Beyond branding – Communicating authors in the Swedish publishing industry

Abstract: Authors are the public face of the publishing industry and a key aspect of its mar-keting efforts. This thesis aims to explore different communication strategies surrounding authors within the industry, with a special focus on the growing trend of branding authors. Critical realism is used to reveal and analyze the mechanisms that generate the strategies. Three theories are used to understand the industry and its communicative efforts: branding, strategic communication and Bourdieu’s theories regarding fields and symbolic power. The empiric data was generated through interviews with authors, publishers, marketers and journalists. In addition, a content analysis of all the issues from the trade magazine Svensk Bokhandel during 2011 was conducted. The results show that the strategies used to communicate authors share strong similarities with classical branding, although they are discursively reframed to maintain the industry’s privileged position as a field of cultural production.