copyright © 2006 Dennis Paul Himes
The contents of this page are preliminary. They won't become canonical until the first version of the Tale of Tifa Walbatnuwa Siina is up. - DPH
Printing presses were not invented until after the fall of the Empire. During the Imperial period books were copied by hand. There were still publishing houses, though, the largest of which employed thousands of copyists.
There were two distinct types of books.
A siftebinseesit was an expensive, elaborately decorated book meant for a rich asit's personal collection, or for the collection of an academy.
A tibinseesit, on the other hand, was just the basic text on simple materials, but it was the real money maker for the publishing houses, as they sold many more of them. The buyers of the tibinseesiit were mostly daptoliit, or "readers" who would read books to audiences for a fee. Some daptoliit would travel from town to town, others would hold regular readings in cities, some would be hired by a business to read to the workers while they worked.
Links