Book Market Research Articles

New e-book technologies

It is possible to turn all these books on library shelves into small electronic files, which can be marketed online in the form of CDs, computers have provided enormous possibilities for compressing, uploading, and handling files electronically. However, the required transition from the traditional paper book form to its digital counterpart still needs to develop specialized electronic devices, that allow readers to easily deal with the e-book, Without the need to connect to the network every time to browse books, in addition, such a transition requires a change in the marketing strategies of the books themselves and the overall administrative culture prevailing in the field of publishing. The e-book is making its way into the publishing field and the global book market, and this transformation is not intended to replace the paper book, but rather to provide an additional form of access for books to the readers

Book Culture Ecology: Looking for a Concept

The authors have attempted to comprehend the ecological component of book culture, its importance for social development and evolution of human needs. This problem updating is closely connected with the modern state of book culture, characterized by minimization of state management, absolutist commercial approach, appearance of the great amount of players on the book market, multiformity of book products and modes of their advancement, transformation and re-estimation of activities of institutes of reading infrastructure, etc. It demands, according to our viewpoint, re-comprehension of the book culture state, inclusion of ecological criteria into its functioning, which presupposes, most of all, social attention to its various manifestations due to their correspondence to humanist values and national interests. The aim of the article is to reveal and justify the “book culture ecology” concept.The formation of ideas about this concept was ­carried out in the context of the paradigm of cultural ecology through clarification of its content and main vector directions. The article justifies the importance of book culture and considers different approaches to its treatment. It is shown that the eco-cultural aspects of book culture are an organic embodiment of its static and dynamic characteristics. In the progress of the study, the authors used terminological and operational analysis as well as structuralfunctional approach. Eco-cultural approach to different phenomena of book culture defines ethical norms of functioning of book-publishing industry different actors, determines their most important for the society principles of activity. Moreover, the study has defined difficulties of developing book culture ecological compatibility criteria. The result of the analysis has manifested itself in the generalized definition of the concept under study.

Testing Illiquidity and Momentum Factors with Asset Pricing: Evidence from Emerging Capital Markets of South Asia

This paper explores the asset pricing factors which pose aggregate risk to the portfolio returns in the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). The purpose is to test the illiquidity and momentum factors along with the well-documented three factors in asset pricing model using Fama and French (2015) and Lam and Tam (2011) for one of the emerging markets of South Asia, i.e., Pakistan, using 20-year monthly data from January 2001 to December 2020. This paper adopts the methodology of Fama and French (2015) as used in the developed market and Lam and Tam (2011) for the emerging market phenomenon, to formulate the portfolio returns based on Size, Book-to-Market(BM), and the Liquidity, and test these returns against the factors causing the return variations. The results based on the 3-factor model, liquidity-adjusted model, and the momentum-based model validate factors of excess market return (CAPM), size, value, liquidity, and momentum as significant risk factors in explaining the variations in portfolio returns of PSX stocks. The portfolio access returns for PSX stocks are adjusted for risk factors with mixed significant response holding average explanatory power. Our results are robust to the GRS F-test.

THE IMPACT OF INTERACTIVE HOTEL MAPPING TECHNOLOGY ON BUSINESS PROCESSES IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

