Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Bookselling'

This thesis is concerned with the rise of independent booksellers in China since the late 2000s. Drawing on the findings of a qualitative study I conducted with 55 independent booksellers between 2014 and 2015, I argue that independent bookselling in China is an economic activity politicized, and the emergence and development of independent booksellers has been a process shaped by both economic and socio-political factors stemming from both inside and outside the book industry. Studying independent bookselling, a significant change in the Chinese book industry in recent years, my thesis advances our understanding of the transformation of the book industry in China. The notion of ‘politicization’ provides a useful analytical framework for understanding bookselling and publishing in parallel contexts. Finally, by elucidating the distinctive relationship between the evolution of the book industry and some wider social, political and economic processes in China, my thesis adds to the political economy of the media industry in non-Western societies and contributes to the de-Westernization of this long-dominant and yet problematic approach to the study of the media and media industries.

This research examines the implementation of marketing both by chain and online booksellers, and consumer responses to this marketing and a reading of the current trade press revealed calls for research into consumer wants and needs (Watson, 2002; Holman, 2007; Horner, 2007a). While BML (Book Marketing Limited) carries out a valuable range of research into publishing and bookselling on an ongoing basis, nevertheless, both are relatively new research areas, and bookselling is particularly underdeveloped. It would appear that research in the field of bookselling has yet to be examined in an academic context. With specific respect to the development of a comprehensive understanding of consumer responses to bookshop marketing, the research is original, timely and useful, and builds upon the foundations of existing research, as detailed above. The mixed-method approach adopted in this study enhanced the level of triangulation possible, with interviews, surveys and focus groups serving to consolidate and support sets of results. This empirical research has uncovered rich source material from consumers both online and offline, revealing complex responses to traditional and online bookselling environments. Key original findings include: the widespread perception of homogeneity across chain bookshops by consumers; the presence of a coffee shop can enhance the concept of the bookshop as a social space and that consumer behaviour online was found to tend towards linear, goal-oriented book buying, whereas traditional book shopping tends to be much more about browsing, and have a serendipitous quality to it. The research has developed a comprehensive understanding of the approaches to marketing taken by chain booksellers, but more especially, the range of consumer responses and behaviour in both traditional chain and online bookshops. It has built upon the existing scholarly material available in these fields, as well as extending and developing research in the new academic field of bookselling. There is considerable scope for further investigation in both traditional and online bookselling, as outlined in the Conclusions chapter, building on the findings emerging from this research.

This dissertation examines booksellers in multiple roles as cultural agents in the small press field. It proposes various ways of understanding the work of booksellers as actively shaping the production, distribution, reception, and preservation of small press works, arguing that bookselling is a small press act unaccounted for in existing scholarship. It is structured around the idea of “contributive” bookselling from Nicky Drumbolis, wherein the bookseller “adds dimension to the cultural exchange […] participates as user, maker, transistor” (“this fiveyear list”). The questions at the heart of this dissertation are: How does the small press, in its material strategies of production and distribution, reshape the terms of reception for readers? How does the bookseller contribute to these processes? What does independent bookselling look like when it is committed to the cultural and aesthetic goals of the small press? And what is absent from literary and cultural records when the bookseller is not accounted for? This dissertation covers a period from 1952 to the present day. I begin by positing Raymond Souster’s “Contact” labour as an influential model for small press publishing in which the writer must adopt multiple roles in the communications circuit in order to construct and educate a community of readers. I then examine the bookseller catalogue as a bibliographic, critical, and pedagogical genre of publication that mediates productive encounters between readers and books. I next position the material, affective, and effective labour of the bookseller within the small press gift economy. Finally, I theorize the bookstore as a potential small press archive that functions as a viable counterweight to institutional collection and preservation. My reconsideration of the labour of the bookseller realigns relations between production, distribution, reception, documentation, and preservation of small press publications, making possible a more complete accounting of the histories of the book and of the small press in Canada.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007.
The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on January 10, 2008) Includes bibliographical references.

