This diploma thesis analyzes current book market, its specific features, history, threats and opportunities. The practical part deals with research and analysis of customer behaviour and their shopping habits. The research is then used for market segmentation.

(in English) This diploma thesis focuses on the Book World Prague - International Book Fair and Literary Festival - in the context of the transformation of the Czech book market after 1989. Particularly, it aims to examine the role the Book World Prague played in rehabilitation of the Czech book market as for re-implementation of basic market mechanisms in book production and distribution. Individual chapters cover the following topics: characterization and typology of modern book fairs, the history of the Czech book market from 1948 the present day, the history of the origin of trade fairs, the specific history and developments of book fairs, and the milestones in the history of the Book World Prague. Central to the research are data collected by the author by interviewing ten professionals working in various fields of the book industry. The transcribed interviews served two major purposes: firstly, they were used as the primary source enabling the author to answer the research question. Secondly, they created a primary source material relating the history of the Book World Prague.

(in English) This diploma thesis focuses on the Book World Prague - International Book Fair and Literary Festival - in the context of the transformation of the Czech book market after 1989. Particularly, it aims to examine the role the Book World Prague played in rehabilitation of the Czech book market as for re-implementation of basic market mechanisms in book production and distribution. Individual chapters cover the following topics: characterization and typology of modern book fairs, the history of the Czech book market from 1948 the present day, the history of the origin of trade fairs, the specific history and developments of book fairs, and the milestones in the history of the Book World Prague. Central to the research are data collected by the author by interviewing ten professionals working in various fields of the book industry. The transcribed interviews served two major purposes: firstly, they were used as the primary source enabling the author to answer the research question. Secondly, they created a primary source material relating the history of the Book World Prague.

The Swedish publishing company En bok för alla (which translates as “A book for everyone”) was established in 1976 following a decision in the Swedish parliament granting the right of the government to sign a cooperative agreement with the non-profit foundation Litteraturfrämjandet. Using state funds, the publishing company would publish books of high literary value to be sold at low prices over a three-year period. The purpose of this was to combat the kind of literature that was sold at supermarkets and corner shops, and which was deemed being of low literary value, but also to reach the wider public and attract non-readers. In this study I argue that the establishment of En bok för alla must be viewed as an expression of Swedish cultural policy which took form in the early years of the 1970s. Two years prior to En bok för alla being established the Swedish parliament passed the first cultural policy act of Sweden, thus laying the groundwork for cultural policy to come. In this act, it is stated that aim of Swedish cultural policy was to contribute to a better social environment and to work for the furtherance of equality. This would be achieved by, among other things, minimizing the negative effects of commercial interests in the cultural sphere and decentralizing the production and distribution of culture. During the 1960s and 1970s, books had become increasingly expensive and books of higher literary quality were both more difficult and more expensive than their lower quality counterparts. I argue that many looked at this as a shortcoming on the part of the above mentioned commercial interests, who valued money more than literature. I will also show how some these ambitions, bold though they may have been, in the end fell short of accomplishing the goal of En bok för alla. Though they did succeed in publishing books at low costs, the question of whether they were of high literary quality or not I can’t say, they did not seem to reach the wider audience they had hoped to attract. Following the Swedish election of 2006 and the subsequent change of government, the state funds for En bok för alla were withdrawn in 2007. The argument given for this was that the book market had changed since 1976. This was of course true, but in my opinion the need for these high-quality dime-store books is perhaps even more acute today than ever before. In a time when smartphones, television and computers all compete for our attention, I believe that it is becoming an increasingly important task for our society to secure the role of books and reading in the world of media.

This thesis deals with the phenomenon of the book as crucial means of communication of the author (of the artistic and non-artistic) text with the reader. The material object book is examined in detail as a product, goods and object of the aesthetic interest. The work focuses primarily on the following questions: What is happening with the text from the moment of the manuscript submission to the publisher until the moment when is held in reader's hands for the first time? What subjects, institutions or interests are entering (or may enter) the game during the production, distribution and sale of the book and what is their particular role? What is the form and function of graphical and peritextual components of the book? All questions are answered in regard to the current state of Czech literary culture.

