas navideñas y el gran consumo.
Palabras clave: historia del libro; capitalismo; estudios cultu-
rales; comercio minorista; supermercados.
1. Introduction
Until about decades ago, editorial production was considered
an area insensitive to changes in the environment, an immutable
perimeter, clinging to arcane practices and unalterable secu-
rities. Its relevant, long-winded transformations have taken
place, it was believed, almost exclusively at two defining mo-
ments: the distant Gutenberian past and the ineffable present
dominated by Amazon. Between both landmarks, a fossilized
industry survived, which, boring, performed the same tasks
over and over again. We had to wait until Jeff Bezos arrived to
get this industry out of the self-imposed coma.
However, history is never straightforward, linear, and unnu-
anced. In an attempt to counter this view that fossilizes editorial
production, let’s consider some examples, taken from different
moments, some distant in time, others not so much, that de-
scribe a group of people, practices, and interests, constantly
engaged in finding new paths for a centuries-old practice. The
diversity of aspects, from job organization to marketing models,
shows the editorial field as obsessed with new developments,
making decisions that resulted in wise practices, many of which
remain as such to this day.
2. Areas of the Past History of Publishing
2.1 Outsourcing before Neoliberalism
Publishing was one of the first industries to make a
consistent and successful effort to rationalize and
standardize mass production from its origin. Only
during the very brief period of the incunabula — the
wonderful period between the year 1453, when the
printing press was officially invented, and the day
before Easter 1501 — the new presses invented by
Gutenberg produced some twenty million copies as
a result of the thirty-five thousand editions of some
fifteen thousand different texts that have reached the
present. Such an accomplishment could not have been
achieved with a timorous industry but as a result of an
effort that can only be described as modern, as Febvre
and Martin (2005) categorically state in The Coming of
the Book (p. 289).
Since its inception, the publishing industry revolu-
tionized many aspects, and labor was no exception.
It was one of the first to incorporate hourly labor as
part of its processes, an approach that would have to
wait until the seventeenth century to become a stan-
dard way of compensating the effort of workers in
other industrial areas (Striphas, 2011, p. 7; Febvre &
Martin, 2005, pp. 143–153). Third-party involvement
in the multiple tasks of the publishing work will be a
deep birthmark, so much so that it lasts until today.
In recent decades, it has served as an archetype for the
systematic erosion of labor modeled under the pre-
dominance of the benefactor State that has given way
to the precarious work of globalizing neoliberalism
(Menger, 2009; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011).
Fifteenth-century printing workshops “resembled
modern workshops more than medieval factories”,
stated Febvre and Martin (2005), and succeeded in
optimizing the technical procedures to make the
work of presses easier and faster as a “response to
the need to produce more books every day at a lower
price, [which] led printers to improve their produc-
tion methods” (p. 143). As part of this rationalization,
a tertiary labor model was adopted, we would say
now, which boosted this nascent industry along, in-
cidentally, with “some of the earliest trade unions
and trade union organizations” (Phillips & Bhaskar,
2020, p. 23).
2.2 The invention of Piracy
Another phenomenon where we cannot speak of edi-
torial autism is the emergence of piracy, or to define it
more nicely, the active role of printing in the “radical
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
Antes de Amazon. Industria
editorial y mutaciones culturales
Resumen
Amazon ha cambiado radicalmente el mundo editorial, y esta
transformación es tan profunda que todo lo que se ha hecho
hasta ahora en la industria editorial es visto como el produc-
to de una industria apática, crónicamente indiferente al cam-
bio. Nada más lejos de la realidad, como trata de poner de
manifiesto este texto que, en un intento de desmitificar esta
visión, recupera cuatro momentos y ámbitos de la historia
pasada de la edición, todos ellos con efectos transformadores
que aún influyen en nuestras prácticas: el trabajo, la propie-
dad intelectual, las fiestas navideñas y el gran consumo.
Palabras clave: historia del libro; capitalismo; estudios cultu-
rales; comercio minorista; supermercados.
