The cost of distributing books is plummeting. The relative value of editorial process is going up, but we haven't noticed yet.
Instead we are witnessing the literary equivalent of Gresham's Law. Gresham's Law is the recognition that whenever more than one type of currency is legal tender, (e.g. gold and silver) the more valuable one disappears from circulation.
Now a "book" is like currency in that it is a token of its valuable contents. Some are better than others, but people buy a book without fully evaluating the quality. Indeed that is the reader's job.
"Old publishing" may be dying but a side effect is that any old manuscript can now be published. The downside is that the "good" books will be harder to find in this democratized world. Eventually we will have to re-create the editorial process of old publishing on top of the new distribution channels. Then readers will associate some e-publishing brands with quality--even more so than today. But it hasn't happened yet.
Some of my startup ideas are based partly on the expectation that trusted curators will become more in demand in the future in any area where the Internet is disrupting like you described.
Makes sense. Obviously books are an area where search alone won't cut it. Knowing that a book exists and knowing you would like to read it are very different questions. How do you identify the boundary between search and trusted curators? How do you integrate trusted curators with collaborative filtering? How do you filter out books filled with rookie mistakes?
A similar issue is being worked out in news. Most people would still rather read the NY Times and WSj rather than wikinews. The reason: editorial input. Wikinews is a noble effort but has not got the magic formula for editorial control.
Comments
The cost of distributing books is plummeting. The relative value of editorial process is going up, but we haven't noticed yet.
Instead we are witnessing the literary equivalent of Gresham's Law. Gresham's Law is the recognition that whenever more than one type of currency is legal tender, (e.g. gold and silver) the more valuable one disappears from circulation.
Now a "book" is like currency in that it is a token of its valuable contents. Some are better than others, but people buy a book without fully evaluating the quality. Indeed that is the reader's job.
"Old publishing" may be dying but a side effect is that any old manuscript can now be published. The downside is that the "good" books will be harder to find in this democratized world. Eventually we will have to re-create the editorial process of old publishing on top of the new distribution channels. Then readers will associate some e-publishing brands with quality--even more so than today. But it hasn't happened yet.
Some of my startup ideas are based partly on the expectation that trusted curators will become more in demand in the future in any area where the Internet is disrupting like you described.
Makes sense. Obviously books are an area where search alone won't cut it. Knowing that a book exists and knowing you would like to read it are very different questions. How do you identify the boundary between search and trusted curators? How do you integrate trusted curators with collaborative filtering? How do you filter out books filled with rookie mistakes?
A similar issue is being worked out in news. Most people would still rather read the NY Times and WSj rather than wikinews. The reason: editorial input. Wikinews is a noble effort but has not got the magic formula for editorial control.
Gresham's law is usually stated as "Bad money drives out good".