Silvestre Martin Boulard Outlines the Cost of Setting Up a Printing Office and Publishing a Book

In 1791 Parisian printer and bookseller Silvestre Martin Boulard wrote, printed, and presumably also sold, Le manuel de l'imprimeur, ouvrage utile à tous ceux qui veulent connoître les détails des ustensiles,des prix, de la manutention de cet art intéressant, & à quiconque veut lever une Imprimerie. This rather basic and short manual was highly unusual in its discussion of the actual costs of operating a press and publishing a book. As far as I know, this is the only 18th century French printing manual to emphasize this aspect of the business.

On his title page, besides characterizing himself as a printer-bookseller, Boulard described himself as "Electeur de 1790 & 1791," suggesting a possible political motive for publishing his manual in the manner that he did. Because the French Revolution stimulated an immense amount of printing, it is possible that Boulard recognized that people who might be inspired to enter the printing business actually needed to have some understanding of the economics of printing before they entered the business.

My attention was drawn to Boulard's book by a short pamphlet issued in 1923 by Douglas C. McMurtrie, which translated Boulard's section on the economics of setting up a printing office and publishing a book: The Cost-Finding System of a French Printer in the Eighteenth Century. Greenwich, Conn.: The Condé Nast Press, 1923.