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Reimagining the book
Aesthetics in publishing
Abstract
The chapter focuses on the artistic identity of the book, printed or digital, from Renaissance to our Digital Age with the aim to discuss the importance of the aesthetics in publishing, to introduce a methodological approach for the understanding of current trends and to propose new methods and strategies for product development, marketing and reader engagement in the artistic identity of the book. Initially, the chapter discusses issues of book illustration and decoration from Renaissance till nowadays introducing and discussing in its evolution the aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit and its explanations. Thereafter, the role of paratext (verbal and visual) is investigated, whereas reader engagement in the aesthetics of the book is then discussed with emphasis on the impact of information technologies, social media and marketing strategies. In that framework, personalized copies and personalized publishing services are pointed out. The boundaries of the book are also discussed. Conclusions, along with other approaches, may lead to proposals for the visual identity of the book nowadays and for business models connected with the aesthetic capital.
Keywords
Aesthetic capital; Aesthetics in publishing; Aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit; Artistic identity; Book; Colouring books; Convergence; Illustration; Paratext; Patronage; Personalized copies; Reader engagement in the artistic identity of the book; Visual paratext
2.1. Setting the scene: from illustration to new multimedia technologies. Approaches and trends
The artistic identity of the book has always been more than significant for the publishing activity and policy as well as for reading behaviour and consumer cultures. The printed book has been a product and a medium based on content (intangible asset) and material object (tangible features), text and typographic form (Thompson, 2010). Since Renaissance it was understood that the book is a powerful information medium and a work of art. Apart from book illustration and decoration, the artistic identity of the book is also and strongly related with other elements and parts of the book such as the title page, the cover, the headings, ornaments (such as printers’ flowers, borders), visual paratext and the typology of the page as a whole. In that framework, the book as an artistic object enables the publisher to create a recognizable profile and the reader to read, enjoy and be engaged, being thus satisfied with both content and object. The book has to be desirable, apart from being readable.
Nowadays, the role of the artistic identity of the book is becoming more complicated, challenging and certainly significant not only due to new information technologies but also due to the readers’ needs, expectations and desires that are constantly changing and redeveloping. Reading on mobiles, tablets, ebooks, etc., implies, apart from new tools and devices, new reading and aesthetic experiences that are still under consideration and development. Meanwhile, new technologies lead to new forms of the book altering its nature and artistic identity. But even the book with no physical existence, the digital–electronic publication, also has to be desirable and readable and a potential work of art promising and promoting itself. Furthermore, this artistic identity further encourages reader engagement being at the same time a marketing tool for the publisher. In that framework, traditional book illustration and decoration have been transformed due to new experimental multimedia technologies. For example, the use of gamification or augmented reality alters the identity of the book as well as reading and consumer behaviour. In turn, desires of readers–consumers are redefined by new technologies which sometimes is true that run faster than their needs and expectations (Danet, 2014); and this is a major research point as well.
In the chapter we will focus on the development of the artistic identity of the book since Renaissance and the Baroque era with the aim to recognize key concepts and values as well as strategies and methods that enabled the book to be a viable, valuable and visual object. Key point is that the artistic identity of the book whether printed or electronic-virtual is really significant nowadays in terms of not only product development but also of marketing and promotion issues. Intangible forms of the book require also a certain artistic development exhibiting the central role of the aesthetics in publishing nowadays as both value and strategy. Ebooks, publications that we read on tablets and mobiles, do have and do need and require artistic identity which has many and complex functions and opportunities as it will be discussed below.
Initially, the development of the artistic identity of the book, the role of book illustration and decoration are outlined taking as key element that printing led to the democratization of taste. The aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit is then introduced and discussed taking the illustration publishing chain a step forward. Thereafter, the role of the paratext, both visual and verbal, will be studied so as to investigate issues of promotion, communication and networking through the artistic development of the printed book. The term ‘patronage paratext’ and ‘obscure patronage’ will also be introduced so as to enlighten specific methods and publishing policies as well as issues of the nature and function of the book. The chapter will also focus on the emergence and development of reader/user engagement in the aesthetics of the book. In that context, hand painted illumination and personalized copies that led and lead to personalized publishing services will be discussed as well as convergence of media with a comment on colouring books which are thriving today.
Thus, common (between the past and the present) features and values will be outlined so as to study and further discuss challenges, opportunities and trends of our era with the aim to propose and synopsize new strategies. Aesthetics create the aesthetic capital in publishing that can be added to the other capitals of publishing. Undeniably, aesthetics may serve as
1. a medium-tool for publishers so as to create marketing and promotion strategies, apart from a recognizable identity
2. a methodological approach for researchers so as to understand, explain, evaluate and propose.
We shall focus on the artistic identity of the book as a whole, taking into consideration book illustration and decoration, title pages and covers, headings, borders, visual paratext, and other visual or even verbal material related to the aesthetics of the book. The impact of new information and multimedia technologies as well as the role of social media in creating communities of readers will be discussed in a broader framework so as to investigate marketing strategies, promotion methods, product development, co-creation, as well as building communities of readers, developing consumer behaviour and creating taste.
Inevitably, questions that arise when studying the artistic identity of the book include its commercial and promotion value, influences from the art of the era, the role of the artists, the collaborations between the stakeholders (author, printers/publishers, artists, editors), the role of the reading audience and more specifically the participation of the reader, the relationship of content with images, the development of reading and consumer behaviour, the making of publishing policies. Undoubtedly, the aesthetics of the book enables us to study and understand the role of all stakeholders in the publishing chain-circle-circuit from a specific and in time privileged point of view. Furthermore, we can approach and understand current trends related with public taste, bestsellers, communication and visual information in the publishing chain, and thus we can introduce strategies based on the already used and tested.
Multimedia technologies and gamification offer to the reader new ways of understudying and enjoying the content creating at the same time a new relationship between text and image, between author and reader, between publisher and reader changing the roles and rules in the publishing chain. At the same time they offer to the publishers a new marketing tool, a strong communication medium with the readers and an effective promotion method.
Hartley et al. (2012, pp. 1–2) states that ‘aesthetics may appear to be an abstract, philosophical concept but in the creative industries it is a major coordinating mechanism for combining A. A production apparatus, which includes the practitioners and organizations in the specific craft, and their education, training and upkeep, B. Works; the “textual” or object/artifact element of creative enterprise, C. Demand, including nonmarket patronage…, D. a regulatory of state-sponsored component…’. That is true in the case of the publishing industry; but much has to be added to the above taking into consideration specific features.
More specifically, aesthetics in publishing may be studied between book history, art history, communication and media studies, marketing, management, history of science: the artistic identity of the book is undoubtedly related to the satisfaction of all stakeholders (author, reader, publisher, bookseller), to the creation of taste in each era and to the book promotion and marketing. Moreover, the artistic identity of the book had a strong informative function and a more complex aspect related to the creation of the symbolic capital and to the value added to all stakeholders, from publisher to patron and to the reader depending on the case. The book has always been bought because it has been both useful and desirable, expected and surprisingly unexpected, applying to what the readers, consciously or not, waited and proclaiming as a valuable and viable object.
Thus, every book can be a work of art? Certainly, every book can take another meaning in the hands of each reader; every book can make the difference to the reader; every publisher may make the difference by giving a specific form to the text, by innovating, combining, reviving or introducing new concepts. The role of the publishing company is central in deciding and defining the artistic identity of the company and the aesthetic expectations of the reading audience taking into consideration artistic, cultural, political, social, educational and economic conditions of the era.
For understanding aesthetics in publishing (role, influences, trends, methods, patterns), methodology is used mainly from book history and art history and then from other disciplines. It is more than interesting what Anthony Griffiths said in 2003 at the Panizzi lectures in the British Library: ‘I think it is in general true to say that art historians usually ignore prints, print historians usually ignore books, while book historians rarely seem able to cope with the prints that appear on their pages’ (Ionescu, 2011, p. 10). Ionescu (2011, p. 29) identifies that ‘there is no consensus on which disciplines can serve best a word and image approach to illustration, an perhaps paradoxically, given the prolific scholarship on the subject, no commonly accepted or universally used method for the study of the illustrative image’. Additionally, Goldman and Cooke suggest the recognition of ‘illustration studies’ as a ‘discipline in its own right, and not as a subject uneasily positioned in the hinterland between literary criticism, art history, book history, librarianship and cultural studies’ (2016, p. 7). Goldman (2016) sets the framework for the illustration studies recognizing several parameters and the background of the field.
In that framework, regarding aesthetics in publishing an interdisciplinary approach has to be used in the basis of book history and art history with methodology also from media studies, marketing, literature, information science and communication studies. As the artistic identity of the book is constantly been developing, especially in the new forms of the book, ‘new’ or ‘older’ questions are set. The study of the development of the artistic identity of the printed book and of the aesthetics in publishing is an often ‘magnifying glass’ and may well explain current trends. The democratization of taste since Renaissance may also interpret issues of our era regarding public taste, bestselling cultures and consumer behaviour further enlightening the aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit. The historical explanation of books together with the technological and the communicative ones may offer a privileged point of view for understanding concepts and introducing strategies. Obviously, interdisciplinarity is the order for publishing studies and for the aesthetics in publishing too.
‘Print is a medium of images as well as texts, and the study of visual print culture extends into art history and cultural history’ (Robertson, 2013, p. 7). Even though, the role of book illustration and decoration and more generally of the aesthetics of the printed book, although significant, is often not studied deeply, and certainly not in all its parameters: ‘perhaps because they fall between academic disciplines, illustrated books are rarely the subject of scholarly consideration’ (Sillars, 2008, p. 3); thus there is still much to be studied. As Ionescu (2011, p. 13) recognizes regarding the 18th century illustrated book, ‘the illustrated book has slowly emerged from the shadows to claim its rightful place herein [book history]’ recognizing that ‘this recent development, however is definitely not widespread’. Taking into consideration what Roberto Calasso (2015, p. 24) says that what makes the book recognizable is the image, we can wonder for the extent of its study. At the famous communication circuit introduced by Robert Darnton, which offered certainly much to book and media studies, the art of the book is not considered and the author recognizes that ‘manuscript books and book illustrations will need to be considered elsewhere’ (Darnton, 2009, pp. 179-206).
Additionally, we have to recognize that art historians usually give light to ‘exceptional’ editions (this is identified by Ionescu, 2011, p. 11), to editions of certain and recognizable artistic value due to the artist or/and to the elaborative incisions. That happens, for example, in the case of Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, published in Venice in 1499, a curious edition (Lowry, 1979), a masterpiece but certainly not the average edition of Aldus Manutius and definitely not the one or among the ones that created print culture, consumer behaviour and readers’ taste. Whereas, libelli (libri) portatiles (portable little books, pocket-sized books), ornaments (such as initial letters) and typographic fonts (the famous italics existing at all the computers nowadays) that were introduced and established by Aldus Manutius created not only a typographic culture but mainly an everyday culture related to the printed book which in turn developed taste, created reading experiences and defined information behaviour. Obviously, as cultural and market value coexist, the book has to be studied in all its cases: exceptional or not, as a mass medium and as a work of art.
Publishing and book history include and presuppose the study of the art of the book or the artistic identity of the book. Publishing is anyway an interdisciplinary field, as analysed at the introduction, ‘a marvelous blend of theories, developed by historians, literary critics, economists, sociologists, marketers, and a small but growing number of individuals interested in the history of the book’ (Greco et al., 2013, p. 2). Nowadays marketing implies and uses the artistic identity as a tool, and we will argue in the chapter that this happened since Renaissance: the book as an object had always been a powerful medium, visual and more than visual, for book promotion. Aesthetics served marketing and advertising giving also readers’ feedback to the publishers.
Hartley et al. states that (2012, p. 3): ‘In the marketplace aesthetics is a component of consumer choice, not a distinctive feature of producer identity. As a result, aesthetics in the creative industries should be seen as a component not of critical philosophy but of social learning’. In the publishing activity, though critical aspects have to be taken into consideration. Undeniably, aesthetics can explain to a certain extent and in turn can be explained as a component of social learning (Halsall et al, 2008) but the producer’s (whoever is, from publisher to editor to patron…) strategies and values lead to the creation of taste as well as to consumer and reading cultures. The art of the era has also to be taken into consideration as an important component of the creation of the artistic identity of the book. Nowadays the emerging publishing and business models (such as crowdfunding, self-publishing, personalized publishing services etc.) as well as multimedia technologies have to be considered and in the aesthetic framework.
The identity of the book, whether printed or electronic, is decided and developed according to specific attitudes, values, behaviours and conditions. Deciding, defining and offering the artistic identity of the book has always been complex. In that context, the practical, utilitarian concept cannot be overlooked: the artistic identity of the book serves at the same time different functions, apart from artistic and cultural, such as informative, emotional and functional.
Nowadays, audiences globalized, multilingual, technologically informed, embedded in marketing strategies, integrated in aesthetic and productive procedures are further and deeper encouraged by the publishers so as to be engaged. Reader engagement is among the main challenges for the publishing companies, a step forward than the direct communication between reader and publisher. We will argue that reader engagement in the publishing aesthetics is not new, but going back in time is a strong business model. From this point of view, we shall also focus on ‘personalized copies’ and personalized publishing services.
Terms such as ‘storytelling’, ‘gamification’, ‘augmented reality’, etc., are more than often used when talking about publishing. Initially, ‘the most popular books in the early phase of the ebooks format were those with strong narrative content, and little or no illustration’ (Clark and Phillips, 2014). Thereafter, multimedia uses the image in a new framework. Photographs, videos, illustrations, visual material from different sources and with different origins coexist. On the other hand, as the printed book coexists with new forms and even thrives in some cases, printed decoration and illustration continue their more traditional itineraries even though with the influence of new technologies.
It is interesting to note that the French publisher Curmer in 1839, regarding the emergence of publishers and their different role from the printers and booksellers, ‘attributed the appearance of the publisher to new techniques for reproducing illustrations’ (Haynes, 2010, p. 24). By connecting illustration to the emergence of the publisher, Curmer exhibits not only the role of illustration and of the artistic identity of the book but the importance of new technologies relating with the book as visual object and as a commodity. Furthermore, Curmer referring to the combination of skills and capacities in the framework of new opportunities for the publisher, referred to ‘the point toward which converge a crowd of industries’ (Haynes, 2010, p. 24). Although being a specific and under question point of view, relating the definition of the role of the publisher with illustration technologies points out the preliminary role of the artistic identity of the book and also the exploitation of the new technologies.
Undeniably, the artistic identity of the book is redefined by new media and by the digital opportunities. Aesthetics in publishing is a concept and a methodological umbrella for explaining, evaluating and using patterns not only of the artistic identity of the book as developed till now but also patterns of production, distribution, promotion, marketing, reader engagement and taste. In the chapter the term ‘aesthetic publishing models’ will be used so as to explain publishing-business models. Nowadays information and multimedia technologies redefine priorities and policies, aesthetics in publishing form a challenge and the aesthetic capital may be of value.
2.2. The artistic identity of the book. Publishers, readers and the democratization of taste
2.2.1. Towards the democratization of taste
The book led not only to the democratization of knowledge and of information, but also to the democratization of taste. The printed book consisted of text and images, of words and pictures; this twofold was also part of promotion strategies and developed both reading habits and consumer cultures. Additionally, among the features of the printed book that led to its success we may recognize the strong feeling of owning a book. Silent reading that was prevalent during the Renaissance due to several reasons, among which the advent of typography has to be recognized, led to new reading behaviour.
On the one hand, the reader, owner, or user was free to read the book in the place, time and way he/she wanted (Richardson, 1999; Cavallo and Chartier, 1999): he/she could underline, interrupt or repeat reading, being free to decide on the way to read and think of both context and images when existed. Thus, the advent of printing led to new reading and aesthetic experiences providing the freedom of choice.
