The English bestseller and the bookmarket in the 1990s [Elektronische Ressource] / von Silvia Stolzenburg

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Informations

• Publié par: eberhard_karls_universitat_tubingen
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 13
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 11 Mo

Extrait

The English Bestseller
and the Bookmarket
in the 1990s



von



Silvia Stolzenburg




Philosophische Dissertation
angenommen von der Neuphilologischen Fakultät
der Universität Tübingen

am 17. Juli 2006



Tübingen

2006




Gedruckt mit Genehmigung der Neuphilologischen Fakultät
der Universität Tübingen


Hauptberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Christopher Harvie

Mitberichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Horst Tonn

Dekan: Prof. Dr. Joachim Knape












For my mother
Table of Contents


Introduction 1

I. Definitions 4

I.a. The bestseller – various definitions of the term 4
I.b. The bestseller – definition used within this essay 7

II. Research Report 9
III. The Bookmarket 24

III.a. Production 24

III.a.1. HarperCollins 38
III.a.2. Hodder Headline 40
III.a.3. Macmillan 41
III.a.4.Orion 42
III.a.5. Pearson 43
III.a.6.RandomHouse 43
III.a.7. Reed Elsevier 45
III.a.8.Time Warner 46
III.a.9. Transworld 47
III.a.10 BBC, Bloomsbury, Cassell, and Faber & Faber 48
III.a.11 Summary 49
III.a.12.Promotion 50
III.a.13 Agents 51

III.b. Distribution 53

III.b.1. Wholesalers 53
III.b.2. Retailers 55
III.b.3. Traditional Retailers 57
III.b.4. Non-Traditional 60
III.b.5. The End of the Net Book Agreement 63

III.c. Reception/Consumption 68

III.c.1. Summary 77

IV. Readers and Bestsellers 78

IV.a. Reader Categories 78 IV.b. Reader Response Criticism and Reception Theory 83

IV.c. Psychological Gratifications 88

IV.d. Literary Formula 96

IV.d.1. Narrative Categories 102
IV.d.2. Ludic Reading 105
IV.d.3. The Sample 113
a) Form
b) Content 115
c) Summary 120

V. Case Study 121

VI. Conclusion 132

VII. Works Cited 134

Primary Literature 134
Books
Films 136

Secondary Literature 137
Internet Sources 143
Homepages used 144

VIII. German Summary/Deutsche Zusammenfassung 146

Appendix A 148 B 161 C 163 D 171
Appendix E 172 F 182

1
Introduction

The phenomenon of the bestseller has already received a lot of attention and still continues
to fascinate a great number of people. The focus of interest within the secondary literature has
not changed greatly during the last two decades and it has to be explained why the author of
this work considers it legitimate to add yet another essay to the already huge collection.

In the past the bestseller was explained as being either a phenomenon of popular culture or
of work-internal structural features and formulaic plots; as a product which has to survive on
the capitalist market, as an element of mass communication, and as a psychological or
sociological problem. All these methodological approaches contain a grain of true insight, but
most of them have in common that, by narrowing the focus to only one aspect of the complex
problem, like only discussing readers’ needs or the structure of bestsellers’ plots, they neglect
other issues and are too limited.

This is the point where this dissertation wants to take up the discussion. It endeavours to
go beyond the limits of intra-disciplinary research and wants to analyze all the factors which
contribute to the prominent position the bestseller has reached within the contemporary
literary system.

The first chapter tries to arrive at a practicable definition of the term “bestseller”.

The second chapter contains a report on relevant research. This summarises all the works
which regard the bestseller as a phenomenon of the bookmarket. Among other things it
introduces concepts such as “primary” and “secondary” readers, opinion-leading, media tie-
ins, conglomeratization and internationalization, “snob”, “veblen”, and “bandwagon” effects,
and certain ideas stemming from the study of economics.

In the third chapter, which is descriptive by nature, the structure of the bookmarket is
outlined, and the place the bestseller occupies within this system is made clear. This part of
the essay is based on extensive empirical data. There are three main subdivisions dealing
respectively with the production and distribution sectors, and the reception of the product by
the reader and consumer.
2

As far as the production machinery is concerned, the structure and size of the different
publishing houses, as well as their international links to other media and the position of the
bestseller within their house policy are examined. Furthermore, the role which high-profile
authors and media tie-ins play within the publishing houses is described. Product features
such as format and external appearance are analyzed, taking into account the interests of the
producers as well as those of the distributors.

As far as distribution is concerned, the different channels of distribution like wholesalers,
traditional retailers, bookclubs, supermarkets, CTNs (confectioners, tobacconists, newsagents)
and the Internet are scrutinized. Besides these, promotional measures taken by producers and
distributors, as well as the effect of the formal ending of the Net Book Agreement (1997), will
be of interest.
These last two elements form the connection to the third subdivision, i.e. reception by the
readers. I employ findings on consumer motivation and readers’ needs, as well as data from
empirical research projects including my own questionnaires. The influence that awards,
reviews, bestseller lists, and external features have on the buying behaviour of readers is
examined.

The fourth chapter is devoted to the reader and his reception of the product. Different
reader concepts and reader response theories will be discussed. On the basis of an extensive
corpus of primary literature I have attempted to discover typical structural features, or rather
tried to confirm or refute existing theories about the formulaic character of bestselling fiction.
A structuralist approach based on Gerard Genette’s narrative categories is used while looking
at formal elements such as point of view, character, setting, and time. Intertextuality as a
linking and identifying device in “genre” and “author bestsellers”, as well as the readers’
needs are examined. In addition to that, the “act of reading” (Iser) is analyzed and the reading
of bestselling or formulaic fiction is linked to game theories.

The final chapter consists of a case study of the “Harry Potter” novels by the British
authoress J.K. Rowling. As these books can be said to have become the contemporary
synonym for the term “bestseller”, the findings of the previous chapters will be illustrated by
this series.

3
It has to be stressed that the methodological approach chosen here is partly descriptive and
partly interdisciplinary, as it is essential to consult books from research areas other than the
study of literature in order to be able to grasp the problem at hand. However, this involves a
necessary limitation; in order not to become too long, some parts of this dissertation cannot be
as extensive as the author would like them to be and sometimes the reader has to be referred
to more detailed studies, which can only be mentioned here. The study moves from the
general to the particular and leads from the macrolevel of the bookmarket to the microlevel of
reception and reader response.


4

I.) Definitions

I.a.) The bestseller – various definitions of the term

The term “bestseller” is far from being unambiguous. On the contrary, at first glance one
gets the impression that it virtually defies definition. I will not follow the tradition of listing
various extracts from dictionaries at the beginning of this chapter, as this has already been
1done by a lot of my fellow researchers. Apart from being fruitless, dictionaries just confirm
what I consider common linguistic usage today, i.e. that the term denotes sales performance
2and can be applied to things as different as books, types of books, authors, films, records, etc.

I have also decided to refrain from any attempt to trace historically the first use of the term,
as this is of no consequence