The publishing industry in the United States is about $30 billion per year, covering all kinds of books and materials. Traditional book publishers account for about 10% of the total number of books published in the US and about 95% of the revenues.
Where did it all start?
Two hundred fifty years ago this week (June 23, 1775, to be precise), the first book printed and published in America was available to purchase in Philadelphia. It was the beginning of a self-sufficient American publishing industry. Before that, books were either created overseas (mainly in England) and printed here or printed overseas and exported here. The publishing industry was dependent on and controlled by England, like every other part of society in the Colonies.
The Impenetrable Secret, a novel by an unknown author, was advertised in The Pennsylvania Mercury newspaper by the publisher Story and Humphreys, who also operated the newspaper. That’s all we know about it. No copy remains, and there is little or no information about the author or story. Some books with that same title were published later, but they are not this one.
June of 1775 was still before any independence declaration from England, but there were rumblings. Within a week or two, the Continental Congress was taking steps to avoid an armed rebellion, but it wasn’t looking good.
I would guess that being identified as a book writer who broke the shackles of the governing authority wasn’t a good thing to do, career or healthwise! Hence, the “anonymous author” label isn’t a surprise.
The book publishing industry is not very old in the broad scope of world history. If we hold to Adam and Eve showing up in the garden about 6,500 years ago, the less than 600-year age of the printing press accounts for about 9% of that time. Mass printing of books wasn’t a thing until much later.
One of the oldest publishers is the Christian company Thomas Nelson, founded in 1798 in Edinburgh, Scotland. It’s a long way to Nashville, Tennessee, where it is now part of the HarperCollins Christian Publishing conglomerate, which also owns Zondervan.
The rest of the major Christian publishers are much younger, with some starting this century but most in the 20th century.
Christian publishing in its current form in the US has existed for about 1 percent of the time since the Genesis account.
If we look at the ability to distribute Christian content broadly by digital means, it is even less, like one-half of 1 percent of human history.
With satellite internet, no corner of the earth is out of reach of the Gospel.
All this could be explained by the Daniel 12 prophecy of knowledge increasing as the end of everything nears, or the natural growth of technology and progress. Still, when you consider the opportunities we have now to affect the world for Christ through the written word, we are at the apex, with tools no one had for 99.9 percent of human history.
No pressure.