On the other hand, the printed book was in many cases a to-be ‘work of art’ influenced by and exhibiting the art of the era, exploiting the opportunities of the new techniques/technologies for mass products. We should though consider that art in Renaissance was very often the expression of the authority – whether of God or of noblemen who in many cases were patrons of art. The printed book instead was a mass product aimed at a large community of readers, although patronage can be found in early editions. Although illustration and decoration in printed books during Renaissance and the Baroque era served sometimes as a symbol of power, we have to recognize the freedom of the new medium, a freedom in the majority of cases beyond patrons, a freedom praised by Aretino in Renaissance Venice when he compared Venice to Rome. ‘For Aretino Rome and Venice were symbolic places – the one epitomized by tyranny, sycophancy, and hypocricy of the Papal court and the other by the freedom and the democracy of the printing press – requiring different occupations, courtier and author’ (Waddington, 2004, pp. 5–6).
This freedom of the publishing activity was due to
• Decision making: printers–publishers, as well as editors, authors, scholars, even readers (as will be mentioned thereafter) could decide or codecide on the book both as context and object,
• Financing: It did not depend on patrons (except in cases of patron commissioned editions or edition where specific relations between patron and author had been developed). The vast majority of the printing shops/publishing houses were commercial enterprises and publishers were independent to publish; it is indicative of that freedom that censorship and indexes librorum prohibitorum (catalogue of forbidden books) tried to control the production and distribution of books (Infelise, 2013).
• Audience: A wide and constantly expanding reading audience was not always easy to be approached and controlled; publishers, based always on innovation, risk and experimentation, aspired to reaching their potential readers. Thus they tried to intervene in the ‘word of mouth’ and used advertisement and promotion methods, which were far from patronage aspects; they managed to reach and influence, even manipulate audiences, in a broader framework leaving behind patronage aspects coming from the manuscript tradition.
• Innovation: The publishing activity exploited all the opportunities provided each time (ranging from technical developments to opportunities offered by the social, educational, religious and cultural conditions).
• Marketing (in the origins): Instead of waiting for the patrons to give instructions and financial support, the publishers considered the readers’ profile (this particular knowledge being named experience or intuition or else), trying to satisfy and in turn influence and codefine their needs and expectations.
Thus, in a time when artists mainly depended on the patronage of the noblemen and/or of the church, the stakeholders in the publishing chain had usually no such restrictions (although patronage cases can be traced, restrictions being probably of another kind related more with the social, religious, economic and political conditions than with patronage in a stricter framework).
Illustration offered to all stakeholders (publishers, authors and readers) a privileged medium that served their needs and expectations; promotion, marketing, enjoyment, desire, advertisement and reading have to be considered. Moreover, illustration introduced and further developed new terms of book production and consumption. From this point of view, the reader gained the satisfaction of owing a work of art, the book being thus the commodity that created to a certain extent the taste of the reading audience related to each kind of text. Furthermore, although used sometimes for propaganda, the printed book meant in many cases the denial of the authority offering, for example, during the Industrial Revolution, to the development and establishment of the identity whether of class or/and of sex.
Certainly, printed books may be recognized as having a strong contribution to the development of taste and we will argue for this. The artistic identity of the printed book inevitably relates to both politics of publishing and politics of reading serving the first and developing the second. Its contribution on list building, production, promotion and marketing will also be explored.
2.2.2. The role and concepts of book illustration and ornamentation
We may wonder what illustration, decoration and generally the artistic identity of the book offered and offers. This may be summarized as follows.
Illustration may (Banou, 2016):
• be explanatory to the text (with straight or looser relationship with it),
• be representational to the text [Saenger (2006, p. 43) writes that: ‘the nature of these woodcuts is not iconographic but representational’].
• have artistic–aesthetic value,
• be an information resource,
• promote the publication,
• advertise the book,
• introduce stakeholders (mainly publisher, author, artist – when know),
• remind the topics to the readers,
• divide the text into sections,
• offer information, visual or not (or coded information),
• offer enjoyment (hedonic value),
• relate the edition to a specific iconographic tradition,
• establish/introduce a visual culture,
• develop consumer culture,
• relate with the art of the era,
• compete with other editions,
• introduce the text to the reader,
• comment, interpret,
• enlighten or even obscure,
• regarding specific editions, illustration plays key role and becomes part of the text,
• encourage reader engagement,
• add symbolic capital,
• add value to the edition,
• praise a person or a group of people.
In that framework, illustration may be for the reader:
1. Expected, familiar, part of an iconographic tradition, already used in previous editions, expected according to the kind of text and the tradition of the publishing house, etc., or
2. Innovative, experimental (introducing new visual, iconographic and decorative patterns), converged with other media.
In both cases, illustration serves the publishers’ aims and satisfies readers’ needs. It is often a combination of both: expected and according to the tradition to an extent and at the same time innovative. The broader framework is that of the print culture and of the art of the period in specific social, political, economic and educational conditions. Expected illustration and ornamentation repeat and exploit the opportunities of the familiar, the already used and commercially tested. That method for a certain period of time will be of success based on an already created and recognizable artistic identity. But tradition goes hand in hand with innovation in the publishing industry. Innovativeness has been proved to be the key for both fame and sales, as well as for the creation of brand name. The one who innovates has his followers and imitators, and inevitably gains sales and success, such as Aldus Manutius in Renaissance Venice.
In terms of marketing and promotion, as developed nowadays, illustration seems to be a strong and significant medium that promotes the title developing and defining consumer behaviour. New multimedia technologies often presuppose reader engagement, being part of successful promotion strategies for reaching new audiences, while they can offer personalized publishing services, something which was not unknown during Renaissance. Certainly new technologies are effectively combined with other media and are adaptable to new forms of the book, such as reading on tablets and mobiles. Depending on the medium and on the reading audience, publishers are adaptable, risky and flexible aspiring not only to satisfy needs but also to develop new ones and redefine the older. For example, reading on mobiles creates a different reading and consuming culture presupposing the use of new technologies based on tested models. Aesthetics of the book nowadays are deeply influenced by these new technologies that offer also new publishing models and opportunities. The printed origins are strong enough and define to a great extent expectations and desires. McWilliam refers to the aesthetics of the device ‘to be an important factor behind the reading experience’ recognizing that ‘the aesthetics of the device have a subconscious effect on the reading experience’ (2013, p. 8). Saenger (2006, p. 7) uses the term ‘aesthetic and commercial products’ for books.
It must also be noted that apart from the above readers gained and had visual literacy from the book as well (Jung, 2015, p. 3). Regarding this, we can distinguish among periods, places, categories of the reading audience (according to the age, sex, education and social status), kinds of text, languages. Certainly, people were used to pictures before learning to read. Printed books for the wide, popular reading audience in Renaissance (tales, almanacs, lives of Saints) were illustrated. Regarding lavishly and heavily decorated and illustrated books, we may recognize that specific editions were famous mainly due to the artist or to the number of illustrations or to their innovative character; innovation consisted in both style-technique and themes. ‘Illustration added a dimension of novelty to a test held in high esteem in the public imagination’ (Ionescu, 2011, p. 17).
It is noteworthy that this public imagination has been cultivated and developed from the popular texts of the 16th century to the romances of the 18th and 19th centuries. The reading audience of the Industrial Revolution expanded with new dynamic groups (women, children, workers), setting new rules for the production and consumption of books. The publishers identified the existed and potential audiences for offering and promoting their books. In that framework, illustration was a means for the cultivation of taste and a visual as well as cultural commodity highly appreciated in an era when knowledge was conceived as a threshold to success, wealth, social recognition and education.
Having as a starting point that ‘we do not explain pictures but remarks about pictures’ (Baxandall, 1985, p. 1), we have though to re-consider trends about book illustration and decoration, and the artistic identity as a whole. There is a tradition and a history behind the pictures, as there are needs and desires beyond the pictures. Similar images offer different aspects according to the time and place, to the readers, as well as to the economic, social, political and cultural conditions. Explanations may differ according to the era and the taste/styles/’rules’ set; whereas different images that illustrate the same text in the same or different period offer the ‘privilege’ of choice according to the publishing and promotion policies as well as to commercial channels.
In our hybrid era convergence is a key word (Phillips, 2014), but even since Renaissance convergence can be found: text and image, words and pictures content and illustration/ornamentation, printed and manuscript, mass product and personalized copy, written and oral… Convergence is better exhibited in hand illumination of printed books where different media were combined for the satisfaction of the needs of the readers and for serving other purposes, among which the cultivation of existing networks has to be recognized.
Printed illustration and decoration became part of the printed book since the first decades of printing, cocreating thus a material culture that led to the interpretation and understanding of the text as well as to the promotion of the book. In some cases printed illustrations were combined and converged with other media. This material culture inevitably changed patterns of book production and consumption.
Initially, during the first decades of printing, the place for initials, headings and illustrations was left blank so as the miniaturist could add hand illumination in specific copies; these copies were offered as gifts from the printers to rich and powerful readers or were ordered by book collectors to booksellers of the era (Armstrong, 1991; Marcon, 1986, 1987, Zappella, 2001, 2013). In these cases, illustration and decoration were initially hand painted (book binding and the quality of paper were taken into consideration in the development of a specific identity of the luxury copies). These personalized copies are of high research interest; thereafter their typology will be approached as in this book we consider them as the antecedents of the personalized copies of our digital era. Hand-painted ornamentation and illustration served not only as a medium for the embellishment of the text but also as a visual introduction to the text and as a symbol of the power and taste of the owner. Obviously this iconographic and decorative method to the printed copies derived from the manuscript books. But this model was soon to be abandoned and redeveloped in other framework for redefined audiences.
Since the first decades of printing, woodcuts were used in all copies of the edition for all readers,
1. changing thus patterns of taste,
2. introducing consumer behaviour,
3. further establishing the printed book as a potential work of mass art owned by each reader–owner.
It is true that the printed book initially had no title page, no printed illustration and decoration, even no page numbers. The manuscript had been the model for the first printers–publishers who aimed at the already existing reading audience consisting mainly of scholars, students, noblemen, men of religious and political power (Baldacchini, 2004). This reading audience had certain values, needs, desires, expectations and concepts for the book as tangible material object. Inevitably, printers–publishers tried to imitate the manuscript book and to offer their customers the books they were used to have and expected to acquire. But since the first decades of printing, it became obvious that the printed book was a new mass medium implying different modes for production, distribution and promotion, and having different opportunities. Publishers used tested methods in a new mass medium, making it quickly clear that implied different techniques and strategies offering new opportunities for new needs and expectations. Page numbers, for example, and page headings were by then necessary regarding the reading trends and the needs in the educational process. The first printed book had no title page which started gradually to be developed; the first step was a blank page in front of the text so as to protect the first page (Smith, 2001; Baldacchini, 2004).
The development of the typology – identity of the printed book as material object – is deeply connected with and should be attributed, among others, to technical/technological developments, the aims and values of all stakeholders, the nature of the book as a mass product, the competition with other media, the emergence of the communities of readers and the need for a friendly, economic and desirable product. The above have to be discussed in consideration with the economic, social, cultural and political conditions.
More specifically, ornamentation/decoration in printed books may:
• have artistic–aesthetic value, embellish the text,
• further and more emblematically divide the text into sections, chapters, etc. (initial letters),
• advertise and promote the title (commercial value),
• (when historiated initials) remind the topics to the readers,
• offer enjoyment,
• relate the edition to a specific decorative (or even iconographic) tradition,
• introduces and develops consumption behaviour/culture,
• have heraldic value, using the emblem of the family,
• introduces the text (mainly through the title page and the cover).
Ornaments in most cases were not designed specifically for the edition. Relation with the text and with the illustrative tradition is often more remote because imitation and repetition of the ornaments had been the rule and the way of work for the majority of publishers – printers.
Regarding ornaments, apart from initial letters and head titles, we have also to refer to ‘piccoli ferri tipografici’, in English: printer’s flowers (Fleming, 2011, p. 64) (found in Joseph Moxon’s Mechanick Exercises on the whole art of Printing, 1684, where ‘flowers to set over the Head of a Page at the beginning of the book’). These ornaments have their origins in the book binders’ ornaments and can be found at the beginning and/or at the end of the chapters, as well as in other parts of the book decorating and signifying the end or the beginning of content. Ornaments, apart from visual introduction and explanation to the text, have also artistic and promotion value empowering the visual tradition of the kind of text.
Thus, both illustration and book ornamentation/decoration add value to the edition and create not only visual literacy but also consumer and reading behaviour as well as taste. The same happens in our digital era.
2.2.3. Developing the artistic identity of the book
The book apart from being readable had always to be desirable; it has been through the centuries an artistic object and at the same time a mass product creating mass culture. Undeniably, the cultural, political, aesthetic, ideological significance of book illustration and decoration ought to be explored in each era, place, publisher etc. Historical and artistic/aesthetic explanation of publishing in accordance with technological innovation, economic and political conditions, art of the era, bookselling, reading behaviour, consumption culture offers a privileged, multidisciplinary point of view for explaining and introducing policies.
Parameters that strongly influenced, defined and developed the artistic identity of the book include the following:
• Influence from the manuscript during the first decades of printing,
• Influence from the printed book, as a precedent, nowadays,
• Convergence with other media,
• Iconographic tradition of specific texts,
• Typographic–publishing tradition of specific texts (e.g. religious texts),
• The working methods of printers–publishers who often imitated successful illustrations and reproduced them using material from their stock,
• Art of the period,
• Available printing techniques/technologies (printing in red, for example),
• Illustration techniques, innovations in printing and engraving technologies,
• Publishing policy of the publishing house–printing shop (goals, aims, values),
• Guidelines provided by the author,
• Guidelines provided by the editor,
• Needs and expectations of the reading audience (existed and potential),
• Reader engagement,
• Patronage,
• Competition,
• Collaborations,
• Artistic identity of the book series, when existed,
• Commercial factors,
• Market’s orientation,
• Artist.
Regarding the aesthetics in publishing, relations often seem to be based on the following:
• Text–image
• Author–publisher
• Author–illustrator/engraver/artist
• Publisher/printer–illustrator/engraver/artist
• Traditional–innovative
• Used (repetitions, imitations)–new illustrations/ornaments
Nowadays, the kind and the nature of relationships in the new forms of the book are dramatically changing. Apart from the relations underlined, multimedia set the framework for convergence and for transformation of the relations between not only the stakeholders but also different media. More specifically, the concept is not only between new and old, traditional and innovative, used and new but mostly between a variety of choices which every day are been broadened by new information and communication technologies. The publishing industry has to explore and exploit them. Furthermore, as the role of the reader becomes more dynamic, reader engagement is among the key features and one of the main challenges for the publishing companies. Publishers want reader participation to be encouraged in a given, mostly controlled by them framework in a way that will offer them privileged marketing tools.
Thus, what seems to happen is that on the one hand, the publishing house tries to exploit, influence and in terms set the rules, and on the other the reader takes a more dynamic role having the chance and the ‘freedom’ to cocreate, participate, make book reviews through social media. The boundaries of this ‘freedom’ obviously are set and reset every day according to a number of reasons that will be discussed thereafter.
The challenge for the publishers seems to be twofold; on the one hand, they have to combine the knowledge and publishing experience of the past with the new technologies: given that the page must be first of all readable and familiar, new forms of the book have to keep the balance between the old (which has to be there, although not always recognizable) and the innovative which must create expectations and offer satisfaction at the same time. Gamification, the use of multimedia (experimental or not), augmented reality, storytelling create an interactive environment, verbal and visual, that offers opportunities. Inevitably, there seems to be an interactive chain – even better circuit on the basis of these relations and combinations, where the author, the reader, the publisher, the artist, the editor and the marketing department collaborate.
