Wed 10 November 2010 at 12.30 am

Publishing seminar - John Thompson

John Thompson talking about his new book on trade publishing, Merchants of Culture

Taking Place: Headington Hill Hall, Oxford Brookes University

John Thompson is Professor of Sociology at Cambridge University and Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. Recent publications include Books in the Digital Age (2005) and Merchants of Culture (2010).  He was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and the Social Sciences in 2001 for his work on political scandal.

In his book Merchants of Culture he provides a fascinating account of the high-risk culture in consumer publishing on both sides of the Atlantic. Revealed is the world of agents and scouts, of auctions and deals, often with large sums of money paid out to authors, as publishers gamble in the hope of signing the next Harry Potter or Dan Brown.