The manufacturing book trade (encompassing both the print shop, see printing, and the publishing house) and the retail book trade (product range) were not yet clearly distinct in the first centuries of the early modern period. Hybrid forms continued to exist even in the 18th century. The first profession to emerge as a phenomenon of the book industry, during the time of the incunabula (from ca. 1480-1500) was the Buchführer, precursor to the bookseller. The Buchführer would se…