A brief delay

[desperance]

People not involved in The Industry, as we like to call it, are often surprised by how long it takes a book to be published. The shortest interval I've ever experienced between delivery and publication has been eight months; a year is standard. When they ask why, there is a standard spiel about the process, but mostly it boils down to the insolence of office and the law's delay.

But anyway: delay, it appears, has been built into publishing since the Very Early Days. Cambridge University Press obtained its royal charter 'to print all manner of books' from Henry VIII in 1534.

The Press published its first book in, wait for it, 1584.

That's fifty years.

What were they doing?

Comments

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

You know how crazy those editor lunches can get. Why, one time, I went out to lunch with jjarrold and--well, damn. You know, I'm still not back yet?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. Remind me to tell you sometime, 'bout the first time John and I had lunch...

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

Hey, man, they say that if you claim you rmember the first time you had lunch with jjarrold, you weren't really there.

Or--no, wait--is that the 60s? Or the 80s?

I'll have to check when I get back from lunch...

:)

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

Angelglass - final draft delivered beginning of October. Publication date: November 15.

We like to cut it fine in the small presses.

There's probably a gag to be made there about John being permanently out to lunch, but I'm certainly not going to be the one to make it.

(I'm only typing that because he's flat out with a bad back and can't see his computer screen).

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

They were waiting for Henry to die so he couldn't behead them if he didn't like the cover art.

[(Anonymous)]

Changing all the 'f's to 's's?

Slim

[jeremy-m.livejournal.com]

They wouldn't want to risk using that Alpha Demo Caxton 1.0 Printing Press, best to wait until some of the bugs were fixed.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

There's a semi-legendary book on early monasticism that has been due from a certain academic press since the mid 60s.I really think they lose them down the back of sofas or something. In terms of academic books, more seriously, delays are often down to the authors -- some of us can rewrite and revise for decades (not me, thoug: I like deadlines) and to the bizarre finances. And to changes in editorial boards and to the fact that no editorial assistant ever stays long enough to do anything other than make a mess... My last history book came out in May but the relevant ed. asst. forgot to tell me.
Given the sixteenth century, though, maybe CUP were waiting to receive a book whose author didn't get beheaded or belong to what was suddenly the wrong religion? Not a safe century for writers, that one.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Do you know how hard it was to find good editorial assistants in the 1550s? They kept losing manuscripts behind the file cabinet. Naturally.

[davidbarnett.livejournal.com]

You really didn't want to see a 16th century slush pile, either.

[moral-vacuum.livejournal.com]

That's fifty years.

What were they doing?

Waiting for the copyright to expire?

[lcohen]

do you know how hard typesetting was back then? i mean you had to carve out each little letter.

[fastfwd.livejournal.com]

In three feet of snow. Uphill--both ways!

[lcohen]

*giggle*

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

They seem to have been quite speedy compared to the city of your birth. In 1586 Oxford University obtained a decree from the Star Chamber confirming its privilege to print books. Printing began in the Sheldonian Theatre in 1669, which is 73 years later. Check for yourself.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I had actually meant to do that, as soon as I realised I was going to scoff at that other place; but of course I didn't, and lo. Yup. It seems to have been the habit of the age.