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New Publishing will cause disintermediation and it’s interesting to see various companies that think this ‘cutting out the middleman’  presents the opportunity to insert themselves as the new middleman.

There’d be arguments that Amazon itself is doing the same. However, what Amazon is actually doing is reinventing publishing and inserting itself as the new platform.

Anyways, let’s instead focus on an aspect of New Publishing that Amazon has not fully targeted (and perhaps not even considered). Hopefully Amazon or someone else do develop a solution for this.

The Current Publishing Model has disproportionate rewards

In the current publishing model it’s not just the star authors that subsidize mediocre and poor authors. This subsidy exists everywhere.

In the current model of Publishing -

1. The exceptional subsidize the mediocre in every job function. 
2. Huge successes reward the middle-men and the publishers much more than they reward the contributors. 
3. Branding, reputation, good-will all translate primarily to the publisher and in some part to the author. 

Its basically a model where the top 5-10% of editors and copywriters and designers etc. never really get their due.

Now that the amount of risk in creating and selling books is being cut drastically, individual contributors will realize that they don’t have to sell their souls just to be able to do the work they love. People no longer have to let others take the credit for their hard-work and talent.

In New Publishing you will see the collaborative nature of publishing highlighted, and rewards shared more evenly.

Collaborative Publishing

A book’s success is a function of the author’s skill. It is also a function of

1. The ability of the Author’s Agent. 
2. The skills of the Editor, the Copy-writer, The Designer, and other players. 
3. The Publisher’s abilities.
4. The retailers and distributors.
5. The reviewers who talk about it.
6. The readers who give it a chance.

In New Publishing we will see stars and superstars emerge for each role, and instead of working under the banner of a publisher or for merely money, we’ll see the growth of profit sharing and branding in each role.

There’s a very tangible value to

1. Being the 2nd person ever who recommended Stephen King the author.
2. Being the editor for Michael Crichton’s first three books.
3. Designing covers for 5 New York Times Bestsellers in the last 6 months.

There’s even more value when you can duplicate this success consistently. Yet all of this is lost in today’s model. 

FastPencil, WeBook and Not creating a Platform.

These two websites are good ideas – However, in their execution they are simply trying to be the middlemen in the new publishing model.

I had started off writing this article as ‘websites that are creating the next great platform’. Instead they are disappointments.

1. Read this blog post by Victoria Strauss on WEbook.  
2. Take a look at this FastPencil FAQ.

These aren’t companies that get the new model – they’re just trying to use the scale of the Internet to benefit themselves, as opposed to benefiting authors and others who create and consume books.

We need a Collaborative Publishing Platform

We need a Work (as opposed to social) Network that lets authors, editors, readers, and others come together and combine to identify and create great books.

Just as you have top reviewers at Amazon, you ought to have top copywriters, top editors, top designers, top feedback people, top early adopters.

Basically create an environment where -

1. People can come together and create great books.
2. The best people get the kudos and develop their brands.
3. Readers get to try out new books, and the best early adopters/talent screeners get recognition.
4. The platform is not taking more than 10%. 
5. The platform is not trying to grab book rights.  
6. Its not hiding editors and copywriters behind walls of ‘author services for $5 an hour’. 
7. There’s no bait and switch.

If we can have Cragislist and eBay and other platforms that allow people to collaborate, why not one that allows for Collaborative Publishing?

Filed under: publishing Tagged: | future of publishing, new publishing