Woodprint was probably "good enough" to enable widespread book distribution, especially since it enabled (from the author's point of view) a superior financing

Woodprint was probably "good enough" to enable widespread book distribution, especially since it enabled (from the author's point of view) a superior financing model: http://www.froginawell.net/china/2009/12/china-where-the-future-is-already-the-past/ http://www.froginawell.net/china/2009/12/china-where-the-fut... I think the real problem is that the necessary books weren't being written in the first place (or were suppressed more ruthlessly), not that the cost of printing them was too high. The massive character set meant that becoming literate required a huge investment of time/money. And so, at least in China, all the literati went into civil service jobs, and had little incentive to publish books which would shake up the status quo. You may be interested in the book Asia's Orthographic Dilemma by William Hannas.