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twenty-first century publishing
This post is bouncing off the Jamie Low webcast, thank you to the O'Reilly team for setting that up. Also by the recent discussion started by Richard Herley about a dedicated book review site. Now I don't entirely agree with setting up another review site. We already have Amazon, Shelfari, etc and to me repeating this process is akin to reinventing the wheel when we already have enough of them. And, really, you can't get everybody together on the same side.
Then there are the commenters who suggest we need a place where all books, ebooks, pbooks and PODbooks get reviewed, and that a couple of them are already involved in such a project. To me the result will be more of the same. Multiple sites, none of them able to achieve what they ideally set out to do because time and resources will run out before they can find a way to make a profit. Amazon wins okay, Jamie Low is right. Their model means people have a reason to become an affiliate, to write a review, to make reading lists — why? because it obeys the rules of self-interest which is the only rule that lasts.
Now, onto the real discussion. If we could all refer back to a Kate Eltham post about publishers being brands...
I think the long tail of the internet makes branding more and more important than ever. But not just for publishers, for authors, editors, designers, contributors and reviewers. The internet never forgets... unless someone actively deletes their content but few people ever do this.
This is something I've been thinking about for a while and this is the place to share it to test whether I'm crazy or not. My partner and I speculate that books will take on similar aspects to films. Not everyone chooses a film because of who directs it or who the screenwriter was, but some of us do, and now with databases like IMDB we can easily find lists of films containing the actors we like, or directors and discover more things we might like to watch.
I think books can be the same. Currently I don't get to know who edits each book, or acquires the rights, but if I did I might start to follow their work. Authors need not be the only brands. Publishers can establish a brand identity the way imprints used to. Most will have to start over as they've diluted any meaning they ever had.
Now to tie back up with the review sites, and the desire to have every book ever be reviewed, the reason people want this is because they're writing books and nobody is hearing about them. Getting something reviewed is nigh on impossible for the little guys, but to get the ball rolling just imagine that every author has a blog, every editor has a blog, every producer has a blog etc, so when they are working on a project they tell the public about it. Links are created, discussion is begun. Add to this a circle of blogging beta-readers (pre-reviewers if you will) and by the time the book is released into the wild there is four or five independent sources of information about the book, all hopefully tied to an author hub site. Remember aswell what Jamie said, external links are important, so lots of different blogs interlinking is better than one site with internal links.
Its a small start but better than nothing. And the game changer for the industry is that the sales window for ebooks and POD books is limitless, so you can play a long-strategy game rather than the current one of timing your efforts for impact in a 90-day opening while the books are on shelves.
Okay, did you think this blog would end? Not yet, I've got a bit more and I feel like typing it up so I can refer to it later. Besides, this is a small group and the only one who is probably still reading is Mac. Hi Mac.
Lastly, like films, there are big studios and independents. This is unlikely to change and there's no reason it should, each can coexist making the kind of product they make. But in the book world, where we have the big houses and the self-publishers there is a difference that can't be ignored, ie its really hard to get attention. And my suggestion to end this mammoth entry is that the independent book world needs the same solution the film world came up with: Sundance.
We need festivals just for the independent books, self-publishers and micro-publishers. And I think this is something that is possible and could be fun and exciting. The entities perfectly placed to start such a thing would be universities and writing societies. Any takers to start one up?
Then there are the commenters who suggest we need a place where all books, ebooks, pbooks and PODbooks get reviewed, and that a couple of them are already involved in such a project. To me the result will be more of the same. Multiple sites, none of them able to achieve what they ideally set out to do because time and resources will run out before they can find a way to make a profit. Amazon wins okay, Jamie Low is right. Their model means people have a reason to become an affiliate, to write a review, to make reading lists — why? because it obeys the rules of self-interest which is the only rule that lasts.
Now, onto the real discussion. If we could all refer back to a Kate Eltham post about publishers being brands...
I think the long tail of the internet makes branding more and more important than ever. But not just for publishers, for authors, editors, designers, contributors and reviewers. The internet never forgets... unless someone actively deletes their content but few people ever do this.
This is something I've been thinking about for a while and this is the place to share it to test whether I'm crazy or not. My partner and I speculate that books will take on similar aspects to films. Not everyone chooses a film because of who directs it or who the screenwriter was, but some of us do, and now with databases like IMDB we can easily find lists of films containing the actors we like, or directors and discover more things we might like to watch.
I think books can be the same. Currently I don't get to know who edits each book, or acquires the rights, but if I did I might start to follow their work. Authors need not be the only brands. Publishers can establish a brand identity the way imprints used to. Most will have to start over as they've diluted any meaning they ever had.
