Modern Publishing 2026 - User contributions [en]

Blurb

2026-04-09T03:06:22Z

Dylan2000YT: Added to Glossary category

[[File:Joyce M. Mendez Bionote.jpg|alt=A couple of paragraphs located on the back of a book organized into two sections, one discussing details of the textbook itself and another dedicated to introducing the author to the textbook's readers.|thumb|A blurb explaining the important facets of a textbook, detailing to potential readers what the textbook contains and what about the author makes the textbook prevalent and useful to read.]]

== Definition ==
A blurb is a short, often promotional description that appears on the back cover or dust jacket of a book that briefly describes a book's contents via summary and potentially remarks from other authors or book reviewers. While blurbs vary in specific contents depending on the book they are analyzing, their aim often remains as a means to sell a book based on presenting the book generally in a positive scope for an audience to become interested in the book's contents on a greater scale.

== Formation ==
Blurbs are typically developed by publisher of a given book and not by its author, though sometimes authors are asked to give a description of their book to then be revised by the publisher as a part of their advertising duties. As a result of blurbs most often being developed by the publisher, however, publishers often do not read the complete manuscripts of books before forming their blurbs and would rather focus on crafting general summaries and inserting quotations from prominent people with relation to the book's contents to bolster its image to its audience.<ref>Swick, Charles L. “The Book Blurb.” ''English Journal'' [Urbana, Ill., etc], vol. 28, no. 2, February 1939, pp. 140–42, <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.2307/805325</nowiki>.</ref>

== Common Elements ==
In addition to a focus on summarizing a book through noting its main scenarios, characters, themes, and other subjects of interest, there are more specific elements of blurbs that have been found to be successful in drawing the attention of readers and therefore are typically emulated in the crafting of modern blurbs. Here are some examples of common elements of blurbs that have found to be successful:

* Describing the book in great detail (often by introducing its plot or topic to an extent beyond what is discussed in its first chapter)
* Establishing a niche that the book highlights to make it stand out to a specific audience
* Promoting the book, often through inserting positive reviews
* Providing the author's background (including professional and non-professional credentials)<ref>Neslihan Önder. “Generic Structure and Promotional Elements in Best-Selling Online Book Blurbs.” ''Ibérica (Castellón de La Plana, Spain)'', no. 25, January 2013.</ref>
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[[Category:Glossary]]

Blurb

2026-04-09T03:05:13Z

Dylan2000YT: Added most of the page (Image, Definition, Formation, and Common Elements sections)

Project Gutenberg

2026-04-09T02:16:29Z

Dylan2000YT: Added to Glossary category... again? (Idk didn't seem to save the first time)

[[File:First Project Gutenberg Homepage.png|alt=Shows a website with several navigation options leading to different preserved eBooks that Project Gutenberg has preserved.|thumb|A screenshot from the first ever homepage for Project Gutenberg. At the time, the project is shown to have archived at least 45,000 books.]]

== Definition ==
Project Gutenberg is an archival project aimed at preserving old literature and making it easily accessible to the public for universal use. It is the oldest collection of literary works on the Internet, serving as a digital library for works of many kinds that can be accessed in eBook form, free of charge.

== Origins ==
Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, when he created the project's first eBook, a copy of the ''United States Declaration of Independence'', and distributed it over the Internet.<ref name=":0">Newby, Gregory B. ''Forty-Five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg’s Practices''. Project Gutenberg.</ref> Hart was inspired to create the publication after being granted access to a powerful mainframe computer at the University of Illinois, as it occurred to him that there would be great value in digitizing and distributing literature for its preservation and easier accessibility.<ref name=":0" /> To this day, Project Gutenberg continues to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks as a part of the archive's motto.<ref name=":1">Das, Rajesh, and Uttam Kumar Hazra. “An Assessment of Educational Resources through ERIC, CORE, PDFdrive and Project Gutenberg.” ''Library Philosophy and Practice'' [Lincoln], April 2019, pp. 1–12.</ref>

== Focuses ==
Project Gutenberg predominantly aims to archive work located in the public domain, or works that are not copyrighted and can be shared freely over the internet, to help the archive possess easily distributable literature that would not run into any impediments as a result of copyright infringement.<ref name=":0" /> Publishing works found in the public domain also allows the archive to promote the enabling of literacy through preserving historical significance stemming from literary work from past generations.<ref name=":0" />

In addition, Project Gutenberg has grown to support a wide reach of genres since its founding. In the present day, the archival has expanded to possess the following types of literary collections:

* Novels<ref name=":1" />
* Poetry<ref name=":1" />
* Short Stories<ref name=":1" />
* Drama<ref name=":1" />
* Cookbooks<ref name=":1" />
* Reference work<ref name=":1" />
* Issues from periodicals of English, French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese languages<ref name=":1" />
<references />
[[index.php?title=Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:Glossary]]

File:Joyce M. Mendez Bionote.jpg

2026-04-09T02:08:33Z

Dylan2000YT:

A blurb explaining the important facets of a textbook, detailing to potential readers what the textbook contains and what about the author makes the textbook prevalent and useful to read.