Bookselling in Australia has altered irreversibly since the collapse of REDgroup Retail, owner of the Angus & Robertson and Borders brands. A popular but misleading explanation in the media for the REDgroup collapse was the emergence of eBooks and other competitive technologies. While the essential cause of the business failure was debt, the supermarket philosophy of the management team produced a corporate model of bookselling destined to fail as they lost sight of books as their primary product and the cultural value attached to the object of the book. Other significant factors that contributed to the collapse were the proliferation of similar format bookstores in close proximity to each other, failing to offer a point of difference between REDgroup chain stores and other competing bookstores, and being unable to effectively compete on price with discount department stores. Other indirect issues that continue to concern the industry include relationships between booksellers and publishers, the changing nature of the parallel importation debate, competition from other media and the financial and environmental cost of distribution. The failure of REDgroup was the end point of a corporate model of bookselling that the industry in Australia could not accept, but there were many problems that caused the collapse, with technology seized on by the media as a simple answer to a complex set of circumstances.Booksellers contribute to the cultural and commercial life of Australia by fostering a book buying and book reading culture. Independent bookstore owners are the key to sustaining a strong bricks-and-mortar bookselling industry as they continue to foster a sense of connectedness with the wider book community. Providing experiences to engage an existing or prospective book buyer is one of the main ways bookstores promote connectedness, with the ambience and experience of in-store events impossible to replicate online.

the contradictions of inclusion/exclusion and community are visibly played out within independent bookstores, which work to foster a sense of community for customers and staff through local involvement and shared values. In this way, a sense of community is created not only in the space of bookstores but also by the space. Through the particular curation of the store, its space comes to embody individual values and political positions. Highly curated spaces which facilitate the dissemination of knowledge and information, independent bookstores are also retail spaces which are not traditionally seen as sources of community. As both retail spaces and social/community spaces, the independent bookstores in the greater Seattle area illustrate the multidimensional character of community and the inevitable exclusion which, rather than contradicting the notion of community, is inherently a part of community. Drawing boundaries creates exclusion, which are necessary in defining community. Customers and booksellers both experience variations of exclusion, and the unstable access to community it produces. This is the paradox of community. The customers and booksellers experiencing the instability that accompanies a community located within retail are also those whom the survival of independent bookstores matters to because it is within these spaces that they identify community, connect with others, and exchange ideas.

This thesis is a reader-centred investigation of Australian young adult selfdefined 'keen readers' of novels for pleasure, and considerations regarding audiencels by writers and publishers. It is predicated on the understanding that adult power operates at every level of young adults' lives, including the publishing, promotion and availability of their literature. The complexity of defining 'young adult' and 'Young Adult literature' and therefore publishing and promoting for this nominal audience is recognised as being dependent on the varying adult constructs of the terms and, therefore, is at the basis of decisions made in this adult-oriented industry. Historical and commercial aspects of Australian publishing (nominally) for this group of readers provide a context for this grounded theory-based qualitative study. Analysis of transcripts from focus group discussions with self-defined young adult 'keen readers of novels for pleasure' demonstrates that these participants had a sophisticated understanding of their leisure reading experiences regarding what they liked reading, how they found out about books, what made them choose one book over another, and where they obtained them. The insights gained from these 34 participants informed the analysis of comments by Australian adult 'creators' - writers and publishing staff - regarding audience, commercial pressures, promotional aspects and other factors influencing what is published and made available to young adult keen readers for pleasure. That these 34 participants were active buyers and promoters as well as borrowers of books indicates the need for the industry to recognise their expertise and value as a distinct and influential audience niche - the 'neo-consumers' of the future. The research provides a starting point into analysis of the influence of the group of adults I have termed 'gatekeepers', whose (largely institutional) roles enable them to either connect young adult readers with books and creators, or to separate them.

