Are writers whipping out books faster—at the expense of quality—and will e-books worsen the problem?

Jonathan Karp runs Twelve. Topic of a public radio segment earlier this year, it’s an imprint within the Hachette Book Group USA and home to such best-selling writers as Christopher Buckley.

Should publishers like Karp bow simultaneously to the gods of commerce and quality? Maybe by spending more on R&D and less on cranking out junky titles destined for quick mulching? It would appear so if you go from his recent Washington Post piece, Turning the Pages on the Disposable Book. No, he isn’t confusing contemporary bestsellers with Madame Bovary. But he apparently thinks that all kinds of books could benefit from more care. Instead the trend seems to be just the opposite, and I fear that the economies of E could actually worsen it, unless the industry uses the technology in a more sensible way.

Faster conveyor belts in the book factories

"I can’t prove it empirically," Karp says, "but when I talk to literary agents and fellow publishers, they acknowledge an unarticulated truth about our business: Fewer authors are devoting more than two years to their projects. The system demands more, faster. Conventional wisdom holds that popular novelists should deliver one or two books per year. Nonfiction authors often aren’t paid enough to work full-time on a book for more than a year or two."

Close to home

Is anyone listening? This is a close-to-home issue for me. About three decades ago, Warner Books, which Hachette owns today, came close to buying my Washington newspaper novel. Luckily for me, Warner turned down The Solomon Scandals. I went on to hone it—on and off, when I had time—over the next 30 or so years. Literature? Damned if I know. But in all the important ways, from dialogue to characterizations, it’s far, far better than it would have been in the late ’70s.

The joys of reflection—for writers and readers

"There’s no guarantee that a book will be better if an author spends more time writing it," Karp writes, "but years of research and reflection often provide a perspective that offers readers a kind of wisdom and authority they can’t get anywhere else. Many of my favorite contemporary books were years in the making: ‘The Corrections’ by Jonathan Franzen, ‘The Emperor’s Children’ by Claire Messud, ‘Titan’ by Ron Chernow, ‘The Looming Tower’ by Lawrence Wright, ‘No Ordinary Time’ by Doris Kearns Goodwin, ‘Good to Great’ by Jim Collins and one I had the privilege of editing, ‘Seabiscuit’ by Laura Hillenbrand. As she was crafting ‘Seabiscuit,’ Laura envisioned specific sentences in her head, word by word, before writing them down. That kind of careful, methodical writing contributed to the power of her prose.

"Book publishers might be able to compete with news media, but we’re foolish to try. Newspapers, magazines and electronic media can fulfill the needs of the moment far more effectively than a publishing company ever can or will. Journalism has long been regarded as the first rough draft of history; lately, however, books have too easily been thought of as the second rough draft, rather than the final word."

Exactly. Just because publishers can produce e-books faster than paper books, should they compromise quality? Indeed, given the ability to revise E, reflecting feedback from readers, is it possible that e-books could be better in the end? I continue to wonder if first editions in E could lead to improved p-books that followed. That said, shouldn’t the real revisions happen if possible before a book goes on sale?

The blog angle: I commit crimes daily, spelling related and more serious. I’ll never confuse a blog with a book written with feedback from a good editor.

(Post article found via TOC blog and Peter Brantley. One point made is that e-books could mean the death of p-books as vehicles for genre fiction.)