| Summary: | 碩士 === 南華大學 === 出版學研究所 === 91 === This thesis defines the essence of a “book series” as “new book titles published as a part of a series or group with similar subject”. The definition distinguishes a book series from Western paperbacks, which represent a reprint and binding form of already published hardcovers, and Japanese “bunko”. Book series cater to the Taiwan’s sales channels and publishing ecology 1980s onwards. Publishers have since been operating field / subject publishing in the pattern of book series. Namely, book series reflect the special character of Taiwan’s market.
Why does series publishing become unique phenomenon of Taiwan? We can find out the answer in Taiwan’s publishing environment of 1980s. Accompanying the development and growth of politics, economics and education, the demand and competition of book market expanded. The local publishing industry that started to burgeon since 1949 was stepping into a new stage: operating in specific fields and conceiving marketing strategies. Besides, the intermediary mechanism, the bookstore, was formed and the innate limit of Taiwan’s small market also contributed to the emergence of book series trend.
For the publishers, the operation of series publishing is helpful to conceiving publishing plans and the execution of editing. Through the appearances of book series, we can read how publishers manipulate the power of editors’ interpretation.
As to the function for selling, a series are displayed together or not depends on how every bookstore categorizes individual titles. However, a book series influences staff of bookstores subconsciously. It helps the staff to shelve books and facilitates them to identify and classify titles. Another benefit of book series is the potential of transforming into sets of books. In additional to develop the direct marketing channel, they also provide the cross-reading referrals and can be used as topics of book fairs.
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