Thesis (MBA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012.
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The book industry in South Africa is under severe pressure the last couple of years. The reason why the book industry in South Africa is under severe pressure is because of various reasons; one of the reasons is that the South African Government is spending less each year on education, specifically on school text books. As per the Willem Struik (2009) during the SABA conference in Durban, government has spend by more than 87% less on school text books. There is a further challenge for Publishers in order to generate more sales and that is that digitalization has a big impact on the turnover of publishers. The study is not doing an in-depth research on digitalisation and the impact thereof. The biggest impact that digitalisation has on the book industry and specific to publishers is that the gross profit is less for a digital book than a physical book. The main reason why the gross profit (GP) is less for a digital book is because all input costs remain the same for a digital and physical book, it is only the logistics where there is a cost saving (no more warehousing and physical distribution). The study analysis the potential additional revenue there is for publishers if they were to decide to supply to Supermarkets and not to the traditional book outlets only. The study as per Appendix A clearly indicates that there is definitely more revenue for the publishers to make if they were to supply books to supermarkets. The study also identifies that there are basically four role players in the business concept of supplying books to supermarkets and they are the publisher, retailer, logistics company and the end-consumer. The study indicates that in order for the business concept of supplying books to supermarkets to be successful all four role players have to believe in this concept and agree on the terms conditions from the various parties.

During the 17th century the production and distribution of printed works increased in Stockholm and Uppsala. However, all works that the publisher wanted to print, did not reach the reader. This thesis aimed to show when, where and how printed books and dissertations did not reach the reader. To achieve this aim, aspects of several well known models showing systems of book production and distribution were combined and adapted to suit Swedish conditions in the 17th century. This combined model focused on processes of selection and was presented and used as a theoretical approach. Processes of selection in this paper are processes in which often a conscious choice was made of which books people produced and distributed. By using literature that had already been written about the chosen subject the paper examines what this material tells us about processes of selection during the selected period. Six processes of selection have been identified and discussed, three belonging to the production of works and three belonging to the distribution of works. During the production publishers’ motives and conditions for publishing and how this affected what they chose and did not choose to publish were discussed. Publishers with economical motives might publish fewer books which contained new ideas as reprinting popular books probably resulted in a higher profit. If a publisher wanted to use the publishing of a book as a way to further his career that probably could lead to fewer books containing offensive material being published. The state of the printing material and the economy of the printer and publisher were things that could affect which books that were printed. Books that came to Stockholm and Uppsala from other countries could be lost while being transported. The increase and decrease of the book collection at the university library in Uppsala affected the reader’s range of books to choose from. This is a two years master’s thesis in library and information science.

The book world of sixteenth-century England was heavily focused on London. London's publishers wholly dominated the production of books, and with Oxford and Cambridge the booksellers of the capital also played the largest role in the supplying and distribution of books imported from Continental Europe. Nevertheless, by the end of the sixteenth century a considerable network of booksellers had been established in England's provincial towns. This dissertation uses scattered surviving evidence from book lists and inventories to investigate the development and character of provincial bookselling in the period between 1520 and 1640. It draws on information from most of England's larger cities, including York, Norwich and Exeter, as well as much smaller places, such as Kirkby Lonsdale and Ormskirk. It demonstrates that, despite the competition from the metropolis, local booksellers played an important role in supplying customers with a considerable range and variety of books, and that these bookshops became larger and more ambitious in their services to customers through this period. The result should be a significant contribution to understanding the book world of early modern England. The dissertation is accompanied by an appendix, listing and identifying the books documented in nine separate lists, each of which, where possible, has been matched to surviving editions.

