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Traditionally, large-print books have been a sleepy area of publishing. But, according to the Lighthouse International, 17% of all people age 45 and older--about 13.5 million Americans--report some form of vision impairment. By the year 2010, when boomers will all have reached age 45, that total will increase to 20 million--a number that has not escaped publishing houses. "There's been a huge growth in the number of titles available," says Fred Olsen of Thorndike Press, the world's largest publisher of large-print books. "The number has probably doubled in the past five years...
...typical large-type reader. A retired farmer with macular degeneration, Ellickson goes to the library in Decorah, Iowa, twice a week to pick out his favorite westerns and adventure books. He never buys them. "It would cost a lot," says Ellickson, who often reads more than a dozen large-print books a week. Publisher Olsen says this is not unusual. "When you're on a fixed income, to pay for a one-time read is inefficient when you can go to the library. A lot of these people are voracious readers...
...several large commercial publishers are determined to change the habits of the large-type-reading public as it grows. This fall, Random House and HarperCollins are launching new divisions to capture the big-print audience. Says Michael Morrison, associate publisher of the HarperCollins adult trade division: "A lot of the reason there has not been an explosion in sales of large-print books in bookstores is that people don't even know they exist. Booksellers have traditionally shelved them in a section in the back of the store." But publishers intend to change that--by persuading booksellers to showcase these...
Drawing these readers out of the library and into the bookstore is also a goal at Random House. Christine McNamara, director of marketing for the large-print division, observes that "nobody has tried this before. No one has gone after the market this way." Random House plans to charge the same price for a large-type book as for its conventional-type counterpart--and use the same covers to minimize the perception that these books are different. Says McNamara: "They'll look just as sexy and glossy as the regular trade edition--just a little bit fatter...
Publishers are careful to cater to baby-boomer vanity. Nowhere is there a suggestion that large-print books are connected with getting older. Instead, publishers emphasize that people are reading large-print publications on treadmills, or relaxing with them after a long day on the computer, or using them to read in bed without their glasses. But with the graying of the baby boomers, large-print books are likely to become a mainstream, front-of-the-store--and no longer secret--habit...