Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book outlines early the states in which such organisations can operate: ‘enormous or tiny; global in their reach or focused on a very local market; run efficiently or in a state of near chaos’, and of course it’s possible for several of these situational coordinates to apply at the same time. It offers ‘three distinct models for surveying the different types of publishing houses: a model based on funding source, a model based on market segment, and a model based on size’. The book considers how ‘varieties of literary exercise encouraging them to merge’, in the process often blurring the distinction between author and subject and drawing the conclusion that ‘the more challenging the subject, the more versatile the shape tends to be’.