Publication details
Opening the gates for popular fiction, changing the rules of literary game: a case of book publishers’ strategies in Czech literary field
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| Year of publication | 2016 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | In this paper, I focus on the issue of commercialization of contemporary book business, as exemplified by routine strategies and praxis of Czech book publishers. The changing balance between popular and literary fiction is a world-wide phenomenon, interconnected with the smooth inclusion of literary field into wider structures of culture industries. The rise of popular fiction manifests itself both in the patterns of material production of books and in the prevalent discourses on literature and reading. Taking book publishers to be the key intermediaries in literary field, I investigate how this changed logic of book business influences their positions and strategies (i.e. whether the traditional model of publisher as wise literary guide is still viable or not and in what aspects) and how book publishers themselves contribute to the commercialization of book business (i.e. whether they intentionally adjust their editorial plans and programs to actual moods of the mainstream reading public or not and how they justify these moves). Summing up the observations, I try to suggest whether described changes imply some transposition and redefinition of the literary field autonomy, or point rather to its gradual disenchantment and dissolution among other cultural arenas. |