The article explores the prospects and main directions of development of interactive hotel mapping technology. Emphasis is placed on the integral nature of the application of innovative digital technologies in the context of digital-transformation of the business environment of the tourism and hospitality industry. The aim of the article is to investigate the impact of successful practices of interactive hotel mapping on increasing efficiency, improving and modifying business processes of companies operating in the tourism and hospitality industry. The following research methods were used: observation, systematization and analysis of practical activity of the subjects of the hospitality sphere, as well as logical-analytical and system-structural methods. Interactive hotel mapping is an application of virtual reality technology. The components of this technology are indoor navigation, routing and virtual tours. The most positive effect of the technology in question has if its application is combined with other innovative digital technologies and organically fits into business processes at different stages of the production cycle. The biggest impact of interactive hotel mapping technology is on business processes related to marketing, reservations and front office service. A successful practice is the integration of the technology in question with Smart Room technology. Due to the technological peculiarities of providing indoor positioning, IT-products for interactive hotel mapping tend to specialize and demonstrate a low level of unification. For OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) and other actors providing indoor services on the booking market, the most urgent problem is the problem of unification of positioning indicators. This factor should be taken into account by firms-developers of specialized software. The scientific novelty of the study consists in the clarification and systematization of successful practices in the application of interactive mapping technology; identification of the most promising areas for improving business processes under the influence of the technology under consideration. The practical value of the obtained results lies in the possibility of their use in the practical activities of both tourism and hospitality companies and companies developing specialized IT products for the tourism and hospitality industry.

Food Preparation and Cookbooks as a Medium of Everyday Contact between Jews and Christians in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany

Abstract In the early nineteenth century, Jewish cookbooks appeared on the Central European book market for the first time. So far, these manuals have been studied primarily from the perspective of the preservation of Jewish identity, that is, as a marker of the extent to which kashrut could be preserved in the face of increasing acculturation to non-Jewish society. Little attention was paid to aspects of transfer or entanglement between Jewish and non-Jewish foodways despite the central role of food in everyday life. In my paper, I try to map possible encounters between Jews and Christians in the area of food preparation and eating outside one’s home before analyzing several Jewish and general cookbooks appearing in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany. The fact that also non-Jewish cooking manuals integrated dishes perceived as Jewish indicates mutual influence and makes it evident that there was more Christian interest in Jewish foodways than assumed.

Food Preparation and Cookbooks as a Medium of Everyday Contact between Jews and Christians in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany

Abstract In the early nineteenth century, Jewish cookbooks appeared on the Central European book market for the first time. So far, these manuals have been studied primarily from the perspective of the preservation of Jewish identity, that is, as a marker of the extent to which kashrut could be preserved in the face of increasing acculturation to non-Jewish society. Little attention was paid to aspects of transfer or entanglement between Jewish and non-Jewish foodways despite the central role of food in everyday life. In my paper, I try to map possible encounters between Jews and Christians in the area of food preparation and eating outside one’s home before analyzing several Jewish and general cookbooks appearing in the Habsburg Monarchy and Imperial Germany. The fact that also non-Jewish cooking manuals integrated dishes perceived as Jewish indicates mutual influence and makes it evident that there was more Christian interest in Jewish foodways than assumed.

„Guarda femina temeraria“

Abstract This article examines the literary self-portrayals of Arcangela Tarabotti, who became known for her denunciations of forced monacazation in 17th-century Venice. The focus is on the self-representation as a bold, transgressive woman („femina temeraria“) who was not afraid to go into battle against men, which the author skillfully combines with her portrayal as an innocent virgin. Against the background of Tarabotti’s transgressions of contemporary norms and her special relationship to the Accademia degli Incogniti, the article discusses in which way this image may have promoted the publication of her writings on the Venetian book market. In a second step, I examine how the author uses various figures of the ‚avenging innocence‘ (avenging angel, virgo virago, etc.) in the Lettere and especially in La semplicità ingannata to enter both the literary and the political debate.

