The damage sustained by the United States in the war of 1941-1945 was relatively small. As a result of the war, the U.S. economic and military position increased enormously. The U.S. growth rate outpaced that of Western Europe. U.S. economic penetration into Western European countries increased significantly. At the same time there were crisis phenomena in the national economy. The war unleashed by the United States in Vietnam and participation in other local wars aroused mass protest both inside and outside the country. Reaction was raising its head – the assassination of President J. Kennedy, the Negro leader Martin Luther King. All of this affected both U.S. domestic and foreign policy and determined its position in the world, but it had little effect on the book industry. The U.S. book system was extremely complex, decentralized, and multi-tiered. There was and is no national unifying or coordinating center. Since the early 1960s there have been about 6,500 commercial, government, university, and other publishers operating in the U.S. annually. In the first half of the 1990s, there were 25,000 to 27,000 book publishing firms. Every month 100-200 new ones appeared.
The centers of book publishing were traditional: New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago. In the last decade of the 20th century, book publishing in California developed intensively.
In the United States there were four types of publishing enterprises, depending on the type of ownership: a publishing house owned by one person or one family; a publishing company whose shares are owned by several co-owners; a corporation or joint-stock company owned by stockholders or contributors; and a conglomerate company.
Along with the giants, each of which is essentially an association of several almost independent publishing houses, there were “semi-manufactured” publishing houses, whose entire staff consisted of the owner (who is also editor-in-chief and director) and 2-5 people who acted simultaneously as editors, publicity and distribution agents.
Two main types of publishing houses were characteristic of the activity in the United States: universal and specialized, and there was a clear tendency for the latter to increase.
Publishers in the United States rarely specialized in any one branch; more often it was a specialization in several related branches for a certain range of readers, or by type of publication.
In recent years, publishing groups have been actively investing capital in European countries, Canada, and especially developing countries in Asia and Africa. By buying up local publishers or creating them anew and opening branches, U.S. publishing firms have pursued not only commercial but also ideological goals. An example is the MacGraw Hill network of overseas publishing companies in 13 countries (Canada, England, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Brazil, South Africa, etc.). Macmillan subsidiaries operated in nine countries.
On the other hand, major publishers from other countries (especially European ones) were still interested in the American book market. Branches of the French publishers Hachette and Larousse, the Dutch Elsevier, the English Collins, the Italian Rizzoli, and others operated in the United States.
There is an extremely high degree of production concentration in the industry. 2% of the total number of publishing firms accounted for 75% of total output by title. The share of the 11 largest publishing associations in the total turnover of the industry in 1992 was 66%. The process of concentration has been intensifying since the mid-1990s. It has become prestigious and profitable for any firm to have its own publishing house. Major American associations (mid-1990s): Reidom House, Simon & Schuster, Harcourt Brace & Company, Reader’s Digest, Mc Grove Hill Book Co. A large association, Bantem Doubleday Dell, was owned by the German concern Bertelsmann. A small number of independent medium-sized publishers existed in the United States. Prominent among them are Houghton Mifflin, John Viley, Norton, and the most reputable, Farrar. Ostrich and Giroux, which specializes in the publication of high-quality fiction.
A specific feature of the American publishing system is the large number of so-called “small” publishing houses. This phenomenon originated in the 1960s; in the mid-1990s there were 35,000 such publishing houses. The products of “small” publishing houses were distinguished, as a rule, by their high quality of publishing and printing execution. Previously, the specific field of activity of “small” publishing houses was only fiction. Now they publish practically everything. The only field in which only “small” publishers have been involved is poetry; almost no one has published it but them.
University publishers occupy a special place in the United States. There were about 100 publishers of this type in the country.
In the U.S. the so-called movable binding – a special type of mechanical binding in which a book can be disconnected, taken out or replaced by any part – is becoming more and more widespread. Legal, reference and educational literature is published in such form.
An important direction of American book publishing is the production of so-called electronic books, i.e. books on compact disks. In 1992 more than 3,000 kinds of CD-ROMs were being sold in the US market, and the one that stood out was the Electronic Dictionary by Grolier (the price of a CD was 395 dollars, compared to 1,200 dollars for a printed edition).
The publishing center of the country is New York City, where 80% of book production is produced and where most American publishing corporations are headquartered.
The largest wholesale bookselling firms in the United States in the early 1990s were Baker & Taymor, Publishers Group West, and Ingram. The firms published a series of catalogs for their clients, including on CD-ROM. The number of bookstores in the United States increased from 10,020 units in 1980 to 17,620 in 1990.
Independent distributors are small firms that deliver mass illustrated magazines as well as mass paperbacks throughout the country.
Book chains (bookstore chains) in the United States began to develop especially in the early 1980s. This was due to the massive construction of large shopping centers on the outskirts of cities, in which bookstores also opened. The largest bookstore chains in the United States in 1993. – Borders Walden, Barnes & Noble, Crown Books and Book & Million.
In 1986, a nationwide television ordering system, Pabnet, was introduced in the United States. In 1991 an average of 90% of the average bookstore’s assortment went through the system.
Book clubs have become widespread in the United States. In 1978 there were more than 100 for adults and more than 20 for children and young adults. Many publishers had their own clubs. For example, the largest book club, the Literary Guild, with about one million members, belonged to the publishing giant Doubleday Co.
The United States began exporting its books to the international book market in the 1920s. Exports included both directly exporting books from the country and selling products from foreign branches of U.S. publishing firms. The volume of exports has steadily increased and since the second half of the 1970s amounted to 10% of the total book turnover within the country annually.
The most important markets for American books are Canada, then England, Australia, Japan, Holland, and the Scandinavian countries. Exports to developing countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America are steadily increasing. To improve the forms and methods of distribution of American printed matter in these countries, a special “Government Committee on International Books and Library Programs” was established in 1902.
Since 1954 operates a special “Asian Fund”, which for more than 50 years has distributed in Asia more than 45 million books and magazines.
The largest professional association of book publishers in the United States is the Association of American Publishers. It united 280 major publishing firms. It has different divisions or branches: Association of Publishers of Technical, Natural Science and Medical Books, Children’s Book Publishers Association, etc. Its goal is to expand the market for American books, develop and improve the publishing industry.
The activities of other professional associations are similar. For example, “Association of American University Press,” was founded in 1937. In the 1980s it united 86 university publishers and tried to coordinate their efforts in the production of scientific literature.
“The National Committee, founded in 1954, is a public organization. Its purpose is to promote the wider dissemination of books in the United States and abroad, to create facilities for libraries, and to promote reading.
In addition to these central associations and committees, there were local associations in some major cities: Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia.