Making Book

A Preface is written by the author of the material following in the body of the book: it usually sets out the reasons for undertaking this work. A Foreword is a similar introductory piece in the front matter, before we’re into the book itself, but written by another person, more or less eminent, telling us, […]

Bertelsmann has taken over as champion in the annual contest to nominate the world’s largest publisher. Publishers Weekly gives us the exciting news. Last year ThomsonReuters held first place. They are now third. Simon & Schuster do not figure in the list, for the simple reason that they have not disclosed revenue since 2023 when […]

This diagram was shared recently over a pint (or two) with a senior editor at a university press. Such authoritative instruction obviously deserves to be shared. (I have added the letters to label the diagram.) Legend:A + B: the universe of academics in a particular subjectB: the part of that universe of academics with viable […]

We humans like to think we are so smart — but we show all too many signs of latching on to any handy idea which suits our preconceptions and sticking with it to the exclusion of evidence to the contrary. It’s sort of like the writing issue I was holding forth on a couple of […]

It was the development of print which enabled us to start to think about the possibility of there being genuine and fake books, and to wish for accurate rather than inaccurate ones. Before that any hand-written book was just a hand-written book: it made no claim to authority over and above any other hand-written copy. […]