Literary history as bestseller: the life and opinions of a fraudulent philologue

In this article we reveal the publishing ventures of Octav Minar (1886-1967), one of the Romanian authors that was disesteemed by fellow literary historians on account of his counterfeiting acts such as forgery, plagiarism, plastography or trick photography. Related to the book market of interbellum Romania, Minar was frequently branded as the “man-of-the-day” while his publications followed the logic of the “hand-in-glove” ephemerides Notwithstanding the challenges of the term “bestseller,” we turned to it so as to better describe Minar’s cultural products as multiple-layered offers, catering for both low-brow and high-brow readership and seizing signals from both public’s expectations (myth-making, melodrama, sensation, narrative simplicity) and enormous patrimonial gaps (editing the classics, writing the recent authors’ biographies). After a careful examination of Minar’s works, we reached the conclusion that he was an exceptional entrepreneur of letters and, nonetheless, a literary historian endowed with a “melodramatic imagination” as well as with a playwright’s and a genre novelist’s plume. A swift intuition of marketing basics helped him realize, quite rapidly, that historical facts and documents could be merchandized: this is how his impressive collection of Romanian writers’ miscellanea was wrapped as a commodity for the public. If the juridical and moral aspects of his literary ventures were put in between brackets, we would discover an astonishing and ingenious personality who glided between different speech registers, and popularized literary history as a genre belonging to the big tent of mass culture. We should thus take into consideration that the logic of the paraliterary circuit can also be applied to literary history. Boiled down to essentials, counting on citations and on minimal critical comments, spiced with images (facsimile and pictures), Minar’s literary histories had their share in speeding the process of cultural literacy of average Romanian readers and in institutionalizing literary ideas.

Механизм инновационного развития рынка книжной продукции в контексте социально-экономического развития региона

В статье рассмотрены основные аспекты формирования положительного имиджа территории в отношении задач региональной экономики, которые заключаются в усилении интереса к инвестициям и инновациям в различных отраслях экономики, в том числе в книготорговой отрасли. Рассмотрены основные направления инновационного развития книжной отрасли Донецкой Народной Республики. The article considers the main aspects of forming a positive image of the territory in relation to the tasks of the regional economy, which consist in increasing interest in investments and innovations in various sectors of the economy, including the bookselling industry. The main directions of innovative development of the book industry of the Donetsk People's Republic are considered.

Russian Emigrant Publishing House “Northern Lights” in Sweden (1920—1923): History and Significance

The “peripheral” status of the Russian emigration community in Sweden is due to the geographical location of the country and the absence of major publishing centers. The most fruitful period for the Russian Abroad in Sweden was the first half of the 1920s. At that time, the publishing enterprise “Northern Lights”, founded by I.A. Lundel and E.A. Lyatsky, was operating in Stockholm. During 1920—1923 the organization published about two dozen editions. These were mainly fiction, entertainment, popular science and practical books. A study of the external and internal conditions of the book market showed that it was E.A. Lyatsky who predetermined the short-term success of the organization and its further fate. The publishing house was closed down as unprofitable due to its reliance on expensive quality editions, unprofitable sales logistics and unfulfilled co-operation with Soviet Russia. Professor E.A. Lyatsky repeatedly tried to save “Northern Lights”, even to the point of moving the organization to Czechoslovakia. Nevertheless, having given his enterprise a name and built up a reputation, he did not preserve the repertoire, staff and internal culture. This project was important for E.A. Lyatsky, but only a stage in his humanitarian and informational struggle against Bolshevism. It is on the example of “Northern Lights” and especially the personality of its founder that the mission, values and political orientation of the Russian emigration as a whole can be clearly traced. It is important to comprehensively evaluate this historical experience in the context of the development of modern Russia.

BOOK TRADE IN BURYATIA: DIRECTIONS OF DEVELOPMENT

The situation on the book market of the Republic is considered, infor-mation about the types of bookselling enterprises and other channels of book distribution, their assortment, types of work, and problems of the activity is presented. Some processes in the field of book distribution in the Republic are highlighted in the context of all-Russian trends in the industry development. The attention is drawn to the online promotion of books, local history litera-ture, and information about interesting local publications is provided.

