Why were books so expensive in the 1800s? Many factors, including the costs of copyright libraries, censorship, and reprinting rights, contributed to their high cost. There are also issues relating to the availability of copyright libraries and the cost of printing, publishing, and selling books. This article discusses some of these issues. However, you should also keep in mind that the costs of books have decreased dramatically since the 1800s.
Availability of copyright libraries
The US Constitution’s first section regarding copyright protections was implemented in 1790 by the First Congress. The Copyright Act of 1790, which was modeled on the Statute of Anne (1710), granted American authors the right to publish and distribute their works for fourteen years. The act also provided for renewal of the right, which was meant to reward authors for creating their works. The Library of Congress’s annual growth was a major reason for the new legislation.
Cost of printing
Printing in the 1800s was very expensive. It was common to purchase a yearly subscription to a large daily newspaper, which cost around eight or ten dollars, although newspapers were rarely sold separately. A dollar was equivalent to approximately twenty cents today, and a laborer’s daily wage was 40 cents to one dollar. Stereotyping made reprinting books easier and cheaper, but it was still more expensive than composition alone.
The first steam press was used in the United Kingdom in the early 1800s. It could print up to 480 pages an hour, but later it became possible to print a thousand pages per hour. In 1814, the king of England surprised printers by sending them a finished paper. In the 1820s, the steam press was commonplace, and book production became cheaper. It also became easier to produce large sheets.
Cost of publishing
The 1800s marked the beginning of the modern book industry. Publishing was centered in New York City, with major publishers like Scribner, Putnam, and Harper Bros. The nineteenth century also marked the beginning of the royalty system and copyright protection. In the early nineteenth century, authors often had to share costs with printers. Nevertheless, many self-published books were successful and became very popular. In the 1840s, the first American publishers started spending their own money on printing. After recovering the printing costs, they paid the authors royalties. By 1846, George Palmer Putnam instituted the modern royalty system, offering authors 10 percent of the book’s price.
In movable type books, one of the largest costs was setting the type. Each letter had to be individually placed in the printing block. However, stereotyping reduced this cost by making a mould of a page’s composition and casting the entire page in type metal. However, the process of stereotyping was expensive, costing almost twice as much as the composition itself. The costs were still too high, and the costs were not recovered from every book.
Cost of selling
The nineteenth century marked a new era in book production and consumption. Technological advancements led to a dramatic increase in output and a decrease in costs. New printing processes and techniques reduced the cost of paper, and the use of steam power increased output. These advances also led to new methods for reproducing illustrations. During the nineteenth century, new techniques reduced the cost of paper by a great deal. Paper, for example, accounted for 20 percent of a book’s cost in 1740, but only seven cents in 1910. Other developments, like cheaper paper, led to a drastic reduction in the price of bindings. By the end of the century, publishers began issuing books that were already bound.
The price of books fluctuated throughout the century, depending on their quality and quantity. While cheaper books were sold at lower prices, more expensive ones were sold at higher prices. The first attempt to introduce the net price principle in the 1850s was rejected by the Free Traders. In 1895, Alexander Macmillan led an effort to replace variable discounts with fixed prices. The Associated Booksellers of Great Britain and Ireland and the Publishers Association were formed as an organization to promote these principles.