Key words seem to be flexibility, innovation, interpretation, convergence, engagement, collaborations and synergies. Among the key question is who decides, who codecides or who mostly decides. For understanding this, we have to consider that book illustration and decoration may be
• Publisher–printer centred: The printer–publisher of Renaissance and the Baroque era decided on the illustration and ornamentation of the printed editions developing thus the artistic identity not only of the book but of the printing shop/publishing house. The publisher often offered a new point of view, a new visual approach to the text. His aim was the satisfaction of the needs of the readers, the augmentation of sales and the creation of a recognizable profile (title pages, printers’ marks, illustration and decoration often were privileged means). Even though it must be pointed out that the artistic identity was often developed in terms of imitation and adoption of existing iconographic types according to the art of the era and the iconographic tradition of the text; the economic and cultural conditions, as well as the financial ones of the company, were also of significance. Famous examples exhibit how the decisions and the publishing policy of the publisher–printer developed and influenced the aesthetics of the book of the era being a module for colleagues and competitors even for decades after. Other publishers–printers imitated and often copied illustrations extensively, sometimes using them in editions in which there was little or no relation with the text. Traditionally, the publisher is the one who decides but we shall take into consideration collaborations (with artists, editors, authors) and factors that codeveloped the artistic identity of the book influencing strategies and policies.
• Author centred: Author traditionally gives instructions, collaborates with other stakeholders (publisher, editor, artist, graphic designer, etc.) and codecides on the illustration and decoration of the edition. The collaboration with other stakeholders, specifically with the publisher/editor is of significance, especially but not only in illustrated books, such as art books and children’s books. The author’s role has to be discussed and evaluated according to the era, the case and the specific conditions. ‘The author, through the press copy decided to a certain extent the type of illustration; the point is that press copies are rarely found, been considered thus the holy grail of book history’ (Banou, 2016). The framework is always more complicated. The author as creator of the intellectual capital could propose illustration and decoration related to the text, often of aesthetic value; patterns of marketing were stronger and the publisher, editors or other stakeholders were to propose, codecide or even decide.
• Editor centred: The role of the editor was emerging and significant since Renaissance (Richardson, 1994). Especially when the editor was a well-known and respected scholar collaborating with a venerable publisher, his role was important in codeciding or mainly deciding on the artistic identity of the book. We cannot be certain for the role of scholars–editors of Renaissance; although introductory texts and epilogues to the editions as well as correspondence bring sometimes light to this aspect, the process of decision making in aesthetics is rarely enlightened.
• Artist centred: Especially in the case of famous, well-known and respectable artists, the decision on illustration and/or decoration depended much on the artist himself. Most of the illustrated and decorated editions were made by artists whose names are still unknown, whereas already tested and used motives and iconographic types were exhaustively repeated and imitated. Anonymity of artists is obviously one of the features and the problems (for both book history and art history); it may be attributed to a number of factors among which we can recognize the concept of illustration and decoration from the publishers’ point of view, the use of existing motives, the imitations, and trends concerning the contribution of the artist to the edition. Taking into consideration that the fame and reputation of the artists were gradually established into the wider audience via the prints in the 16th century, we must recognize that in the printed book the name of the artist, apart from the famous ones, was exceptionally mentioned, probably considered not of significance so as to refer it in the title page or in the introductory texts (front matter). The role of the artist in the publishing chain-circle-circuit has to be further researched and evaluated according to the place, the time and the priorities of the publisher. The illustration chain, term recently introduced (Banou, 2016, pp. 187–188), is part of the publishing chain defining and recognizing concepts and trends that help us to understand and discuss aesthetic issues. We may also distinguish in the illustration chain between the artist–designer and the woodcutter/block-cutter (Szepe, 1997). ‘Historically, artists have frequently employed the assistance of highly skilled craftsmen – specialist block-cutters, expert engravers or professional printers – to help with the technically-complex, time-consuming or labour-intensive stages of printmaking processes’ (Blocklehurst and Watson, 2015, pp. 13–15). The distinction between manuscript illuminators and designers of printed illustrations is also of importance, exhibiting issues of convergence. Meanwhile, prints as described by Vasari in the second edition (Giunti, Florence 1568) of the Vite (VI, life of Marcantonio Raimondi, Bolognese), offered fame and recognition to artists. Furthermore, the mass production of printed books offered to the establishment and recognition (being part of the culture) of print illustration and decoration being part of a mass culture. The name of the artist only in the case of well known, illustrious examples, was referred.
• Reader centred: The reading audience’s role is significant in many ways ranging from passive to more dynamic. Certainly, readers decide through the demand and the ‘word of mouth’. Since Renaissance printers–publishers took into consideration the readers’ needs and expectations trying to satisfy them and augment sales of the printed books. Furthermore, as we will show thereafter, the reader even from the first decades of printing, especially from the 16th century, had a more active, although often not recognized, role. Among the ways of reader participation we may recognize communities of readers – first networks, correspondence between the stakeholders, comments and corrections on already printed texts. For example, correspondence with the publisher or editor or author, as in the case of Lampsonius, secretary to the Bishop of Liege, with Giorgio Vasari (Gregory, 2012, pp. 2, 19, 63), offered feedback from an often privileged and diversified point of view. The role of the reader in corrections will be exhibited thereafter especially in terms of scholar communication. Thus, although we use to think that the reading audience contributed to the edition in a more passive way, we have to consider new aspects and networks developed since Renaissance that offered ways of participation to the reader and a significant tool for the publisher so as to develop the quality of the book and gain feedback from the reading audience. There were specific, even experimental, networks through which the reader could contribute and influence the publishing procedure. Nowadays reader engagement and participation are among the great challenges of the publishing industry as it will be discussed in the third chapter.
• Patron centred: As it will be mentioned below regarding the paratext, there are two types of patronage in the books: first, when the patron commissioned the work and financed it; second, what we shall call ‘obscure patronage’, when the name of the patron is mentioned in the paratext parts (introductions, epilogues, dedicatory letters, etc.) by the publisher or the editor with mainly the aim to advertise their edition and gain fame and trust. From this point of view, we have to consider the patronage in a broader framework, as researched often in art history, bearing in mind social, cultural, artistic, economic, political and religious conditions (Haskell, 1980).
We have to consider that every edition implies different even in case unique ways in the creation of the artistic identity and presupposes different kind of collaboration between stakeholders. The aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit thereafter tries to explain this. Choices and decisions have been made in a broader context (art of the era, book market, political and economic conditions, etc.) as well as in a more specific framework defined by the publishing house (aims, values, backlist) and the stakeholders (publisher, editor, artist, graphic designer, patron when existed, etc.). The fame of the artist, for example, and the choices of the author (especially when well known, respected or bestselling) are of significance. But every publication is a work of many, thus the role of each stakeholder has to be examined according to the case.
Usually the artist illustrates the text, the itinerary being from author to the artist, from text to image; but sometimes this can be vice versa as in the case of Aretino and the prints by Giulio Romano. Aretino wrote to Battista Zatti: ‘I took a fancy to see the figures… and on seeing them I was inspired by the same feeling that prompted Giulio Romano to draw them… I dashed off the sonnets that you see underneath them’ (Waddington, 2004, p. 26).
2.3. The aesthetics publishing chain–circle and its explanations
2.3.1. The aesthetics publishing chain–circle-circuit since Renaissance
The illustration chain (introduced and discussed by Banou, 2016) as part of the publishing chain offers the understanding of the development of the artistic identity of the book and in general of the publishing activity; at the same time it provides a tool for exhibiting the image–text relationship, the publishing values, as well as marketing concepts, decision making and reader–consumer issues.
We will introduce the ‘aesthetics publishing chain’, which is broader than the illustration one in its concept. Issues as reader engagement, promotion methods, the role of academies, reading culture, scholar communication, convergence of media, concepts of the audience, the book market, patronage, competition, the art of the era are embedded in the chain-circle-circuit. The development of the ‘aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit’, from Renaissance and the Baroque era to the Digital Age can offer a key and a tool not only for the understanding and explanation but also for the development of strategies and policies nowadays. It is broader than the illustration chain as it deals and includes (1) the visual identity of the book as a whole: illustration, decoration/ornamentation in all parts of the book, cover and visual paratext (title-page, frontispiece, colophon, etc.) and (2) the typology and the process of the making of the book and the page as visual object.
Whether text focused (Jung, 2015, p. 16) or image focused (and that is a complex matter), the visual tools (illustration, decoration, cover, title page, frontispiece, etc.) as marketing mediums/devices have been a worthwhile investment. Thus, different functions for different audiences and kinds of text have always been exploited by the publishers.
The first printed books resembled the manuscript ones which were the only known, familiar, used books for the already existing and mainly powerful (politically and religiously) reading audience. But even from the beginning the printed book, as it was a different product implying different organization and structure for its production, promotion and sales, started to gain specific physical identity. ‘These conventions were carried over from scribal culture to print culture, virtually from its very beginnings. But printers developed their own strategies that quickly departed from manuscript models’ (Sherman, 2007, p. 71). For example, the title page and front matter as well as back matter (Sherman, 2011) are among the main features used for practical, artistic, decorative, advertising and information patterns. In general, the typology of the book as material object provided promotion and advertisement encouraging and inspiring reading and consumer behaviour, developing at the same time taste. As a material object, the book was and could be considered a work of art, a valuable object for different audiences and for bibliophiles who were often forced to be more engaged and dynamic.
Certainly the book had and has to be marketable, apart from being desirable and readable. Publishers knew who the target group was each time according to the kind of text, the specific conditions and the competition.
On the one hand, the publisher–author–artist (and in a few cases the patron) decided and introduced; on the other, readers enjoyed, read, imagined, understood, learnt, communicated, were informed, their taste and behaviour being developed in that framework. Even though, things were never such simple, the reading audience, through its needs, expectations and desires had always a central role in demanding, even asking, for specific texts in specific language and with ‘proper’ images and ornaments. The role of academies and universities as well as other communities and networks is to be further noted. Additionally, libraries (of universities, noblemen, monasteries, papal, etc.), private and the first ‘public’ ones (such as the Marciana Library in Venice and the Ambrosiana in Milan) often through patronage, acquisitions and their policies, developed specific synergies and collaborations gaining issues of networking, prestige, access, communication and research.
In the aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit (Scheme 2.1), we can recognize a second, smaller one regarding the artist’s work in a collaborative network established between block cutters, printers, engravers where the role of the publisher and the author have to be specifically investigated. This ‘artist’s’ chain-circuit included in the aesthetics one may be developed according to the place and time as well as to ways of working, collaborations, commissions. Apart from bookstores and other retail points, libraries and the role of academies, networks, societies have to be noted.
Regarding the reading audience of the first decades and centuries of printing, we could distinguish it in two categories:
1. Passive (mainly popular reading audience): through demand and expectations in content, images and price those readers took their role in the publishing process.
2. Dynamic, or more dynamic, such as humanist scholars, noblemen, cardinals, bishops, bibliophiles (being patrons often). The role of the patron has to be further discussed concerning the grade and the ways to which they intervened in the publishing process.
From passive to dynamic: The first category becomes more dynamic as its role is emerging due to economic, political, social, educational and cultural reasons. Reader engagement gradually had been encouraged for culminating in the 19th century, during the Industrial Revolution, when new dynamic reading groups emerged (women, workers, children). Furthermore, the role of the reading audience that extended to academies, networks, reading societies is also of value.
Initially, hand illumination was used to decorate a few copies, approximately 10–12 per edition – not of all the editions but of those that interested the specific reading audience of noblemen and of religious power – but since there are no data we cannot be sure of the numbers (Armstrong, 1991). These copies were printed either on parchment (very few) or on paper of better quality or of different colour (Zappella, 2001, p. 133–136) in order to be hand illuminated and specially bound so that they could (1) be offered as gifts from the publishers/printers or (2) be commissioned by the collectors mainly to booksellers of the era.
Since the first decades of printing, woodcuts were adopted for the illustration and ornamentation of the printed books bringing a ‘revolution’ in the development of taste; the democratization that typography brought about was not only to the text but also extended to the images and to the typology and aesthetics of the book, as referred above. Illustration and ornamentation explored and exploited the opportunities provided by technology of the era so as to develop the quality of the book and augment sales and success. Furthermore, the bedrock of typography seems to be that it provided a democratic, easy to use, cheap to acquire, simple to reproduce, friendly product for the information, education and entertainment of the people. From this point of view, the development of taste to large communities of readers is undoubtable, although difficult for data to be found and studied.
Apart from taste, it is also significant that typography provided the opportunity of owning books and of owning a potential art object. The feeling of owning the book is strong enough and significant for the reader even nowadays. The emotional attachment to the printed copy which apart from being desirable and aesthetically good obtains a personal story (the specific copy that we have read, bought, offered or being offered as a gift, underlined etc.) is a strong factor for the use of the printed material (Janzen-Kooistra, 2011). During Renaissance, for the popular reading audience the printed books were generally valuable objects; probably someone could own a couple of books or a dozen of books. It is noteworthy to mention the Menoccio case as described and studied by Ginzburg (2009). Menocchio, a poor mill worker, having been sentenced to death and executed for reading prohibited books in a small village in Friuli in Northern Italy, possessed approximately a dozen books. Some of them have been bought, some were borrowed by others, some were destroyed when investigation began (Ginzburg, 2009).
Printed books as material objects were developed according, but not only, to the taste and expectations of the readers. The book was a different medium from the manuscript in its production and distribution: it was a mass product, a democratized medium that definitely did not upon patrons, a commodity that also advertized its existence. Printers–publishers were businessmen and managers who started to systemize and protect their activity (the Universita’ dei Librai a dei Stampatori in Venice is a good example). Although some of them, especially during the first decades of printing, aspired to have financial and other support from wealthy noblemen and from the church, printers–publishers were or tried to be independent. The book was an information medium and as such had its own dynamic role.
What ‘public taste’ means in those centuries regarding printed books is rather a complex issue under the consideration that consciousness of class and of sex was gradually achieved. During Renaissance and the Baroque, each category of the reading audience had its own treatment from the publishers developed by its own needs, expectations and desires; the printed book was also a mirror of the reader serving to his/her prestige and self-consciousness. We use to think of ours as a complex and unique environment tending to forget that people of Renaissance and the Baroque had great and significant changes in a constantly by then changing world.
Undeniably, the artistic identity of the book explains issues of consumption, aesthetics and taste. Nowadays, aesthetics in the publishing industry, regarding both printed books and new forms of publications (ebooks, virtual publications) that are not tangible, has to do not only with the artistic identity of the book itself and the consideration of beautiful, but also with consumer behaviour, the development of taste, the emergence of tastemakers, the book market, promotion strategies and the impact of best sellers.
Obviously, the publishing aesthetics chain-circle-circuit nowadays, including new and experimental multimedia technologies, has further been broadened and has an augmented role in decisions and policy making. Furthermore, participation/engagement of the reader in the development of the artistic identity is one of the main opportunities and challenges for the publishing companies. The publishing industry has also to consider the following key concepts:
1. Personalized copies that use multimedia and information technology, offering apart from the interactive environment, personalized publishing services to customers/readers.
2. Recommendation technologies. The publisher has to introduce and recommend.
3. Reader engagement/participation in the development of the artistic identity of the book through multimedia technologies, personalized copies and social media/networking. Thus, the book is further being transformed and the publisher obtains a marketing tool so as to communicate with the reader, to get reader feedback, to understand needs and expectations and to satisfy them.