Now to tie back up with the review sites, and the desire to have every book ever be reviewed, the reason people want this is because they're writing books and nobody is hearing about them. Getting something reviewed is nigh on impossible for the little guys, but to get the ball rolling just imagine that every author has a blog, every editor has a blog, every producer has a blog etc, so when they are working on a project they tell the public about it. Links are created, discussion is begun. Add to this a circle of blogging beta-readers (pre-reviewers if you will) and by the time the book is released into the wild there is four or five independent sources of information about the book, all hopefully tied to an author hub site. Remember aswell what Jamie said, external links are important, so lots of different blogs interlinking is better than one site with internal links.
Its a small start but better than nothing. And the game changer for the industry is that the sales window for ebooks and POD books is limitless, so you can play a long-strategy game rather than the current one of timing your efforts for impact in a 90-day opening while the books are on shelves.
Okay, did you think this blog would end? Not yet, I've got a bit more and I feel like typing it up so I can refer to it later. Besides, this is a small group and the only one who is probably still reading is Mac. Hi Mac.
Lastly, like films, there are big studios and independents. This is unlikely to change and there's no reason it should, each can coexist making the kind of product they make. But in the book world, where we have the big houses and the self-publishers there is a difference that can't be ignored, ie its really hard to get attention. And my suggestion to end this mammoth entry is that the independent book world needs the same solution the film world came up with: Sundance.
We need festivals just for the independent books, self-publishers and micro-publishers. And I think this is something that is possible and could be fun and exciting. The entities perfectly placed to start such a thing would be universities and writing societies. Any takers to start one up?
Comment
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Comment by Internet Book Database on July 6, 2009 at 1:03pm - We exist. And we are open to suggestions :)
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Comment by Rich Rennicks on November 4, 2008 at 12:03am -
On the subject of publishers/editors as brands, Tor books have made this info available for those who care to find our who edited something for years. They have a line on the copyright page of many books (but not on all for some reason) that identifies the editor. I've found it interesting in the past to see which editors' work I gravitate towards, but it's not something I'd place a great deal of value on. And going by the number of customers who come in looking for "something by the guy who wrote...", if people can't remember the name of the authors who wrote books they read and liked, why would they remember or focus on the editor of those books?
Regarding the ibdb: As a bookseller, the idea of a imdb for books makes me think, 'but isn't Amazon more or less that already?' I look at Amazon as a defacto database of everything in print. Yes, they're missing a bunch of self-published books, and they can capriciously change the availability status of a title if they wish to, but in terms of finding out if a book is available quickly, I use Amazon as primary reference.
Less user-friendly, but pretty exhaustive, is Bowker's books in print, another tool I use daily.
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Comment by Victor Curran on October 30, 2008 at 1:20pm -
There's a community of people who collect books based on who designed, illustrated, printed, or bound them. Antiquarian booksellers collect this metadata, but there's a model for collecting it for new books. When publishers submit their books to a juried show, such as the New England Book Show, they supply this information, which Bookbuilders of Boston publishes in a catalog of the winners. The New England Book Show uses an online entry form, which could easliy be adapted to an IMDB-style resource.
The book show entry form includes all the stuff that book geeks love: what fonts were used, what kind of paper, etc. Capturing that metadata is extra work, but an IMDB-like option to buy the book will give the publishers an incentive to do it.
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Comment by Jamie on October 28, 2008 at 11:01am - I think a book IMDB-type of database would be an awesome idea, benefitting authors, publishers, and importantly, readers. The key to publisher participation would be how easy it is to transmit the information. I'm up for working on the project!
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Comment by David Henley on October 27, 2008 at 1:27pm -
I've seen evidence of publishers developing their own sites but not much grasp of how beneficial it might be to actively share basic information. That being said, as Andrew commented on the other strand of this discussion, if the developers could input the ONIX data that information is readily available.
Not being a coder I have no idea how hard that might be.
Open library looks a little behind Library Thing and Shelfari, who all seem to have the same objective. I guess its too much to ask for there just to be one place. How many times do I have to fill up my shelf? I did this once with Shelfari and then never went to the site again...
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Comment by Andrew Savikas on October 27, 2008 at 12:58pm - Open Library seems like a start toward this, perhaps that's a useful place to direct some developer attention from the publisher side.
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Comment by David Henley on October 26, 2008 at 5:16pm
- Amazon owns IMDB? I missed that one. That's why all the links to purchasable things appeared.
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Comment by Mac Slocum on October 26, 2008 at 4:47pm -
Hi David ;)
Very cool post. I hadn't considered the parallels between the book industry and the film world, but an "IMDb for Books" would be *very* interesting -- especially since Amazon owns the IMDB.
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