This plain-spoken introduction to book publishing describes each part of the publishing operation in simplest terms. The areas covered include editorial preparation, physical production, promotion, and distribution. The publishers' relations with authors, printers, booksellers, librarians, and educators are studied with care, and the economics of the whole publishing process is presented in lay language for easy understanding.

Special attention is given to the problems of publishing in developing countries where technology is less advanced. But the book is intended for beginners everywhere, including Americans starting careers in publishing houses and anxious to learn basic facts about al sectors of the professional field they are entering.

Besides general publishing the book also deals with the special problems of textbooks and children's books, and there is careful analysis of both the editorial and the economic difficulties in publishing translations. Separate chapters deal with book clubs and mass marketing, retail bookselling and publisher's accountancy, and the issues of rights and contract.s

This is a complete revision of a book published in 1966 with the editorial cooperation of the international staff of Franklin Book Programs. That first edition was in English, but with translations published in Arabic, Persian, Indonesian, and Spanish.

--front flap