The long tail business model in publishing: The case of Hachette's romance division in France

Since I was only able to read a portion of this, and since the novels were not all described in detail, I am not sure that all of them are in fact romances as defined in this database. All the same, the article did seem likely to be of interest to scholars interested in romance publishing in France. Here's the abstract:

Book publishing is marked by three major trends: the development of self-publishing platforms; the technological evolution of the book product, which can be offered in several formats (print, digital, audio); and the importance of social networks in communication and prescribing. These trends are profoundly changing the relationship between publishers, authors and readers. Publishers are inventing new strategies based on literary communities that bring together authors, readers and influencers.

In these communities they find a pool of authors, a market test for each content and privileged access to the market. This changes their business model (BM), making them more capable than ever of exploiting the principles of the long tail. In a BM based on the long tail, value creation is based on the ability to offer a large number of titles and to renew the catalogue in line with readers’ tastes without increasing operating costs too much. At the same time, these communities are observatories of literary creation, from which the future bestseller may emerge, generating new cinematographic works in particular (film, series).

This chapter presents these changes in the publishing sector and the associated strategic challenges in terms of content production and distribution. To do this, it uses the romance sector, which is very popular with young female readers, and presents a case study from a major publishing group with the Hlab and BMR brands from Hachette.