4. Patterns of innovation. Reader feedback and marketing help publishers to offer readers what they need and want. But beyond this, publishing always introduced, discovered and proposed the innovative, shaping thus literary taste and rules. Nowadays, when we are often informed by web pages and social networking, we are recommended and driven to similar titles. That is good, but the element of surprise is underestimated reducing recommendation services to offering similar books. Recommendation and satisfaction of the needs thus should go hand in hand with innovation.
5. Social networking: the role of online communities in the publishing industry,
6. Competition with other media,
7. Convergence of media,
Taking into consideration the above, the aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit nowadays is developed as follows (Scheme 2.2).
New stakeholders are to be observed mainly coming from new technologies (multimedia, games, information management, etc.). The publisher maintains a central role, whereas the roles of the agent and of the reader have been upgraded. We have to consider that the artist–graphic designer is still in the middle of the smaller chain related with the design and execution of the artistic identity of the edition; block cutters and engravers have been replaced by game designers, video artists and multimedia experts. It has, however, to be noted once again that changes and new elements have to be introduced to and combined with the ‘publishing framework’. Words with red are used for factors and conditions set in a wider framework influencing the publishing activity as a whole.
Inevitably, the influence of new information technologies and particularly of social media is of great significance; we should not though underestimate the enhancement of contemporary art, of graphic design, of the development of taste through complex channels and certainly of marketing. Convergence of media takes a key role whereas the competition of media often in the same device (tablet or smartphone) enforces publishers to further compete. In that framework, reader engagement is a major issue discussed in the next chapter.
2.3.2. The book as a visual–valuable–viable object and its historical explanations
Taking into consideration that ‘the book was an object which transformed itself into a commodity’ (Saenger, 2006, p. 3), we may add that it has always been created, produced, distributed, promoted and consumed as a mass product for the existing and potential reading audience whose needs, expectations and desires were known to publishers or tried to be understood and defined. The printed book had to be friendly, easily accessible, economic, portable, qualitative as text, valuable as material–visual object. The word ‘valuable’ implies that, although a mass product, whether cheap or not, the book has a specific meaning and a wider concept being transformed for every reader to something potentially unique. Apart from being viable, the book has to be valuable in different frameworks and in different concepts for different people and different needs, often in everyday life.
Art historians usually study editions lavishly illustrated, with elaborative decoration whose artist is famous or ambiguous. Hypnerotomachia Poliphili is a good example (Szepe, 1997). But, beyond that edition, Aldus Manutius produced a number of books that changed the publishing policy as a whole and the typographic-visual identity of the book of his era. These editions also changed reading and consumer habits introducing new publishing and business models. His editions were decorated by ornaments that were then used extensively and often repeated, signalling thus a recognizable profile and at the same time developing the audience’s taste creating also a decorative and typographic tradition.
Undeniably, libelli (libri) portatiles, books of classical texts of smaller size, introduced by Aldus Manutius (Lowry, 1979), developed and established a new publishing, consumer and reading culture; they were claimed to be friendly, cheaper, easily transferred providing to the reader the opportunity of reading it in the time, place, and way he/she wanted. These editions, apart from cocreating new reading and consumption cultures, also developed new aesthetic concepts and public taste through not only decoration and illustration but also through the typology of the book as material object. Familiarity and innovation, tested methods and experiment went hand in hand.
When coming to illustration and decoration/ornamentation, one of the questions raised is how we describe and explain them. The dialogue between book history and art history seems privileged while the interdisciplinary approach is more than challenging. What Baxandall stated, ‘we do not describe pictures, but remarks about pictures’ (1985, p. 1), seems to be crucial in the description, explanation and interpretation of the artistic identity of the book in all its tangible and intangible forms. Descriptions in bibliographies try to be objective, while stereotypes are sometimes reproduced mainly regarding old books. Additionally, hand illumination in early printed books and the work of the miniaturists has to be studied in a broader framework of art history, book history, history of reading, sociology and marketing. Paratext also offers to us an interpretation of the images and more specifically of the relationship between word and image explaining visual thresholds not only to the text but to the specific edition while it enlightens communication issues between stakeholders.
Thus, apart from the historical explanation, we could also use the technological, the artistic and the communicative explanation in publishing aesthetics:
• The technological explanation is of high importance especially (but not only) nowadays allowing us to set the framework and to develop strategies exploiting the opportunities provided by the new information technologies, including social networking.
• The artistic explanation offers a privileged point of view for both understanding and introducing strategies having a strong impact on personalized services, encouraging user engagement, and explaining patterns of taste making.
• The historical explanation, as already mentioned, is a necessary tool and a methodological background for understanding trends and issues so as to redevelop them in a hybrid environment proposing models for product development, marketing and promotion.
• The communicative explanation takes into consideration reading and consumer cultures as well as media offering tools for the above.
2.3.3. Visual information and consumption cultures from Vasari to the digital era
We have also to note that the consumption and culture of prints offered to the artists’ fame, whose work was made known and recognizable to the wide audience. On the other hand, prints offered to the publishers profit and fame in a competitive environment. Vasari wrote for Marcantonio Raimondi in the second edition, 1568, of the Vite: ‘Marc’ Antonio, having considered what honour and profit might be acquired by one who should apply himself to that art in Italy, formed the determination to give his attention to it with all possible assiduity and diligence. He thus began to copy those engravings by Albrecht Dürer, studying the manner of each stroke and every other detail of the prints that he had bought, which were held in such estimation on account of their novelty and their beauty, that everyone sought to have some’, (VI, p. 96)1.
Honour and profit are recognized to be twofold of the publishers’ values, although later in the same text, a few lines underneath, he blames the publishers for their avarice, interested and focused on profit and not on honour. The publishers as businessmen were often to be blamed for their editions or for the profit they gained; furthermore they were considered to profit by the works of the artists: the latter gained mostly fame and recognition, the former profit and collaborations and other advantages in a competitive environment.
It is though noteworthy that Vasari exhibits the value of the prints as information mediums and devices: ‘Many others have occupied themselves with copper-plate engraving, who, although they have not attained to such perfection, have none the less benefited the world with their labours, by bringing many scenes and other works of excellent masters into the light of day, and by thus giving the means of seeing the various inventions and manners of the painters to those who are not able to go to the places where the principal works are, and conveying to the ultramontanes a knowledge of many things that they did not know. And although many plates have been [p 112] badly executed through the avarice of the printers, eager more for gain than for honour, yet in certain others, besides those that have been mentioned, there may be seen something of the good’.2
Prints were recognized as mass information mediums offering knowledge and access to artworks in this case.
2.3.4. Information and experience: the old printed book in terms of ‘social media’. The case of Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam
Social and scholar networks were largely based on the printed book which as mass medium, often in a globalized concept, provided, apart from access to knowledge, the framework for experience sharing. The case of the preparation and publication of the Peregrinatio in Terram Sanctam by Breydenbach, 14863, is indicative.
It is noteworthy that both the author and the painter (Erhard Rauwich) travelled to the Holy Places so as to write and illustrate text. The creation of the book and its publication has to be considered in terms of almost a diary, a notebook, even an artist’s book, of their journey and their experiences; these experiences were regarded as valuable and worthwhile to be shared with the readers. A long time before the web and the social media, before blogs and Facebook, the German clerk (member of the Cathedral chapter in Mainz and then Archcancellarius of the prince electors) Bernhard von Breydenbach had understood, explored and exploited the opportunities of the printed book so as to share and spread ideas and experiences not only by words but also, and equally, by images. The painter Erhard Reuwich of Utrecht who designed the woodcuts travelled with him; the advantage of the edition was that both author and painter had seen and described in words and pictures the places, the animals, the people, the journey so as to benefit the readers.
The edition offers aspects of places and of the experience gained by the two travellers; it must be pointed out that this experience (1) is communicated and shared with the readers and (2) was gained because it was planned to be gained so as to end in the publication of the book. The purpose of the author was to travel, gather, write and publish; that is why he travelled with the artist whose role was to design and prepare the woodcuts. The reader would benefit from the book which was obviously promoted as worthwhile to be bought and read.
The printed book was thus transformed into a medium not simply of communication, information and knowledge but also of gaining and sharing experience. Whether as a substitute of life or as a guide or encouragement to the real journey, the printed book had confirmed its status and power being an ancestor of social media. The edition was thus self-advertised for the lavish illustration executed and created by the artist in the places described.
Every description, of course, presupposes the comments of the author and of the artist. Visual and verbal information is thus offered in defined ideological framework. Ross (2014) writes that ‘experience becomes information in the images of the Peregrinatio and how the information in turn obscures the complexity and the heterogeneity of the experience and its recording’. The truth of the descriptions and of the pictures is the truth of the author and of the artist who are the intermediaries between the reality and the reading audience. The power of the images tries to ensure the objectivity of the description. ‘Through pictorial, textual and material means, the woodcuts are self-consciously constructed as eyewitness views that pronounce their origin in an artist’s on site looking and recording’, continues Ross who writes about the participation of the viewer ‘in the diegesis of the image, when the viewer activates the testimonial force of the view by taking the artist’s view as his own’ (2014).
In the colophons of all the three editions Erhard Reuwich is named as the printer. Even though, book historians and experts have recognized that the editions were printed with the types of Peter Schoffer, Reuwich’s role being thus ambiguous. He could be responsible for the book as material object probably taking care of the printing process – something between editor and artist/graphic designer. No matter the role played by Reuwich, if he used previous prints, he and the author claimed that he was the creator of all pictures.
The book had been a bestseller, translated in Dutch, French and Spanish in the 15th century. The German edition was published 1 year after the editio princeps in Latin. It was reprinted 13 times in the next 30 years and it must be noted that the woodcut illustrations were reproduced extensively (Ross, 2014). The success of the vernacular texts demonstrates that the title was intended for a wide reading audience transferring messages and experience. This first travel book was self-advertised in the introduction by the author who proposed the experience of the creators as the advantage of the book and the privilege of the reader.
In 19th century France, the printer–publisher Henri-Leon Curmer produced editions for the wide reading audience; these mass-produced, mass-distributed and promoted books were popular as they satisfied the needs and expectations of the rapidly emerging reading audience. One of the main features of these publications was the illustration. Heavily illustrated literary or historic texts made the book a commodity and a potentially art object for the popular reading audience. Book series, multivolume actually, with a recognizable material profile, helped in Curmer’s success. Shelton recognizes that ‘thanks to such popularizers and vulgarizers as Curmer, a much broader segment of society was now able to participate in the increasingly commercialized cultural life of the nation’ (2005, p. 60).
But going back in time, we can identify Aldus Manutius as the publisher who provided books – both as content and as material object – that were innovative, economic and friendly, considered as valuable by the readers. Numerous other examples led us to the point that the publisher has always been a businessman combining economic, human, social, symbolic and what we call in this chapter ‘aesthetic’ capital. Although being a printer and a bookseller at the same time during the first centuries of printing, he had the responsibility for all the publishing activity developing the publishing policy of his company and maturing the aesthetics of the book that served also promotion and marketing.
2.4. Reconstructing the book: the value of the paratext
2.4.1. What is paratext?
According to Genette (1997, p. 2): ‘The paratext is what enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such to its readers and more generally to the public. More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext, is, rather, a threshold or – a word Borges used apropos of a preface – a “vestibule” that offers the world at large the possibility of either stepping inside or rather turning back… The paratext then is empirically made up of a heterogeneous group of practices and discourses of all kinds and dating from all periods which I federate under the term “paratext” in the name of a common interest or a convergence of effects, that seems to me more important than their diversity of aspect’.
By the word paratext we mean both front matter (introductions, prologues, forewords, table of contents, title page, frontispiece, dedicatory letters, table of illustrations, etc.) and back matter of the book (epilogue, indexes, errata, etc.), that is what introduces the text and what comes after it. Paratext has informative, commercial, practical, artistic–aesthetic and advertising value.
Front matter, in particular, epitomizes the contents, declares the value of the text, exhibits the efforts done for the preparation and production (editing, translation, etc.) of the book, promotes the title, points out the difficulties that were overcomed for the edition, enlightens the advantages and value of the edition, encourages the future support from either patrons or subscribers, advertises the future efforts and titles of the publisher. Thus, it defines, and in some way engages, the reading audience and promotes the book. ‘The pages of front matter, if viewed in the context of the book market, can be seen as a particularly articulate contemporary sliding edge between the text and the world’ (Saenger, 2006, p. 3).
In that framework, Sherman (2007, pp. 68–69) summarizes the term ‘paratext’ as Genette introduced it and used since then: ‘for Genette, the paratext’ is a ‘group of practices and discourses’, mobilized by the ‘author and his allies’, that ‘enables a text to become a book and to be offered as such to its readers and, more generally, to its public’. The paratext is not only distinct from the text but ‘always subordinate to it’.
So what is paratext nowadays? Although strongly connected to front matter, it is certainly not reduced to it. The paratext introduces, guides and explains; it also forces readers to participate – being engaged and promotes the book both as content and as material object. Paratext has always presupposed reader engagement, although not clearly outlined. From this point of view, nowadays, it has to be redeveloped and reused in a different environment exploiting the opportunities of new information and communication technologies which provide an advanced framework for empowering its role especially in new digital electronic forms of the book; paratext is the medium for converging technologies, combining opportunities, having a diadrastic impact, enforcing reader engagement. This may be a strong tool for publishers.
2.4.2. Visual and verbal paratext
Initially, we shall focus on the nature, history and development of paratext. It can be distinguished, for methodological reasons, to verbal and visual, both having a strong influence on book promotion and reader participation.
Paratext is:
1. Verbal:
• Introductions,
• Forewords,
• Prologues,
• Dedicatory letters – epistles,
• Epilogues,
• Table of contents,
• Table of illustrations,
• Dedications,
• Half-page,
• Errata,
• Index,
• Comments,
• Catalogues/lists of books published by the publisher.
2. Visual
• Title page,
• Frontispiece,
• Illustration on both front matter and back matter,
• Decoration,
• Book ornaments, borders.
Paratext, according to Genette, consists also of peritext (within the book) and epitext which exists outside the book (p. 5). Thereafter, we will study how the new information technologies can make the epitext, such as book reviews, strongly connected even incorporated into the text so as the reader to have immediate access to it.
Paratext is considered mainly the publisher’s responsibility, who decides and organizes it according to the kind of text, the profile of the publishing company, the author, the reading audience, the iconographic and decorative tradition of the text, the promotion that needs collaborating often with the author, the editor, the translator and the artist/graphic designer. During Renaissance and the Baroque era, the role of the patron was of significance in specific editions. In this chapter, the term ‘patronage paratext’ will be introduced outlining the role of the patron or even better of the mentioning of the name of the patron.
Nowadays, new information and communication technologies have ‘revived’ the paratext to digital and electronic publications bringing to light new aspects and introducing concepts that often seem new, although deriving from the paratext of the past. Additionally, new multimedia technologies have added value to this, providing new tools for converging and combining different parts of the book as well as parts outside the book. Structural changes may be observed.
In early printed books there is a variety of paratext material both visual and verbal (Smith & Wilson, 2011). As the printed book was its own best advertisement, rich paratextual material demonstrated and further outlined the value and the quality of the book. More specifically, front matter introduced the text, providing information about the author and the content, about its publishing history and the historic conditions related to the creation, pointing out the difficulties of the edition and focusing either on the reading audience and/or on patronage. Thus, front matter, apart from informing and introducing the text to its reader, has also been a promotion and publicity method exhibiting the value of the book both as content and as an object.
Back matter (parts of the book after the text) had a commercial function too. Even though, as it is generally used when the text has been read or during reading (endnotes, bibliography, indexes, etc.), it has a role more focused on the text itself in comparison with the front matter. We can assume, from this point of view, that its commercial value is reduced while the explanatory function is augmented. This balance seems to be changing nowadays as the digital text offers the opportunity of inserting the comments, links, bibliography in the text transforming thus the paratext and updating it so as to meet the needs and expectations of the readers.