A Study on the Impact Mechanisms of Users’ Behavioral Intentions Towards Augmented Reality Picture Books for Adult Readers

Currently, the picture book market for adult readers is on the rise, and the development of AR (Augmented Reality) technology has introduced new possibilities for its growth. This study aims to explore the factors that may influence the intention of adult readers to use AR picture books. We employed the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) method for analysis. Through offline recruitment and experiential sessions, we collected and analyzed 332 valid questionnaires, constructing a structural equation model of adult AR picture book user behavior intentions. Functional experience, action experience, aesthetic experience, and emotional experience all have positive effect on the adults’ intention to use AR picture books. The path coefficients for these relationships are relatively close, at 0.275, 0.225, 0.176, and 0.267, respectively. Perceived interactivity has a positive effect on perceived playfulness, with the largest path coefficient among all relationship paths at 0.585. Furthermore, both perceived interactivity and perceived playfulness positively influence functional experience, action experience, aesthetic experience, and emotional experience. The path coefficients of perceived interactivity for these four experiences are 0.473, 0.388, 0.413, and 0.342, respectively, while those of perceived playfulness are 0.359, 0.368, 0.362, and 0.422, respectively. Based on these findings, the study offers recommendations for optimizing the design of AR picture books for adults, aiming to enhance their reading experience, meet their needs, and provide valuable guidance for the future development of this emerging industry.

The Relevance of Illustration in Book Marketing in the 18th and 19th Centuries in Slovakia

In each era, there are distinctive features that have influenced the possibilities of promoting intangible art products in the broader context of marketing. The possibilities, methods and forms of promotion have changed and evolved over the centuries and have depended on the development of mass means of communication, as well as on new methods and forms of promotion that reflected the requirements of the target groups during a particular period of time. In the present article, we focus on brand building of the printer (i.e. the printer’s signet), on the relevance of illustration in book marketing that takes the form of an artistic reference to the content of the work (the content frontispiece) and we also focus on building the PR of the author (the frontispiece portrait). The present study deals with the period from the 18th to the 19th century and in terms of geography, it is concerned with the territory of Slovakia.

Mid-century opportunism in the book market: Newberry librarians in Europe

Mid-century opportunism in the book market: Newberry librarians in Europe

DOES THE RISE OF THE INTERNET MEAN THE DECLINE OF PRINT BOOKS?

Recent changes in the book publishing market are partly contrary to some earlier forecasts. New trends that no one could have predicted are emerging instead of those that seemed highly sustainable not long ago. The present paper aims to unveil deep shifts in the structure of book publishing and sales, new patterns of consumer preferences with special attention to the Russian book market specifics. We analyzed both secondary data obtained from open sources, government documents and officially published reports, and primary data collected through interviews and survey, to have a more comprehensive picture. The results confirm that the development of the Russian book publishing market is consistent with the global trends, though with its own peculiarities significant for publishing companies and their production plans. Thus, while electronic and hardcopy books cost approximately the same in the developed countries, in Russia e-books are 30-40% cheaper. Another specific feature is that foreign authors occupy the majority of popularity ratings. At the same time, the current "fight for customers" between e-book and paper book production is more of a long-term phenomenon, and we should not expect a dramatic shift in book type preferences for consumers in the nearest future..

Empirical Effects of Resale Price Maintenance: Evidence from Fixed Book Price Policies in Europe

Abstract This paper investigates the effects of Resale Price Maintenance (RPM) agreements in Europe by studying a legally permitted form of RPM in the book market. In particular, we study the effects of such agreements on prices and sales, finding that countries which have Fixed Book Prices policies witness higher book sales, relative to countries without such a policy, with no noticeable effect on the average price of books. We suggest that the mechanism for these findings is that FBP policies promote non-price competition and a diverse network of retailers, increasing quantity, whereas a change in bargaining power reduces double marginalisation, offsetting upward pricing pressure from RPM. While these results are limited to the book sector and are based on a limited number of countries changing policy, they nonetheless highlight that RPM agreements have the ability to confer positive competition effects and absolute prohibition of such agreements may not always be warranted.

