Liz Bury at Publishing Perspectives has an interesting article on a consultant’s talk at a recent publishing conference. Clive Rich, principal of Rich Futures, suggests that publishers may become more service-oriented as the Internet and digital media continue to change the face of publishing.
Rather than just a statement of royalties, Rich suggests, publishers could provide authors with more information on what kind of deals they are making with his content, and such demographic information concerning purchases as is available. In return, the author may cede some control to the publisher over how his work is marketed.
As authors develop conversations with their readers (via blogging and social media) the digital service provider can collect information, which may then be used for more conversations and to up-sell. “It’s a legitimate area of interest for the author to be able to share in that data; they could send an email about the new book with a call to action.” Authors could collect the data through their own websites.
I’m not sure that this sort of opportunity is going to appeal to every author, however. I know of a few authors who do do this sort of thing, such as Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (who also run their own small-press publishing firm), but for most it would seem to cut down on the amount of time they could actually spend writing more.
Maybe I’m just not reading the article as thoroughly as I should, but I can’t really figure out why all this should mean the writer must necessarily cede any more control than he already does. Surely the emphasis on social networking doesn’t require it.
Meanwhile, in an accompanying editorial/discussion starter, Edward Nawotka also wonders whether this sort of interactivity could help more than it hurts.
Certainly this is a boon to the writer in terms of marketing, but how about the actual process of writing? Is a writer who caters too much to the desires of his audience make them too self-conscious? Is a writer working in solitude and creative isolation producing something with more integrity, or at the very least, more spontaneity? Is are both of these ideas merely outdated, or merely romantic, notions of the writers life?
This emphasis on marketing and interactivity reminds me of Richard Nash’s “Publishing 2.0” ideas that we covered back in February. Nash, also, saw a possible future in interactivity between writers and publishers. But nobody is really addressing the issue of legal liability.
As I said in the “Publishing 2.0” piece, a number of writers have become fairly paranoid about getting exposed to “story ideas”—with good cause. One only has to consider the cases of Marion Zimmer Bradley, who lost a book due to a conflict with a fan over fanfiction, and J. Michael Straczynski, who had to scrap a Babylon 5 script for a similar reason, to see that there can be some considerable problems with letting fans give you ideas.
And just look at how many times J.K. Rowling has been sued for coming up with story concepts that were generic enough that they “could have been” borrowed from these other, lesser-known writers fortunate enough to have had similar ideas.
With that kind of precedent, there’s no way most authors are going to take the chance of being exposed to fans’ ideas and giving them a possible reason to sue for the authors “ripping off” their ideas. I suppose it’s a variation on the tragedy of the commons: get enough people together in one place and sooner or later one of them will screw things up for everybody.