Front matter was developed and controlled mainly by publishers/printers and editors. Both visual and verbal paratext has been recognized since the beginning of typography as a privileged area for promotion, advertisement, and building a relationship of trust with the reader. ‘Front matter contains intriguing structures which not only introduce a text but also variously epitomize, privatize, publicize, metaphorize, aggrandize, trivialize, and ultimately transform and configure the text, the reader and the patron’ (Saenger, 2006, p. 16). We may add that front matter encourages further support (financial support from patrons – distinguished readers, subscriptions from readers) and engagement from readers. Saenger (2006, p. 20) states that ‘Information contained in front matter is often unreliable; marketability is the constant, not honesty’. From a different point of view, though, we can add that this information is valuable as it gives us information about the publishing procedure revealing as well, apart from promotion strategies, networks and complicated relationships, ideological concepts and collaborations. Furthermore, it enlightens the book as a commodity and as a commercial object.
In that framework, visual paratext enables promotion of the book by outlining the quality of the book and perhaps the uniqueness of the edition due to a number of reasons, the artistic identity and visual literacy included. Illustrated or decorated title pages, frontispieces and other borders or decorations must be studied not only as supportive to verbal paratext but also of equal and even in cases of augmented significance. From this point of view, the use of multimedia technologies nowadays is continuing this tradition of paratext bringing about new opportunities.
2.4.3. Front matter
It must though be noted that since Renaissance it was not only the title page, but the front matter in general that had a strong commercial, advertising, informative and artistic value being thus one of the main promotion mediums of the era. As the printed book was the medium for access to information as well as for information storage and retrieval, it had to develop its own typology so as to not only disseminate knowledge and information but also organize it.
It is true that the structure and function of the book were rediscovered and redeveloped in regard to the manuscript; title pages, tables of contents, errata, tables of illustrations, forewords, glossary, indexes, tables, headings were part of this organization of knowledge so as to make the text readable and friendly. All the above, being part of both front matter and back matter aimed to offer quick and easy access to information and knowledge. They were tools for the navigation in the text and in the information universe in general. Although some of them have antecedents in manuscripts, there was a systematization and further development of these parts in favour of the opportunities of the new medium and of the needs of the audience. The book had to be readable, useful, marketable, and look good. In that framework, information-seeking behaviour of the first readers was enforced by these verbal and visual tools.
2.4.4. Title page and cover
The title page has to be studied in a broader commercial, artistic, aesthetic, informative framework enlightening current publishing issues in accordance with the art of the period. Much has been written about the title page. Research has been done by Margaret Smith (2001), Lorenzo Baldacchini (2004), and others.
Developed at the printed books, the title page is the child of typography; it did not exist at the manuscript book as there was no need for it. Due to practical, commercial, informative, legal, artistic, advertising reasons, the title page emerged initially as a blank page protecting the first page of the text (Smith, 2001; Baldacchini, 2004). But this blank page obviously was not practical to the printers, booksellers and binders (as they could not distinguish between the editions being thus often confused) neither had any aesthetic value; certainly it did not serve the needs of the reading audience and it did not offer to the promotion of the title. The next step towards the end of the 15th century was for the printers/publishers to print on this blank page the title of the work and the author initially with small, as in the text, typographic characters. And then the title page was enriched and further enriched both verbally and visually, emerging from the blank and being augmented so as to inform (about the edition: author, title, printer, place and time of the edition, editor, translator, illustrator, etc.), to meet the aesthetic needs (through illustration and decoration incorporating ornamental and iconographic types, reminding topics, introducing the theme or the reader), to advertise, to compete with other editions and to reassure the privilege (the copyright of the era).
Thus, the title page (which had the function of the cover by then) had incorporated since its beginning commercial, informative, practical, legal, artistic, promotional and decorative value. Information regarding the edition was emblematically presented outlining the value of the book. The title page is certainly a visual and verbal introduction to the book: apart from the above it had to promise and to reassure on the quality of the edition as content and as material object. The former was achieved mainly by words whereas the latter was obtained by the artistic value of woodcut/engravings that offered visual literacy. Although the title page has to be promising, recognizable, of artistic value, innovative, it should also focus on the tradition; although introducing often new elements and reflecting the art of the era, it has to be useful for the readers. Apart from entry to the text, the cover and the title page are certainly a first guide and a promise having a strong advertising impact. Books are promoted and bought even nowadays to a certain extent by their covers (Matthews and Moody, 2007).
The title page and then the cover were or should be a synthesis and visual representation/synopsis of the ideas and/or the plot of the book. On the one hand, imitation and reproduction of the already used, tested, known and successful iconographic and decorative motives can be observed extensively in Renaissance and Baroque title pages; publishers tended to reproduce the already tested commercially and aesthetically. On the other, innovation and experimentation played a key role; innovation surprises and promises, intrigues the reader and encourages him or her to participate. In a competitive framework the cover has to prevail and often to keep the balance – being recognizable and innovative at the same time, satisfying and surprising.
The cover and cover material in general constitute the external, visual gateway to the book – from this point of view, nowadays publishers have many opportunities and choices so as to introduce and explore. It has to be noted that the transformations of the book and convergence of media mean that the visual introduction to the book is not limited to the cover and title page but expands to the front matter and to material that constitutes the virtual visual paratext.
Illustration incorporates techniques and attitudes. The architectural title page, for example, represents this introduction to the book, as a temple-building of knowledge, information and wisdom: allegorical figures, putti, emblems, books, scrolls, arms, flowers, mythological figures, anthropomorphic motives were largely used so as to be a threshold to the book and to promote it. Publishers/printers did not though commission for every edition a new title page; they used from their stock the existing ones inserting the title and other information. The period, the place and the kind of text were probably the most prevailing parameters for the decision upon the type of the page. Publishers knew from their experience, a kind of “premarketing”, what the readers wanted and needed, embedded in the iconographic and decorative tradition.
Questions raised include the following; how much connected to the text were these title pages? Before or after reading the text, readers could understand the meaning of these figures? Obviously, the title page created expectations from the edition in terms of promotion, both for the text and for the artistic identity. The majority of the works, woodcuts or not, are anonymous while even illustrious examples of book illustration such as the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili still raise questions both to book historians and art historians.
The privilege of choice for the reader can be also found in Renaissance prints encouraging reader participation. Apart from the point that prints of great artists could be bound together, it is noteworthy that a title page was provided by Lafrery for the edition of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae ‘which could be bound together with prints on Roman subjects, the selection of prints evidently being left to the purchaser’ (Gregory, 2012, p. 40).
Nowadays, borders are obviously widened. The cover and jacket, having always been among the factors that determined the success and sales of titles, have been transformed. The cover has to serve the printed, the virtual and the electronic medium. As the majority of people probably come to know the edition initially through electronic bookstores, websites, bookblogs, viewing the book on ebooks, computers, tablets, mobiles, publishers have to face the challenge of creating title pages appropriate for all forms of the publication exploiting the opportunities provided for inserting new elements and developing the aesthetic identity.
2.4.5. Creating celebrities: frontispiece and the author’s portrait
The frontispiece as an influence from the manuscript still appears in printed editions during Renaissance, even – although rarely – since now. The inclusion of a woodcut or copper plate engraving at the front of the work had an aesthetic impact, gave authorization to the text, advertised the book, promoted the author. Barchas (2013, p. 22) recognizes that ‘for reasons both of custom and cost, the frontispiece portrait quickly evolved into a caste label’.
Coming from the manuscript tradition, the frontispiece in old books is often related to the portrait of the author or of the person to whom the book is focused. The fame and distinction of the person illustrated, the success of previous editions, the relationship with other authors, noblemen, scholars, etc., gave to the reader the reassurance and the confirmation of the quality of the edition. Frontispieces were marketing devices and thresholds for the reader so as to trust, explore and understand text. From this point of view, the visual presentation of the author added value to the edition.
Vasari in the second edition of the Lives, Florence 1568, used the portraits of the artists so as to augment their fame, add recognition and embellish the edition having as starting point the traditional frontispiece. Gregory (2012, p. 91) writes that out ‘of the 83 portraits for which the resources are known, some 24 (over a quarter) have been altered in a way. Vasari seems, by means of these changes, to have invested some of these woodcuts with visual clues that were intended to convey meaning – meaning related to the content of his biographies’. The comment of Sharon Gregory for the use of portraits by Vasari is revealing for the uses of these images regarding the relation between text and portraits as well as issues of recognition, prestige and fame during Renaissance.
By the printed book the role of the author was certainly upgraded, the work being disseminated to a wider reading audience. Regarding the portrait of the author, Saenger (2006, p. 27) writes: ‘are these cases of writers asserting authority, or publishers discovering the writers’ names and dignity had become a selling point?’, commenting that ‘the publisher would not have enshrined any author as an authorial presence unless doing so improved the value of the book, so publishers and book buyers may have had more to do with the widely touted “rise of the author” than authors did themselves’ (2006, p. 30). The emerging role of the author was exploited, even developed, by the publishers so as to add value and promote the title whereas communication between the author and the reader was further encouraged.
Publishing was used for creating fame and introducing celebrities; publishers gained both profit and fame. The portrait of the author was multifunctioned; it embellished the page, continued the tradition of the manuscript, reminded the topic, brought fame and recognition to the author, introduced visually the text to the reader, engaged the reader sometimes (especially when from edition to edition this engraving was modified), added value to the edition especially when the author was famous.
The frontispiece in the printed book of the 20th century had almost disappeared surviving and appearing in a few editions that were embellished not such with portraits but with other illustrations. It is though noteworthy that portraits of the authors as appeared in the frontispiece continued in the photos of the authors on covers/jackets of the book. Phillips (2015) says: ‘the publishing reality is that readers want to see authors, and authors need to be seen in order to sell their books whether in the media, at literary festivals, or on book jackets’. The photo or the portrait of the author seems to add value and to be connected with the promotion of the book and the relationship built with the reader. It is noteworthy that a new portrait of Jane Austen has been commissioned by a British publisher as the only authenticated portrait of her is too unattractive; Phillips enlightens the case (2015).
2.4.6. The printed page
The aesthetics of the printed page of the paratext material developed so as to be friendly, readable, accessible and desirable in accordance with the technical/technological and artistic framework. Stoicheff and Taylor in their introduction to the Futureof the Page(2014) referring to the principles of the page’s identity and influence distinguish between the page’s (1) materials, (2) architecture (the arrangement of information in the page), (3) ideologies (the ways in which the arrangement of information shapes or reflects cultural systems). It is noteworthy that they also refer to information hierarchies: cultures with an ideological investment in information hierarchies produced pages whose organization helped consolidate those hierarchies.
To the above we have to add aesthetics. Certainly, the typology of the page was developed so as to satisfy informative, functional and aesthetic needs and expectations of the readers (Bornstein, 2006). The growth of a specific print and illustrative culture exploited the techniques of the era and implied ideological concepts as well as collaborations between stakeholders. The paratext is a good example; organized mainly by the publishers (and the editors sometimes) for introducing the text to the reader, making information regarding the text accessible, providing a threshold to the context, promoting and advertising the title, bringing fame to the author and other stakeholders, exhibiting in this way patterns of prestige, power, culture and taste.
Bonnie Mak (2011) writes: “the strategies of the page may be simultaneous, overlapping, mutually responsible, complementary, and even contradictory and have been domesticated over a period of centuries, not tied exclusively to one particularly platform or mode of production”.
Names of the stakeholders, apart from the title pages, appeared at introductions, prologues, epilogues, forewords, dedicatory letters. For example, the name of the editor (Richardson, 1999) implied the augmented significance of his role which was upgraded, as for example in the editions published by Aldus Manutius. Undeniably the front matter is in the control of the publisher’s expressing his values, aims, and publishing policy. There the text is presented and advertised and the intention of making the text accessible and reading easier can be traced among the first editions which also introduced and established parts of the book such as the table of contents.
Taking into consideration that ‘western culture has been in many ways crucially determined by the page’s materials of information transfer and organization’ (Stoicheff and Taylor, 2014), we have to take a look at the typology of the page from an aesthetic point of view. Nowadays the page is constantly being changing. When reading on new mediums, it can be seen that the page has been widened with links, multimedia, audio and visual elements. Its components can be edited, copied, combined, modified influencing thus, apart from the reading behaviour, the emotional and psychological functions of the page and of the book. In that framework, we have also to consider and develop aesthetic policies for the printed book as well which is also influenced.
2.4.7. The printer’s mark
The printer/publisher used also the printers’ mark so as to visually remind to the reader of the quality and the fame of his editions. Sometimes the printer’s mark was the only embellishment and visual element that the title page had, serving thus as an ornament too, often printed with red ink. It is characteristic that printers/publishers reviewed and renewed their typographic marks (Zappella 1988, 1998). The main element – iconographic type was the same having often relationship with the name of the publisher/printer, but borders or other ornaments were modified. For example, Aldus Manutius had the famous printing mark consisted of the dolphin and the anchor in various ornaments and borders printed differently according to the time, the edition and the size of the book. The printer’s mark was a guarantee of the quality that had as well a legal aspect reminding and assuring the privilege/the right to publish the work.
2.4.8. Running titles – page headlines
According to Day (2011, p. 47): ‘This space on the page was not deployed mindlessly to reproduce the title of the work or even the chapter headings, but was ingeniously, often wittily and sometimes scurrilously used in a variety of ways in an effort to shape the response of the readers’. Nowadays, in new forms of the book and personalized copies, headlines may serve – in a wider framework – towards the participation of the reader and the redevelopment of the page. During Renaissance, it is true that books shared an economy of forms and of choices combining new technologies with established attitudes; this happens nowadays as well.
2.4.9. Dedicatory letters – epistles
It is noteworthy that paratext tends to create a readership, even communities of readers enabling communication, participation in certain circles and academies, as well as feedback. For example, a scholar could have written after the reading/study of the text to the author or to the publisher for commenting on the edition or suggesting improvements. That was the case of Vasari and Lampsonius. At revised editions often feedback through correspondence was taken into consideration. Scholar networks in Renaissance Europe were emerging and flourishing; the academies offered communication, collaboration and dialogue, as well as reading societies and scientific societies later on. The printed book had been the privileged medium for communication.
Dedicatory letters, epistles were popular in early editions forming a strong and successful promotion medium. Pointing out the quality of the edition (context and image), the work of the printer/publisher and other stakeholders (the editor, for example), the difficulties overcome, they were dedicated often to men of power (political and religious). These dedicatory letters had the advantage of ensuring the quality of the edition, demonstrating the support of noblemen who were further called to continue. In that context, the dedicatory letter was an important promotion tool. Publishers used them so as to reach potential audiences, satisfy the existing ones, augment sales and combat with competition.
Undeniably, dedicatory letters added value to the editions giving a privilege in a highly competitive environment. They were written so as to be printed, to be public; although letters are private, these were intended to be disseminated to all readers. This was not something new in Renaissance culture. Correspondence was published sometimes from the living author so as to gain fame or bring to light several trends or communicate with the audience which expected in turn this publication. The case of Aretino, studied at the third chapter, is of interest. The dedicatory letters, although derive from an older world and reflect the manuscript tradition, served as well the printed book having a strong informative and marketing impact. The private was thus made public and one may wonder for the boundaries between the two; these boundaries seem to be reset and redefined according to the specific cultural and political conditions, by print culture and by the stakeholders.
Nowadays, there is also a convergence of private and public encouraged by new media and social networks. A message or a letter to the author or to the publisher (or to the translator, editor, artist, other reader, etc.) is shared with readers at the social media (such as book blogs) who can intervene as well; from this point of view, we can talk of more interactive mediums where public and private have definitely been redefined and reset their boundaries being ambivalent. Dialogue, collaboration, ‘word of mouth’, promotion, critic is altered in that framework (Papacharissi, 2015). Thus, apart from the convergence of media we may take as key element the convergence of private and public.
