Both e- and p-book publishers keep wondering how they can survive in an era when writers can slap their own works on line. The first “must,” as I see it, is to slash costs. But here’s something just as important: Genuinely add value. The better newspapers do this all the time by fact-checking and polishing the work of staffers and freelancers alike; and I like that–the better the fodder for bloggers, either in-house or independent. Alas, many book publishers lag in the fact department. Some even seem to pride themselves on lack of fact-checking, and then they wonder how to justify their existence?
Now here’s an idea going beyond fact-checking; what if book publishers could aid their writers in fact-gathering?
Some technical publishers have been doing this for years by helping authors gain early access to new products about which they’ll be writing. But that’s pathetic compared to what could be done in general trade houses. What if, in signing up with Random House or Simon & Schuster, authors could benefit not only from editing but also from assistance in fact-gathering?
It could happen through software such as dotReader, which will let readers talk back to the book, so to speak–posting opinions for friends, the author, the publisher, or the entire world. Readers could not only leave their opinions but, at least privately, their contact information to aid not only the present author but future authors. Publishers could assemble a database of cooperative experts on specific subjects, some highly arcane.
A precedent exists from public radio. Wired News quotes Bill Buzenberg of Minnesota Public Radio:
“We’ve created a database of listeners who are willing to give us information: This is the Public Insight Repository,” Buzenberg said of the network’s listener expert database, now at 18,000 people.”
For instance, the repository contains 900 medical professionals and other health-care specialists. Doing a story on health care, he said, now begins by e-mailing this list.
“We get back hundreds of e-mails and it comes to a group of analysts. There are now two of them in the newsroom. They’re going to go through those e-mails and basically give to the reporters the information they need to do a really good story…. This is a revolution in a rolodex.”
Could this revolution come someday to e-publishing as well? I’m not suggesting that every book be a group-researched, collaborative effort, but publishers may want to consider this alternative when it is appropriate. In fact, even within book industry, it may not be entirely new. I’m thinking of the Time Life Books, for example. What big-time publishing needs is adapt this paradigm, in appropriate cases, to the era of the Internet and easy self-publishing of e-books.
In some ways, I hope that publishers, at least existing ones, *won’t* survive the transition to ebooks. In many content-producing fields, the publishers are merely middlemen, and mostly obstruct the creation and distribution of content in the Internet age. I long for the day when I can buy books, music, games, and films from the artist directly, or from an iTunes-like aggregation service.
Seeing the lengths the publishers have gone to in order to keep electronic distribution from being a reality has simply made me realize that they’re a hindrance in this day and age. There was an article a few years ago (in Salon, perhaps?) about the book publishers’ lobbying group wanting to crack down on the library model. The thinking was that it was unfair for libraries to buy only a few copies of a book and let multiple people read it – it would be much better for the publishers if everyone had to buy their own copy.
Along with this you can see the anti-consumer actions of music labels, movie studios, and game publishers; sometimes actively destroying creativity, as with payola and draconian contracts, and sometimes just passively being risk-averse and funding sequel after sequel.
Obviously there does need to be some form of publisher – an aggregator/distributor, at least, and editors. Fact checkers would also be beneficial. But I hope they grow up naturally, in a way that fits the new method of doing things, rather than simply leveraging their entrenched power to try and hang on to a fading business model for as long as possible.