CLOSED Prepaid printing: the role of private funds and public subscribers in the issuing and circulation of printed matter

CLOSED Prepaid printing: the role of private funds and public subscribers in the issuing and circulation of printed matter

14-15 September 2023, Winterboure House, University of Birmingham, UK

In the eighteenth century they called it publishing by subscription, in the twenty-first century it is known as crowdfunding. Whilst the terminology may vary, the practice of recruiting individual buyers in advance of publication to cover the expense of printing is a strategy common to all eras. It is an approach that has enabled the production of a whole range of printed matter from religious texts to works of fiction and scientific volumes; from books to newspapers, magazines, and periodicals; and including illustrative prints and sheet music. Financial necessity was often the reason for prepaid printing; but subscription proposals were also useful for testing the market and launching a new work and the practice enable the producers of printed matter to operate outside the constraints of usual publishing conventions.

Those who subscribed did so for a variety of reasons. Many were investing in the advancement of technology, science, and the humanities; others simply wished to collect beautifully printed things; some subscribed out of vanity, motivated by a desire to have their names linked with the other subscribers; a few may have done so out of friendship or the exchange of favours. But whatever their motivations, subscribers were more than simply wealthy patrons: they are evidence of networks, of complex relationships, and performed a key role in prevailing systems of knowledge exchange.

This interdisciplinary conference invites proposals which consider printing on subscription across all periods, domains, and dominions. Themes may include, but are not limited to:

• Historical printing on subscription;

• Current printing and publishing on subscription, including digital;

• The significance of subscription publishing to general history and literature;

• The impact of printing on subscription to the wider printing and publishing industries;

• Particular authors and texts published on subscription;

• The backgrounds, motivations and profiles of subscribers and their networks;

• The economic effects of prepaid printing on the appearance of a publication;

• Methodologies deployed for interpreting subscribers’ lists;

• Subscription libraries, membership libraries or independent libraries.

This interdisciplinary conference, organised by the Centre for Printing History & Culture, in collaboration with the Baskerville Society, will be of interest to printing and book historians, social, cultural, and economic historians, bibliographers, librarians, typographers, literary scholars and others.

How to apply Proposals for papers of twenty minutes are welcome. Abstracts of 300 words should be accompanied by a brief biography and sent to Caroline Archer by 1 March 2023. It is understood that papers offered to the conference will be original work and will not have been previously delivered to any similar conference or published elsewhere.

Publication Papers will be considered for publication in a future volume of the CPHC series, Printing History and Culture published by Peter Lang Verlag.