Introduction

Literary publishing is under transition. Five hundred and fifty years after Gutenberg’s invention of printing, the history of the book faces a new trajectory. Subscription services on digital platforms offer literature in streaming, and literary reading may be digitally monitored. Literary readers leave digital traces that may be used in further development of platforms and content, similar to processes in global platforms such as Facebook, Google and Spotify.Footnote 1

Content industries, such as publishing, used to be summarized by the flamboyant phrase ‘content is king’, expressed by Bill Gates in 1996.Footnote 2 Content providers’ powerful positions were clearly stated. Digitalization of the business enforces new regimes of production and power. Actions and deliberations are translated into numbers. Platforms have datafied input as their foundation.Footnote 3

Operations are merged into numbers and systematized in a platform structure such as Netflix (film and TV-series), Spotify (music) and Storytel (literature). Subscription services reorganize the relationship between publishers and readers. The power of distribution directly to customers is a necessary condition for the platform industry to thrive and grow. Efficacy and precision in targeting customers are competitive advantages to the platform businesses.Footnote 4

In the literary industry, the ongoing change is manifested in the accelerated rise in the distribution of audiobooks, as demonstrated in statements like ‘The fastest-growing segment in publishing’,Footnote 5 ‘Steep rise in Audiobook Sales’,Footnote 6 and ‘Downloaded audio: biggest format jump’.Footnote 7

Based on a qualitative interview study of editorial leaders in Norwegian publishing houses, this article explores the influence of platformization on literary publishing, as expressed in the research question: How do streaming services and growth in audiobooks influence literary publishing? This article aims to bring forward new knowledge on the development of publishing in fiction and non-fiction literature for adult leisure readers, focusing on the impact on editorial processes and business objectives. These are insights relevant to the book industry, the larger field of media industries, and the readers. To the author’s knowledge, there is no similar study on the influence of digitalization on literary publishing exploring the recent development in the book industry as perceived by the publishers.

In the following, I will present the Norwegian context and some significant traits of subscription-based streaming services before proceeding to the analytical framework, the method, and the following analysis.

The Norwegian Example in a Scandinavian Context

The growth in subscription-based streaming services offering audiobooks in Scandinavia is the backdrop to this article, such as Storytel, Fabel, BookBeat and Nextory. These are services where customers have access to as much consumption as they want to a set price per month, effectively the ‘all you can eat’ principle. Audiobooks are their primary offer, partly supplied with e-books and podcasts.

Norwegian trade publishing is characterized by a strong emphasis on titles in the Norwegian language (including translated titles), which entails that its business is specifically targeted toward a Norwegian audience. Traditionally, large volumes of hardbacks and paperbacks have been sold, mainly through bookstores.Footnote 8

In only a few years, streaming services have achieved a strong position in the market, and there has been a strong growth in the distribution of audiobooks. While audiobooks in streaming services represented 10% of total sales in Norway in 2018, it rose to 23% of total sales three years later.Footnote 9 Comparable numbers from Sweden indicate that digital streaming services (where the audiobook is by far the largest format) represented 15.5% in 2018 and 26% in 2021.Footnote 10 The Danish numbers tell that the audiobook represented 26% of the total market in 2019 and 34% in 2020.Footnote 11

The steep growth in audiobooks implies some significant changes: digitalized literature has become mainstream through streaming services; copy sale has been partly replaced by subscription sale; and technological development has made literature more available. Hence, the traditional paper book was enriched with digital affordances after remediationFootnote 12 into an audiobook.Footnote 13

From Copy Sale to Subscription

Subscription-based streaming services reorganize the traditional value chain.Footnote 14 Subscription services do not harvest income directly from the processing of literary works.Footnote 15 Further, operations along the line from author to the customer are merged. Marketing, distribution and sales grow into one function, facilitated by the subscription service.Footnote 16 Hence, the number of subscribers and their length of subscription become criteria for success.

