Conger (syndicate)

The conger was a system common in

bookselling Bookselling is the commercial trading of books, which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, book people, bookmen, or bookwomen. History The foundi ...

in 18th- and early 19th-century England, for financing the printing of a

book A book is a structured presentation of recorded information, primarily verbal and graphical, through a medium. Originally physical, electronic books and audiobooks are now existent. Physical books are objects that contain printed material, ...

. The term referred to a

syndicate A syndicate is a self-organizing group of individuals, companies, corporations or entities formed to transact some specific business, to pursue or promote a shared interest. Etymology The word ''syndicate'' comes from the French word ''syndic ...

of booksellers, mostly in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, who bought shares to finance the

's printing. Each member agreed to take so many copies for sale themselves, and the final profit was split in proportion to the members' initial financial input. Their names all appeared on the title pages as co-

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

s, though one of the major publishing houses usually took the lead in setting the deal up. Prior to the

Statute of Anne The Statute of Anne, also known as the Copyright Act 1709 or the Copyright Act 1710 (cited either as 8 Ann. c. 21 or as 8 Ann. c. 19), was an act of the Parliament of Great Britain passed in 1710, which was the first statute to provide for ...

, the Conger (often seen capitalized) also had an effect on

copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

. After the printing became common, publishers took the position that having purchased a work from an author, the right to control its publication continued permanently. Courts supported the claim via precedent, until the Statute was passed early in the 18th century, after which it was law that literary works went into the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...

after a fixed time set by statute. This system seems to have been mostly used in the financing of major projects – for example, multi-volume works such as

encyclopedia An encyclopedia is a reference work or compendium providing summaries of knowledge, either general or special, in a particular field or discipline. Encyclopedias are divided into article (publishing), articles or entries that are arranged Alp ...

s. Shares were often subdivided and re-sold, so the actual balance of ownership became very convoluted. The Conger system was also, in effect, a wholesaling system which controlled the distribution of popular books. The Conger syndicate met regularly from the 1690s, holding private auctions at which books could be bought wholesale for resale either to the public or to regional booksellers. The system handled over 170,000 books, to the value of nearly £37,000, between 1695 and 1705. {{reflist Book publishing companies Bookshops of the United Kingdom