Publishing

Recently we have been learning about the importance of publishing in the industry. To this day, the UK book industry export far exceeds the turnover of current/modern TV and technology sales proving that even in today's ever changing world  books are still the most popular and most desired things, for people of all ages.

The UK publishing industry is worth £4.5 billion and they have a mass market including paperbacks. 60% of the industry sales occur within the UK, with best selling fictions and non fictions.

Penguin books are the biggest book company across the world. I have discussed this company a lot in recent posts as it is definitely a very important one to look out for.

Working publishers have a lot to consider when collaborating with authors. They must intrigue those considered and interested in the book and who and what ages the book is aimed at with tone and atmosphere in their designs. They want the potential reader to look at their designed cover of a book and for them to feel intrigued and excited to explore what is within it. Book publishers must read and research the book immediately before getting to work, constantly communicating with the author and find inspiration from them whilst working almost jointly on the project. Communicating with the author is a very important part of designing the book cover, as well as researching the book is, because depending on what lies within the pages, the book might suit different types of publishing. One book might best be suited for an illustrated cover, where another perhaps photography could be used and so on. It might take a million times to get it right and often if you research a favorite book and cover, you will see the developments of the design covers produced by the publisher working on the project.

Small Press are a very interesting and small publishing company. The link to their site displays a list of all of the independent publishers they have working for them. They take hold of a small percentage of the market and therefore have a much more daring production. There is currently a bigger rise in their demand but they withhold an opportunity to be much more productive.

Nobrow is a company that holds a strong platform for graphic design, illustrators and publishers. Here I have again linked to their list of artists, because this gives me an opportunity to browse their work in the future for inspiration. Their website is very interesting to view and this is a great publishing company to look in to because of how many opportunities they hold out to you.

work by John Martz found on the Nobrow site

Gestalten books are each designed individually and uniquely. They do not stick to the same formats for each book and designed also around the author. The books are bought because they are beautiful, and are often purchased simply for decoration purposes because of how beautifully crafted they are - they are very desirable.

Book cover design is massively important because that is what sells the book commercially. The cover of the book inevitably puts that piece of literature into the readers hand, that is what draws them in.

Children's books are very important in the world, and are a very important aspect of book design and illustration to consider. Children's books are bought so often by adults, and so this is an important thing to remember if considering going down this route, because your audience varies because you are aiming to intrigue both the child and the parent, so your designs must look exciting for adults also. There is a growing market for children's books both printed and digital, and the different genres are also important to consider as they are varying: picture books, younger fiction, general fiction, teenage fiction and non fiction. Looking into children's books will benefit me as it holds onto many different aspects of illustration. It is a competitive area also because more often than enough, traditional books for children will become popular again in sales because parents want to purchase books from their own childhood for their children to enjoy. Children's books are therefore aimed at the audience of adults as well as youngsters. Teenagers books are aimed at teenagers for they buy their own as well as adult novels. 

Random House Kids are a large children's book company which have a great amount of publishers working for their team. They often use animals in their artwork because they are good for children to identify with.

Book cover from author Lesley M. M. Blume from Random House Kids

Work by Jean Webster at Random House Kids

Publishing and designing things for journals is to be considered, journals for educational, academic, medical, reference, scientific, technical and professional purposes are all very popular to design for in the field. Editorials are also important things to consider, such as newspapers, periodicals, magazines and small press like zines etc which are very big and would be exciting to work with.

The different areas of publishing include:

•  Editorial
• Design
• Production
• Marketing
• Distrtibution
• Legal
• Administration 

It is important that I research into these different areas and learn more about them. After looking on the internet to find out more about the importance of editorial in the industry, I have found this site which explained that editing is very important in the publishing process because the different areas of publishing including book publishers, advertising, public relation forms and marketing companies each have their own team of editors to work on projects with, as well as proofreaders and quality control specialists. They each contribute greatly towards the publishing process and ensure that the content of the piece is well written, correct in terms of grammar and basically error free. I looked at design next, where I found this site which explained in excellent detail the impact of the designed cover of a book, and the great importance it has. This is because as I discussed previously, it advertises the whole book. The webpage explains that in supermarkets we often see books being displayed so that the cover is being faced towards the potential buyer, the cover is what draws readers in and puts the novel in the readers hands. I found that this site was very helpful in learning more about the marketing in publishing.

I have learned that I am very interested in the idea of publishing and the publishing process. I have learned a lot about it and find it quite fascinating. I like the idea of designing book covers, and the near future I plan to look into the publishers of a favorite magazine of my choice.