Place-making in publishing: Dutch trade book publishers and the meaning of place in establishing reputation and trust

Abstract

In-depth interviews with Dutch trade book publishers revealed that the agglomeration of book publishers in Amsterdam cannot be fully explained either by place as a meeting site or by sense of place as a source of inspiration. Instead, publishers make and employ their own places to develop and maintain their personal networks. This involves innercity Amsterdam and its canals, as well as other places and temporary events on multiple levels of scale. Publishers employ place to enhance their status and credibility and to build relation-specific trust. This tends to perpetuate the myth of the traditional publisher. Socialization is important in publishing, but it does not require fixed meeting places and may lead to conservatism rather than innovation. This paper provides a more complete and more dynamic understanding of place and its role in cultural production, by looking at place as a social construct integrating the dimensions of place as locale and place as experience, and by focusing on networked and public reputation and trust, rather than primarily on knowledge exchange and innovation. Without telling yet another cluster success story, this study shows that place still matters in publishing.