In the past, rural themes were more established in original popular literature rather than urban genres such as crime fiction. The turning point came with the crime fiction novel Jezero by Tadej Golob. We have researched in our master's thesis why crime fiction is not more established as a genre in Slovenia. Why was there a turnaround with Jezero by Tadej Golob and Pogodba by Mojca Širok, while the crime fiction novels by Avgust Demšar achieved only medial success and never became »real« bestsellers? How successful are the books with regard to the sales and how with regard to borrowing from libraries? There are two methods: interviews with the authors, marketing people and editors of the two books, Jezero and Pogodba, and book sales versus borrowing analysis and comparison. The results have shown that one of the reasons for this change is that in the past, Slovene crime fiction was written in a way that did not fully represent the genre but was rather aspiring to be something more. The style of writing, transference into a different medium and direct contact between authors and readers are all very important for a book's success, and also being presented with a literary award, the spread of rumours and the book's sequel among other things. Many reasons for Avgust Demšar's medial success related to his style of writing, the non-existence of a brand, unpopularity of the crime fiction genre in the past, and inappropriate marketing. When comparing the sales and borrowings, we have learned that the latter is larger and that the numbers of borrowed books move with a delay after those sold. It is concluded that the reading taste of Slovenes has changed recently, moving partially from translations of romantic novels in libraries to original crime fiction. There is need for monitoring these new trends and conducting new and in-depth research.
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