SIC 2741 Miscellaneous Publishing

Contenidos

• NAICS CODE(S).
• INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT.
• ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE.
• Telephone Directories.
• Directories.
• Catalogs.
• Business Service Newsletters.
• Sheet Music.
• Maps and Atlases.
• Trading Cards.
• Calendars.
• Micropublishing.
• Globes.
• BACKGROUND AND DEVELOPMENT.
• Telephone Directories.
• Catalogs.
• Sheet Music.
• Trading Cards.
• Yearbooks.
• CURRENT CONDITIONS.
• INDUSTRY LEADERS.
• AMERICA AND THE WORLD.
• RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY.
• FURTHER READING.

SIC 2741

This classification includes establishments primarily engaged in miscellaneous publishing activities, not elsewhere classified, whether or not engaged in printing. This includes the publishing of atlases, business service newsletters, calendars, catalogs, directories, guides, maps and map globe covers, paper patterns, race track programs, racing forms, sheet music, shopping news, technical manuals and papers, telephone directories, and yearbooks, as well as the activity of micropublishing.

NAICS CODE(S)

511140

Directory and Mailing List Publishers

512230

Music Publishers

511199

All Other Publishers

INDUSTRY SNAPSHOT

The various sectors encompassed in the classification of miscellaneous publishing typically are rather small; less than one-fifth of all establishments employ more than twenty people. Overall, about 3,670 companies made up the industry, employing more than 74,200 workers. The industry, almost entirely domestic, depends heavily on the U.S. economy's advertising expenditure, and thus in turn correlates rather closely with the state of the overall U.S. economy, which meant bad news for miscellaneous publishers in the early 2000s but better news by the mid-2000s.

Miscellaneous publishers tend to be specialized within their respective categories. However, in addition to independent publishing companies, some book and periodical publishers also have divisions or departments engaged in miscellaneous publishing. The industry spans a range of some of the largest companies in publishing down to sole-proprietorship enterprises. The activities of some miscellaneous publishers closely resemble book publishers, whereas others more closely resemble periodical publishers.

By far the largest single segment of this diverse industry category is telephone directory publishing, valued at more than $31.6 billion in 2006. While certain sectors in the publishing industry suffered setbacks with the growth of the Internet, e-commerce, and electronic publishing, directory publishers were benefiting from the change. After undergoing significant consolidation in the early 2000s, directory publishers found that because such publications are often fairly time sensitive and require frequent printings to keep information current, online publication allows quick and inexpensive updating without compromising revenue from advertisers.

ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE

Telephone Directories

The largest category within miscellaneous publishing, comprising about a third of the industry's revenues, is telephone directory publishing. More than 6,000 telephone directories are published in the United States annually by approximately 200 publishers. This includes both telephone companies or their subsidiaries and independent publishing companies. There are several kinds of telephone directories. The utility, or core directory, is the standard directory provided by telephone companies for their service areas, with an edition distributed free to the owner of each phone line. Directories for smaller regional areas, such as a specific town, neighborhood, or regions larger than the core directories cover, may be published by either a telephone company or an independent publisher. Telephone company publishers also publish business-to-business directories whose listings include establishments that would be of interest to other businesses. Finally, there are independent companies that publish special interest directories, such as those targeted to specific ethnic groups.

The telephone directory publishing industry is often synonymous with the term "yellow pages" publishing because the same companies publish both comprehensive alphabetical telephone listings and categorized paid advertising listings known generically as yellow pages. Even if certain directory editions do not contain classified business listings, their publishers earn revenues from the yellow pages that they publish, whether as part of a directory or in a separate volume. Telephone directory publishing is thus an unusual industry because the bulk of its revenues are earned through advertising services and not the selling of its publications. The yellow pages account for 85 percent of the directory printing market.

Directories

Directory publishers that do not base their revenues on selling advertising space usually provide more comprehensive information on their entries than merely the telephone number and street address—and list individuals or organizations based on a common specialization. These directories are published by a different category of publishers than the telephone directory publishers. These publishers typically create and own their own databases of information to be published. Directory publishers may be primarily publishers of periodicals, such as trade journals, and publish directories focused on their journals' specialization. Other comprehensive directories, which provide substantive additional information, are published by reference book publishers. Directories are also published by nonprofit organizations, such as professional or trade associations. Two revenue streams exist for directory publishers: the reference works themselves and the database content of names and addresses for new business purposes.

Catalogs

The catalog industry is primarily a printing industry because catalogs are usually produced on contract for manufacturing, wholesale, or retail companies for the marketing of their products. In some cases, however, publisher-printers create catalogs on their own as a business initiative.

Business Service Newsletters

Newsletters geared toward businesses and industries proliferated rapidly in the mid- and late 1990s, surpassing the billion-dollar sales mark in 1995 and reaching nearly $1.5 billion by the close of the decade. The field is crowded with more than 5,000 publications. Nearly half of their income is from related products and services, as these publications depend heavily on revenues from advertising. Profitability is also tied to the cost of postage. Because there is growing concerns about postal rates, many publishers cut costs by reducing paper weight and more accurately targeting their audiences.

The distinction between business service newsletters and regular periodical publishing is often blurred. In general, business service newsletters contain no advertisements, charge high subscription rates, are narrowly focused, and contain articles, tables, or graphs oriented toward data rather than commentary. Such newsletters are often available in electronic form in addition to or instead of print. Companies in this industry may be independent firms, but the largest publishers are often divisions or subsidiaries of market research or financial information services firms. Other business service publications besides newsletters are sometimes grouped with this category; these would include such publications as bibliographic databases.

Sheet Music

Like trade book publishers, publishers of sheet music publish, market, and hold existing copyrights to creative works of independent composers and lyric authors. Many music publishers, however, derive the majority of their revenues from sources other than sheet music, namely from performance royalties or recorded music royalties for the music to which they own the copyrights. Thus, these publishers...