Blurb

2026-04-08T22:29:49Z

Dylan2000YT: Created page

Blurbs are

Project Gutenberg

2026-03-26T04:12:50Z

Dylan2000YT: Added "definition" header

Project Gutenberg

2026-03-26T04:11:40Z

Dylan2000YT: Added to Glossary category

[[File:First Project Gutenberg Homepage.png|alt=Shows a website with several navigation options leading to different preserved eBooks that Project Gutenberg has preserved.|thumb|A screenshot from the first ever homepage for Project Gutenberg. At the time, the project is shown to have archived at least 45,000 books.]]
Project Gutenberg is an archival project aimed at preserving old literature and making it easily accessible to the public for universal use. It is the oldest collection of literary works on the Internet, serving as a digital library for works of many kinds that can be accessed in eBook form, free of charge.

== Origins ==
Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, when he created the project's first eBook, a copy of the ''United States Declaration of Independence'', and distributed it over the Internet.<ref name=":0">Newby, Gregory B. ''Forty-Five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg’s Practices''. Project Gutenberg.</ref> Hart was inspired to create the publication after being granted access to a powerful mainframe computer at the University of Illinois, as it occurred to him that there would be great value in digitizing and distributing literature for its preservation and easier accessibility.<ref name=":0" /> To this day, Project Gutenberg continues to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks as a part of the archive's motto.<ref name=":1">Das, Rajesh, and Uttam Kumar Hazra. “An Assessment of Educational Resources through ERIC, CORE, PDFdrive and Project Gutenberg.” ''Library Philosophy and Practice'' [Lincoln], April 2019, pp. 1–12.</ref>

== Focuses ==
Project Gutenberg predominantly aims to archive work located in the public domain, or works that are not copyrighted and can be shared freely over the internet, to help the archive possess easily distributable literature that would not run into any impediments as a result of copyright infringement.<ref name=":0" /> Publishing works found in the public domain also allows the archive to promote the enabling of literacy through preserving historical significance stemming from literary work from past generations.<ref name=":0" />

In addition, Project Gutenberg has grown to support a wide reach of genres since its founding. In the present day, the archival has expanded to possess the following types of literary collections:

* Novels<ref name=":1" />
* Poetry<ref name=":1" />
* Short Stories<ref name=":1" />
* Drama<ref name=":1" />
* Cookbooks<ref name=":1" />
* Reference work<ref name=":1" />
* Issues from periodicals of English, French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese languages<ref name=":1" />
<references />
[[Category:Glossary]]

Project Gutenberg

2026-03-26T04:11:17Z

Dylan2000YT: Finished "Origins", added citations, and added "Focuses"

[[File:First Project Gutenberg Homepage.png|alt=Shows a website with several navigation options leading to different preserved eBooks that Project Gutenberg has preserved.|thumb|A screenshot from the first ever homepage for Project Gutenberg. At the time, the project is shown to have archived at least 45,000 books.]]
Project Gutenberg is an archival project aimed at preserving old literature and making it easily accessible to the public for universal use. It is the oldest collection of literary works on the Internet, serving as a digital library for works of many kinds that can be accessed in eBook form, free of charge.

== Origins ==
Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, when he created the project's first eBook, a copy of the ''United States Declaration of Independence'', and distributed it over the Internet.<ref name=":0">Newby, Gregory B. ''Forty-Five Years of Digitizing Ebooks: Project Gutenberg’s Practices''. Project Gutenberg.</ref> Hart was inspired to create the publication after being granted access to a powerful mainframe computer at the University of Illinois, as it occurred to him that there would be great value in digitizing and distributing literature for its preservation and easier accessibility.<ref name=":0" /> To this day, Project Gutenberg continues to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks as a part of the archive's motto.<ref name=":1">Das, Rajesh, and Uttam Kumar Hazra. “An Assessment of Educational Resources through ERIC, CORE, PDFdrive and Project Gutenberg.” ''Library Philosophy and Practice'' [Lincoln], April 2019, pp. 1–12.</ref>

