This represented a change from the manuscript form, where changes could easily be introduced (intentionally or by error) each time the manuscript was copied. The text was not viewed a stable and inviolate entity. But with the advent of the printing press, multiple copies of the same book were identical, so that readers could have the same (or similar) experiences of the text. Ilana Snyder points out that "In the conceptual space of a printed book, writing is fixed and controlled by the author: that space is defined by bound volumes that sometimes exist in thousands of identical copies"(Snyder, 3).