1. Introduction
Until about decades ago, editorial production was considered
an area insensitive to changes in the environment, an immutable
perimeter, clinging to arcane practices and unalterable secu-
rities. Its relevant, long-winded transformations have taken
place, it was believed, almost exclusively at two defining mo-
ments: the distant Gutenberian past and the ineffable present
dominated by Amazon. Between both landmarks, a fossilized
industry survived, which, boring, performed the same tasks
over and over again. We had to wait until Jeff Bezos arrived to
get this industry out of the self-imposed coma.
However, history is never straightforward, linear, and unnu-
anced. In an attempt to counter this view that fossilizes editorial
production, let’s consider some examples, taken from different
moments, some distant in time, others not so much, that de-
scribe a group of people, practices, and interests, constantly
engaged in finding new paths for a centuries-old practice. The
diversity of aspects, from job organization to marketing models,
shows the editorial field as obsessed with new developments,
making decisions that resulted in wise practices, many of which
remain as such to this day.
2. Areas of the Past History of Publishing
2.1 Outsourcing before Neoliberalism
Publishing was one of the first industries to make a
consistent and successful effort to rationalize and
standardize mass production from its origin. Only
during the very brief period of the incunabula — the
wonderful period between the year 1453, when the
printing press was officially invented, and the day
before Easter 1501 — the new presses invented by
Gutenberg produced some twenty million copies as
a result of the thirty-five thousand editions of some
fifteen thousand different texts that have reached the
present. Such an accomplishment could not have been
achieved with a timorous industry but as a result of an
effort that can only be described as modern, as Febvre
and Martin (2005) categorically state in The Coming of
the Book (p. 289).
Since its inception, the publishing industry revolu-
tionized many aspects, and labor was no exception.
It was one of the first to incorporate hourly labor as
part of its processes, an approach that would have to
wait until the seventeenth century to become a stan-
dard way of compensating the effort of workers in
other industrial areas (Striphas, 2011, p. 7; Febvre &
Martin, 2005, pp. 143–153). Third-party involvement
in the multiple tasks of the publishing work will be a
deep birthmark, so much so that it lasts until today.
In recent decades, it has served as an archetype for the
systematic erosion of labor modeled under the pre-
dominance of the benefactor State that has given way
to the precarious work of globalizing neoliberalism
(Menger, 2009; Hesmondhalgh & Baker, 2011).
Fifteenth-century printing workshops “resembled
modern workshops more than medieval factories”,
stated Febvre and Martin (2005), and succeeded in
optimizing the technical procedures to make the
work of presses easier and faster as a “response to
the need to produce more books every day at a lower
price, [which] led printers to improve their produc-
tion methods” (p. 143). As part of this rationalization,
a tertiary labor model was adopted, we would say
now, which boosted this nascent industry along, in-
cidentally, with “some of the earliest trade unions
and trade union organizations” (Phillips & Bhaskar,
2020, p. 23).
2.2 The invention of Piracy
Another phenomenon where we cannot speak of edi-
torial autism is the emergence of piracy, or to define it
more nicely, the active role of printing in the “radical
3[Before Amazon. Publishing Industry and Cultural Mutations]
Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-98666
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
reorganization of what we know today as intellectual
property” (Johns, 2009, p. 15).
Since the printing press arrived in England in 1471, the
printing activity was largely supervised by the Compa-
ny of Stationers, the booksellers' Company. Its primary
mission was to prevent the printing of seditious texts
and illegal behavior (at the time, they were not called
piracy), and encourage printing of manuscripts licensed
for reproduction. Theft of sheets, the printing of texts
whose content was different from what the author had
provided to the press, and a fair amount of tricks to by-
pass the rules were frequent matters denounced to the
court that set the code of conduct of the printing guild.
