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2.3.5: 1585 - 1725 - Methods of distribution / advertisingDuring this period, printed matter was generally distributed in two ways: through the established bookseller and through the itinerant booksellers. The established bookseller had a wide range in his shop and generally focused on the sophisticated and well-to-do customers (see paragraph 2.3.2 for the bookshop). He also sold second-hand books through restricted auctions: the public sale of private libraries for which printed catalogues were distributed to inform the public. The earliest known catalogue dates from 1599 for an auction of part of the library of Philips Marnix of Sint Aldegonde, which was held in Leiden by Subscription publishing was a distribution method that gave the bookseller some certainty about sales figures. Buyers indicated their interest in the planned edition on subscription lists. In return, they were promised a discount on the sales price. Payment was on delivery, but a part was also regularly paid in advance. The first publisher to try this method was the Amsterdam bookseller, How did booksellers make their goods known to the public and to their bookseller colleagues? Advertisements in newspapers fulfilled an increasingly important role in the seventeenth century in addition to existing methods such as the title page and the prospectus. The oldest one known dates from 1624 in a newspaper by Itinerant hawkers and singers and town pedlars served a wider social and geographically scattered public than their established colleagues. They specialised particularly in cheap, ephemeral printed matter. At the end of the sixteenth century, the itinerant trade could cover a very wide area from a single distribution centre. In this manner, reached the almanacs and prognostications of the Deventer bookseller Hawkers and singers covered both towns and villages, visited annual fairs and went from house to house. Pedlars restricted themselves to the streets and squares of the town. Both groups attracted buyers by singing songs (their own), making music (with the violin or the hurdy-gurdy), calling out their wares and declaiming short poems. Established bookseller saw this free trade as unfair competition and insisted that town authorities restrained it. author: J. Salman |
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