Aims

The pressure between cultural and commercial aspects, which has always existed in the bookselling profession, has increased today with the additional pressures between traditional expertise and the industrialisation of so-called cultural products.
Bookshops have become cultural enterprises, each one having specific projects. By the end of the course, the student should be capable of analysing these specific aspects.

Main themes

The course will provide students with a short and critical overview of the main approaches to the contemporary bookselling profession and its management. This will include business aspects of bookselling, the bookselling market and its organisational aspects, customer surveys and specific management skills linked to this particular sector.

Content and teaching methods

Content. The course is divided into two parts.

The first part bases the bookselling on two areas :

- upstream : the offer, the bookselling business and the contemporary publishing sector
- downstream : the demand, customers

The second part first focuses on bookselling skills : product range, planning and sales drives; then on stock and financial management.

Other information (prerequisite, evaluation (assessment methods), course materials recommended readings, ...)

Prerequisites : a good level of general and cultural knowledge in the literary field, including analytical skills. Assessment will be based on coursework linked to a particular aspect of the bookselling profession and an oral examinsation related to this coursework.

Other credits in programs