A recording system and the application of customary
measures, which were verified at the printer's house —
the location where the printing tasks were carried out
(hence the designation as “publishing house”) — kept
alive for a long time the “moral impetus of the book
trade in the manner of a living guild community belong-
ing to a civic sphere” (Johns, 2009, p. 27). However, this
corporation had started to crack as a consequence of
an oligarchic trend of booksellers and their increasing
interest in distinguishing themselves from the printers
until they became a distinct and hierarchically supe-
rior sector. This, in addition to the emerging conflict
between the registration and patent systems, was an
issue that soon spread across continental Europe.
By then, several ingredients turned the editorial cock-
tail into a time bomb for the established system. The
book guild was increasingly disregarding the rules that
allowed for keeping opinions under control. The wider
environment began to witness a remarkable increase in
the debate of what would become the ‘public sphere’
while the popular press became stronger, which re-
minds us of the role of social networks during the
recent US presidential election that favored Donald
Trump: “fiercely sectarian, violently partial, relentless-
ly devoted to plagiarism, and often foolishly credulous”
(Johns, 2009, p. 30).
Faced with this, the Crown believed they had found
a way to contain and take advantage of the new dis-
putes, which “were no longer those of the university,
the court, and the palace.” The arena where this was
settled was that of registrations and patents. Printers
had ceded pre-eminence to booksellers — the owners
of copies, as the Saxon book registry entries were called
— who were insatiable and encouraged the greatest
possible discord because it sold books. The proposal,
then, was to put aside registrations and award patents
to the English gentlemen far from the publishing indus-
try’s worldly passions, which meant a radical shift in
this sector.
The reaction of the booksellers was immediate. They
invented a tradition (Howsbawn & Ranger, 2011): au-
thorship understood as property. And they put her at
the center of the dispute. The American historian Adri-
an Johns considers this as the germinal formulation
of literary property — “an absolute right generated
by authorship” that could serve as the backbone of a
“moral and economic system linked to the printing
press tasks”. Of course, the idea was not supported by
any clear precedent, and, according to the American
historian, it served to make a surprising twist since
“the notion of piracy triggered the conception of a lit-
erary property principle linked to authorship and not
the other way around” (Johns, 2009, p. 39, italics used
herein). The natural right of authors to their works was
established, and greater power was given to the sacro-
sanct property principle and the political legitimacy it
entails.
As a result, or as an in-depth continuation of a process
with several years of history, knowledge was made
known through a cascade of ‘chain appropriations’, of-
ten without authorization, as Robert Darnton detailed
in his work on the Encyclopedia (Darnton, 2006). That
helped, among many other things, the Enlightenment
spread thanks to a cascade of ‘illegal’ reprints. As Johns
argues,“we could say that without piracy, there would
have been no Enlightenment” (Johns, 2009, p. 53).
2.3 Editorial Christmas
Today, the average German possesses about ten thou-
sand objects. In the United Kingdom, there were about
six billion garments in 2013 — about one hundred per
adult — and a quarter of them never came out of their
drawers (Trentmann, 2017). This consumerist fever,
which has made us voracious buyers, often uncon-
trolled, is the result of a long process. Some authors trace
this behavior back to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
— the oldest reference — with its obsession with
Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-98666
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
reorganization of what we know today as intellectual
property” (Johns, 2009, p. 15).
Since the printing press arrived in England in 1471, the
printing activity was largely supervised by the Compa-
ny of Stationers, the booksellers' Company. Its primary
mission was to prevent the printing of seditious texts
and illegal behavior (at the time, they were not called
piracy), and encourage printing of manuscripts licensed
for reproduction. Theft of sheets, the printing of texts
whose content was different from what the author had
provided to the press, and a fair amount of tricks to by-
pass the rules were frequent matters denounced to the
court that set the code of conduct of the printing guild.
A recording system and the application of customary
measures, which were verified at the printer's house —
the location where the printing tasks were carried out
(hence the designation as “publishing house”) — kept
alive for a long time the “moral impetus of the book
trade in the manner of a living guild community belong-
ing to a civic sphere” (Johns, 2009, p. 27). However, this
corporation had started to crack as a consequence of
an oligarchic trend of booksellers and their increasing
interest in distinguishing themselves from the printers
until they became a distinct and hierarchically supe-
rior sector. This, in addition to the emerging conflict
between the registration and patent systems, was an
issue that soon spread across continental Europe.