== Focuses ==
Project Gutenberg predominantly aims to archive work located in the public domain, or works that are not copyrighted and can be shared freely over the internet, to help the archive possess easily distributable literature that would not run into any impediments as a result of copyright infringement.<ref name=":0" /> Publishing works found in the public domain also allows the archive to promote the enabling of literacy through preserving historical significance stemming from literary work from past generations.<ref name=":0" />

In addition, Project Gutenberg has grown to support a wide reach of genres since its founding. In the present day, the archival has expanded to possess the following types of literary collections:

* Novels<ref name=":1" />
* Poetry<ref name=":1" />
* Short Stories<ref name=":1" />
* Drama<ref name=":1" />
* Cookbooks<ref name=":1" />
* Reference work<ref name=":1" />
* Issues from periodicals of English, French, German, Finnish, Dutch, Italian, and Portuguese languages<ref name=":1" />

Project Gutenberg

2026-03-26T03:42:13Z

Dylan2000YT: Added image, definition and start of "Origins" section

File:First Project Gutenberg Homepage.png

2026-03-26T00:36:44Z

Dylan2000YT:

A screenshot from the first ever homepage for Project Gutenberg. At the time, the project is shown to have archived at least 45,000 books.

Project Gutenberg

2026-03-24T02:22:49Z

Dylan2000YT: Created page with "Project Gutenberg is a"

Project Gutenberg is a

Photocopy

2026-03-24T01:46:17Z

Dylan2000YT: Added to Glossary category

[[File:Xerox Photocopier from GlenOak High School Library.jpg|alt=Large device located in the middle of a library, used to produce photocopies|thumb|A heavily used, conventional Xerox photocopier found in the library of GlenOak High School in Canton, Ohio, USA. Photocopiers are designed exclusively for the purpose of creating photocopies.]]

== Definition ==
A photocopy is a piece of paper with a printed image on it, where the image is sourced from an already existing piece of physical media (i.e. a magazine or a poster). By printing an image of an already existent entity onto paper, a photographic form of the entity is created as a paper copy of the original work, hence the term's name. Photocopies typically are produced using dedicated machinery (most commonly in the form of photocopiers) and commonly are produced multiple times per original copy of a given work, often for the purpose of easier distribution of a physical work by transferring the original work's content onto paper for easier storage and handling.

== History of Photocopies ==
Photocopies have been around since the 1940s, where photocopiers capable of performing what was referred to as "xerography" style printing began to be produced and allowed for the production of photocopies on large scales for the first time.<ref name=":0">Curtis, Makyla. “Certified Copies: 1980s New Zealand Photocopy Journals & the Xerographic Aesthetic.” ''Journal of New Zealand Literature (JNZL)'', no. 34.2, 2016, pp. 81–103. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/44066249</nowiki>. Accessed 14 Mar. 2026.</ref> However, it took some time after that for photocopiers, and in turn photocopies, to become easily accessible by the public and to be integrated into day to day business practices. It was in the 1960s that photocopies began to play a role in professional settings, and it wouldn't be until the 1970s for print photocopies to become accessible enough to be used as an easier means for individual printing in an everyday setting.<ref name=":0" />

== Impact of Photocopies ==
Once photocopies became mainstream and people began to have access to large-scale production of photocopies, it became much easier for people across the world to create, share, and preserve media through simply photographing and printing the original work.

=== Zines ===
Through an enhanced means of easily crafting and distributing several copies of a written work, authors and publishers were able to find a much easier way to share their work in the form of zines. Though zines had been around since the 1930s, the advent of publicly accessible photocopies in the 1970s allowed them to become much more practical, and they began to be a popular way of communicating in underground scenes (such as punk fans) during that time.<ref name=":0" />

=== Historical Preservation ===
As soon as photocopies were accessible in a professional setting, historians found that they held immense value in the ability to instantly form brand new copies of written work, and so photocopies began to be used for the creation of new copies for deteriorating historical works compatible with photocopiers, such as collections of old newspapers and other dated publications.<ref>Eckles, Robert B. “The Importance of Photocopy Projects for Local and Regional History.” ''The American Archivist'', vol. 25, no. 2, 1962, pp. 159–63. ''JSTOR'', <nowiki>http://www.jstor.org/stable/40290145</nowiki>. Accessed 14 Mar. 2026.</ref>
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[[Category:Glossary]]

Photocopy

2026-03-14T03:48:47Z

Dylan2000YT: Finished page: added Impact segment with second citation

Photocopy

2026-03-14T03:16:18Z

Dylan2000YT: First half: image, definition, and first citation

File:Xerox Photocopier from GlenOak High School Library.jpg

2026-03-14T02:15:28Z

Dylan2000YT:

A heavily used, conventional Xerox photocopier found in the library of GlenOak High School in Canton, Ohio, USA. Photocopiers are designed exclusively for the purpose of creating photocopies.

