风险、利润与现代出版业的起源

作为精神产品的图书具有需求不确定性等诸多经济特性,塑造了出版业独特的经济规律。本文以风险和利润为主线,以现代出版业起源过程中出版人的自发性制度创新为材料,展现高风险性对出版产业形态的影响与塑造。社会变迁与现代信息传播使现代出版成为特殊的高风险行业,在应对风险的过程中形成了专门化的出版商与发行商及出版业独特的利润机制,构筑了现代出版的本质特征与演进规律。

As a type of cultural goods, books have lots of economic features such as the demand uncertainty, which shape the economic features of publishing industry. This paper demonstrates how the high risk influence the structure of modern publishing industry by citing the stories of booksellers who initiated the new methods to run the business in the emergence of Modern publishing. The social change and the modern communication system make the modern publishing to be a high risky trade. It was in the process of manage that this high risks, the modern publishers, distributors and their particular profit model emerged. All these new elements are the nature df modern publishing Industry.