Dedicatory letters had always been oriented to the potential or imagined reader, and social media do so with the already existing readers and the potential ones. In this line of thought, publishers encourage their authors to have blogs, use twitter, be on the Facebook or Instagram etc., so as to communicate with their readers, interact with them, build a relationship of trust and thus promote their books augmenting fame. Furthermore, the authors build a recognizable profile like the one that Aretino wanted to create by publishing his correspondence in Renaissance.
Additionally, the dedicatory letters, as well as introductions, offered to the publisher a medium for creating his profile, developing his publishing policy and be self-presented and self-defined to the audience. The wealth and power of the patron further helped the development and establishment to the public of the profile and of the fame (symbolic capital) of the publisher/printer. In the early years of printing, symbolic capital was been created through various and mainly experimental roads. The erudited ones from the manuscript tradition were not any more sufficient, thus new methods, mediums and ways had to be discovered. The title page, the printer’s mark, were among these mediums. Considering also that in the early centuries of printing, the book per se was the best advertisement of itself, the printed dedicatory letters/epistles and the introductions – forewords offered a medium of information and promotion.
2.4.10. Paratext, patronage and book promotion: added value for all
Paratext, apart from introducing the book to the reader, has a more complex and significant role regarding publishing policy, reading and consumer culture. Patronage can be studied as part of promotion strategies but also as a tool for communicating and building communities of readers. Networking was obviously important and complex. We will focus on the impact of patronage in book production, promotion and consumption as presented in the paratext and used by printers and publishers as a means for both promoting books and gaining symbolic capital.
Famous patrons supported editions the number of which was though rather low in regard to the flood of editions and to the abundance of published material. These editions are of significance and of research interest when directly commissioned or produced and used for propaganda or for issues of prestige. But apart from those cases, we will investigate the impact of dedicatory letters, dedicatory poems or just the reference of the patron’s name in the paratext (introductions).
We may wonder what patronage exactly means in publishing. Patronage in publishing may be
1. direct financial support,
2. commission for a specific edition with given guidelines,
3. in a wider context, encouragement for the publishing activity,
4. reminding on behalf of the publisher of the previous collaboration and/or of the relationship with the “patron”.
Thus, we may wonder on the added value for every stakeholder.
• What did the patron gain?
Fame, respect, promotion, status, aesthetic merit, confirmation for his offer and taste. The book thus was a symbol of status, power, distinction, cultivation and prestige.
• What did the publisher–printer gain?
Promotion, advertisement, publicity of the book and of his printing shop, fame (symbolic capital), recognition, respect, aesthetic merit and distinction.
• What did the author gain?
Promotion, status, fame, respect and recognition.
The reference to the patron, just even the announcement of his/her name (without economic support or other privileges) promoted the title. On building the symbolic capital of the publishing business, the communication or previous collaboration with the patron, even in terms wider than the economic support, offered to the edition a privilege.
Dedicatory letters to patrons had a twofold aim. On the one hand, they aspired to gain material or legal support, and on the other they aimed to gain something more complex, deeper and everlasting: the demonstration of the relationship with a powerful man of politics or religion. This communication reassured the reader for the quality and the high value of the edition as well as for the publisher.
Richardson writes that: ‘while the patronage of fine art and of architecture usually depended on an initial commission, in most cases literary patronage involved authors approaching authors speculatively. The author’s aspirations to receiving patronage were expressed, above all, in a dedication placed at the start of the work, either in the form of a letter of presentation or woven into the opening lines of the text itself’ (1999, p. 51). Relationships revealed between printers–publishers and editors on the one hand and patrons on the other are of research interest and had commercial, ethical and cultural merit. Obviously, typography implied differentiated patronage patterns, and as Finkelstein and McCleery (2012, pp. 73–74) recognize: ‘the role of the patron shifted as the rise of mechanical print production encouraged the development of financially viable printed works in the 16th and 17th centuries’ referring to the shift in patronage from that of commissioning and controlling to that of promoting, consuming, and distributing.
Later on, during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, the list of subscribers transformed ‘patronage’ patterns; the above-mentioned demonstration of communication and support was between different stakeholders in a more democratic framework where rich merchants and middle class bourgeois had their place in the production of book mainly through subscriptions.
As nowadays publishers try to have direct communication with their audiences, their colleagues in Renaissance and the Baroque age, especially in Italy that we often use as case study, had the same aim and strategy. One of their methods was the paratext in which they presented the features, the parameters, history and difficulties of the publishing process with emphasis to the book both as content and object. Translation, the work of the editor, difficulties in obtaining the appropriate manuscripts, the publishing series (when existed or when tried to be created), as well as the printing types, the quality of the paper, the illustration or/and decoration (when existed) were among the topics on which the authors of these texts focused with the aim to promote the title persuading the reader for how useful and nice was. The editor, the translator or the printer/publisher were the ones who usually wrote those texts introducing often not only the book but also the work of the publishing house as a whole.
The book has been – among others – a symbol of power, wealth, cultivation, taste. ‘Elites felt the need to communicate their status to others in their own elite group, to other elites, and to ordinary citizens’, (Nelson and Zeckhauser, 2008, p. xiv). In that context, the printed book was certainly an effective medium, although not so ‘glorious’ as monumental art and certainly more difficult to be controlled. Noblemen of Renaissance were often portrayed with a book in their hands so as to outline their cultivation and taste. Some of them had famous, glorious libraries not only due to their bibliophily but also due to status, family tradition, prestige, competition with other noble families. Politics of publishing and complex relationships among stakeholders are among the issues that deserve to be studied.
Additionally, antecedents of reading communities may be traced during Renaissance: attempts in paratext were made so as to develop an often ‘between the lines’ communication, in which sometimes the anonymous reader was a stakeholder of augmenting importance. The anonymous reader not only through the text but also through the artistic identity of the book became part of the publishing procedure. This ‘distant’ communication, as time passed, became more specific. We know about communication and letters of readers–scholars to the author, editor or publisher. Furthermore, readers, especially scholars had the opportunity to talk about the edition, review it, debate on it and propose it to their audiences or students or their academies. Later on, the press provided an influential medium for book reviews and dialogue between readers and, between readers and authors in which publishers–printers sometimes intervened.
Moreover, reading societies and reading rooms during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution offered to readers the way to communicate and share. Reading rooms were organized by booksellers or publishers where readers with a rather modest monthly fee could have access to printed material: books, newspapers and periodicals. They usually appealed to the working class and the less wealthy members of society, whereas the reading societies were an expression and institution of the rich merchants and bourgeois whose role was constantly upgraded (Lyons, 1999, 2008). It is though significant that reading rooms in the 18th and 19th centuries apart from access gave membership to the readers who were not just customers, just readers but members of a community that in the late 19th century would be transformed or incorporated to book clubs. We must certainly point out the role of public libraries, as developed initially in Great Britain and the United States, in which ‘free to all, open to all’ gave not only access to information and to knowledge and also to the society.
Nowadays, the word member regarding the reader is of major significance. He/she is not only a customer but also the member of the community and this is established and demonstrated much due to social media and new information and communication technologies with publishers taking advantage of it in terms of marketing and promotion.
Antecedents of the above, as mentioned, can be traced in the paratext of the Renaissance printed books. Although patronage in publishing had a few things in common with patronage in art, we may point out the differences due to the nature of the medium. The publisher produced a commercial product for the reading audience that tended gradually to be widened. The reader paid for his copy owing thus an information medium with aesthetic merit. Although printing was used for propaganda and promotion of men of politics and religion, the printed book even since the first decades had been an independent, democratized medium that led to dialogue, changes in knowledge dissemination, controversies (Reformation and Counter Reformation), revolutions. It was not easy to be controlled although attempts had been made and censorship can be identified as a parameter of the publishing activity for certain periods (Infelise, 2013). On the other hand, the printed book developed public taste and helped towards what we have called ‘democratization of taste’.
A crucial question is if the patron in book publishing had the choice of deciding upon the edition (both as text and context) or if the decision was the printers’. Usually printers offered to the patrons a luxury copy (or more than one), a copy different from the others, printed on vellum or on better quality of paper, hand illuminated and bound properly. The patron received the copy as a gift. Thus the added aesthetic and ideological value of the edition for the patron was decided in a way that went back to hand illumination of manuscripts – a copy different from the tirage. The added value as content depended on the dedicatory letter/poem or on the reference of his name and offer. And this was probably more than enough for gaining fame and distinction between equals, at the elite of the time.
The second issue we must look at is that (apart from the times that the edition had been financed by the patron), his name was mentioned so as to recognize his contribution to the edition not in economic or legal terms but mainly in a more general intellectual, cultural and social context. This served the promotion needs of the publishers and the gaining of the symbolic capital. For example, we are not sure if the Medici had financed every Greek edition of Janus Lascaris in Renaissance Florence – what we do know is the existing relationship between Janus Lascaris and the Medici family that is demonstrated in the paratext of the editions giving information to the readers, reassuring the quality and promoting the books. This relationship between patrons and printers/authors/editors in specific places for specific texts was outlined in the paratext. There was, in the majority of cases, as far as we are concerned, no direct commission from the patron as happened in painting or sculpture or architecture. In printing culture, the patron did not wait for a unique glorious monumental work of art; the best he aspired to was (1) a luxury copy/copies that will embellish his book collection, (2) the mentioning of his name in the paratext being thus identified as a patron of Letters (reminding that the Republic of Letters is indeed powerful).
We should thus consider ‘patronage’ in publishing in a wider framework that is related with the kind of relationship between the stakeholders and with the benefits acquired. A more specific framework implies the economic support of the patron. A wider concept of patronage implies the information offered to the reader regarding the relationship with the patron. We can name it “obscure patronage”. ‘In Renaissance Italy many patrons employed both words and actions to communicate self-serving messages. They created an image of themselves that corresponded to, and in turn helped define, the norms of behaviour and appearance in their society. For the affluent and noble, a key aspect of that image was the display of magnificence’ (Nelson and Zeckhauser, 2008, p. 5). The printed book was not another work of art but a mass medium which transmitted knowledge and could demonstrated the offer and the ‘magnificence’, although not always clearly defined, of the patron. ‘The system also coexisted alongside a market economy: securing a dedication to an important sponsor would guarantee a popular success for an author’s composition and work, a significant consideration, particularly from the 16th century onward…’ (Finkelstein and McCleery, 2012, p. 72). The message is that of the printer–publisher or of the author and is sent to the reader; in that message the name and the fame of the patron are of particular use. The benefits of the patronage for all stakeholders can thus be traced between the lines.
The message of these ‘patronage paratext’, beyond recognition and respect to the patron, lies in the communication between the stakeholders and the demonstration of the quality of the edition. Furthermore, through repetition of specific words and phrases, the text created the sense of a community. Multiple networks imply different ways of communicating depended and developed in specific economic, political, social, technological and cultural conditions; the printed books encouraged communication serving also promotion strategies and developing consumer behaviour.
2.4.11. Visual paratext, digital paratext and a comment
The visual paratext must be studied not only in close relation to the text but also as an often autonomous element combined with others and used so as to explain and promote. Apart from artistic and commercial value, the visual paratext has informative, both explanatory and introductory, value. Illustrations can certainly be studied as agents of ‘paratextual inscription’ (Jung, 2015, p. 3).
Nowadays, the paratext faces many and great challenges due to new technologies. More specifically, multimedia technologies offer new tools and new perspectives so as to redevelop and reconstruct both verbal and visual paratext. Convergence of media and the opportunity of combining and inserting material in the body of the book so as to provide personalized copies, gamified content, etc., lead to new policies. For example, book reviews, context from book blogs, promos, advertisements, photos, games, other texts can be added to virtual publications and to the electronic books. Naturally, major questions emerge regarding convergence, the role of the publisher and of the reader, the permanence or not of these new forms of the book, cocreation, reader engagement, the nature of reading and consumer cultures.
Reading books is certainly not as it was – at least in most of the cases. What has changed is on the one hand the form of the book (being often intangible); even when we read on printed material, reading and aesthetic experiences are redeveloped due to the converged framework in which information and recommendation technologies serve the book. Bhaskar (2015) writes, regarding paracontent, that ‘both practitioners and those studying media and publishing need a new language to describe forms of content that exist between content and marketing (276)… By turning paratexts into paracontent, we broaden the range of the paratext and reflect the marketer centricity of the new paratexts…Paracontent is also related to the idea of transmedia, and more generally of “vast narratives”’ (278). The body of content is definitely enriched with videos, audios, photos, advertisements, reviews etc. links that form a substantial part of the content as appears to the readers.
The paratext is thus augmented and widened being in the core of both product development and marketing strategies, whereas the influence of contemporary art is of research interest. Jonathan Gray stated that ‘Because paratexts help us decide which texts to consume, we often know many texts only at the paratextual level’ (2010, p. 26). Social media, recommendation technologies, services from the online bookstores may lead toward this. Taking into consideration that the best advertisement of the book was the book itself during the first centuries of printing, we can nowadays use this as a starting point. For example, electronic bookstores offer access not only to part of the text (paratext mainly) but also to covers, jackets and to the front matter which may have a strong influence on the reader.
It is also true that many times readers come to know a text through tangible and intangible products related to the book. Films, series, music, objects (cups, pencils, bags, diaries, notebooks, games…) set the framework for understanding and consuming the title especially for bestselling books. This ‘…mania’, encouraged and incorporated by the publishers in their promotion policies, creates consumer and reading behaviour. Harry Potter is a good example (Striphas, 2009, p. 2).
Another point is that personalized services and recommendation technologies provide information and recommendation to the reader according to his/her needs, desires and expectations. Thus, the crucial question concerns the element of surprise that will also be discussed in the next chapters. How can the reader explore and discover something new, something that he or she probably did not expect or think? But when he/she comes across, it is recognized as important, introducing something of interest. If we are offered and recommended the expected, do we tend to discover what we expect to discover? The publisher’s role is traditionally to innovate, to change, to develop taste, to introduce and ‘discover the book whose music is heard when everything is silent’ (Feltrinelli, 2013). It is though noteworthy that young people, millennials, insist on reading on more traditional ways (the printed book) and communicating by using new technologies (Cox, 2015).
The uses of text and of the paratext are thus redeveloped and widened implying a range of choices as for example the advanced roles of readers including personalized copies.
2.5. Reader participation and personalized copies: new aesthetic and business models
2.5.1. Personalized copies then and now
The origins of the personalized copies can be traced in Renaissance, when hand decorated/illuminated copies, printed often on paper of better quality or coloured or on parchment, with unique binding, were offered as gifts or commissioned by book collectors (men of political and religious power, noblemen, humanists). Apart from the book as a symbol of power, prestige and influence, the book as luxurious commodity was also prevailing in that hybrid form. Hand illumination derived from the manuscript tradition and expressed complex relationships between stakeholders and different trends regarding taste.
Case study in Renaissance Florence: Eight editions (Legrand, BH, I, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 58) of classic ancient Greek texts were published in Florence by the Greek scholar Janus Lascaris and the printer Lorenzo de Alopa during the last decade of the 15th century (Banou, 2000). These classic texts were intended to the humanistic audience of Renaissance (scholars, noblemen, students) and we may distinguish the following:
1. An innovative typology of the page; the comments were printed in the same page, around the text. Text and paratext were thus combined in the same page; although this typology of the page was not reproduced, it introduced though a new type.