Subscribers’ satisfaction is essential to keep up the turnover, and investments are made to achieve a satisfactory combination of curated content, user experience and technical solutions. Subscription services destabilize the traditional connection between a single copy and economic value and make consumer-price independent of consumption.Footnote 17

Content providers and users become dependent on the streaming services, and ‘the profit of the providers is decreasing’ in new digital business models.Footnote 18 Hence, the industry must accommodate a risk of a decrease in revenue,Footnote 19 and there is a risk of a reduction of the overall range of published books.Footnote 20 Such ‘network models’ are never neutral. They are always based on a platform, bringing along asymmetrical relations.Footnote 21

Analytical framework

In The Platform Society, José van Dijck, Thomas Poell, and Martijn de Waal describe three driving forces in platform-based structures such as digital subscription services: datafication, commodification and selection. Datafication denotes how all kinds of things, actions and deliberations are transformed into numbers.Footnote 22 Data left by users have become the new currency in a datafied structure like a service offering subscription on streamed content in the cultural industries.

The concept of commodification states how datafied information left by users serves as a lens to sharpen production and punch out goods to sell. These goods can be physical or digital, services or experiences. Moreover, they may be of any kind if they are scalable and digitally promotable for sale. According to van Dijck and colleagues, the value of the commodity is counted in currencies of attention, data, users, and money.

Offers need to be highlighted to attract attention, hence the selection concept. This third perspective on processes of platformization serves to underline the importance of focused curation based on knowledge of customers and target groups. Knowledge of the subscribers depends on the systematical treatment of digital user tracks, and are put into action by ‘hybrid gatekeeping mechanisms’Footnote 23 in a combination of algorithmic analyses and human curation. This combination of technical and human processing becomes a means to optimize breakthroughs and enhance attractivity toward customers. Curated catalogues are made available through a mix of ‘personalization, reputation, and trends’.Footnote 24

Method

The article builds on a qualitative interview studyFootnote 25 with Publishers and Editors in Chief in Norwegian publishing houses winter 2021–2022 to explore the influence of digitalization in editorial work and strategic deliberations as perceived by central actors in the industry.Footnote 26

The 12 informants in the study were chosen because of their role as head of literary publishing in Norwegian language originals of fiction and non-fiction for adult readers [in this article, referred to as ‘publisher(s)’]. As Norwegian publishing is a limited industry, twelve informants from small-sized, medium-sized, and large publishing houses within trade publishing are a representative sample. The interviews lasted between 40 and 60 min and took place at the informants’ offices, except for two on Zoom due to renewed COVID regulations.

The interviews were transcribed and then reviewed by the author to single out the answers relevant to further research before they were sent to the informants for approval. There are nine female and three male informants in the study, all with more than 10 years’ history of working in Norwegian publishing. Their present position includes responsibility for a list of publications and the financial results, and they are the head of co-working editors. The size of their departments and their departments' placing on the broader organization vary from publisher to publisher, and with this also their level of responsibility for marketing, sales, and remediated versions of the text, such as e-books and audiobooks.

The analysis is built upon an inductive approach in line with a thematic analysis.Footnote 27 In the following, the informants are anonymized and referred to by a capital letter from A to L. Citations from the interviews are translated from Norwegian into English by the author.

Analysis

The publishers’ sensitizing about the development of literary publishing revealed five main themes related to the research question. In the following, findings are ordered after these five: genre, quality, social media, economic premises, and decision making.

The interviews started with an open approach to the influence of digitalization. It turned out that a general sense of threat to their traditional business of paper books was an overarching theme to all informants. Further, there was a shared notion about the audiobooks and streaming services causing radical changes: ‘What we expected to be the e-book revolution has become the audiobook revolution instead, because of streaming services’ (Publisher G), a statement relating to the experience of the informants.

The Notions of Genres

That streaming services favour specific genres is mentioned by several. ‘A lot of [audio] literature in streaming is lighter literature and crime’ (Publisher L). The emergence of a new sales channel, namely audiobooks in streaming services, has opened the field for a broader list of crime titles. Streaming services give new life to presumably ‘dead’ backlist. True crime, commercial fiction, and professional ‘How to’ books are examples mentioned to underline how some types of titles seem to fit the context of audio streaming exceptionally well. Many publishers are actively looking for and cultivating authors, ideas, and narratives suitable for audio remediation.

The publishers justify a renewed emphasis on specific genres by referring to preferences singled out by streaming services. In doing this, they highlight considerations of datafication in streaming services. Further, their editorial reasoning demonstrates processes of commodification when genre traits are copied in new works and formerly outdated titles are renewed.

