1. Barine, K. (2021, August 2). Publishing Trends and Their Effect on Publishers in the Developing World. Dr. Kirimi Barine. https://kirimi-barine.com/2021/06/23/publishing-trends-and-their-effect-on-publishers-in-the-developing-world/

    Dr Barine’s blog explains how new publication strategies have contributed to the globalization of the publishing industry. Firstly, publishers have been able to expand their distribution networks to reach wider markets by appointing regional or international publishers, using celebrities or well-known figures to market books, and adopting digital publishing technologies such as e-books or audiobooks. Furthermore, Bariene emphasizes that in order for this to be successful, the publisher must account for the operational expenses of these strategies in order to assess whether pursuing foreign markets is profitable. Through my individual project, I seek to explore the geographic variances in the publication of books by female and male authors. After mapping this information and determining the top three authors (male and female) in the different speaker languages (Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Lusophone), I can enhance my analysis by determining what combination of strategies outlined in the blog enabled the author and its publisher to achieve a more varied publication location.

  2. Oregon State University - School of Writing, Literature and Film. (2021, March 15). “What is a Theme in Literature?”: A Literary Guide for English Students and Teachers [Video]. YouTube.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5KZcdAmWLw

    In this video, Bushnell, a senior lecturer in literature at Oregon State University, explains themes and their significance in literary works. According to Bushnell, a theme is a “central unifying idea in a story” that examines the character’s personality, philosophy, and morality as the story progresses. Furthermore, the creator explains why he feels themes should not be worded as morals, which he describes as “a message-a recommendation for how to live,” because this limits the theme’s duty to mirror the difficulties and complexity of life. I plan to incorporate this video, if possible on the landing page of my Jekyll website. Moreover, with this clear understanding of themes, I will be able to create a dataset of themes to help in the comparison of the works of male and female authors.

  3. Page, B. (2017, September 20). Research shows male writers still dominate books world. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/feb/04/research-male-writers-dominate-books-world#:%7E:text=In%20the%20US%2C%20The%20New,200%20men%2C%2039%20women).

    In this newspaper article, Page provides and analyses statistical data to explore the gender imbalance that exists in British and American literature. He concluded that there was a significant disparity between the publication and review of books written by male and female authors. The magazine Granta, the publication is made up of 65% men, and the LRB reviewed 78% of books written by male authors for that period. The data from this study will help form the background information to show that there is a trend for countries’ publications to be heavily male-dominated, which is why I am attempting to determine which countries in the Caribbean countries’ regions are heavily male- or female-dominated.

  4. Smith, D. C. (1977). The Economics of Book Publishing in Developing Countries. Unesco. https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000020817

    In this book, Smith argues that book publishing in developing countries is dependent on social, political, psychological, and economic factors. However, unlike economic factors, these are harder to calculate statistically and require sophisticated fact-gathering and analysis, so the scope of Smith’s study is limited to economic factors. Smith also concludes that countries with their own book industry, as opposed to international publishers, will only be successful in publishing and distributing these books locally and internationally if they have a basic economic understanding of the publishing industry to account for manufacturing, editorial, and overhead costs, and create a list price that will allow them to make a profit, but not deter customers. By determining the geographic variances in the publication of books by female and male authors by mapping this data, I can decipher which Caribbean publishers, based on the Directory of Caribbean Publishers published by the Caribbean Community Secretariat, were able to successfully publish the book internationally. This will enhance my analysis and determine if and how successful local Caribbean publishers have been in anticipating and planning for the economic costs associated with the publishing industry.

  5. Wholey, K. (2018, November 9). Genre and Gender Differences – Women Writers Project. North Eastern University - Women Writers Project. https://wwp.northeastern.edu/blog/genre-and-gender-differences/

    In this blog, Wholey created a taxonomy of the books gathered for the Women’s Writers Project to show the disparity between the genres authored by women and men. This was showcased in a table, and the author provided additional analysis, gave examples of the books explored in selective genres, and provided plausible reasons for this. This blog gave me a clearer understanding of how I can showcase the differences in the concentration of male and female authors in different Caribbean countries and determine which countries have the highest concentration of male and female authors in the Caribbean region. Firstly, using the author country and Wikipedia link included in the Visualizing Caribbean Literature project dataset, I will determine the birth country of authors between 1961-1990 based on each speaker’s language, (Anglophone, Francophone, Hispanophone, and Lusophone). Then, I will calculate the number and percentage of female or male authors per country in each category. Moreover, to ensure my results are not skewed, I will adopt Wholey’s approach, so for texts with multiple authors, only the primary or first-listed author’s birth country will be counted.