Merchants Of Culture: The Publishing Business In The Twenty-First Century (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
Using insider interviews and a wealth of research, the author examines the interconnected roles of parent corporations, publishing executives and staff, literary agents and authors, and book sellers.Book publishing is full of seemingly illogical business practices: Why would an author be paid a huge advance when the publisher knows the book will lose money? Why would an editor encourage an unrepresented author to hire a literary agent when that's sure to reduce the publisher's profit? Why would and editor bid on a book when he doesn't want to publish it? How could an author with a history of solid-selling books be at a disadvantage to the debut author? This fascinating book details the peculiar forces that drive the industry. A very clear, comprehensive overview of trade publishing as it stands in the UK and US markets in the 21st century. This book takes a fairly impartial, disinterested perspective of an industry that is continuously being squeezed by increasingly difficult external and internal commercial circumstances, and profoundly affected by changing perceptions of the economic, symbolic and cultural value of books and book cultures. Many of these insights I felt were quite applicable to the Australian publishing industry (which is somewhat similar to the US and UK albeit on a much smaller and contained scale) - and as such proved a sobering and important read. Highly recommended, especially if you work in the industry. This book strips the romanticism out of publishing; the title is absolutely appropriate and correctly identifies that publishers occupy an uneasy juncture between financial and literary imperatives. At the end of the day Thompson suggests that increasingly, economic pressures mean that the latter tends to be subsumed under the former and that in a world of words, numbers rule.
What do You think about Merchants Of Culture: The Publishing Business In The Twenty-First Century (2010)?
More than you'll ever want to know about the publishing industry and all the stats to back it up.
—faith
A great in-depth look at the publishing industry and how it got where it is today.
—fte
Excellent intro to trade publishing as a business.
—Lala
