Deconstruction and Reconstruction:BOOK OFF Shakes up Japanese Publishing Industry

Starting from the business strategies of BOOK OFF Corporation dealing with second-hand books, this paper presents the impact of BOOK OFF on the Japanese publishing industry in recent ten years. In some extent, due to the historical reasons and institutional issues, the Japanese publishing industry seems to have no idea about what to do before the aggressive intruders. In fact, several corporations ranked the forefront of Japanese publishing field launch a counterattack, and the struggle is far from finished till now. As a consequence, the publishing field is still a space which is full of transposable dispositions, ever-changing powers and indeterminacy.