The scope of this work is to realize a good business plan of a Czech-Italian publishing house of a children's book that could demonstrate the success and viability of the project. In the theoretical base, the structure of a business plan and the content of its single parts will be analyzed. In the practical application, the specifics of a publishing business and book market will be described. Afterwards a concrete business plan including in particular the analysis of company environment, marketing plan, implementation plan and financial plan will be created. In the end the risks will be evaluated.

During the past 30 years, the proliferation of electronic trading has catalysed profound structural change in the global foreign exchange (FX) spot market. Today, more than 60% of the market's volume occurs via electronic trading platforms, which provide traders with round-the-clock market access from anywhere in the world. Such platforms offer several practical benefits that have encouraged market participation from a broad new class of financial institutions and have thereby spurred market growth. The most widely used electronic trading platforms in the FX spot market incorporate several features that differentiate them from those used in other financial markets. These features raise many important questions about order flow, market state, price formation, trader behaviour, and volatility. Despite the enormous trade volumes that such platforms facilitate, these questions have received almost no attention to date. In this thesis, we study a recent, high-quality data set from a large electronic trading platform in the FX spot market in order to investigate several aspects of trading via this mechanism. We calculate a wide range of statistics regarding order flow and market state, and we highlight how our findings contrast to those reported by empirical studies of electronic trading platforms in other markets. We study the autocorrelation properties of returns, absolute returns, and order flow, and we investigate the extent to which the market's organization impacts price formation. We also introduce a model designed to reproduce the most important properties of trading via such a platform. We derive several results regarding the model's temporal evolution, and we simulate the model to investigate how the interactions between individual traders influence volatility. We conclude that electronic trading platforms in the FX spot market retain many desirable features of centralized markets while providing traders with explicit control over their personal trading partnerships.

The thesis demonstrates the entry strategy of a fundamentally new product - the magazine-catalogue of business books through the publishing house - to the B2B Belarusian book market. This product will help companies to make a better choice in the market of business literature. Customers will enjoy an overview and easy access to the titles, will have a quick reference about the content and prices, and will be able to place purchase orders online. The central issue is the optimization of courier service in the capital city Minsk and the surrounding area based on the customer demand. Therefore there is a need to introduce a new product, which will help to order books through catalogue and having them delivered by post, saving both, time and energy. The thesis is based on actual experience and its conclusions can be used in business practice.

This paper investigates the determinants of excess returns using dividend yields as a proxy in a cross-sectional setting. First, we find that types of industry and the current business cycle are determining factors of returns. Second, our results suggest that dividend yield serves a signaling mechanism indicating “healthiness” of a firm among prospective investors. Third we see that there is a positive relationship between dividend yield and risk, especially in the utility and financial sectors. And finally, using actual excess returns, instead of dividend yield in our model shows that all predictors of dividend yield were also significant predictors of excess returns. This connection between dividend yield and excess returns support our use of dividend yield as a proxy for excess returns.

This Master's thesis entitled Analysis of Book Publisher's Marketing Tools focuses on the Czech book market and marketing tools that are currently used by book publishers. The aim of the work is to evaluate marketing tools of the specific Czech book publisher based on qualitative research and suggest possible improvements in their use. The theoretical part contains definitions of basic concepts in the field of book publishing and book marketing, which serves as the basis for the practical part. The practical part deals with the analysis of marketing tools of book publisher Argo, presents pros and cons of these instruments and in the end, brings suggestions for their improvement. This part of the thesis is based on marketing situation analysis, on analysis of available data on publisher's activities and on an interview with one of its writers. This thesis is primarily valuable for book publishers and sellers, who can obtain information about possible marketing tools. For book readers, this thesis is particularly interesting in terms of obtaining information about how marketing tools can help them in the selection of books.