The representation of Turkey in British trade publishing after 15 July 2016. An analysis conducted on the translations from Turkish to English published in the UK

After the 2016 failed coup, the Turkish government implemented a series of measures that strongly restricted democratic freedoms in the country. This caused the UK media to propose a representation of the country in which the coup and the government reaction, together with the concepts of authoritarianism and censorship, played a central part. The present article aims to understand which role British trade publishing played in this new representation, analysing all the translations of trade titles from Turkish to English, published by British publishers in the UK, comparing the periods before (from 1 January 2012 to 15 July 2016) and after the coup (from 16 July 2016 to 31 December 2019). It tries to understand if some central socio-political events of contemporary Turkey, as the coup and its aftermath, the Kurdish issue, and Turkish intervention in the Syrian war, have had more space in the translations published in the UK after the coup. It also investigates if, after the coup, the choice of titles and authors to translate has been influenced, and if given paratextual elements (specifically, books’ descriptions on the British publishers’ websites) have shown a tendency of being linked to Turkey’s contemporary socio-political situation. It then presents an evaluation of the behaviour of British trade publishers toward the coup and their new focus on the state of Turkish democracy.

“Pay to Play” in the German Book Trade?

This paper considers the success of the thriller Der neunte Arm des Oktopus (transl.: The Ninth Arm of the Octopus, Cologne: Bastei Lübbe, November 2020) by German drugstore magnate Dirk Rossmann. Certain elements of brand-name authorship are applicable here, but the market power of Rossmann goes far beyond name recognition. Beyond the typical marketing for a ‘big book’ in the sense of contemporary trade publishing, Rossmann flooded the campaign with his own funds. This contribution approaches an unlikely case study through a trilateral interdisciplinary perspective (book studies, economics, law), underlining the unequal footing on which books enter the market.

Publishing in the Shadow of Larger Neighbours: Opportunities and Challenges of Digitisation for Small Publishing Houses in Austria and Scotland

Trade publishing houses in small nations operate in a challenging market environment: digitisation and the spread of the internet have lowered the market entry barriers and increased the international competition. This is especially prevalent in English-language markets and increasingly so in the markets with a high English language proficiency amongst second language speakers due to the amount of English content readily available online. Moreover, traditional audiences are eroding, and global players push for multi-platform publishing for a global audience. However, the impact of digitisation on small nation publishers operating in large lan­guage markets lacks scientific exploration. Hence, the impact on small trade publishing houses in Austria and Scotland is explored through qualitative case study research. An overview of the state of the publishing industry in those nations is presented, followed by an analysis of the opportunities and challenges of publishing in an online world where borders are disappearing, thus changing the competitive situation of publishers competing with larger entities in neighbouring nations with the same language. The research found that small nation publishers are benefiting from the possibilities offered by digitisation to reach a wider readership abroad, but at the same time it is becoming increasingly difficult for these pub­lishers and their products to stand out amongst the abundance of content online. Thus, small publishers choose market niches and collaborations to create sustainable business practices. Furthermore, these results provide a basis for further research into e-publishing in other small na­tions. Additional comparative research is needed to better understand the cultural specificities of small book markets and how to best support publishers in and for those nations.

The Future of Publishing

What is the impact of nontraditional sales on the trade book industry? This book has focused on how traditional trade publishing operates today within the confines of the historical functions of publishing companies. We’ve addressed the growth of e-book publishing by trade publishers and...

Audiobooks

What is the current landscape of audiobook publishing? Audiobooks, whose first organized venture in the form of recordings for the blind came at the same time as mass-market paperbacks, are now coming into their own as the fastest growing segment of trade publishing, after...

The Book Business

Many of us read books every day, either electronically or in print. We remember the books that shaped our ideas about the world as children, go back to favorite books year after year, give or lend books to loved ones and friends to share the stories we've loved especially, and discuss important books with fellow readers in book clubs and online communities. But for all the ways books influence us, teach us, challenge us, and connect us, many of us remain in the dark as to where they come from and how the mysterious world of publishing truly works. How are books created and how do they get to readers? The Book Business: What Everyone Needs to Know® introduces those outside the industry to the world of book publishing. Covering everything from the beginnings of modern book publishing early in the 20th century to the current concerns over the alleged death of print, digital reading, and the rise of Amazon, Mike Shatzkin and Robert Paris Riger provide a succinct and insightful survey of the industry in an easy-to-read question-and-answer format. The authors, veterans of "trade publishing," or the branch of the business that puts books in our hands through libraries or bookstores, answer questions from the basic to the cutting-edge, providing a guide for curious beginners and outsiders. How does book publishing actually work? What challenges is it facing today? How have social media changed the game of book marketing? What does the life cycle of a book look like in 2019? They focus on how practices are changing at a time of great flux in the industry, as digital creation and delivery are altering the commercial realities of the book business. This book will interest not only those with no experience in publishing looking to gain a foothold on the business, but also those working on the inside who crave a bird's eye view of publishing's evolving landscape. This is a moment of dizzyingly rapid change wrought by the emergence of digital publishing, data collection, e-books, audio books, and the rise of self-publishing; these forces make the inherently interesting business of publishing books all the more fascinating.

Educational Publishing

In the first part of this chapter, we will briefly outline the main characteristics of educational publishing that are common in the majority of developed and developing countries. In the second part, we will demonstrate how, in different countries, some of these common characteristics have been modified in accordance with different prevalent values as well as different educational systems. We will also discuss how digitization has changed educational publishing and why ‘the logic of the classroom’ has led to the digitization of educational materials moving slower than expected by digital pundits. We will examine how these changes have affected trade publishing as well as how the skills and competencies of educational publishers differ from the skills and competencies inherent in trade publishing.