Bestseller industry

Book industry

Among the variety of books available in all the shops and in the platforms it’s sometimes hard to find a good book which meets our expectations. That’s why bestselling list and book clubs exist to give some pieces of advice to people on what they should read. But what are precisely the bestsellers and the book clubs ? What are their role in the book industry?

I/ Bestsellers and books clubs : definition

A bestseller is a very popular book with a large volume of sales in a very short time period . It doesn’t relate to the quality of the writing nor if it’s a good or a bad book but it’s just defined by the way it is sold.

Some reasons can explain the transformation of a book into a bestseller :

- first of all there is the personality of the author . Due to a strong commitment in terms of political issues for instance, journalists would talk about him, about his engagement and his work would be known.

-the context of the period of publication; for example a book which deals with an actual or controversial topic can become popular because people would have heard about it « Le consentement » written by Vanessa Springora can be an illustration of this case ; it has become a bestseller because it deals about raping question in the era of the movement « me-too ». So the actual context can help a book to be known and famous.

-the characters also play a key role in the book , they have to be close to the people therefore they could identify themselves to the characters.

-the bestseller has a great mediatisation ; the more we talk about a book the more people would like to read and buy it.

-the growing number of awards lead to the emergence of bestsellers ; a book rewarded is necessarily a bestseller. We can think of the « Goncourt » price for instance.

Best selling lists are published by period : you have a bestseller list published by each media : newspapers , internet

Book clubs : most of the people concerned by the book clubs are young people because book clubs occur online particularly on blogs and on social media .Most of the time it refers to communities about very specific types of books : science fiction or fantasy books or the « young adult style » . It relates to a type of books addressed for both teenagers and adults . The story of these writings looks like a scenario of a movie.

It is therefore hard to have an idea of the volume of sales influenced by book clubs because most of the purchases are made online and not in book shops. you have on websites some pieces of advice for books with the link which drives you to a another website to buy it , so it’s easier to do it online. The channel of information and the channel of purchasing are always very linked. The persons who buy their book in shops are always the persons who have been informed by the press , the radio or by the word of mouth .

II/ the impact on the book industry

On the one hand bestsellers and book clubs have a positive impact ; it pushes a lot of people to read more and more, which increases the sales in the book shops .Bestsellers have a wide spread it means that it draws the attention of people who are not necessarily readers . People who are not used to going to book shops , will come to buy the new bestseller and consequently , it will increase the sales of the book. It can be the start for a taste in lecture . The main reason for this general interest for bestsellers is the curiosity; people want to discover themselves why we are currently talking about this book. it is a reason for imitation of the others as well , you want to read the same book as your friend for example to discuss about it. Finally one explanation of this phenomenon is that the bestsellers are often seen as « easy books to read » with an appealing story or book cover. Some people have even written books on how to « build » a bestseller with rules to follow. They think of the bestsellers as very simple books with miracles tours which can convince the lectors .Thus they neglect the author’s work because there are others reasons that we need to take into account to understand why a book is a bestseller.

On the other hand it has a negative impact because it overshadows the other authors and books less known . People would surrender a big part of the books available for the

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