2. The dedicatory letters to the Medici. The use of paratext is extensive and strong in terms of promotion, prestige and symbolic capital. More specifically, Janus Lascaris dedicates an epistle to Pietro Medici in the Anthology, published in 1494 (Legrand, BH, I, p. 29–38); in that epistle, which was omitted from the copies when the French took over Florence, Lascaris praises the interest and patronage of the Medici family for these editions, as well as for books and letters in general. There is a strong laudation to Pietro, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. We have to remind that Janus Lascaris was in the court of the Medici as a teacher and scholar; he had also travelled for Lorenzo of Medici to the former Byzantine areas, under the Turkish dominion by then, to discover manuscripts for the famous library of the Medici. The dedicatory letter to Pietro Medici, obviously in the lines of the printing tradition, added value to the edition gaining fame and trust by the readers, whereas the patronage role and interest of the Medici in culture is exhibited.
3. The absence of illustration and book decoration. The aesthetics of these editions have to be explained in the framework of the early printed books in which the initial letters were left blank so as the miniaturist/artist could intervene.
4. Luxury, unique, printed on vellum, hand illuminated, often lavishly, and decorated copies of each edition, appropriately bound, were offered to the Medici family as privileged, unique gifts.
During Renaissance, the printer/publisher offered personalized copies to satisfy the needs and meet the expectations of powerful readers. This was to be abandoned gradually although luxury editions, often with numbered copies, always met the expectations of specific audiences. Woodcuts and engravings were used so as to illustrate and decorate printed books for all readers. But, different title pages serving different needs and audiences may remind of the privilege of options and of the promotion strategies. Additionally, numbered copies or engravings were and are used for specific editions aiming to particular audiences. Special illustration and ornamentation have always been used in terms of embellishment, promotion, marketing, innovation and competition developing the aesthetic identity of the book in the social and cultural context of the era.
Actually, aesthetic/promotion strategies for the printed book can be distinguished in three categories (Banou, 2006):
1. Methods used in unique copies (also called luxury copies):
• Hand illumination (decoration, illustration)
• Binding
• Painted emblems
• Hand dedications
2. Methods used in a certain number of copies of the same edition:
• Printing on parchment
• Printing on a better quality of paper
• Printing on coloured paper
• Different title-pages and covers
3. Methods used in all the tirage:
• Dedicatory letters, introductions, prologues, etc.
• Title page and later cover
• Portrait of the author
• Engraved illustration – decoration
• Catalogue of subscribers
At the first and second categories personalized copies are strongly related to patronage in all its concepts, whereas at the third category the printer–publisher uses these methods in terms of promotion and advertisement: in that framework, through the name of the patron or of the person who encouraged the publishing activity, the edition gained fame, privilege and seriousness. Furthermore, the printer–publisher called the patron to continue his offer and encouragement.
Nowadays, personalized publishing services have been rediscovered and can be reused so as:
1. to insert personal motives in specific number of copies (personalized copies),
2. to participate and cocreate a certain aesthetic identity,
3. combined with colouring books may encourage readers to continue, finish, redesign, complete the already designed and offered borders/patterns/ornaments,
4. to insert recognizable and tested illustrations, ornaments, frameworks and motifs.
2.5.2. From dedicatory letters of Renaissance to dedicatory copies and editions of the digital Age
Some publishing companies offer nowadays specific publishing services. Usually, readers are informed that they have to take three steps for personalizing the book; for example, these three steps in ‘Put me in the story’ require the child’s name and photo as well as dedication.4 Thus, both visual and verbal material is required. Personalized services are offered according to the kind of text, the age, the sex, the occasion for offering or creating this book.
Furthermore, platforms and publishing services of that kind provide the opportunity of crowdsourcing and cocreating not only copies but stories, even biographies, dedicated to a friend, college or relative.5 StoryTerrace, for example, provides a ‘story making platform aimed at those wishing to “crowd” create a biography of a friend, a colleague…’ (Tagholm, 2015). Gifts are thus no longer offered to the noblemen as in Renaissance but to members of the family or friends, through personalized copies and/or biographies (ghostwritten or not) enriched with visual material provided by the reader who commissions the publication.This continues in a democratized framework the dedicatory paratext and dedicatory editions of previous centuries. These personalized publishing services create a new framework for collaboration and competition widening user engagement and marketing tools. The personalized copies regard both the artistic identity and the content.
It is more than interesting to note that printed books are still and always of value. Practical, emotional, psychological, functional and other parameters explain the coexistence of the printed publications with the electronic and digital ones. Even in younger ages, the printed book is of certain use and value (Cox, 2015). As already mentioned at the introduction, printed sales were augmented in the UK in 2015. ‘Nearly twice as many respondents had read a print book (79%) than an ebook on any device – the closest being a tablet (46%). Showing no strong allegiance, young Americans also reported reading ebooks on personal computers (37%), mobile phones (36%) and dedicated ereaders (31%). And, 36% of those polled even spent more money on print books in 2014 than they had the previous year’ (Cox, 2015, p. 3). Furthermore, ‘millennials mostly discover print and ebooks by word of mouth referrals (45%) and social media (34%), and a quarter of those polled reported finding books through browsing in public libraries and brick-and-mortar bookstores’ (Cox, 2015, p. 4).
The opportunity for creating an edition that has the function of a family memoir and of a dedicatory edition brings to light the emotional and psychological attachment of readers as well as the cultural and ideological concepts of the book. By combining storytelling, ghost writing, crowdsourcing with editorial services and multimedia technologies, these specific publishing services revive the interest of the readers. By combining crowdfunding and personalized editions, new technologies offer the opportunity to the publishers to provide unique, specific services to their readers–customers; by enabling them to decide and create or cocreate a novel, short text, memoir, poem for a friend or a relative they engage them in the publishing process. Readers–customers–users decide on the content and the artistic identity too and pay for them (services such as editing, proofreading, graphic design, etc., are required). Continuing thus the tradition of the luxury editions that praised important people or their coronations, weddings and other ‘important’ facts of powerful families, these platforms democratize the old method of dedicatory letters under the magnifying glass of new technologies. It must though be noted that these copies are produced in the quantity decided by the customers for their use only. In that framework, questions regarding aesthetics, multimedia, storytelling emerge.
This is certainly an era of many and various challenges, with pros and cons inevitably. Boundaries seem to be reset influencing the publishing activity and the publishing chain-circle-circuit as a whole. ‘New’ publishing and business models actually derive from older and tested ones while opportunities and challenges provide the framework for innovation, risk and experiment by old and new publishers. Additionally, the book, whether printed or not, seems to confirm its status and prestige. Being a powerful information and communication medium is still an artistic object of desire bringing about prestige and recognition. Continuing thus its complex aesthetic and ideological roads and meanings since its origins, the book not only survives and coexists in all its forms with other competitive media but also tends to rediscover new roads thriving even in hard times. And according to Calasso (2015, p. 13) times are always hard in publishing.
2.5.3. Reader engagement in the artistic identity of the book
Nowadays book illustration and decoration can be reader focused implying the participation of the reader through appropriate tools, specific strategies, and publishing policies. Apart from reader participation in the text (‘Lean Publishing’, for example, presupposes the participation of the reader in the creation of content), the chapter will focus on reader engagement in the artistic identity of the book. New information and communication technologies can provide tools so as to offer a successful method for product development, promotion and marketing as well as for gaining feedback from the readers. Among the questions raised we may recognize those concerning the role of the artist and of the graphic design department, the boundaries of reader participation, the enhancement of multimedia and storytelling, the role of the author and of the editor. The aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit as developed nowadays (Scheme 2.2) will be further modified in the sense of the upgraded role of the reader; we may also wonder if that is really an active role or a marketing strategy developed by the publisher.
Initially, we may distinguish between:
1. personalized copies from personalized publishing services as mentioned above,
2. the reader’s influence on the development of the artistic identity of the edition.
It is true that publishers do have the control of the whole procedure in accordance with the desires and guidelines of the author, the marketing department, the graphic designer, etc., and the publishing policy of the company. Thus, when readers will be called to propose and introduce, instructions have to be given to them so as to cope with problems, use successfully the tools, decide on the options and choices provided, and offer their proposals in a set framework/platform.
One option may be that the reader gives feedback on proposals already made; he/she has options on which to decide but at the same time new proposals are also welcome. That implies an interactive procedure matured through not only tools but also through communication with other stakeholders (authors, publishing company, artist, department of graphic design); this communication can be achieved through specific platforms and social networks. The extent to which these suggestions and proposals would or could be incorporated is a key question.
‘The model of the audience in creative industries has evolved from passive consumer to creative producer’ identifying ‘technology driven affordances that have enabled consumers to become users’ (Hartley et al., 2012, p. 16). So, we may wonder: could we come to a stage where artists, departments and publishers decide on book illustration and ornamentation (as always have done) but in a different way proposing and preparing options at the same time, so as to encourage reader engagement for a few editions? Certainly, through communication and reader participation the publisher as well as artists/design departments and marketing departments can gain feedback and better promote their titles. New parameters may be incorporated in the aesthetics of the book and in the publishing chain in which roles are redefined whereas new ones are introduced. The participation of the reader may be seen as a challenge and a tool.
For further understanding, we have to go back in time at the beginning of mass decoration and illustration of the printed book in Renaissance, focusing on strategies and methods regarding luxury, unique hand-illuminated copies. Through differences and common features, an adaptive model of the book as artistic object with or without tangible features may be proposed in the framework of both marketing and aesthetics.
In a wider framework, we may distinguish between the following:
• The use of older, already used motives and iconographic types that may be changed, revived, rediscovered, combined, coloured and altered. The current success of colouring books is of research interest as it will be discussed,
• The introduction of innovative elements and the freedom of the reader to add new ones,
• The provision of options so as the reader to indicate and choose,
Thus, beyond the taste of the publisher and of the author, the taste of the reader is directly expressed. For example, colouring books could be the first step for this: through platforms the publishers can give options for either colouring or redesigning them.
2.5.4. Proposals regarding the aesthetic identity of the book
The reader can intervene through platforms developed by the publishers with the use of social media and multimedia. More specifically, the reader can participate and introduce elements regarding:
• Interactive visual paratext,
• Title page,
• Frontispiece. (1) For example, different photographs and aspects of the author could be proposed offering to the readers the ‘privilege’ of choice. (2) Crowdsourcing and personalized books nowadays may use the frontispiece in its traditional position so as to insert the photograph or the portrait of the author or of the person to whom the book is dedicated. (3) Frontispiece also may be embellished with other illustrations.
• Photo or portrait of the author,
• Headings, headlines,
• Decorative framework/decorative border with serial patterns using options either from the known ones or innovative. Flowers, for example, or piccoli ferri tipografici were a successful decorative method widespread across Europe in Renaissance and the Baroque age. These ‘flowers to set over the head of the page at the beginning of the book’, according to Joseph Moxon in the Mechanic Exercises of Printing, 1684, have been visual borders that define, divide and decorate text. They were used extensively and repeatedly, often without relationship with the text. ‘There are visual orders that show nothing’, according to Fleming which ‘articulate the composition and identity of the entire printed volume as something more than the sum of its parts’, (Fleming, 2011, p. 56).
2.6. Reconsidering the boundaries of the book: convergence
2.6.1. Convergence cultures
Certainly, there is a lot of discussion nowadays about convergence: convergence of media, convergence in creative industries, convergence in the book industry and the new forms of the book. Questions that are raised include the nature and impact of convergence, the combination of media, experimentation and competition in the publishing activity as well as the promotion strategies. Beyond these, the development of the book per se and patterns of taste are to be discussed.
Jenkins (2006, p. 3) argues that ‘convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content’. Convergence in the artistic identity of the book means not only innovation, experimentation and new promotion strategies, but also implies continuity between older and new media and concepts influencing communication and taste. It is though significant to note that convergence refers to trends and practices ‘within and beyond technology, which describe how individuals connect with their everyday environments through habits of social, political, economic and cultural texture’ (Papacharissi, 2013). The same happens in the publishing industry.
According to Hartley et al. (2012, p. 36): ‘convergence has three dimensions: technological (when digitization enables the conversion and distribution of content across multiple formats and platform), industry (industry convergence occurs when media and communication media industries merge and form alliances as media conglomerates), and policy convergence is required by those who seek to regulate these rapidly changing industries’.
Convergence in publishing extends beyond the above regarding:
• The book itself, whether printed or not – new information technologies contribute to the development of content and to the aesthetics as well. Gamification, new multimedia technologies (augmented or not), even augmented reality as well as traditional issues are combined,
• The publishing chain,
• Marketing and promotion strategies,
• Media convergence as almost all the conglomerates and large publishing houses combine different products (films, newspapers, music, journals, etc.).
• Reader engagement,
• Interaction between stakeholders. Different media further encourage readers to participate,
• Aesthetics of the book.
Convergence can be traced in all the publishing chain-circle-circuit. We are used to living in digital, converged environment where information is also globalized and converged, where old and new media, producers–publishers and consumers–readers react. ‘Convergence represents a cultural shift as consumers are encouraged to seek out new information and make connections among dispersed media content…Convergence does not occur through media appliances, however sophisticated may become. Convergence occurs within the brains of individual customers and through their social interactions with the others’ (Jenkins, 2006, p. 3).
Certainly, convergence means different things in different contexts since Renaissance (Briggs and Burke, 2005, pp. 33–40). For example, the above-mentioned and discussed hand-illuminated copies during Renaissance were based on convergence between the manuscript and printed book, combining a new medium with an older one for satisfying specific needs gaining as well issues of power and prestige. Colouring books nowadays imply in a more traditional way interaction used since the beginning of typography. Inevitably, the use of multimedia and gamification in electronic enhanced editions extends the boundaries of the book in a more innovative way. Old and new media coexist, publishers and readers react, printed and digital material interact.
In that framework, relationships and collaborations are redeveloped. Additionally, the art of the era had diachronically influenced the aesthetics of the printed book. Renaissance art certainly influenced the illustration and ornamentation of the book in a crucial period for typography. Art of the baroque era then had its impact on the book creating as well new consumer cultures. In our era of convergence it is inevitable that technology and art (video art, for example) influence the book in all its forms. The impact of convergence has though not to be underestimated in the printed book.
2.6.2. Gamification and other opportunities…
Gamification and the use of multimedia for reaching certain communities of readers as well as for creating new readers are high in the priorities of the publishers. Questions raised regard patterns of promotion, consumption, communication, reading, creation, competition and promotion.
Gamification is a new term used during the last decade so as to define the integration of game mechanics into traditionally nongame environments (Muntean, 2011). Any application, task, process or context can theoretically be gamified. Gamification’s main goal is ‘to rise the engagement of users by using game-like techniques…’, according to Muntean (2011, p. 323). For better understanding gamification, we have to take into consideration what MacLuhan (1997, pp. 237–238) wrote: ‘Games are dramatic models of our psychological lives providing release of particular tensions. They are collective and popular art forms with strict conventions… Art, like games, became a mimetic echo of, and relief from, the old magic of total involvement…Like our vernacular tongues, all games are media of interpersonal communication, and they could have neither existence nor meaning except as extensions of our immediate inner lives’. These extensions of our inner lives may explain the use and the success of gamification in books. User engagement, participation, communication, interaction, recognition, promotion and sales are key words regarding the influence of gamification.
Inevitably, the visual part of gamification is of importance for the aesthetics of the book. But gamification is not such a new feature although its use in the printed material was different from that in digital publications. More specifically, trends of gamification have been already tested and used for a long time in children’s books although with other name or no name. The combination of both illustration and text with puzzles, quizzes, toys, exercises, pop-ups, stickers, activities has been considered to further encourage reading and thinking, to teach and entertain at the same time. Apart from paper, other material was and is often used so that the child comes to know and understand the world by touching. Furthermore, the child often discovers and is encouraged to reconstruct or continue the story. Often the story/tale is combined with stickers and colouring pages as well as with music and sounds. Pointification also exists as children are often rewarded by the end of the story.