By then, several ingredients turned the editorial cock-
tail into a time bomb for the established system. The
book guild was increasingly disregarding the rules that
allowed for keeping opinions under control. The wider
environment began to witness a remarkable increase in
the debate of what would become the ‘public sphere’
while the popular press became stronger, which re-
minds us of the role of social networks during the
recent US presidential election that favored Donald
Trump: “fiercely sectarian, violently partial, relentless-
ly devoted to plagiarism, and often foolishly credulous”
(Johns, 2009, p. 30).
Faced with this, the Crown believed they had found
a way to contain and take advantage of the new dis-
putes, which “were no longer those of the university,
the court, and the palace.” The arena where this was
settled was that of registrations and patents. Printers
had ceded pre-eminence to booksellers — the owners
of copies, as the Saxon book registry entries were called
— who were insatiable and encouraged the greatest
possible discord because it sold books. The proposal,
then, was to put aside registrations and award patents
to the English gentlemen far from the publishing indus-
try’s worldly passions, which meant a radical shift in
this sector.
The reaction of the booksellers was immediate. They
invented a tradition (Howsbawn & Ranger, 2011): au-
thorship understood as property. And they put her at
the center of the dispute. The American historian Adri-
an Johns considers this as the germinal formulation
of literary property — “an absolute right generated
by authorship” that could serve as the backbone of a
“moral and economic system linked to the printing
press tasks”. Of course, the idea was not supported by
any clear precedent, and, according to the American
historian, it served to make a surprising twist since
“the notion of piracy triggered the conception of a lit-
erary property principle linked to authorship and not
the other way around” (Johns, 2009, p. 39, italics used
herein). The natural right of authors to their works was
established, and greater power was given to the sacro-
sanct property principle and the political legitimacy it
entails.
As a result, or as an in-depth continuation of a process
with several years of history, knowledge was made
known through a cascade of ‘chain appropriations’, of-
ten without authorization, as Robert Darnton detailed
in his work on the Encyclopedia (Darnton, 2006). That
helped, among many other things, the Enlightenment
spread thanks to a cascade of ‘illegal’ reprints. As Johns
argues,“we could say that without piracy, there would
have been no Enlightenment” (Johns, 2009, p. 53).
2.3 Editorial Christmas
Today, the average German possesses about ten thou-
sand objects. In the United Kingdom, there were about
six billion garments in 2013 — about one hundred per
adult — and a quarter of them never came out of their
drawers (Trentmann, 2017). This consumerist fever,
which has made us voracious buyers, often uncon-
trolled, is the result of a long process. Some authors trace
this behavior back to the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644)
— the oldest reference — with its obsession with
4[Raul Marcó del Pont L alli] Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-9866
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
lacquered cups inlaid with silver and its hairstyles sup-
ported by carved bamboo forks. Others contend it lies
in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century’s Golden Age,
when even the maidens had paintings in their rooms,
and Great Britain of the 18th century, flooded by the
avalanche of novel cheap products: pipes, soaps, woven
socks, tobacco, chocolate, and coffee... (Trentmann,
2012). For the consumer society to flourish, as Trent-
mann points out, attitudes must change: “Goods do not
arrive alone. They have to be invited to come in.” And
that’s what happened with books and Christmas in the
19th century.
At that time, small printed objects began to occupy a
prominent place in one of the most important tradi-
tions of the West: Christmas. The incipient American
consumerist fever made books one of the first and most
suitable objects to give away on that date — the most
important moment of family exchange in modernity. In
The Battle for Christmas (1996), Stephen Nissenbaum
(1997) analyzes the transformation of this festivity. Be-
fore the 19th century, this period was a kind of carnival,
a time of unlimited alcohol consumption and gangster
violence, during which the most elementary rules of
coexistence and urbanity were abandoned, a festive vi-
olence that seems to be found in the antipodes of the
modern end-of-year celebration. As a reaction to the
effects of this periodic subversion of the order, a new
approach of celebration behind closed doors emerged,
in the family communion, which Nissenbaum places
as part of a long history of cultural consumption and
of practices linked to caring for children, the target of
gifts this season. And books played a central role in this
transformation: “Publishers and booksellers were the
collision forces in the exploitation and development of
a Christmas trade, and books were at the forefront of a
market-driven Christmas” (Nissenbaum, 1997, p. 140).