The labor movement's groundswell in the 1990s accompanied a period of intense competition and conglomeration within the retail book sector. Unexpectedly, the intersection of these two trends produced two dozen union drives across the country between 1996 and 2004 at large retail bookstores, including Borders and Barnes & Noble. Historians have yet to fully examine these retail organizing contests or recount their contributions to the labor movement and its history, including booksellers' pioneering use of the internet as an organizing tool. This thesis focuses on the aspirations, tactics, and contributions of booksellers in their struggles to unionize their workplaces, while also exploring the economic context surrounding bookselling and the labor movement at the end of the twentieth century. While the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) auspiciously announced a national campaign in 1997 to organize thousands of bookstore clerks, the only successfully unionized bookstore from this era that remains today is the Powell's Books chain in Portland, Oregon with over 400 workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) Local 5. Local 5's successful union campaign at Powell's Books occurring between 1998 and 2000 is at the center of this study and stands out as a point of light against a dark backdrop of failed union attempts in the retail sector during the latter decades of the twentieth century. This inquiry utilizes Local 5's internal document archive and the collection of oral histories gathered by labor historians Edward Beechert and Harvey Schwartz in 2001 and 2002. My analysis of these previously unexamined records demonstrates how Powell's efforts to thwart the ILWU campaign proved a decisive failure and contributed to the polarization of a super majority of the workforce behind Local 5. Equally, my analysis illustrates how the self-organization, initiative, and unrelenting creativity of booksellers transformed a narrow union election victory to overwhelming support for the union's bargaining committee. Paramount to Local 5's contract success was the union's partnership with Portland's social justice community, which induced a social movement around Powell's Books at a time of increased political activity and unity among the nation's labor, environment, and anti-globalization activists. The bonds of solidarity and mutual aid between Local 5 and its community allies were forged during the World Trade Organization (WTO) demonstrations in Seattle in 1999 and Portland's revival of May Day in 2000. Following eleven work stoppages and fifty-three bargaining sessions, the union acquired a first contract that far exceeded any gains made by the UFCW at its unionized bookstores. The Powell's agreement included improvements to existing health and retirement benefits plus an 18 percent wage increase for employees over three years. This analysis brings to light the formation of a distinct working-class culture and consciousness among Powell's booksellers, communicated through workers' essays, artwork, strikes, and solidarity actions with the social justice community. It provides a detailed account of Local 5's creative street theater tactics and work stoppages that captured the imagination of activists and the attention of the broader community. The conflict forced the news media and community leaders to publicly choose sides in a labor dispute reminiscent of struggles not seen in Portland since the 1950s. Observers of all political walks worried that the Portland cultural and commercial intuition would collapse under the weight of the two-year labor contest. My research illustrates the tension among the city's liberal and progressive populace created by the upstart union's presence at prominent liberal civic leader Michael Powell's iconic store and how the union organized prominent liberal leaders on the side of their cause. It concludes by recognizing that Local 5's complete history remains a work in progress, but that its formation represents an indispensable Portland contribution to the revitalized national labor movement of the late 1990s.

Book clubs have existed in the society for centuries and the appearance of the Internet allowed them to expand to the digital. Currently, many digital book clubs are more than a simple reading group where people get together to discuss books online. It is possible for digital book clubs’ curators to create a bookselling business by associating an online shop to the club where they sell the books of the month directly to club’s members, allowing curators to monetize their suggestions. Motivated by the expansion of this type of business abroad and recent introduction in the Portuguese market, this study proposes to identify Portuguese book consumers’ perceptions and intention to adopt. For this purpose, the founder of the biggest digital book club in Portugal was interviewed to gather insights about the business, 12 in-depth interviews with book consumers were conducted, and an online questionnaire was distributed, resulting in 464 valid answers. Among the participants there were both customers and non-customers of a digital book club to identify the drivers and barriers to join one. The curator’s recommendations, the desire to be part of a community, to read different books, to read more books, and the possibility to subscribe a monthly book box are the drivers which lead book consumers to become customers. The lack of time to participate in book discussions, dissatisfaction with recommendations, unawareness about the business and available options in the market, and lack of time spent reading prevent book consumers from becoming customers.
Os clubes do livro foram introduzidos na sociedade séculos atrás e o aparecimento da Internet permitiu que se expandissem para o digital. Atualmente, muitos clubes do livro digitais são mais do que um simples grupo de leitura onde as pessoas se juntam para discutir livros online. É possível os curadores de clubes do livro digitais criarem negócios de venda de livros, associando uma loja online ao clube, onde vendem os livros do mês diretamente aos membros, permitindo-lhes monetizar as suas sugestões. Motivado pela expansão deste negócio no estrangeiro e recente introdução no mercado Português, o propósito deste estudo é identificar as perceções dos consumidores Portugueses de livros e a sua intenção de aderir. Desta forma, a fundadora do maior clube do livro digital em Portugal foi entrevistada para reunir informação sobre o negócio, 12 entrevistas com consumidores de livros foram realizadas e um questionário online foi partilhado, resultando em 464 respostas válidas. Entre os participantes havia tanto clientes como não-clientes dum clube do livro digital, de forma a identificar as motivações e barreiras para aderir. A curadoria, o desejo de fazer parte duma comunidade, de ler livros diferentes, de ler mais livros e subscrever uma caixa mensal de livros são as motivações que levam consumidores de livros a tornarem-se clientes. A falta de tempo para participar em discussões sobre livros, insatisfação com as recomendações, desconhecer o negócio e opções disponíveis no mercado e dedicar pouco tempo à leitura são as barreiras que impedem consumidores de livros de se tornarem clientes.

