Advances in the empirical sociology of literature and the arts: The institutional approach

Abstract

We study the fiction publishing sector using the top ten annual best-sold novels in the United States during the whole 20th century. We show that the number of bestselling women dropped sharply between 1950 and 1980 and that during the 20 last years of the century it was much more difficult for new writers to enter the list. Though we cannot show that this is caused by the very important concentration of publishers, the two phenomena are obviously correlated.