By the 1830s, a new type of book emerged in the US: the
gift book. This consisted of special anthologies, pro-
duced in different formats, which included an ex libris
to personalize the object, designed for market launch at
the peak of Christmas shopping. And these character-
istics, diversity of formats, and personalization allowed
something impossible to achieve for other mass-gen-
erated products: its manufacture was designed for
its reception as a sign of intimacy and affection in at
least two ways. First, the person giving the gift had to
choose, among many editions, the one that best suited
the recipient. And making the right decision was not
straightforward because publishers flooded the market
with diverse products for different social groups. Sec-
ond, the ex-libris allowed those who gave the gift to
make their choice even more personal, writing a dedi-
cation on pre-printed pages that allowed them to write
personalized messages, “suggesting, again, blurred bor-
ders between industrial mass production and personal
feelings”, and gave books a central role in transforming
Christmas into a consumerist holiday (Striphas, 2011,
pp. 7–8).
This description is hardly surprising. Febvre and Mar-
tin (2005, p. 290) pointed out that we should bear in
mind the fact that “from the beginning, printers and
booksellers worked for profit”; as McLuhan points out,
“from the beginning, the printing press has to tackle
the issue of ‘meeting the public demands” (McLuhan,
1985, p. 246). Or, to state it more forcefully, as the
bibliomane Michel Melot argues: “The book has nev-
er escaped capitalism, it is his son. It was a church. It
became a market. From one to the other, the cleric has
changed” (Melot, 2007, p. 26).
2.4 The Book, Its CURP and the Beginnings of the
Supermarket
Two additional examples illustrate our point and fight
the idea of editorial immobility, which should help to
scare away the ghosts of a moldy industry that looks
perpetually at its navel. Now we will address relatively
recent issues — the ISBN and the barcode — and how
the book trade transformed their exhibition. Books
have not only been part of consumer capitalism, which
practically started with them but are part of the fuel
that drives it and the key to understanding the forms of
change and evolution of this transforming consumerist
capitalism.
Although its massive application is relatively recent,
the history of ISBN dates back at least some 60 years
ago. In 1965, W. H. Smith & Son, the then-largest En-
glish bookstore chain, decided to translate its paper
inventories into computer records. The challenges
started when deciding on which of the multiple criteria
used to identify a book was to be considered (author,
title, edition, publishing house, type of binding, date
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
lacquered cups inlaid with silver and its hairstyles sup-
ported by carved bamboo forks. Others contend it lies
in the Dutch Republic of the 17th century’s Golden Age,
when even the maidens had paintings in their rooms,
and Great Britain of the 18th century, flooded by the
avalanche of novel cheap products: pipes, soaps, woven
socks, tobacco, chocolate, and coffee... (Trentmann,
2012). For the consumer society to flourish, as Trent-
mann points out, attitudes must change: “Goods do not
arrive alone. They have to be invited to come in.” And
that’s what happened with books and Christmas in the
19th century.
At that time, small printed objects began to occupy a
prominent place in one of the most important tradi-
tions of the West: Christmas. The incipient American
consumerist fever made books one of the first and most
suitable objects to give away on that date — the most
important moment of family exchange in modernity. In
The Battle for Christmas (1996), Stephen Nissenbaum
(1997) analyzes the transformation of this festivity. Be-
fore the 19th century, this period was a kind of carnival,
a time of unlimited alcohol consumption and gangster
violence, during which the most elementary rules of
coexistence and urbanity were abandoned, a festive vi-
olence that seems to be found in the antipodes of the
modern end-of-year celebration. As a reaction to the
effects of this periodic subversion of the order, a new
approach of celebration behind closed doors emerged,
in the family communion, which Nissenbaum places
as part of a long history of cultural consumption and
of practices linked to caring for children, the target of
gifts this season. And books played a central role in this
transformation: “Publishers and booksellers were the
collision forces in the exploitation and development of
a Christmas trade, and books were at the forefront of a
market-driven Christmas” (Nissenbaum, 1997, p. 140).
