Comments on: The future of the book/publishing: A social network based on a book ?

By: Bob Geller

Bob Geller — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 13:41:52 +0000

Hi, Ajit
Great post – your overview helped me better understand book publishing, and future directions
I blogged about some related issues recently (see http://www.flacksrevenge.com/2008/06/the-king-is-i-a.html)
As some other commenters noted, there is other validation for these views – my post references a recent NY Times column by Paul Krugman, Bits, Bands and Books – in he has an interesting view which is not at odds with yours.

By: Graham Hill

Graham Hill — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:12:48 +0000

Ajit, You are in good company. Seth Godin, one of the most successful business book writers has a great post on his blog about exactly this topic. It is only his most recent post in a number about the future of publishing. http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/06/what-dave-just.html You can download not only Dave Balter's new full-length eBook 'Word of Mouth Marketing Manual Volume II' courtesy of Seth, but also Seth's brilliant 'Unleashing the IdeaVirus' full-length eBook too. Ideavirus is the No1 most downloaded eBook in history. I have shared it with literally thousands of people through internal networks at PricewaterhouseCoopers and more recently, through CustomerThink. Another person worth looking at is John Todor who has just published an eBook called 'Get With it' plus 12 on-line seminars, to help execs get to grips with what Web2.0 means for their businesses. The eBook sells for USD39, the eBook plus seminars for USD259! John is an established blogger with a strong reputation and client base in the CRM space. http://contextrules.typepad.com/transformer/2008/06/three-ways-web.html Another person with different tack is Yale Law Professor Yoichi Benkler whose book 'The Wealth of Networks' was first partly pre-published as a long (90 pages) article in the Yale Law Journal, then as a full length book, and is now available for free as a full-length eBook and with additional information at the Wealth of Networks wiki. http://www.benkler.org/wealth_of_networks/index.php?title=Main_Page I think you are so right about the book needing to be worth reading. From the approx. 1,000 business books in my collection, putting textbooks (like your's and Tomi's) to one-side, only 25% were really worth the money and would be replaced today if they were lost or destroyed. And most of them suffer from the 10:25:65 problem; 10% of the book is the real content, 25% is further explanation and as much as 65% is just repetitive padding added to reach publishers minimum page requirements. There are clearly many ways to tackle the publishing problem. And only some of them feature a physical book. Graham Hill PS. Vladimir, I looked at the We Are Smarter Than Me project when it started and at the book that was subsequently published. Sadly, for me the book fell into the category of not having any new content worth buying. There are far better books on co-creation or social production out there already. Maybe something about camels being race-horses designed by committees. Just an observation. Ajit This un-book thing is catching the on-line wind at the moment. Jackie Huba also blogged about Dave Balter's book and his un-book plans over at the Church of the Customer blog. http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/2008/06/how-the-book-pu.html Apparently Balter has set out his ideas on the Harvard Business Publishing blog. http://conversationstarter.hbsp.com/2008/06/an-open-letter-to-the-book-pub.html Graham Hill

By: Vladimir Dimitroff

Vladimir Dimitroff — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 22:07:11 +0000

I am a (somewhat loose) member of a well established social network based on a book. It has very diverse activities (both off- and online) and a huge membership. It is larger than Facebook, perhaps it’s safe to say it is larger than Facebook plus Myspace and all others together. And it was there before them – before the ’2.0′ hype, before the 1.0 dot-com bubble and quite a bit earlier.
The book was co-written by multiple authors in a Wiki fashion (they just didn’t call it wiki) some authors are known, some remain anonymous – but they are all said to have been inspired.
The book is reportedly the best-selling book of all times and is called the Bible.
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On a serious note (but there is some FFT* in the above):
1. Great article, Ajit – lots of industry insight and valuable tips for authors, publishers and readers alike. Thoughts begging to be taken further to a yet-to-emerge innovative model.
2. It may be worth considering 2 aspects of the relationship book social network: (a) Thought-leading book by an author generates a community of followers, who interact on the subject of their shared interest (whatever the book is about). Although various precedents exist, the model can be perfected as a new medium for spreading virally the ideas in the book, which must be ground-breaking to be worth it. (b) A community co-writes a book about their shared interest; in the spirit of your article, the book isn’t a finished hard-copy object, but an evolving, ‘live’ digital entity. The community is the book, and the book is the community.
3. Needless to say, any model should involve a substantial degree of co-creation. The term wikinomics (after Don Tapscott’s book) is becoming rather established and may hod the key to (some of) the publishing industry’s challenges.
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Sometime ago I got involved in a project around similar ideas and am a proud (if almost anonymous) co-author of ‘We Are Smarter Than Me’ published by Wharton (Pearson), and of the respective online community at wearesmarter.org . The book was a spectacular achievement, considering the number of people co-writing it, the ego clashes, the wildly varying intellectual potential and even more varying perspectives of everyone. It is a success in both meaningful content, and as learning in the process of the co-creation experiment.
The Forum Oxford compilations may be a step towards our own, but I would be keen to see a ‘proper’ collective book emerge here, with a strong theme and coherent structure.
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Just my 2p of random thoughts -
V.
* FFT = food for thought