5. Gutenberg’s invention of movable type led to the world’s first mass media.
6. The development of the printing press led to the standardizing of language, spelling, and
grammar.
7. Books were being printed in Mexico City as early as the 1540s.
8. Tom Clancy had several major publishers competing for the right to publish his first novel,
The Hunt for Red October.
9. The federal government is one of the largest publishers in the United States.
10. The number of independent bookstores is growing rapidly because the chain bookstores don’t
understand what kind of books readers really want to buy.
11. The Ingram Book Group is the book wholesaler that distributes books to the independent
bookstores and Amazon.com.
12. The Government Accountability Office estimates that students spend approximately $500 on
textbooks per year.
13. The people who choose which textbook to use are also the people who buy them.
14. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne despised the women novelists of his era because their domestic
novels sold much better than his serious novels.
15. Publishers view books as one more product in the entertainment business.
16. In the United States, books are usually banned at a national level and are generally
unavailable once they have been banned.
17. Amazon.com would be considered primarily a “short–head” book retailer.
18. Author Jonathan Franzen likes e-books because they are easier to keep up to date than
conventional paper books.
19. One of the most likely targets for electronic books will be textbooks.
20. The Government Publishing Office recently changed its name from the Government Printing
Office because so many of the documents it distributed only exist in electronic form.
Essay
1. Briefly explain the difference between an ideograph and an alphabet writing system.
2. Name and define two predecessors of paper used as writing surfaces.
3. What is an illuminated manuscript?
4. What is a serial novel, and when were they popular?
5. Name the three major players (or elements) of the book business.
6. Why did the New York Times create a separate children’s best-seller list?
7. Why don’t the Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight books show up individually on the New York Times
fiction best-seller list?
8. Why did the Government Printing Office change its name to the Government Publications
Office?
9. According to your textbook, what are two reasons people might want to ban books?
10. Name a long-tail bookseller, and explain what makes it part of the long tail.
11. Name an advantage that electronic books offer over paper books.
12. Name a disadvantage of electronic books.
13. In a brief essay, discuss how the development of the printing press changed the world in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
14. In a brief essay, discuss the steps a book goes through before it is purchased by the public.
15. In a brief essay, explain why the Anne Frank House might have decided to publish a graphic
novel account of the life of Anne Frank.
