I am hosting the next meeting of the local AAUW book Club.  The
selection is Plain Truth, by Jodi Picault.  I called this book a "pot
boiler."  My group is read to lynch me for casting doubts on their
literary selection.  I need an overview of the publishing industry, a
global perspective, not a working detailed model. How are books chosen
by publishing houses?  What ,how or when are books relegated to become
"Hard Cover," "Trade." "Paperback." What exactly do those terms mean,
not related to their bindings?  How is best seller information
gathered? Why are some books choosen to become movies? Where do the
big book sellers fit it, Barnes and Noble, Borders, etc.? Perhaps a
brief answer on the financial aspect of the busisness, publishers,
authors, editors, middle men, etc. Who are the published books
"designed" for?  What is the mass market?  Again, how is this
determined? Why are some particular authors choosen to go on tour to
promote their book, all those TV interviews, etc?
 On a subjective note.  What makes great literature? What goes into
making a good novel... plot, charcter, structure, story telling? Is
there a universiality to this?  Would your taste in literature be
dependent on your culture?  Does a Japanese reader thnk as an American
does? (What a demographic divide we have here.) Would Europpeans read
into a book the same meaning as readers in India (And that culture is
so is so diversified.) Is there a common thread? What is your opinion
on those books we deem as classics?
I have my opinions but no scholarly background to support them. I
can't afford to pay for tons of research. For those of you who choose
to answer this, much of this information is probably imbedded into
your neurons.  When presenting I can't say "I know a pot boiler from
great literature just as I know what pornography is." It makes as much
sense.  Besides, someone else once said something like that. He was
using himself as the benchmark.  I do not wish to personalize my
program. Thank you.

Presumably your strategy is to go on at such length and in such detail
about the publishing industry etc that either there is no time left to
discuss PicOult's book or (more likely) the rest of the group die of
boredom.

You are asking so many questions here that I doubt that anyone will
even want to count the number of question marks in order to earn $7.50
(the Researcher's share of your fee)!

Seriously, if you'd like an answer, I suggest that you pare this down
to a single question that can reasonably be answered in half an hour
or so.

If you are the host then your job is to involve the other members of
the group, not to enforce your own thinking whether culled from here
or elsewhere.

The countless questions you have posted above will make an excellent
'crib sheet' to stimulate your colleagues IF (and only if) everyone
dries up.

Start off by saying ...

Ladies & Gentlemen

I am delighted to be your host for this meeting and, as your host, I
want to encourage you all to air your views whether I agree with them
or not.

I just have one rule ...

There are no rules ...

Now, Janet, you usually sit there like a mouse ... today I want you to
let your hair down ...all the way!

So let's have a good, clean fight!

Good Luck!

Pssst, Probono,
The AAUW is the American Association of University Women.  They may
not acknowledge the existence of males, even if they let them listen
in.

Jillina,
I don't know anything about modern literature, and less about the
trade, but just looking at Jodi's website and seeing the praise for 13
novels since 1992, I would agree that it smells of potboiling, maybe
well done, apparently very sellable, but the website itself reeks of
pure marketing.  Click on About Jodi and also on FAQs to get  your own
opinion.   I liked the answer to this question:

"Do you write every day?

I don't work on weekends, usually (although I have been known to sneak
up to an office when I'm in the middle of a chapter - I hate leaving
my characters hanging!) But other than that, I'm a workaholic. I will
start a new book the day after finishing a previous one. ..."

Bubble, bubble, bubble, ...

Glancing at the information about each book on the site, it seems that
Jodi finds varied and interesting plots.  I wasn't enthralled by her
prose in the excerpts, but then I am no judge.

Most of your questions seem to distract from the main point:  what
justifies your describing Picoult's work as a potboiler?

These definitions are nicely appropriate:
"# a literary composition of poor quality that was written quickly to
make money (to boil the pot)"
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

"# A potboiler is an artistic work (usually written) created for the
sole purpose of making money quickly or to maintain a steady income
for the artist, thus implying that artistic values were subordinate to
saleability."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potboiler

The publishing industry, how readers in other cultures may see the
book, etc., don't have much to do with that, well, maybe the publicity
efforts, tours, TV interviews  - especially if someone here could tell
us that the publisher's contract called for such.

Since you know that you will have a hostile audience, you might ask
them to fill in a slip at the door giving the name of the last other
book by Jodi they have read, and when; and ALSO the best book they
have read since Christmas.