By the 1830s, a new type of book emerged in the US: the
gift book. This consisted of special anthologies, pro-
duced in different formats, which included an ex libris
to personalize the object, designed for market launch at
the peak of Christmas shopping. And these character-
istics, diversity of formats, and personalization allowed
something impossible to achieve for other mass-gen-
erated products: its manufacture was designed for
its reception as a sign of intimacy and affection in at
least two ways. First, the person giving the gift had to
choose, among many editions, the one that best suited
the recipient. And making the right decision was not
straightforward because publishers flooded the market
with diverse products for different social groups. Sec-
ond, the ex-libris allowed those who gave the gift to
make their choice even more personal, writing a dedi-
cation on pre-printed pages that allowed them to write
personalized messages, “suggesting, again, blurred bor-
ders between industrial mass production and personal
feelings”, and gave books a central role in transforming
Christmas into a consumerist holiday (Striphas, 2011,
pp. 7–8).
This description is hardly surprising. Febvre and Mar-
tin (2005, p. 290) pointed out that we should bear in
mind the fact that “from the beginning, printers and
booksellers worked for profit”; as McLuhan points out,
“from the beginning, the printing press has to tackle
the issue of ‘meeting the public demands” (McLuhan,
1985, p. 246). Or, to state it more forcefully, as the
bibliomane Michel Melot argues: “The book has nev-
er escaped capitalism, it is his son. It was a church. It
became a market. From one to the other, the cleric has
changed” (Melot, 2007, p. 26).
2.4 The Book, Its CURP and the Beginnings of the
Supermarket
Two additional examples illustrate our point and fight
the idea of editorial immobility, which should help to
scare away the ghosts of a moldy industry that looks
perpetually at its navel. Now we will address relatively
recent issues — the ISBN and the barcode — and how
the book trade transformed their exhibition. Books
have not only been part of consumer capitalism, which
practically started with them but are part of the fuel
that drives it and the key to understanding the forms of
change and evolution of this transforming consumerist
capitalism.
Although its massive application is relatively recent,
the history of ISBN dates back at least some 60 years
ago. In 1965, W. H. Smith & Son, the then-largest En-
glish bookstore chain, decided to translate its paper
inventories into computer records. The challenges
started when deciding on which of the multiple criteria
used to identify a book was to be considered (author,
title, edition, publishing house, type of binding, date
5[Before Amazon. Publishing Industry and Cultural Mutations]
Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-98666
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
of edition, or language, among others). Converting the
data from the old analog system into digital entries
was an issue for a model with a limited capacity for
information handling and that more efficient handling
numbers. That was the origin of the Standard Book
Number (SBN), a predecessor of the well-known ISBN
(International Standard Book Number), something like
the CURP of books — a result of the need to create “an
abstraction that would allow the endless repetition of
individual cases … without excessively particularizing
these objects” (Radway, 1999, p. 166). The model would
later be copied by the music industry, which until then
had failed in its search for an abstract alternative ap-
plicable to vinyl records and also by sweet producers,
among the most prominent sectors.
On the other hand, the increase in postwar college en-
rolment led American bookstores to face the need to
find better exhibition and sales models for an ever-in-
creasing number of volumes and readers. To this end,
they made a series of decisions that privileged volume
sales over aesthetic considerations. This led to “the
peculiar history of the relationship between book and
food sale” (Striphas, 2011, p. 58). Contrary to what we
could assume today, it was bookstores that paved the
way to supermarkets and not the other way around.
In what way? With shelves that were not behind the
counters, with products arranged to be browsed occa-
sionally and for what would later be called self-service.