Moreover, gamification is already applied in education and e-learning (Muntean, 2011) making the content more attractive and thus encouraging the readers/pupils/students to participate. Inevitably, educational and scientific publishing take advantage of gamification applying it to educational platforms, websites, virtual publications, ebooks, etc. Tian and Martin (2013, p. 15) wrote: ‘As regards changing perceptions of value creation among educational publishers, these are most significantly reflected in visions of an educational paradigm that involves convergence between a range of technologies, content and pedagogies and that provides the level of interactivity and media diversity that is increasingly demanded both by students (as digital natives) and their professors’.
Manuals and cookbooks may also use gamification so as to not only guide and explain but also to engage readers. In cookbooks, the reader can step by step participate in recipes by achieving goals and having rewards.
Games were used in the printed books for the entertainment and engagement of the reading audience. Innovations that were developed in the printed book brought about to the reader new approaches and uses of the printed material. For example, in the edition of Tristram Shandy, Laurence Stern (1759–67) ‘uses both graphic design and paratexts to test the boundaries of the emerging genre itself, rearranging the conventional ingredients of an 18th century book to challenge readily expectation’ (Barchas, 2013, pp. 15–16). Furthermore, the use of marbled paper and of the dedication along with other features was ‘manipulating the conventions of print’ (Barchas, 2013, p. 16).
As mentioned above, gamification and multimedia technologies, including augmented and experimental multimedia, have an active, ever emerging role in the new forms of the book. In the ebook the boundaries seem to be extended continuously transforming thus the medium. ‘Electronic texts are searchable, easily updated, easily distributed, easily analyzed in a 100 different ways, easily manipulable, easily converted into other iterations of themselves’ (Shillingsburg, 2006, pp. 28–29).
In that framework, gamification sets various and significant questions related to reading experiences, consumer behaviour, the boundaries of reading and of playing, and the boundaries of convergence as well. One may wonder if gamification turns readers into winners and losers; beyond this, the key question concerns the uses of gamification and its impact on forming the nature of the book and on developing reading behaviour.
Regarding convergence in the artistic identity of the book, obviously multimedia technologies expand the boundaries encouraging often reader engagement. Undeniably, aesthetic along with practical, emotional, experiential, psychological and historical factors (MacWilliam, 2013, pp. 6–10) can be recognized as key concepts in the development and use of the artistic identity of the book, whether printed or digital. Emotional attachment obtained by the printed book is not easily achieved by the new media devices, so publishers have to reestablish as well an emotional–psychological framework based on opportunities provided mainly by technology but which go back in time to tested methods.
2.7. Recalling Renaissance woodcuts: from painted prints of Renaissance to colouring books of the digital era
Colouring books for adults nowadays are thriving (Flood, 2015). This is a trend that emerged rather recently using a traditional old concept: the colouring of prints. In children’s books colouring has always been key concept whereas painted prints during Renaissance and the Baroque age were certainly not rare although we use to think of woodcuts in black and white. Colouring books nowadays form a ‘new’ kind/category of book that not only seems to bring the readers back to their children’s age but also offers and promises them relaxation and creativity; in that context, reader engagement is augmented although strongly based on traditional methods. The success of colouring books is certainly a publishing bestselling phenomenon, a concept of our era that might be explained by emotional, functional, psychological, aesthetic and social issues and conditions; familiarity combined with creativity, which is exhibited, seems to be also the key words. Undoubtedly, bestselling colouring books reveal readers’ needs and expectations, which in turn have been developed and influenced by the promotion and advertisement of these texts.
‘The practice of coloring prints was common during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, and modern question about the vintage of the coloring are often unfounded’ (Primeau, 2002, p. 50). We can also read of ‘painted poems’ in the Baroque era, ‘in which words have the material function of giving body to a poem, and the form in which words are disposed convey a meaning through the appearances of painted object’ (Cherchi, 2005, p. 70). ‘Giovanni Pozzi has shown how the description of the palace of senses (in cantos v-viii) is as well a grandiose technopaegnium in which words play the role of material pieces in a LEGO game’ (Cherchi, 2005, p. 70).
Publishers may use colouring books also as a tool, often converged, for gaining reader participation in the aesthetics of the book. Having these popular colouring books as starting point they may encourage further reader participation in specific printed editions and platforms so as to gain feedback. By promising creativity and relaxation, colouring books offer a different aspect of everyday life. The readers who are called to colour have an active role that reminds them of their childhood.
Going back to painted prints of Renaissance and the Baroque era, ‘the addition of paint to linear black and white images, although unexpected to the eye and mind of a print curator, seemed like a logical impulse. Most Renaissance and Baroque art forms, after all, are polychromatic’ (Dackerman, 2002 p. 1). Other media exploited colour. But that addition of colour was regarded as oppositional to the art of printing/engraving devaluing the art of the printed material. Erasmus wrote for the addition of colour in Durer’s works that ‘if you should spread on pigments you will injure the work’ (Dackerman, 2002, p. 2). We may also recognize attempts to wash out or scrap the colour.
In bibliographies the colouring of the woodcuts/engravings is referred as a disadvantage, as a problem that does not let the beauty and the original form of the illustration/decoration of the copy to be revealed. We often though have copies of Renaissance editions in which readers have coloured the illustrations/woodcuts. The comments in bibliographies usually are focused on the destruction of the engraving – but on the other hand we can comment that these hand colourings exhibit reader engagement and the need of the reader to participate, intervene, create, comment, point out. We may consider that colouring prints attempted not only to embellish illustration and decoration but also to ‘mark’ the copy with the reader’s sign, being thus a semipersonalized copy often of no aesthetic but of emotional value. Furthermore, hand-coloured prints may exhibit special aspects of the publishing activity and of the art of each period, although it is certainly an underestimated area in both book history and art history.6
Undeniably, there was a convergence of media, a hybrid medium and art form of printed and painted material; that combination was not always ‘successive’, depending on the kind of text, the period, the artist and the commentator’s point of view, the reader and the purpose of the addition of colour. For example, Erasmus argued that painting was inappropriate for the works of Durer, whereas for other artists this could be an alternative.
Dackerman writes (2002, pp. 10,15) ‘approximately ten thousand fifteenth century Northern European woodcuts survive’ most of which are hand-coloured identifying that ‘the colorist often was an individual other than the designer, block cutter, or engraver’. Due to the fragility of paper and of the kind of woodcuts and their use in daily rituals it is assumed that those survived represent only a small percentage of the ones produced and hand coloured. In The Book of Trades by Hans Sachs and Jost Amman, published in 1568 in Frankfurt, there is a description of the job of the print colourist (briefmaler) who along with the illuminator performed similar professional functions, translated in Dackerman (2002, p. 17):
A briefmaler am I.
I make my living with my brush
And add color to pictures
On paper or vellum of various hues
Or heighten them with gold.
I look with disdain on stencilling;
It makes for poor workmanship
Resulting in a lesser reward
Colour probably means freedom, independence and expression. Through colour specific meaning and added value are given to the copy. Furthermore, the book is not a ‘sacred’ object but the reader feels that can intervene, even change it. Nowadays, it is produced so as to be changed by the reader. Publishers can further be benefited from this since by providing the framework, the patterns, instructions and options to their readers/customers, encourage creativity and reader engagement as well as communication.
We have to point out that sometimes these coloured pictures are exhibited on Facebook and Instagram at personal pages becoming thus a medium of communication, dialogue, even distinction of the reader. Readers exhibit what they consider to be their personal work, their personal mark or offer that may be recognizable and of value. Even competitions are organized online by the publishers; illustration prizes are awarded to the readers offering to them the satisfaction of both creation and recognition. As these books are shared, networks are established based on the colour and aesthetics of that kind of books. The addition of colour can thus be a useful tool for gaining feedback.
The democratization of taste regarding aesthetics in publishing from Renaissance since nowadays has been transformed many times; the digital era undoubtedly offers the opportunity to the reader to participate in book illustration and decoration. Colouring books come to meet what Hartley et al. (2012: 2) has stated: ‘in economic terms, aesthetics have become what is called a “public good”. Discovering hidden patterns or messages may give a motive for further participation. In that framework, interaction has also to be recognized as the next step’.
2.8. Why aesthetics in publishing is still important. The aesthetic capital
Undoubtedly, aesthetics in publishing is a reoriented field, a privileged area implying issues of production, promotion, marketing, reception of the text, publishing policy, relation between image and text, consumer and reading cultures, print culture, art of the book, communication, interactivity, reader engagement and communication. The aesthetic capital is a challenge and an opportunity forming additionally a methodological framework for the understanding and explanation of current trends in publishing.
Illustration and book decoration, as discussed above, apart from being a powerful marketing and promotion method, encourage reader engagement both visually and verbally. Even though, the role of the publisher is always the important one (Calasso, 2015, p. 9). In that framework, we have to think critically on the consideration that ‘the determination of taste has shifted from producer status to consumer choice …ironically, markets decide’ (Hartley, 2012, pp. 1–2). Certainly, the reader has taken an advanced, upgraded role through new information technologies and social networking. But this engagement has to be discussed and evaluated as part of the publishing procedure and the publishing chain/circuit.
The publisher’s strategies and policies exploit and take advantage of new information, communication and recommendation technologies. Publishers have always been adaptable: innovation, experiment and risk have been among the key publishing values. Nowadays, the publishing companies have proven to be more adaptable than ever. In a competitive environment of convergence of media, social media, self-publishing, open access, communities of readers, publishing companies have managed not only to maintain their power but also to expand and develop publishing and business models so as to penetrate into new environments. Publishers have taken advantage of the new technologies so as to communicate with their reader/consumers/users, to develop marketing and promotion methods and strategies, to cultivate reader engagement as a powerful marketing tool. Social media is also a challenge for them, whereas the transformations of the book and the coexistence of printed and digital as well as the convergence of media have led to the widening of the borders of the book. In that framework, the publishing chain is further developed into information publishing chain-circle-circuit as we shall discuss in the fifth chapter.
But beyond tools and technologies, in the core of the publishing activity we may discover not only the possible answers to our questions but also the ideology and meaning of the artistic identity of the book. That core consists of both content and aesthetic discovery. The book is not a static conventional object; it never was. Since its beginnings it reflected and in turn influenced the cultural, economic, political, social and educational conditions of the era. As a mirror of the reader, apart from the exploitation of the technology and techniques, the book between the lines and behind the images had been the magnifying glass of the expected and unexpected, of the known and unknown. The latter is being introduced often through visual material where familiarity and surprise took turns in the leading roles.
Publishing has always been a business, a privileged business, a unique business that could and can incorporate different fields and methodologies and strategies.
Nowadays, aesthetics and marketing seem to go hand in hand in a rather competitive environment. The artistic identity, the making of the book aims (1) to satisfy the desires and meet the expectation of the readers, (2) to surprise the reader redeveloping his/her needs and desires, (3) to promote the book, (4) to encourage reader participation, (5) to provide a marketing tool (through reader engagement the publisher gets customer’s feedback), (6) to augment symbolic capital, (7) to develop taste. The artistic capital of publishing has be studied in the framework of the policy and values of the publishing company in accordance with backlist and art of the era taking into consideration the aesthetics publishing chain-circle-circuit.
As reader engagement has become one of the key values for the publishing industry, the artistic identity of the book is a privileged area that can encourage and develop reader participation per se and on behalf of the publisher. Actually, reader engagement is not so new as it will be discussed in the next chapter. Furthermore, traditional concepts and the typology of the book as known till now can be redeveloped and rediscovered in the context of new technologies. Paratext, as discussed above, is also an outgoing challenge. Going back to luxury unique copies and dedicatory letters, personalized publishing services and colouring books provide the framework not only for the direct communication between publishers and readers, but also for the participation of readers in the publishing chain/circuit.
Reader engagement though should not be studied in accordance only with the reader or with the publisher but with the book per se. In a world of abundance, the book in all its traditional and new forms has to compete with the other media calling the user/reader/customer to discover and read even on the same with other media device, such as the mobile.
Thus, surprise will be among the key concepts of our era regarding the artistic identity of the book. In a world of convergence of media, of abundance of information, of social networking, of competition and recommendation technologies, surprise leads to discoverability and creation. We usually focus on the satisfaction of the needs of the author; recommendations are made by publishers, by online and traditional bookstores, book clubs, etc., according to the profile of the reader; that is correct, useful, convenient and certainly successful. But readers want more, want after and beyond the above to be surprised so as to discover the different, the one that they like much but did not know that they would like it. That element of surprise was always significant in publishing. Regarding the Baroque era, ‘a culture prone to attach the highest aesthetic value to surprising readers and spectators must have had a hierarchy of values, different degrees of measuring the level of surprise a creative technique could attain, a scale by which a daring metaphor could be considered more or less dazzling than a difficult acrostic, a complex rapportatio, or a painted poem’ (Cherchi, 2005, pp. 63–64). As Calasso says (2015, p. 81): ‘But the story of publishing, when looked at closely, is a story of endless surprises…’. In our era, the measurement, the evaluation and the offer of visual surprise (along with the content) can be the step forward for the publishers.
Jung states that (2015, p. 2): ‘the illustrations added to editions serve both as intra-textual interpretive markers and as referents to an extra textual economic and cultural world that anchors the subjects represented in the visual and material cultures of art, music, fashion and luxury objects, as well as practices of collection and exhibition’. The book as an object, as a potential work of art – apart from promising reading and aesthetic experiences – is still a symbol of beauty, power and taste. From this point of view, special book markets, such as the gift and the luxury books, still declare the power of the artistic identity of the book.
Aesthetics in publishing goes beyond the aesthetics of the book exploring and expanding to aims, values, policy and behaviour of all stakeholders regarding the visual appearance of the book. The book is an ever privileged distinguished long lasting mass product that can at the same time be a work of art. From that point of view, aesthetics and marketing should be rather considered as privileged collaborators than privileged rivals. Book illustration and decoration had always a strong impact on marketing and promotion as well as on the participation of the reader. It is true that the democratization of taste came about by the printed book and the spread of prints; the conception of the valuable and beautiful in each era was decided through complex roads in which the printed book had a strong influence. The publishers decided and the readers could always, as discussed above, participate and propose. Social and scholar networking (academies, reading societies, book clubs, etc.) and scholar communication created communities of readers which could intervene in the publishing process before social media and information technologies; and certainly marketing existed under the name of experience, or taste or intuition or knowledge of the publishers.
The artistic identity of the book introduces, invites, encourages, enforces the reader to view, or review the text, to understand and discover, to develop in a different way. We will repeat what Baxandall wrote that ‘we do not describe pictures, but remarks about pictures’ (1985, p. 1). The same is to be applied to books. We describe and discuss concepts and remarks about books, because the visual identity and the aesthetic identity have to be understood and discussed in the wider cultural, literary, social, artistic, educational, scholar, economic and political context. Beyond understanding or receiving or transmitting or transforming the messages of the author, the artist, the publisher, the book seems to transmit the meaning that the reader needs to discover and the publisher has already discovered.
Challenges for the aesthetics in publishing have already been recognized and discussed in this chapter. The methodological and theoretical framework for the aesthetics in publishing as introduced may be of value for introducing policies and strategies. Additionally, proposals made concerning new strategies, tools and methods may lead to new models regarding the aesthetics of the book whether printed or digital/electronic. Summarizing the above-mentioned points, we can end to the conclusion that already tested methods and practices enlighten new roads indicating the way in accordance with new information and communication technologies which seem to encourage and empower older strategies. But technology is not always enough, probably because ‘publishing, as a game, is nevertheless fundamentally the same as the old one played by Aldus Manutius’ (Calasso, 2015, p. 11). A game of art and business, we may actually add.
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