Marketing Literature published

Marketing Literature: The Making of Contemporary Writing in Britain is a study of the publishing of contemporary writing in Britain. It analyses the changing social, economic and cultural environment of the publishing industry in the 1990s-2000s, and investigates its impact on genre, format, packaging, authorship and reading. It includes case studies of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, Louis de Bernières's Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas, and significantly extends our understanding of the circulation of literary fiction in a period of notable change.

Pre-publication endorsements for the book:

'Claire Squires has written a fine work on contemporary UK publishing and marketing. Her clear, superbly engaging analyses of the histories behind recent best-sellers adds immeasurably to our understanding of contemporary publishing structures and book promotion activity. It deserves to be required reading for those keen on learning how books and authors make their way through today's complex literary marketplace.' - David Finkelstein, Research Professor of Media and Print Culture, Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh

'A timely, thoughtful, brilliantly researched and extremely clearly written account of the importance of marketing within contemporary publishing. Utilising a breathtaking variety of oral and written sources, Squires displays invaluable knowledge of and insight into the sometimes byzantine publication strategies of the trade publishing industry. If it is true that the quality most sought after in a publisher is hindsight then this book can help provide all those connected with or interested in contemporary literary fiction with a sense of this very precious resource.' - Peter Straus, literary agent

'Claire Squires's Marketing Literature should, of course, be required reading for everyone who works in publishing, but it's much better than that. It is also a nimble and deeply well-informed guide to the key cultural issue of our time: how do we tell the good from the merely successful?' - John Mitchinson, Director, Quite Interesting Ltd

‘"Marketing does not simply sell books, it constitutes their meaning" argues Claire Squires, who brilliantly demonstrates how this complex process operates by focusing on bestsellers such as Zadie Smith's White Teeth, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones's Diary to illuminate contemporary practices of writing, publishing and reading. This is an informed, thought-provoking and immensely satisfying book that will be essential reading for everyone who is concerned with literature in Britain today.'- Juliet Gardiner, author and historian

More information about the book is available from Palgrave Macmillan's website, including a sample chapter.

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