Their job is to inform wholesalers, bookshops, and individual buyers of books and to organise catalogues, promotions, review copies, advertisements, and publicity at conferences and so on.
There have always been publishers willing to bring out individual short stories – the wonderful London bookshop John Sandoe has for some years given a specially written and printed short story to their favourite customers at Christmas, well worth collecting.
The 119 nominations were made from bookshops, libraries, arts organisations, book clubs and individual writers, with a total of 34 potential candidates.
But tastes are personal and this is a wide democracy, involving reading groups from Waterstones bookshops around the country as well as individual judges.
That relationship has traditionally been monopolised by the bookshops, and even they rarely keep track of what individual customers like.
Publishing firms that specialized in large-print editions for libraries, schools and individual readers sprang up, and one could always find these in bookshops or libraries.
The aim is to keep the space free to the public, with operating funds coming from individual and corporate sponsorship along with revenue from its restaurant, bookshop and rentals for outside events held there.
We began in a small bookshop in Brixton, and much of the collection was amassed by volunteers and individual donations.
Booksellers may have an age policy on this individual bestseller but it is still possible for a curious child to walk into a bookshop and leave with a stack of violent or sex-heavy novels, with no questions asked.
Some inspired individual had asked every local organisation, from the Scouts to the lifeboat to the second-hand bookshop, to display its wares in an aisle bay.
