Neither critics nor literary prize juries, publishers nor authors determine which books make the breakthrough to a wider audience. Today, the final decision lies with the reader and their wallet. However, this mechanism works both ways. To what extent are individual reading choices and tastes really our own and to what extent are they hidden in the sales rankings? What is a bestseller in reality and how has it become the new leading genre?
Modern bestsellers vs. Canon
A discussion of modern bestsellers and their dominance of the publishing market should begin with an examination of a much older category: the cultural canon. Compared to bestsellers, the canon turns out to be an opposite and yet somehow twin idea. Where does this contradiction come from?
The bestseller list reflects the most popular titles of a given period, while the canon is theoretically an unchanging collection of the most outstanding works of our culture. It would include creations that have determined the direction of artistic development and still resonate in the latest ideas and actions of subsequent generations of authors.
The desire for a canon
Unlike bestsellers, the canon would be a fixed, even rigid structure into which a new work would have difficulty fitting. This immutability would be reflected in a community-building function – the canon would provide a space for encounters with others, regardless of different views.
Greek tragedies, Shakespeare’s dramas, Goethe’s poetry and prose, Dostoyevsky’s monumental realist novels – although few people today turn to the originals, these canonical works continue to return to us in new interpretations across different cultural dimensions.
The commercialization of the canon
According to literary historian Jerzy Jarzębski, the canon can be thought of as a “huge storehouse of books, records and reproductions” that promises to guide us through valuable texts like bestseller lists and serves as a kind of reading guide. However, it is not as objective and universal a collection as it might seem. Jarzębski adds that the canon is also “a school curriculum with its hidden compelling content”. With each change of education minister, we are reminded that the reading list always reflects a certain value system and is therefore neither immutable nor universal. The selection of works in the canon is intended to influence us and shape our sensibility and worldview. The problematic nature of this category is illustrated by another phenomenon that the literary scholar has identified.
The canon, which has become a commodity, has become a fact, and its commercialization has quickly led to the loss or at least the blurring of its internal structure
– Jarzębski notes:
People still long for a world guide, a cultural guidebook, or simply a list of valuable titles. The relativization of the canon, coupled with the decline of the role of the professional critic, has created a gap. However, this gap has been quickly filled in accordance with market principles. Modern bestsellers have become gap-fillers and thus strive for the status of a new canon.
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What exactly is a bestseller?
The dominance of bestsellers on the book market is an undeniable fact. In brick-and-mortar and online bookstores, on publishers’ websites, and sometimes even at literary awards, the word “bestseller” is used in all cases. We think about bestsellers, we sell bestsellers, and we orient ourselves around bestsellers. The category itself is as obvious as it is bizarre, especially if we consider it as a synonym for a new literary genre. How can one interpret AA Milne’s Winnie the Pooh and EL James’ Fifty shades of greyOr are the “high” circulations on the Polish and American markets the same?
We must first answer the question: What exactly is a bestseller? The word first appeared around the turn of the century in The Book Man Magazine that began publishing lists of the best-selling English-language books. Therefore, we use this term to describe a book – or more generally a product – that has sold the largest number of copies in a given period of time and in a given territory.
In addition, it is now stated that this high result must be achieved quickly. A bestseller must storm the market in order to conquer the shelves of bookstores. Such a description of the phenomenon sets out its general framework, but does not exhaust the topic.
Modern bestsellers: focused on profit
Malgorzata Mozer (Bestsellers. What are the problems you have to identify?) tried to systematize this vast category. The researcher acknowledged that we cannot speak of a single type of bestseller, but of many, often mutually exclusive types. Mozer, relying on international research in this field, distinguished bestsellers into: statistical, sociological, aesthetic, psychological, factual or absolute.
The classification cited by Mozer shows us that the term Bestseller does not necessarily mean sales success. An example is the designated bestseller – a book that is not necessarily purchased by readers. Instead, the publisher promotes it as a bestseller or compares it to popular titles to create an illusion of success.
If one also includes the bestseller list positions of the common distributors, some of which the publishers can buy, the picture that emerges is less of a democratic structure dominated by the reader, and more of a market-based, profit-oriented canon.
More than just sales
Whereas reviews and new release lists used to be the most important source of information about the abundance of current literature, today it is bestseller lists. (…) Thanks to bestseller lists, we can read literary history on receipts
– writes the literary scholar Przemysław Czapliński.
The problem with modern bestsellers is not the question of artistic value. Among the most read books there are also titles of literary significance. The risk is the short “shelf life” of the titles and the reduction of the diverse world of literature to a constantly updated TOP 10 ranking.
Czapliński defines this mechanism as a “return to centralization,” where only what is safe, proven and repeatable is published. In other words, investing in well-known names and long publishing lines. Publishing a debut novel or more experimental forms is risky and therefore simply becomes unprofitable.
This distorted commercial mechanism, controlled by the dictates of mass taste, leads to self-censorship. Ultimately, the possibilities of choosing from an enormous list of titles prove illusory and our choices are vulnerable to manipulation by publishers and distributors. In this return to centralization, there is no space or time for discussions about the cultural value of a text. These are replaced by marketing information or numerical ratings.
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Modern bestsellers and digital community
This is where the Internet comes to the rescue. The online environment encourages engagement between readers and authors and enables the kind of in-depth discussion mentioned by Czapliński. This is where grassroots canons reinvigorate community building by uniting readers around topics and genres.
Microworlds have migrated to the Internet and become global in the sense that they potentially include all interested recipients, regardless of geographical or social differences.
– notes Maciej Maryl, a researcher at the Digital Humanities Centre.
Literary life on the web, to quote the title of Maryl’s monograph, does not unfold in opposition to hierarchical bestseller lists and canonical works. It can, however, complement them with authors and reading tastes that do not qualify for the race for monetized popularity.
Translation: Klaudia Tarasiewicz
Polish version: How many bestsellers have you bought?
