Cultural Diversity in the French Book Publishing Industry (2003-2007) [CE-2011-4]

Although there has been a marked increase in French publishing output throughout the 2000s, in terms both of annual print runs and titles released, how are we to assess whether this growth is also accompanied by increasingly diverse consumption? Based on Andrew Stirling's three-pronged approach, cultural diversity within three different publishing areas (the youth market, comic books and literature) is analysed on three levels: variety produced and consumed, the balance of sales between different titles and the range of works and authors read. This analysis provides some responses to the question of how effective fixed book pricing legislation has been in terms of cultural diversity and the leveraging effect of online sales (the long tail theory).