Commercial Intimacies: Influencer Culture and Digital Capital in the Contemporary Book Market

The contemporary book market is practically inseparable from digital culture. #BookTok creates bestsellers, and audio book streamers and publishers increasingly collaborate with influencers for marketing purposes. The intersection of the book market, digital spheres, and influencer culture opens up to new perspectives on contemporary publishing and women’s reading and book consumption. The writer as an influencer highlights the combination of personal experiences and public personas, which are negotiated on social media platforms. The presentation focuses on how writers’ social media content is remediated in genres such as children’s literature, non-fiction, and life writing.

Lisa Grahn holds a PhD in comparative literature and is currently a guest researcher at the University of Manchester. Her research interests include gender perspectives on book culture, historiography and autofiction.

Jana Rüegg holds a PhD in sociology of literature from Uppsala University and is affiliated with the Section for Sociology of Literature at the Department of Literature and Rhetoric. Her research focuses on publishing history and the contemporary Swedish book market.