Publishing reception. Contribution to research

Abstract

The article is an attempt to merge area of studies on reception from the perspective of book study. In the first part of the analysis of reception as a phenomenon, selected aspects of bibliological, philosophical, sociological and literary studies theories on reception and evaluation of a book have been presented. On this basis, the definition of publishing reception has been formulated. Reception is described as specialist and narrow frame for notions of perception, evaluation and interpretation of a book from the perspective of book’s presence on a particular publishing market. The methodology of research on publishing reception is also presented in the article, consisting of such practises as: multifaceted analysis of statistic data about examined publishing market in the context of the author’s position on that market; reflection on the form of the book (editorial, aspects of translation, esthetical); observation of publishers’ actions aimed at forming a reception of an author and his or her work; taking into consideration cultural, economical, political and social factors which form the reception of the book and, finally, predictions made about possible development of publishing reception based on the findings and collected data.