by Chung Ka Po, Lai Chun Hung.
Thesis (M.B.A.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2000.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55).
ABSTRACT --- p.ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS --- p.iii
Chapter
Chapter I. --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1
Chapter II. --- BACKGROUND - ABOUT THE BOOKSTORE INDUSTRY --- p.4
What is an Online Bookstore --- p.4
An Overview of the US Bookstore Industry --- p.5
A review on Amazon.com: the US online bookstore giant --- p.6
An overview of the Hong Kong bookstore industry --- p.7
Online bookstores in Hong Kong --- p.10
WTO's effect on the development of online bookstore in Hong Kong --- p.12
Chapter III. --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.14
Research into the Value of Internet Commerce to Customers --- p.14
The Importance of Value --- p.17
An Empirical Study --- p.18
Chapter IV. --- METHODOLOGY --- p.19
Questionnaire Development --- p.19
Sample and Data Collection --- p.21
Chapter V. --- MEASUREMENT --- p.22
Definition of Variables --- p.22
Chapter VI. --- RESULTS --- p.31
Tests for Online Bookstore --- p.31
Tests for Conventional Bookstore --- p.35
Chapter VII. --- RECOMMENDATIONS & CONCLUSION --- p.40
Recommendation 1: Better Security System --- p.40
"Recommendation 2: Build Trust, Increase Brand Equity" --- p.42
Recommendation 3: Increase Choice --- p.43
Recommendation 4: Maximize Access to Information --- p.43
Limitations and Future Research --- p.44
APPENDIX --- p.47
BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.51

While 'book hunger' in Third World societies was regarded by a 'first generation' of theorists, working in the modernization/diffusion of innovation paradigm, as a cause of underdevelopment (and thus requiring the correction of problems relating to the undersupply of books to Third World countries by means of book aid policies, transfer of expertise and technology, and development of modern (western) publishing and distribution procedures and infrastructures), a 'second generation' of theorists working in the dependency/disassociation paradigm responded by insisting that 'book hunger' was an effect of the underdevelopment of peripheral economies, and a symptom of the debilitating cultural effects of the global economic order, with its skewed international distribution of knowledge, resources and capital. In recent approaches to the topic of 'book hunger' (which are wary of the sweeping dichotomies of dependency theory), 'book hunger' serves to describe a chronic shortage of books which results from complex structural inequities and antagonisms, from the distorting effects of global rationalization, as well as from local economic arrangements and policy mechanisms which do not adequately meet the knowledge and information needs of competing local cultural formations. 'Book hunger' is seen to derive from a range of causes, and to produce a range of effects, which correspond to the varying needs, resources, and conditions operative in - and the cultural media and knowledge infrastructures available within specific societies. Obviously, 'book hunger' is rooted to a considerable degree in the specific historical configurations and socioeconomic circumstances of specific countries. An understanding of complex, globally-interlinked socio-cultural, political and economic structures and practices is thus crucial to understanding 'book hunger' in South Africa. A survey of global and local environments within which scholarly books are produced and circulated - including South African distribution systems and knowledge dissemination networks - makes it possible to sketch an approach to South Africa's own 'book hunger:' which is sensitive to the complexity and the specificity of conditions in the local booktrade, and which is able to contribute to the complex debates on local knowledge infrastructures, strategies for book development and new forms of distribution which are now beginning to take place in South Africa.
Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1994.