A Myth Busted: Bestselling Fiction in Europe and Slovenia
Keywords:
bookselling, book market, bestsellers, bestseller lists, libraries, library loanAbstract
The paper analyzes adult fiction bestsellers in Europe in 2008 and 2009. The authors develop a method that enables them to measure the impact factors of bestselling authors and describe the mechanisms through which a book becomes a bestseller. In addition, they describe the methods and differences in the creation of bestseller lists and their impact on book markets. The analysis shows that in all European countries analyzed the majority of the books on bestseller lists are written either in local languages or translated from the biggest European languages (English, French, German, Spanish) and Swedish. This is a one-way process because there are no authors from small languages on the bestseller list in the biggest European book markets. The final part of the paper analyzes the Slovenian book market and its special features.References
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