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February 10th 04 03:17 AM
Publishing date again
 
Guess I didn't phrase the question correctly.
A first printing would be described as "first printing, published 1990"
A 10th printing would be described as "Tenth printing, published ?" or can
one only say "Tenth printing, copyright 1990"?

Mike Berro February 10th 04 04:36 AM
Unless you know the answer, it's the latter. The year of a later printing is
wholly unimportant in determining whether to buy the book or not, although
it might be interesting to know.

---Mike
http://www.booktouronline.com


wrote in message
...
Guess I didn't phrase the question correctly.
A first printing would be described as "first printing, published 1990"
A 10th printing would be described as "Tenth printing, published ?" or can
one only say "Tenth printing, copyright 1990"?

Francis A. Miniter February 10th 04 05:17 AM
wrote:

Guess I didn't phrase the question correctly.
A first printing would be described as "first printing, published 1990"
A 10th printing would be described as "Tenth printing, published ?" or can
one only say "Tenth printing, copyright 1990"?



If no other information is available, that is probably all you can do.
That is, for instance, the way that Putnam used to present information.
I am looking at Nabokov's "Lolita" where the only information is
Copyright 1955 and eleventh impression.

Since the mid-1970s, most - though not all - publishers have adopted a
number code system where 1 or A indicate a first edition, as in the
following:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
or
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
or
A B C D E F G .

So,
3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
indicates a second printing.


Still, publishers present their information in a wide and confusing
variety of ways. For instance, I am looking at a copy of Eiji
Yoshikawa's "Taiko" from Kodansha International. (Yeah, I know, you
probably will never come across that publisher, but it illustrates a
common method of presenting the information.) On the copyright page,
the following appears:

First Edition 1992
93 94 95 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

That tells me that this is a second printing (the 2 is the lowest
number) and that it was printed in 1993 (again the lowest number). In
that case, one can say, "2nd Printing, 1993" with confidence.


Random House will use "First Edition" instead of the number 1, so that
First Edition
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
means a first edition.
I have seen this used by Macmillan's Atheneum Books and by Villard. If
it is not a first edition, you only have the copyright date.


Some publishers put the year of printing on the title page. So, if a
second printing is indicated on the copyright page, which states
"Copyright 1988", and the title page says "1989", you can be comfortable
that the second printing occurred in 1989. Sorry, I cannot come up with
an example at the moment.

I hope this is of some assistance.


Francis A. Miniter

ann greenfield February 10th 04 07:08 AM
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

snip

Random House will use "First Edition" instead of the number 1, so that
First Edition
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
means a first edition.

I read recently that Random House has begun using a number line
beginning with 1...can anyone verify? And if correct, anyone know the
exact date it started?

Jon Meyers February 10th 04 03:42 PM
"ann greenfield" wrote...
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

snip

Random House will use "First Edition" instead of the number 1, so that
First Edition
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
means a first edition.

I read recently that Random House has begun using a number line
beginning with 1...can anyone verify? And if correct, anyone know the
exact date it started?

There was a discussion about this here last October, when someone spotted
one RH fiction title--Peter Straub's latest, "Lost Boy, Lost Girl" (released
October 7, 2003)--that used a 1 number line. I don't know of any other
fiction of which this is true, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there.
RH has used 1 number lines on many (not all) nonfiction books, and continues
to do so.


--
Jon Meyers
[To reply,
lose your way.]

Jon Meyers February 11th 04 10:27 PM
"Jon Meyers" wrote...
"ann greenfield" wrote...
Francis A. Miniter wrote:

Random House will use "First Edition" instead of the number 1, so that
First Edition
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
means a first edition.

I read recently that Random House has begun using a number line
beginning with 1...can anyone verify? And if correct, anyone know the
exact date it started?

There was a discussion about this here last October, when someone spotted
one RH fiction title--Peter Straub's latest, "Lost Boy, Lost Girl"
(released
October 7, 2003)--that used a 1 number line. I don't know of any other
fiction of which this is true, but that doesn't mean they aren't out
there.
RH has used 1 number lines on many (not all) nonfiction books, and
continues
to do so.

Nothing beats a little research, so I went to a local store and looked at
every RH & Villard fiction title I could find (which didn't take as long as
you might think; most fiction from the RH conglomerate is issued by other
imprints, such as Knopf & Pantheon). The results are pretty conclusive:
Everything published through September 2003 uses the old system; everything
published from October onward has a 1 in the number line. Looks like the
change has been made.


--
Jon Meyers
[To reply,
lose your way.]


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