Scene Construction and Role Substitution: A study on the influencing factors of the marketing of influencers’ knowledge and goods books from the perspective of empathic communication

With the continuous development of media integration, platform live streaming with goods has become a shopping trend, and book marketing live streaming has also emerged. In the post-epidemic era, the economy is gradually recovering and people’s pace of life is gradually accelerating. The paper takes this as the background and adopts questionnaire survey and interview method as the main research methods, supplemented by the latest case of “Oriental Selection” knowledge anchor Dong Yuhui IP and “Scene construction and role substitution” under “empathic communication” to conduct a detailed study on “users’ book purchase intention”. Through research, we find that the reason why “users’ willingness to buy books” is strong is that the knowledge-based anchor, in the field created by “discourse is power”, greatly stimulates users’ empathy and resonance, and promotes the vitality and vitality of paper books under the impact and challenge of electronic publishing.

From Marginalia to Bookends: Industrialization, Capitalism, and Advertising in Hungary’s Modern Literary Journal, <i>Nyugat</i> (1908–41)

This paper examines Nyugat [West], the premier journal of modern Hungarian literature published from 1908 to 1941 and edited by Ernő Osvát (1876–1929), Ignotus (1869–1949), and Miksa Fenyő (1877–1972) until 1917. Although Hungarian scholarship has detailed the role played by Osvát and Ignotus, Fenyő’s contribution to this triumvirate has received less attention, a lack that may have hindered literary historians’ understanding of the more widespread, sociological reasons underlying Nyugat’s long-lasting presence in a highly competitive book market. I argue that examining Fenyő’s editorial position demands the inclusion of marginalia, the term this study utilizes to denote the factory advertisements, banking-related notifications, military supply announcements, railway schedules, and eulogies that display Fenyő’s ties to the industrial lobby organization GyOSz — the National Association of Hungarian Industrialists, also referred to as ‘the Association’ — within the pages of a journal dedicated to promoting fin-de-siècle aestheticism. Exploring what Bernard Lahire would describe as Fenyő’s ‘double life’ thereby paves the way to theorizing what beliefs and ‘rules of the game’ (illusio) may have determined the connection between Hungary’s wealthiest industrialists and Nyugat during a period when the journal’s editors and authors sought to attain both authorial and financial autonomy.

Private initiative as a growth factor of Book publishing activity in Russia in the last third of the 18th century

Importance. A landmark event in the history of Russia in the last third of the 18th century was the development of private printing houses, which destroyed the state and church monopoly on printing publications. The work of publishing houses played a decisive role in satisfying the spiritual needs of the broad masses of the population, contributed to the secularization of the national book culture. At the same time, the richness and diversity of fiction, educational and scientific literature, produced both in Russian and in foreign languages, thoroughly influenced the emergence and dissemination of new information and facts, increased the level of education of all segments of the reading population. Despite the existence of extensive research on the book publishing of this period, there is a well-known imbalance in the description of the activities of famous domestic printers and their foreign colleagues. Meanwhile, it was foreign specialists (I.M. Hartung, J.J. Weitbrecht, etc.) who played a key role in opening the first private printing houses in Russia. The study of their activities contributes to the increment of knowledge on the Russian book culture history, allows you to consider unknown pages of Russian book publishing and book trade.Research Methods. The main sources of the study are the materials of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts (Fund 17, Fund 248), as well as legislative acts and orders of that time that influenced the book trade.Results and Discussion. Being a characteristic feature of the development of information culture in the first half of the 18th century, censorship could not stop the transformative role of books in the history of Russia. As a result of the intensification of book printing in the country, the emergence of free book trade, the successful operation of new education models, interest in printed products has noticeably increased. Book business has ceased to be only a capital occupation and has become the property of the whole country. By allowing everyone to start printing houses at will, the state equated them with factories, which facilitated the processes of creating and developing their own printing business.Conclusion. The activity of private book publishers in Russia in the second half of the 18th century created opportunities for the formation of the national book market, filling it with various scientific, fiction and educational literature. Thus, the printers contributed to the dissemination of the widest knowledge among the Russian population, increased the variety and quality of the literature sold.

