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

[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.