Publishing swings like a pendulum do

England swings like a pendulum doBobbies on bicycles, two by twoWestminster Abbey, the Tower, and Big BenThe rosy red cheeks of the little children. If you don’t see a video here, please click on the title of this post in order to view it in your browser. OK that fourth line rhyme leaves a little to be desired in Roger Miller’s 1965 song, but anyway I want to substitute “Publishing” for the first word. Because it’s true: publishing swings like a pendulum do. Maybe I need other vocabulary changes: editors instead of bobbies? When I first started out in this game — the same year as Roger Miller’s song came out — there were lots and lots of book publishers, all by today’s standards, rather tiny. To be a publisher you not only needed to persuade authors to write books for you, and get them edited, designed, typeset and manufactured, but you had to store them, sell them and ship them. Quite soon some smart chaps worked out that if they combined their publishing house with your publishing…