The Book Market, the Good Reader, and the Rise of Fan Fiction

Author(s):  
Matthew H. Birkhold

Chapter 1 documents the rise of fan fiction in the decades after 1760, as it transformed from something radically unexpected to an accepted, if hotly debated, literary practice. This chapter argues that widespread changes in reading and writing habits, as well as the emergence of new aesthetic theories, provided a social and educational framework that primed readers to write fan fiction. The attendant writing revolution modified the book trade in ways that further spurred the creation of fan fiction. As the market became saturated with novels, publishers and booksellers looked for promising new products. Because works of fan fiction had established audiences, these texts became a safe bet for profit-hungry publishers and authors. The result was the proliferation of fan fiction.

2019 ◽  
pp. 143-168
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Birkhold

Chapter 4 examines the ways in which authors, publishers, and critics punished violations of the customary norms that governed the production and dissemination of fan fiction in eighteenth-century Germany. Sanctions included official complaints, advertisements, negative reviews, and literary and personal attacks—norms that scholars refer to as public shaming or truthful negative gossip. This chapter then examines the effectiveness of these mechanisms and their wider fallout. In some instances the sanctions motivated third parties, like the famous engraver Chodowiecki, to refuse to deal with perpetrator authors. In other cases, the sanctions inspired the creation of memorable texts, like Goethe’s ribald poem, “Nicolai at Werther’s Grave.” Authors’ critical notes in prefaces, footnotes, and the texts themselves were among the most common form of sanction. Traces of these enforcement mechanisms linger in the texts we read today, long after the censured fan fiction has disappeared from our collective memory. This chapter concludes by analyzing additional strategies authors used to maintain exclusive control over the characters they invented, offering a new explanation for familiar practices in the book trade, such as the practice of announcing the final volume of a novel and soliciting reader feedback for ongoing works.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 100-109
Author(s):  
Maria Sarmento ◽  
Marlene Amorim ◽  
Marta Ferreira Dias ◽  
Mara Madaleno

Background: Innovation can result from progressive or significant changes to existing products leading to improvements in performance and user value. This is the type of innovation that is more easily perceived by the consumer, as it results in the creation of new products or the improvement of existing ones. Innovation in the Crafts Sector is a relevant topic to address market changes, and meet evolving consumer preferences. In this vein, artisans need to meet the calls for regularly investing in the design of new products and processes, with the purpose of achieving the sustainability of their business. Methods: This article addresses the existing calls for contextualizing the crafts sector and for fostering product innovation in this area, by investigating the barriers and problems faced by artisans, as well as by exploring existing experiences in overcoming them. The article builds on data collected in five European countries, under the scope of the Erasmus+ Project Craftsmanship+ “Fostering a New and Competitive Approach to Crafts and Semi Industrial high added-value sectors”1. Results and Conclusion: The aim is to analyze the importance of the crafts sector in a European context. This article contributes in a timely manner to the understanding of the crafts sector by paying attention to the obstacles that artisans face in order to ensure the sustainability of their business by introducing product innovation into their organization and/or market. This study offers a collection of innovation experiences in realities that are very significant for territorial identity, and thus aims to provide an incentive for further research.


Author(s):  
J. C. C. Mays

Chapter 1 follows the ascent from the technical understanding of a poem and its processes toward a sense of ‘spiritual contemplation’. Slow-reading a short Coleridge poem, ‘First Advent of Love’, representing lifelong concerns, Mays describes the meditation involved in both reading and writing the poem. He contrasts such meditation with the different, analytical process involved in Coleridge’s prose writing. He reveals how in ‘First Advent’ feelings adjust through a web of sounds, images, and allusions (to neo-Platonic ideas about love mediated through Renaissance and contemporary German authors). Inquiry into what is most important in the poem involves the matter of how the poem works: a matter of ‘Understanding’. Mays then looks to higher, numinous qualities in the poem that go beyond the understanding, and are properly imaginative in terms of Coleridge’s diagram of the ‘Order of the Mental Powers’, mediating between ‘Understanding’ and ‘Reason’ in terms of enérgeia.


LOGOS ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-52
Author(s):  
Kim Maya Sutton ◽  
Ina Paulfeuerborn

In October 2014, over 200 million blogs were registered on the platform Tumblr alone. In 2015, hundreds of book blogs in the blogosphere concentrated on literature and published reviews, cover designs, direct insights from publishers, author interviews, and competitions. Based on the research question ‘Do literature blogs have an influence on the buying decisions of readers?’ quantitative research was carried out in Germany at the beginning of 2016. The focus of the research was book blogs targeting readers of light fiction. A survey was sent to online portals, such as Lovelybooks, and thereby distributed to readers. Literature bloggers were also asked to participate by forwarding the survey to their followers. The survey gives insight into readers’ motivation to visit literature blogs. Furthermore, it highlights what kind of information readers want to find on such blogs, and how blogs can influence readers’ buying behaviour. The findings of the survey are compared with a model for buying decisions. The findings will be helpful for publishers, self-publishers, book trade, and bloggers. The most obvious limitation of the survey is the geographic limitation to Germany and its book market; however, the survey could easily be translated and extended to include other markets.


2013 ◽  
Vol 14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Regan Wills

Fandoms can constitute discourse communities, where fans make claims about issues of real-world political importance, such as the relationship between gender, power, and autonomy, and where other fans engage with and evaluate those claims. In fan works and fan analyses of Dana Scully in the television show The X-Files, fans pose claims both in discussion spaces and in the creation of fan fiction, and these fannish evaluations and discussions of these fictions analyze those claims.


2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Lemley

Traditional justifications for patents are all based on direct or indirectcontribution to the creation of new products. Patents serve the socialinterest if they provide not just invention, but innovation the world wouldnot otherwise have. Non-practicing entities (NPEs) as well asproduct-producing companies can sometimes provide such innovation, eitherdirectly, through working the patent or transfer of technology to otherswho do, or indirectly, when others copy the patented innovation. Theavailable evidence suggests, however, that patent licensing demands andlawsuits from NPEs are normally not cases that involve any of theseactivities.Some scholars have argued that patents can be valuable even withouttechnology transfer because the ability to exclude others from the marketmay drive commercialization that would not otherwise occur. We demonstratethat even if various commercialization theories can sometimes justifypatent protection, they cannot justify most NPE lawsuits or licensingdemands.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-42
Author(s):  
Anita Darabos ◽  
Judit Szalai

Abstract Nowadays, concerns related to mankind’s increasing and destructive impact on the environment have influenced and changed the paradigms of product development; this in turn has brought about the appearance of environmental considerations in the creation and design of new products. Numerous industrial sectors have changed their processes of product development and production to meet the ecological requirements. Issues such as the scarcity of natural resources, increasing consumption and increasing pollution also present a number of problems. This article presents a process of comparing new alternatives with a specific methodology of decision-making. It is primarily focused on the use of rare natural materials and resources that are extracted and processed.


Author(s):  
Stephanie J. Smith

Chapter 1 focuses on the founding of Mexico’s Communist Party in 1919, and the Party’s links to the influential national and international artistic movement active in Mexico throughout the 1920s. Although during these early years the Party’s official membership numbers remained relatively insignificant, this chapter argues that the extraordinary influence of these creative participants, both female and male, on the politics of the period was far from trivial. Art and politics intertwined as artists played major roles in political affairs, and government officials appropriated the arts to transmit the “official” national history.


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