The Concept(s) of Quality

Increased awareness of genres favoured in streaming services triggers reflections on how concepts of quality are sliding. Several informants foresee a forthcoming development in promoting a more efficient narrative style. Almost all informants identify a general tendency toward customization to better match subscribers' preferences to streaming services.

In general, there are frequent references to the influence of TV series and narratives being ‘speeded up’, like: ‘At least we know that it cannot be too complicated when it comes to audio. If there are too many narrative lines, the reader falls out’ (Publisher H). The editorial leaders convey awareness about new kinds of criteria to consider. Extended reflections or descriptions in narratives are more likely to be exchanged with passages accelerating action in stories. The development encourages more focus on getting readers ‘hooked’. ‘There is a movement from the titles for the few to those with a broader reach, even though many will not admit this change’ (Publisher A).

Most of these informants handle a variation of genres, and to those having responsibility of quality fiction it is essential to underline that quality fiction is not affected from any outside influence. However, there seems to be no doubt about a general influence on quality regimes enforced by streaming services, related to the spreading of TV series and audiobooks.

The publishers justify deliberations on manuscripts and the kind of titles they will look for in the future by referring to the traits favoured by streaming services or explicitly mentioning former bestsellers, regardless of format or sales channel. Whether pointing at oneself or publishers in general, there is a shared notion of quality concepts under transition. Further, there is an expectation of increased influence from demonstrated success formulas, whether shown in the top lists of streaming services for books or other media.

The Meaning of Social Media

The relations to the authors are recurring in the interviews. Generally, the publishers have been more focused on the authors than on the readers of literature. An explanation for this orientation may be the traditional order of the value chain.Footnote 28 The end customers have been in the hands of the booksellers; bookstores, libraries, and book clubs, and not the publishers.

Relations to authors were not least frequent in a theme not explicitly introduced by the interview guide but turned out as one of the main takeaways even though. When publishers are asked about digitalization, the meaning of social media in the marketing of books was top of mind to everybody: ‘We talk about it [social media] with the authors. We talk a lot about it. We would never publish an author who is not on social media’ (Publisher J). Judging from the informants' responses, social media have become the main channel for directly marketing fiction and non-fiction to readers. Publishing houses depend on the social media accounts of their authors.Footnote 29 The number of followers and agency in social media has become a reason to publish, mainly to some non-fiction publishers. Publishers depend on authors with a following in social media.

Further, most non-fiction publishers explained how social media had become a significant channel for ideas to new titles and a source for new authors. Examples of amateur bloggers having become bestsellers are prevalent in the interviews. The advantage of finding new authors on social media includes enforced marketing power. The number of followers and the way of communicating with followers are explicit examples of new criteria counting when deliberating publication. To this, one informant underlines how this development is, in fact, democratization in access to publishing houses. Potential authors are more likely to emerge from anywhere, regardless of their social and geographical background.

This amplified relationship between the authors and their digital domain is, on the one hand, referred to as a prerequisite; authors are strongly encouraged to promote their books on their personal social media channels. Several publishers explain encouragement and practical help to those not already experienced social media users. On the other hand, the informants demonstrate enforced emphasis on investment in social media channels: ‘Our marketing is much more directed into social media. We spent a lot of time and resources producing digital content for PR purposes’ (Publisher E). The importance of social media comes across in comments on the organizing of the publishing houses. Several informants refer to their recruiting of social media persons. Communicating personally in words and pictures have become an essential skill in the book industry and among its actors, including the authors.

The embracement of social media for marketing purposes tells an essential story about the influence of platformization on literary publishers. Dependence on social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram to get books promoted reveal marketing strategies built on datafication, commodification and selection and integrated into the business models of the global GAFAM companies.Footnote 30

Economy in Question

Audiobooks and streaming services enhance press on economic margins. Informants clearly express awareness of the expenses in producing audiobooks and how they are generally low in economic profit. There is increased investment per title. An audiobook needs studio recording and a reader, most often a professional actor if not the author. Further, consumed audiobooks in streaming services make less money to the publisher compared to the same numbers sold in copy sales. To a large amount of the titles presented by literary publishers, audiobooks and streaming services represent investments which are hard to recuperate but also hard to avoid, as authors expect audio editions following the penetration of streaming services.

