Abstract
Independent publishing is a sector of the cultural field that is perceived to be threatened by market forces but also one in which is buoyed by critical and commercial success and a rise in the number of small presses. The article innovates by probing the oft-neglected matter of evaluative judgements as publishers, in their role as cultural intermediaries, negotiate aesthetic, ethical, commercial and temporal considerations in deciding which books to publish. Drawing on primary data from a study of independent literary publishers from six countries, I draw attention to how they justify their decisions in order to mark their distinctiveness in the field and distinguish themselves from the corporate houses. I find that field-specific aesthetic judgements assess the extent to which literary manuscripts contribute to the conversation by responding to developments in the field. In contrast, decisions made on this basis of ethical considerations mean that the publishers’ output might veer from ‘art for art’s sake’ towards more heteronomous regions of cultural production in order to contribute towards a sense of the common good. Finally, the temporal dimension of evaluative judgements distinguishes independent presses from their rivals by pointing to a distant future of literary fame that reaches far beyond the marketing schedules of the corporate houses.
Highlights
Thompson (2012) identifies three key developments in trade publishing: the polarization of the field, with five or six big corporations taking a dominant position; the relentless pursuit of bestsellers; and ‘shrinking windows’, as publishers seek to publicise their books in an increasingly crowded marketplace
It is a sector of the cultural field that is perceived to be threatened by market forces (Bourdieu, 2003) and one which is buoyed by critical and commercial success and a rise in the number of small presses (Kean, 2017; Thompson, 2012)
Publishers are inundated with potential book projects but on what basis do they make judgements about the titles they want to publish? What criteria do they deploy? Drawing on primary data from a study of prominent independent presses from the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Australia and Finland, the article draws attention to the aesthetic, ethical and temporal dimensions of evaluative judgements
Summary
Thompson (2012) identifies three key developments in trade publishing: the polarization of the field, with five or six big corporations taking a dominant position; the relentless pursuit of bestsellers; and ‘shrinking windows’, as publishers seek to publicise their books in an increasingly crowded marketplace. The publishers place high value on field-specific stylistic innovation, making a significant contributions to the conversation, and demonstrating charisma in the authorial voice These criteria all accord with the notion that the literary field has a cumulative logic to which one can only contribute by doing something new and innovative (Bourdieu, 1993). In staking out this claim, the independent publishers have to negotiate two key aspects of their trade, referred to metaphorically by one publisher as the cathedral and the stock market. The ethical judgements they utilise, including the assertion that their decisions are informed by a desire for inclusivity as they seek to combat the diversity deficit, are rooted in civic values that refer to the common good and derive from sources external to the literary field
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