What does it take for a book to move across markets? Big books, John B. Thompson writes, are “hoped-for bestsellers” (2012, 194): titles which publishers invest significant energy and funds into in order to generate buzz. In the twenty-first century, big books are transnational commodities, marketed in a dizzying array of formats and media forms across traditional media as well as social media platforms. In an attention economy, even big books compete with all other media forms. Platform and visibility are key: conglomerate publishers thus have come to rely on celebrity authors and social media influencers-as-authors to co-create big books, which can be fiction or non-fiction titles. Who are the actors involved in the production, distribution and reception of big books across markets? What are the challenges for other actors in the industry? At this informal event, established publishing and book culture scholars from UK, Australia and Canada will present work-in-progress alongside early career researchers to generate discussions about how big books travel across markets and national boundaries.
This event is supported by the DFG Collaborative Research Center 1385 Law and Literature, project A02 "Literature and the Market".