In addition, there is a press on economic margins when an audiobook in streaming services replaces a sold copy of paper books. All informants question the economics of audiobooks in streaming services one way or the other. The general notion is that there must be a kind of significant change in the business model, as expressed: ‘A business model must be developed that makes it possible [for the publishers] to earn money on audio as well’ (Publisher H). At the same time, the economic deliberations are partly balanced by statements commenting on how some titles do surprisingly well in streaming services, to the benefit of the authors behind those titles.

There is an explicit tendency among informants to be more critical than formerly regarding which titles to produce in audio. A few publishing houses have had a period of ‘all in audio’, and they are now reducing the number of titles reproduced in audio. They realize that quite a few titles are not fit for this format. To the larger publishing houses the economic risk is less acute, the threat of reduced income when paper books in copy sale are exchanged with audiobooks in streaming services. Rather, they express a need to explore and test new business opportunities.

To the tiny publishing houses, the matter of audiobooks leads to questioning their future in general. When the investment needed to make a catalogue into audio is not within reach, the remaining options are either selling audio rights separately (and losing the possibility of later return) or a change in ownership to strengthen financial muscles. A publisher of a small company highlights the most critical topic in the interview session by saying: ‘The structural impact of new digital options is the most important’ (Publisher G). Ownership of rights has become more critical in the era of platformization. In this perspective, the transforming power of streaming services and audiobooks may lead to the restructuring of the publishing business.

Even though the principles of datafication, commodification and selection lead to a more effective distribution to the readers, and the readers get easy access to a broad selection of titles, the publishers are left with less revenue per consumed work of literature. Tasks and responsibilities transferred from the publishers to mechanisms inbound to the streaming services, such as marketing, sales, and distribution, make publishers more vulnerable. Enforced economic pressure on publishers is more threatening to the smaller ones. A marginalized economy may be balanced to large publishing groups with other activities within the group.

Editorial Decisions

An overarching takeaway in this study is the publishers’ awareness of the transformations resulting from the rise of audiobooks. A challenge frequently referred to by informants is reaching out and making money from a broad range of titles. The increase in the distribution of audiobooks owing to streaming services is a poignant justification. However, all informants generally worry about a decline in text reading and the future market for literature. ‘And it [the digitalization] does something to our publishing strategy. Quite a few books that we could publish earlier are heavier to publish today. So, we are more critical about the titles that can make it out there’ (Publisher F).

Many informants report how they adjust to the ongoing development by increased consideration. Several informants comment on tightening the opportunity of acceptance, such as: ‘One gets a bit stricter and a bit more impatient. So, there is less time to make something a success’ (Publisher K). The development leads to press on the economy because of increased investment in audio editions and reduced return on audiobooks in subscription services compared to copy sales. Further, there are frequent references to the decrease in paper book sales, mainly paperbacks. Informants report on being stricter in editorial decisions. Or, as some of them express: it has been harder to be accepted on their lists.

The tightening of the regime for decisions and the acceptance of new titles relates to the process of selection. Publishers curate their lists of publications, comparable to how platform services curate their customer offers. And the process is guided by sets of selection criteria, whether strictly defined by numbers or based on human sensations of quality and commercial potential. The publishers explain new strategies enforcing stricter decisions competition from other media, like TV series. That many seem to replace literary reading with TV series is a recurring topic in the interviews.

Hence, the publishing strategies are under the influence of platformization in a double sense: first, the underlying driving forces lead to stricter processes for acceptance. Second, the general competition for audiences’ attention is intensified by the diversity of services offered from platform-based services, of which the publishers expressly point at streaming services like Netflix and HBO.

A few comments sum up the analysis before proceeding to the discussion: publishers’ deliberations are increasingly dependent on numbers, and more details are put into numbers before any consideration takes place. Success in streaming services triggers searches for, and development of, comparable titles to imitate previous success, as in processes of commodification. In addition, more detailed knowledge of achieved commercial success makes selection principles more influential in the publishers’ curation of their lists. The publishers express a sense of more narrow frames, explicitly in economic matters. The analysis demonstrates a strong interrelation between the findings. Publishers have become partly dependent on their authors to access the market with their books. When subscription services become a significant channel toward the end-customers of literature, there is a move of power in the value chain from the producers to the distributors with a following press on the publishing economy.