These could lead the discussion to what better literature is, as well
as letting you know before hand what level is represented.  If you
find a couple of slips with prize-winning authors' books or classical
literature, you may have a few allies in the group.  You could open
the discussion by mentioning that someone had recently read a book by
Updike  - or whomever -  and ask if the person would like to give her
opinion about "Plain Truth" and Jodi Picoult's writing.
The first voice from the floor from someone who obviously reads better
literature (if agreeing with you, as I hope) will stifle some attacks
from others who just know what they like, but have no basis to judge.

Many person's opinions are formed by what others say and the media. 
It would be interesting if several/many in the audience had not read
another book by Jodi, suggesting that they may have liked the choice
as an excuse to read an author they had heard so much about.

Here is very recent interview with her from the CS Monitor:
http://66.249.93.104/search?q=cache:oOrdgXAyi-MJ:www.csmonitor.com/2006/0310/p12s04-algn.html++Jodi+Picoult&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=12

And her are remarks by her about "Plain Truth" and her writing:
http://www.allen-unwin.com.au/readinggroups/pdfs/1865083801.pdf

While rereading the above, it occurred to me that you could temper
your "potboiler" by explaining that it wasn't meant to belittle or
criticize Jodi's writing, just that what she produces and the way she
works, suggests strongly that she does it for a living, and maybe more
so, because she just loves to write fiction   - which is fun:  godlike
control of people's lives.
I wouldn't say that she is sacrificing quality for quantity, but on
the other hand, she has not yet chosen to sit back and take the time
to write an novel that rises above what she has done.

As to acclaim, she was the recipient of the 2003 New England Book
Award for her entire body of work.  Not to carp, but that sounds like
a committee's decision   when it couldn't agree on any author's single
novel  - and also not on ONE of hers.  The decision couldn't be
lambasted since she is such a best-selling author.
Maybe I should say "authress".  Do her books appeal mainly to women? 
Only to women?
She also won this recognition:
"This year's ABE award goes to Jodi Picoult for her novel My Sister's
Keeper. Second place went to The Kite Runner and third, to The Earth,
My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. The Abraham Lincoln Award is
awarded annually to the author of the book voted as most outstanding
by participating students in grades nine through twelve in Illinois.
The award is sponsored by the Illinois School Library Media
Association (ISLMA)."

That is, of course, no reflection on the intellectual level of the
AAUW Book Club.  ;-)

I hope that it will be an interesting and lively meeting.
Good luck, Myoarin

Better still, why not just discuss 'Plain Truth' by Jodi Picault?

Or would that be too easy?

You are asking very broad questions that would take a book to answer.
Generally speaking, bestsellers are manufactured. All bestseller
systems can be manipulated in a number of ways.

New books to be published are selected by publishers in a very
unscientific way. The only time it is scientific is when a publisher
publishes additional books by the same author or in the same series,
where the publisher can predict how many copies will be sold.

The industry misses a lot of good books. These books eventually end up
being self-published or, now, pubished via a print-on-demand printer
or publisher. I'm sure some great manuscripts have simply been tossed,
burned, or otherwise relegated to the void.

No book becomes a bestseller these days without being sold in Barnes &
Noble or Borders. A book can become a local bestseller without that,
but not a national one.

The best place to find really good books is in a really good
independent bookstore. A place like Tattered Cover in Denver or Elliot
Bay Books in Seattle or Prairie Lights in Iowa City or Vroman's in
Pasadena. Independent booksellers will latch onto books that are great
books and then handsell them to everyone who visits their stores. That
doesn't happen in B&N or Borders. I know of independent booksellers
who have single-handedly sold 1,500 copies of a book they loved.

John Kremer, author, 1001 Ways to Market Your Books

Books are choosen by their quality and also an often overlooked
factor: popularity. Books are choosen due to what the public is
interested in. Right now, film noir is popular in the movie business.
Books are normally made into hardcover first to get more money, then
into paperback when the publishers want to sell to the people too
cheap to buy hard. Books are made best sellers due to reviews, polls,
and numbers of people who have bought the said books. Movie producers
pick out books they think would make good money or rarely the
publisher/author will try to reel in a producer. Most books aren't
written for a target audience. Publishers will publish for an
audience, though. In my opinion good literature is something anyone
can enjoy, in any situation, anywhere. A story that is believable,
with defined characters, and a solid moral. That's all I have to say.
I hope I've helped.