American dictionary of printing and bookmaking

(New York :  H. Lockwood,  1894.)

Tools


 

Jump to page:

Table of Contents

  Page 10  



ADD
 

AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF
 

Address-Cards.—Cards containing a name and ad¬
dress, the same as visiting-cards.

Addressing.—Writing the wrappers in a news¬
paper office.

Admir.—An abbreviation used in an English proof¬
room for a note of admiration or exclamation point.

Admiration, Note of.—A mark indicating sur¬
prise, joy or admiration, thus: !

Adolphus of Nassau, a German prince, who at¬
tacked the city of Mentz and sacked it in 1462. As a
consequence many inhabitants fled, and it is probable
that the early spread of the art of typography through¬
out Europe was largely owing to this ill-luck to the city
where printing is believed to have begun.

AdYertisement.—1. The notice or explanation by
the publisher of the scope, method of publication,
price, or other matter relating to a book, and placed in
one of the first pages of the volume. This word also
refers to notices by an editor or author of the same
kind. It is generally set in type one or two sizes less
than the body of a work, but sometimes one size larger.
2. A notice in a newspaper or magazine. See under
Advertising.

AdYertising.—To advertise is to call attention to
anything. In printing circles it means a notice in a
book, magazine or newspaper, bringing to attention
some particular fact or facts of benefit to the advertiser.
When the whole of a periodical or a book is devoted
to a single subject, although the statement may be of
value to the writer or publisher, it is not an advertise¬
ment. That term is restricted to matter which does not
form the main portion of the pamphlet or newspaper.
The collection of advertisements forms a very essential
portion of the work of a periodical, and in daily and
trade papers more space is taken up with them than
with reading matter. Until the census of 1880 we had
no statistics on this matter, but the report of Mr. S. N.
D. North for that year shows that nearly half the entire
income of newspapers in the Union was derived from ad¬
vertisements, the proportion of receipts from this source
being in weeklies 39 per cent, and in dailies 44 per
cent. The sum total paid in 1880 for advertising was
$39,136,306. There are as yet no figures for 1890. Ad¬
vertising in the chief papers grows more rapidly than
subscriptions, but a new paper requires considerable
time before its revenue from this source reaches even
25 per cent, of its expenses. Several of the larger
newspapers of the Union receive each $500,000, or more,
from this source yearly; three or four have $800,000,
and one does not fall much short of $1,400,000. Pe¬
riodicals that are well known receive ten cents a line
and upward for each insertion, a number asking $1 or
more, and some as much as $2.50, for preferred loca¬
tions. Country weekly newspapers or purely local ones
receive about $10 an inch a ;^ear, or $100 a column,
but this is very much shaded in many cases. On the
other hand, many receive more. Country dailies obtain
from $200 to $1,000 a column a year, and charge $1 or
thereabouts for the first insertion of ten or twelve lines,
and fifty cents afterwards. Good trade papers ask about
$40 a year for an inch. The term " square," which
was once used in reference to advertising, is becoming
obsolete, as it varies from four lines of agate to eighteen
lines of brevier, and is consequently too indefinite to
be used as a measure. Advertisements are arbitrarily
classed by publishers without much regard to what
other publishers do. Thus, in one New York daily
wants have generally been $1.20 for an employer and
forty cents for a workman, while servant girls could
advertise for twenty cents. In another, wants of either
kind are ten cents. Book advertisements are generally
at about half rates, while financial advertisements are
the highest. An advertisement does not necessarily in¬
clude a copy of the periodical in which it is running,

10
 

although many publishers send one as a matter of
courtesy.

Advertisements in various parts of a newspaper have
different names and different prices. They are known
as business notices, special notices, city items, and by a
dozen other names, but the usage of one newspaper is
not that of another, and consequently no absolute defi¬
nition can be given of them. As a general thing, those
that are on a page chiefly of reading matter are worth
the most. The top of a column is preferred to the mid¬
dle or bottom, but it is rare that an extra charge is made
for this. Position on the cover or outside page is nearly
always higher than elsewhere, and sometimes twice as
high. Many contracts are made "next to reading mat¬
ter." In this sense reading matter is any matter that is
not advertising, but it does not mean the first position
on a page where there is no reading matter, but follow¬
ing immediately after a page filled with it. It would
frequently avoid dispute if *' reading matter " was con¬
strued as not including market reports or commercial
matter.

Advertisements come into the printing-office marked
as to space and time, as well as position, if that is de¬
sirable. The length of marked-in lines means the length
in lines of the smallest type generally used, or the body
type of the advertisements. In city dailies and week¬
lies this is nearly always agate ; in country dailies and
weeklies nonpareil or minion, and it is nowhere larger
than bi*evier. Some periodicals, like the New York
Herald, refuse to use anything else than Roman of the
body type ; others use several sizes, but most journals
require display type to please their advertisers. These
should never be bought in the ordinary small fonts of
the type-founder, but doubled or tripled, and as effec¬
tive a display for ordinary work can be obtained from
Clarendons, light-faces and such permutations of Roman,
with Gothics, as is necessary. They are usually begun
with a two-line letter, if there is to be no great amount
of display. If the advertisement is in nonpareil the two-
line letter is generally two-line minion, the first line be¬
ing set in brevier, so as to make the bodies justify ex¬
actly together ; if the body is in agate the first letter is
two-line nonpareil, the first line being in minion. Fre¬
quently, however, the two-line letter is double the letter
used in the body. Little Italic is used in advertisements.
Some newspapers have a rule that words must be to
some extent contracted in run-in advertisements, as st.
for street, av. for avenue, and the like. The fattest
advertisement is generally the first take at night on a
daily paper, and the compositors take turns in having
it. The advertisements go all around the office, except
where there are departments or where certain men have
bought the right from their fellow - workmen. Small
advertisements, like wants, are given out in a bunch
together, four or six of them at a time. In some estab¬
lishments the compositors must read each one before
beginning, so as to ascertain what heading to put on,
"Seamstress," "Valet," or "Housemaid." Difficulty is
experienced in offices where many of these small ad¬
vertisements are set because they cannot be properly
classified. The clerk in the counting-room makes a
rough separation, but this has to be done still further
on the galleys of proof and by the make-up. Late at
night the galleys should be very short, and so should
be the takes. On weekly or monthly papers, with
small pages and much advertising, it is a good plan to
make up only two or four pages in a chase. They can
be handled much easier than if they were the full size
of the paper, the pages can be transposed quickly and
they go on the press just as well. Two or four chases
are vsed instead of one.    That is all the difference.

It is a very strict rule in some offices that no cuts can
be inserted, and in others that medical or objectionable
advertisements shall not be taken. The objection to
the first is that it destroys the uniformity of the paper,
while the cuts, being hurriedly printed, and frequently
  Page 10