The Subject of Queer Community in Teenage Books: Ukrainian Discourse

<p><strong><em>The purpose of the study</em></strong><em> is to find out the specifics of the perception of the LGBTQ(IA+) community in books for Ukrainian adolescents.</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Research methodology. </em></strong><em>A survey was used to identify the respondents’ opinions on the topic. A number of assumptions were made. In particular: 1) such literature will be more interesting to young people; 2) respondents will believe that this topic should be presented in teenage literature because the world in general and Ukrainian society in particular are multifaceted and diverse, so it is normal to hear all voices; 3) realistic prose and genre publications will compete for readers’ attention; 4) such books will be in demand if they are primarily about an interesting story. Accordingly, our task was to verify these assumptions. Based on this, we created a questionnaire of 7 questions: 2 open-ended questions and 5 with possible answers (+ «other» option). The «Teenage Books on an Important Topic» survey was conducted on November 10–13, 2023, using the snowball method with the help of Google Forms. A total of 145 respondents were interviewed. To process the information received, the following methods of generalization and analysis of information were used: systematization, grouping, qualitative (text analysis, classification) and quantitative (digital data) methods of data interpretation. The results are presented as a detailed verbal description. </em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Results.</em></strong><em> It was found that the vast majority of respondents are young people living in large cities. 96.6% of respondents believe that the topic of the LGBTQ(IA+) community <strong>should be</strong> represented (including a balanced representation) in Ukrainian teen literature. 3.4% of respondents believe that it <strong>should not be</strong> represented. According to the key messages, the following groups can be distinguished from the category «<strong>should be</strong> represented» because it: 1: 1) promotes awareness of adolescents about the topic of the queer community, overcoming prejudice and stigma; 2) helps to understand that the orientation of people who are part of the queer community is a variant of the norm, and it is the norm that should be accepted by all members of society; 3) promotes the development of a culture of tolerance, gender equality, self-awareness, and self-acceptance by any member of society; 4) promotes cultural identification and representation of adolescents belonging to the queer community; 5) makes it clear that literature should cover all aspects of life; 6) is a reality for many adolescents; 7) because the niche needs to be filled. The arguments that the topic «<strong>should not be</strong> represented» include personal rejection; stereotypical understanding of the «usefulness of literature/art»; misunderstanding of the role of cultural identification; and the traditional accusation of the threat to the institution of the «traditional» family.</em><em></em></p><p><em>Only 55 respondents were able to name certain works from this segment by 27 foreign and 8 Ukrainian authors, and there is no distinction between books by age categories. On the Ukrainian book market, publications on the topic are represented by two genres: science fiction and fantasy and realistic prose. Annotations to publications containing elements of queer culture rarely mention this. Indirect and disguised/metaphorical/allusive references dominate.</em><em></em></p><p><em>Almost all respondents are ready to buy books that cover the topic of queer culture, among other topics. However, 4% of respondents would not buy or read such books under any circumstances. Thus, the results confirm all our assumptions.</em><em></em></p><p><em>It should also be noted that the Ukrainian book market is dominated by translated editions. In addition, we can assume that for Ukrainian authors and publishers (in order to avoid being judged), the best way to present the topic of the LGBTQ(IA+) community in books for Ukrainian adolescents would be to present it through well-written and published interesting/important stories in which characters belonging to the queer community act on an equal basis with all other characters and this is justified and is the norm.</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Novelty. </em></strong><em>This is the first niche audience study of the perception of the specifics of the representation of the LGBTQ(IA+) community in books for Ukrainian adolescents.</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Practical importance.</em></strong><em> The obtained results can be used in the process of forming publishing portfolios of Ukrainian publishing houses; promoting reading; teaching disciplines related to teenage literature, in particular, the author will include the data obtained in the content of the author’s course «Fiction Text from A to Z» and the module «Teenage Literature» for students majoring in 061 «Journalism» (curriculum «Publishing and Media Editing», «Media Production», «Journalism and Social Communication», «Advertising and Public Relations»).</em><em></em></p><p><strong><em>Key words:</em></strong><em> LGBTQ(IA+), queer community, queer history, queer culture, reading, teenage literature.</em></p>