Learning objectives
A (supposed) cultural prejudice asserts that who publishes books should be driven exclusively by ideal motivations with a special regard to the content, while the search for profits is considered as an obstacle for the quality of the production. A more balanced point of view tells us that quality and profits must be pursued together by publishing companies as inseparable and contextual objectives. On the one hand, the lack of one of these objectives might create evanescent contents, that bring only short-term incomes, and on the other, the company could be constantly economically unstable. The publishing company fails without profits, and simply stop producing books, whatever they are extraordinary or mediocre.
This course should permit to students to become aware of the economic mechanisms – that are complex and articulate but comprehensible even without a strong economic background - involved in the editorial activity related to the production of books.
As a matter of fact, who works with books has to deal more directly and more frequently with the economic aspects of the activity than who works with journals and newspapers.
Acquiring the basic knowledge of the economic aspects involved in the creation, realisation and sale of books can be useful to become conscious of how managing the planning of the activity and govern the process of production. Moreover, it permits to deal with all the aspects that surrounds the realisation of a book.