It is hard to imagine today, but when, for example, food
products sold in stores lacked clear labels or packaging,
book covers served as protection and as bait to attract
shoppers. Faced with the established idea that books
should be treated as sacral objects, this novel marketing
model launched a triad consisting of volume, efficiency,
and marketing, paving the way for the modern super-
market and mass marketing.
3. Reflection
As Striphas (2011, p. 187) reminds us, academic re-
flection on the book publishing industry is another
example of Minerva's owl: we focus our energies on a
phenomenon at the point where we are about to lose it.
And so, when we revisit the past, and more so publish-
ing, there is a mixture of nostalgia and the knowledge
that we are trying to understand a world that is evap-
orating.
However, as we have tried to illustrate through the
examples we have briefly rescued from oblivion in this
text, the often-journalistic discussions about the worn-
out book crisis we have suffered during the last three
decades, have obscured, by simplification, the complex,
novel and ingenious publishing practices that have be-
come routines associated with the world of modern
consumption. In fact, they have been at the forefront
of capitalist development for the last five hundred
years. And the examples discussed show that they are
still there.
4. Conclusion
According to Philips and Bhaskar (2020, p. 24), the ed-
itorial work triggered, accompanied, and fostered other
profound cultural changes, such as the Reform, scien-
tific revolution, modernism, and communism. So it is
not by chance that Amazon, through this Western civ-
ilization brick, with over 500 years behind it, is, again,
the spearhead of a powerful transformation.
5. References
1. Darnton, Robert (2006). El negocio de la Ilustración. Fondo
de Cultura Económica.
2. Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri (2005). La aparición del libro.
Fondo de Cultura Económica.
3. Hesmondhalgh, David; Baker, Sarah (2011). Creative labour:
Media work in three cultural industries. Routledge.
4. Howsbawn, Eric; Ranger, Terence (Eds.) (2011). The inven-
tion of tradition. Cambridge University Press.
5. Johns, Adrian (2009). Piracy. The intellectual property wars
from Gutenberg to Gates. University of Chicago Press.
6. MacLuhan, Marshall (1985). La galaxia Gutenberg. Génesis del
“Homo Typographicus”. Planeta.
7. Melot, Michel (2007). ¿Y cómo va “la muerte del libro”?
Istor, 31, 7-26.
8. Menger Pierre-Michel (2009). Le travail créateur. S’accomplir
dans l’incertain. Gallimard, Le Seuil.
9. Nissenbaum, Stephen (1997). The battle for Christmas. A cul-
tural history of America's most cherished holiday. Vintage Books.
Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-98666
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
of edition, or language, among others). Converting the
data from the old analog system into digital entries
was an issue for a model with a limited capacity for
information handling and that more efficient handling
numbers. That was the origin of the Standard Book
Number (SBN), a predecessor of the well-known ISBN
(International Standard Book Number), something like
the CURP of books — a result of the need to create “an
abstraction that would allow the endless repetition of
individual cases … without excessively particularizing
these objects” (Radway, 1999, p. 166). The model would
later be copied by the music industry, which until then
had failed in its search for an abstract alternative ap-
plicable to vinyl records and also by sweet producers,
among the most prominent sectors.
On the other hand, the increase in postwar college en-
rolment led American bookstores to face the need to
find better exhibition and sales models for an ever-in-
creasing number of volumes and readers. To this end,
they made a series of decisions that privileged volume
sales over aesthetic considerations. This led to “the
peculiar history of the relationship between book and
food sale” (Striphas, 2011, p. 58). Contrary to what we
could assume today, it was bookstores that paved the
way to supermarkets and not the other way around.
In what way? With shelves that were not behind the
counters, with products arranged to be browsed occa-
sionally and for what would later be called self-service.
It is hard to imagine today, but when, for example, food
products sold in stores lacked clear labels or packaging,
book covers served as protection and as bait to attract
shoppers. Faced with the established idea that books
should be treated as sacral objects, this novel marketing
model launched a triad consisting of volume, efficiency,
and marketing, paving the way for the modern super-
market and mass marketing.
