The appearance of The Jovanović Brothers Bookstore in Pančevo is one of the most important events in the development of modern Serbian publishing. The traditional method of issuing publications, which had been practiced until then, implied author's personal involvement in all the stages of technical production of his book, from printing and binding, to transport and distribution. The author himself was also required to resolve all the issues related to financing his work. The subscription business model was the most common model of financing, along with patronage which had an important role in this process. In the eighth decade of the nineteenth century, this uncertain way of creating books was replaced by a completely different system, which has been practiced since then. The Jovanović Brothers Bookstore concludes a contract with an author that sets out mutual responsibilities and obligations, where the bookstore takes care of all the technical details of the publishing process, thus the author is released from all the 'non-writing' activities that writers were obliged to carry out before. The most important detail of this new model of work is the fact that publishers invest their own money, so that authors no longer have to deal with financing issues. No less important is the emergence of royalties, which fundamentally changes the social status of writers. Thus, the conditions were created for the emergence of a new literary profession, since writers have got the opportunity to live from their work. In order to illustrate the new mode of running a publishing business, the paper presents a number of documents taken from the business correspondence of The Jovanović Brothers Bookstore, which clearly illustrates functioning of this system.