Publishing Power Houses: Publishers and the Mass Marketplace

Abstract

This chapter explores how publishers manipulated publication formats to drive sales and profits, and why the practices of particular organisations steered the purchasing habits of readers and the impact this had on the rest of the field. The business practices of Mudie, Longman and Routledge such as publishing in different formats including serialisation, three-decker novels, and reissuing remainder texts to support new publishing ventures were not particularly innovative. Yet in each case, they were adaptations of existing models; therefore, the study argues that it was the strength of a publisher’s influence in the industry and in regard to Longman their financial capital in the nineteenth century, which pushed their literary businesses into dominant positions.