Photocopy

2026-03-10T15:31:48Z

Dylan2000YT: y to ie typo :0

Photocopies are mine :)

Publishers

2026-02-17T14:08:49Z

Dylan2000YT: Added to Glossary category

[[File:Veda Publishing House.jpg|alt=A publishing house, consistent of an office space-like printing house with many printing machines inside.|thumb|The inside of a publishing house on an academy campus. Many larger publishers might have offices that look similar to this, with a printing house and several printing machines, but many smaller publishers do not require office space to publish their works.]]
Publishers are businesses (run with teams or by individual people) that receive literary work and edit, produce, and distribute physical and digital copies of the literary work to be sold in markets of varying types. They vary greatly in size, with some publishers taking the form of multi-million dollar businesses (such as the big five publishers), whereas others involve makeshift operations sometimes led from one's home.

=== What publishers do ===
All publishers must go through several steps in order to properly prepare all literary work they receive for proper publication. Here are a few of the tasks publishers handle over the course of the modern publishing process:

* Marketing (including the researching of similar literary works published recently, referred to as "comps", that a work may be competing with)
* Editing (involving for the most part development of a work such that it aligns best with its target audience)
* Production (the physical composition and design of a work)
* Publicity (promotion of the work through media)
* Sales and Distribution (sending the work to various kinds of markets to be purchased)

This process sets literary works up for the highest chance of success in the modern book market and continues to be refined today.<ref>Biel, Joe. ''A People’s Guide to Publishing: Build a Successful, Sustainable, Meaningful Book Business''. 2018.</ref>

=== Publishing Conglomerates ===
Publishing Conglomerates, otherwise known as "the big 5" in regards to publishers, are the five biggest publishing companies in the United States, listed here:

* Hachette Book Group
* HarperCollins Publishers
* Macmillan Publishers
* Penguin Random House
* Simon & Schuster

These companies are foreign owned, and books make for only a small fraction of their revenues.<ref>Herman, Jeff. ''Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents, 29th Edition : Who They Are, What They Want, How to Win Them Over''. First edition., New World Library, 2023.</ref>

=== Independent Presses ===
Any publisher not owned by "the big 5" is considered to be an independent publisher. These publishers are typically much smaller in size, but benefit greatly from the freedom to be ran in any way the owner desires, which allows for far more versatile variations of the typical publishing business, even down to running all operations by oneself out of one's own home.
<references />
[[Category:Glossary]]

Publishers

2026-02-17T14:03:15Z

Dylan2000YT: Finished "Independent Publishers"

Publishers

2026-02-17T08:50:56Z

Dylan2000YT: Added image and section "what a publisher does"

File:Veda Publishing House.jpg

2026-02-17T04:22:22Z

Dylan2000YT:

The inside of a publishing house on a campus.

Publishers

2026-02-03T05:05:59Z

Dylan2000YT: Added headings of interest, details plus one source for Publishing Conglomerates

Publishers are businesses (run with teams or by individual people) that receive literary work and edit, produce, and distribute physical and digital copies of the literary work to be sold in markets of varying types. They vary greatly in size, with some publishers taking the form of multi-million dollar businesses (such as the big five publishers), whereas others involve makeshift operations sometimes led from one's home.

=== What publishers do ===

=== Publishing Conglomerates ===
Publishing Conglomerates, otherwise known as "the big 5" in regards to publishers, are the five biggest publishing companies in the United States, listed here:

* Hachette Book Group
* HarperCollins Publishers
* Macmillan Publishers
* Penguin Random House
* Simon & Schuster

These companies are foreign owned, and books make for only a small fraction of their revenues.<ref>Herman, Jeff. ''Jeff Herman’s Guide to Book Publishers, Editors and Literary Agents, 29th Edition : Who They Are, What They Want, How to Win Them Over''. First edition., New World Library, 2023.</ref>

=== Independent Presses ===

Publishers

2026-02-03T03:25:09Z

Dylan2000YT: Added basic definition

Publishers

2026-01-27T15:39:18Z

Dylan2000YT: Created page with "Publishers are"

Publishers are