Turning the Silo of Risk on Its Side
One thing that the web has taught us in the last 10 years is distributed effort works. Linux and Wikipedia are two great testaments to the success of decentralized control. Still, even for those digipub-types that have read Surowiecki or Shirky, this insight is a bit of a yawner. Book publishing has distributed work for years. Freelance editors and freelance publicists are already integral to our business. When there is more work than workers, spreading the pain around is no big deal. Nothing to see here. Move along.
But what about taking decentralization one step further in book publishing? What about decentralizing the downside?
Right now the publisher assumes the risk, so it has all the power and makes most of the decisions about how a book is marketed and sold. What if the risk was spread out along a contracted supply chain? Each party along the chain invests time or money. Each party should be rewarded or penalized based on the book’s performance in proportion to their exposure. Essentially invert the existing model and put the author — not the publisher — at the centre.
Here is an example of how this could work: a freelance editor and a writer team up for a project. The editor agrees to work with the author to get the manuscript in shape for publication. The editor isn’t paid by the author so there is a built-in quality filter at the very beginning. Editors, theoretically, would only sign up for projects that have potential.
Once the project is underway the editor/writer team approach a freelance marketing/publicity person. Again the marketer is not paid until the book makes money so there is a secondary filter for quality. The fourth and last person to join the team is the designer/producer. Together these four people make a beautiful product and split the potential profits. Say a third goes to the writer, a third goes to the editor and the designer and the marketer split what remains.
Now here is the key. All the decisions about the book are made together and they are made in the open and online. Else wise the circle of reinforcing trust that filters for quality could be gamed — writers could convince their in-law who has an English degree to be the editor and that wouldn’t get us any farther ahead than the Trafford model. The reputations of the editors, marketers, and designers need to be on the line with the authors’.
And it goes without saying, at the beginning of life, the book is sold online or print-on-demand. That way returns are non-existent and the need to cut in a retailer and a salesperson is minimized. If the success of the project warrants an offset print run, the cost of that could be split or crowd sourced via a platform like Kickstarter.com.
Voila. A 21st century publishing model that puts the power back in the author’s hands while it reinvents the quality-control mechanism of a traditional house and it eliminates the waste of warehousing and shipping. All that remains to consider is the website for such a project — what would the platform look like and who would run it?
Kickstarter is halfway there but I want to invest my expertise — not my money. Bookoven and Fictionaut could also grow into these shoes. They would need to change their focus slightly. I am not convinced that Bob Miller’s “Re-thinking the Publisher/Author Partnership” goes far enough. At the end of the day the writer needs to retain control of their own intellectual property. Signing up for life with Harper, regardless of royalty, makes me uneasy.
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Kickstarter was covered by cNet and the NewYork Times. Eoin Purcell blogged about it.
See also Nicola Griffth’s Ozymandias publishing co-op.
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