3. Reflection
As Striphas (2011, p. 187) reminds us, academic re-
flection on the book publishing industry is another
example of Minerva's owl: we focus our energies on a
phenomenon at the point where we are about to lose it.
And so, when we revisit the past, and more so publish-
ing, there is a mixture of nostalgia and the knowledge
that we are trying to understand a world that is evap-
orating.
However, as we have tried to illustrate through the
examples we have briefly rescued from oblivion in this
text, the often-journalistic discussions about the worn-
out book crisis we have suffered during the last three
decades, have obscured, by simplification, the complex,
novel and ingenious publishing practices that have be-
come routines associated with the world of modern
consumption. In fact, they have been at the forefront
of capitalist development for the last five hundred
years. And the examples discussed show that they are
still there.
4. Conclusion
According to Philips and Bhaskar (2020, p. 24), the ed-
itorial work triggered, accompanied, and fostered other
profound cultural changes, such as the Reform, scien-
tific revolution, modernism, and communism. So it is
not by chance that Amazon, through this Western civ-
ilization brick, with over 500 years behind it, is, again,
the spearhead of a powerful transformation.
5. References
1. Darnton, Robert (2006). El negocio de la Ilustración. Fondo
de Cultura Económica.
2. Febvre, Lucien; Martin, Henri (2005). La aparición del libro.
Fondo de Cultura Económica.
3. Hesmondhalgh, David; Baker, Sarah (2011). Creative labour:
Media work in three cultural industries. Routledge.
4. Howsbawn, Eric; Ranger, Terence (Eds.) (2011). The inven-
tion of tradition. Cambridge University Press.
5. Johns, Adrian (2009). Piracy. The intellectual property wars
from Gutenberg to Gates. University of Chicago Press.
6. MacLuhan, Marshall (1985). La galaxia Gutenberg. Génesis del
“Homo Typographicus”. Planeta.
7. Melot, Michel (2007). ¿Y cómo va “la muerte del libro”?
Istor, 31, 7-26.
8. Menger Pierre-Michel (2009). Le travail créateur. S’accomplir
dans l’incertain. Gallimard, Le Seuil.
9. Nissenbaum, Stephen (1997). The battle for Christmas. A cul-
tural history of America's most cherished holiday. Vintage Books.
6[Raul Marcó del Pont L alli] Rev. Interam. Bibliot. Medellín (Colombia) Vol. 47, número 1/enero-marzo 2024 e354358 ISSN 0120-0976 / ISSN (en línea) 2538-9866
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
10. Phillips, Angus; Bhaskar, Michael (2020). El universo de
la edición. Trama & Texturas, 42, 21–34.
11. Radway, Janice (1999). A feeling for books. The book-of-the-
month club, literary taste, and middle-class desire. The University
of North Carolina Press.
12. Striphas, Theodore (2011). The late age of print. Everyday book
culture from consumerism to control. Columbia University
Press.
13. Trentmann, Frank (Ed.) (2012). Introduction. In The
Oxford handbook of the History of Consumption (pp. 1–19).
Oxford University Press.
14. Trentmann, Frank (2017). Empire of things: How we became
a world of consumers, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first.
Allen Lane.
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.rib.v47n1e354358
10. Phillips, Angus; Bhaskar, Michael (2020). El universo de
la edición. Trama & Texturas, 42, 21–34.
11. Radway, Janice (1999). A feeling for books. The book-of-the-
month club, literary taste, and middle-class desire. The University
of North Carolina Press.
12. Striphas, Theodore (2011). The late age of print. Everyday book
culture from consumerism to control. Columbia University
Press.
13. Trentmann, Frank (Ed.) (2012). Introduction. In The
Oxford handbook of the History of Consumption (pp. 1–19).
Oxford University Press.
14. Trentmann, Frank (2017). Empire of things: How we became
a world of consumers, from the fifteenth century to the twenty-first.
Allen Lane.