Discussion

The concept of commodification is not new to the history of literary publishing. The book industry was commodified long before digital platforms entered the scene.Footnote 31 Users’ activities turned into feedback and used to design (re-)packaging of content to match customer preferences in processes of platformization are like what publishers have been doing for years in publications of new editions, like cheaper paperback versions of originals in hardcover. Further, paperbacks are often identified in serialized packaging, such as the orange spine of Penguin Books.

Commodification implies a denotation of value deprivationFootnote 32 that is recognizable in the digitalization of the book. In comparison, paper books can be beautiful in physical expression, with large-format, high-quality paper and colour illustrations. These tactile aspects are lost in the e-book. The remediation from text to audio is even more radical. A printed text changed into a fully modulated voice can be experienced as a compromise of lesser value. At the same time, the literary work is renewed.Footnote 33 In a platform-based industry, user feedback is systematized and given agency guiding the development and customization of cultural commodities.Footnote 34 This kind of commodification is enforced through digitalization.

The profound meaning of social media to present days publishing is highlighted. At the same time, dependence on social media was not critically referred to by any informants. Rather the opposite. Furthermore, structural threats, such as the interlocking to platforms and risk of surveillanceFootnote 35 or direct access to end-customer, were not mentioned. Though such issues are likely to be considered within the publishing houses, they were not visibly important to the publishers of literary fiction and non-fiction. How frames decided by the social media platform owners impact future literary publishing is a topic for further research.

That mechanism of selection lead to polarization between good and bad sellers are well-known in the book market. However, this study underlines how algorithm-driven streaming services enhance mechanisms enforcing the bestsellers on expense of other titles.Footnote 36 When a smaller selection of titles reaches large audiences, there are accelerated sales for the few and fewer opportunities for the many titles, resulting in higher risk to the publishers.

Even though transition experiences are not new to the publishers, the power of the present change cannot be bypassed. These interviews convey reasoning about a mix of ubiquitous digitalization and an overwhelming offer of cultural content that makes literature more vulnerable to competition. Literature, regardless of format, compete with media more easily ‘digested’. In this new world of digitalized culture, the audiobook brings hope for the future to the publishers. Several express how audiobooks in streaming services literature may appeal to new readers. Future research must study the long-term influence of streaming services and audiobooks.

Conclusion

The study demonstrates how streaming services influence today’s literary publishers. The power of transformation from the digital platforms offering audiobooks and social media relations to end customers appears substantial. The analysis brings forward five essential traits in transition influencing literary publishing: increased importance of some genres, sliding concepts of quality, increasing dependency on social media, diminishing economic margins, and stricter editorial decisions. Even in the era of deep mediatization,Footnote 37 the medium is not the message,Footnote 38 but the digitalized medium, such as the audiobook, has an impact on the message.

Interestingly, the totality of details in the interviews, underlines how fundamental the mechanisms of platformization have become. Social media and streaming services control the publishers’ contact with the readers. Digital distribution led by datafication, and algorithmic selection has become a prerequisite to reaching readership. In addition, commodification principles are essential in developing new titles. Notions on literary quality and genres underline the influence of commercial traits in authorships, genre, and narrative styles as they are conveyed by successes of audiobooks in streaming services.

Further, tracks of enforced diversification are notable. Increased selection calls for mixed strategiesFootnote 39 between publishing houses, formats, genres and reading modes. On the one hand, this diversification implies more substantial economic power to be a full-scale publisher. A stronger polarization among titles emerges, only a few titles turn out to be bestsellers, and the rest remain in the long thin tail. But, on the other hand, by diversification of formats and sales channels, literature reaches new audiences, is available in more situations, and some old backlists get renewed success.

This article has identified three central challenges to today’s publishers. First, streaming services’ availability and efficiency has made distribution crucial to obtain a broader readership and a following turnover. Second, the format of audiobooks and targeted digital marketing favours simple narrative structures,Footnote 40 countering the maintaining of broad catalogues that include literature with complex narratives and demanding language.Footnote 41 Third, a market characterized by customization, enabled by datafication, customization and selection, promotes new priorities and calls for new strategies.