Some time ago, wandering the Internet, I came across the site of a young writer, interesting. The author hired a furious battle with publishers to pay even drawing up a blacklist, with name and surname.
I appreciate the authors who refuse to pay an editor to get published, so I thought of writing. In the email extol the virtues of auto-publishing. Instead of delegating the task to a publisher to ferry us to the public, I said we would do well to authors and writers to become publishers of ourselves, each creating its own small publishing house. We must seize, so to speak, the means of production, self-managed.
The reply was a cold shower. A publishing house is a waste of time, lapidary replied the girl. She argued that we must do as her, who has published on a website, Lulu.com, no publisher.
What is Lulu? Behind the nickname of nymphet is a man, Bob Young. Canadian, was co-founder of Red Hat, a leading open-source software. Lulu is his child, a privately held company founded in America in 2002.
The site was launched in Italy in October 2006. Unlike others, only the tip on the auto-publishing on the web. An accomplished entrepreneur, Young has seen the possibilities of a global deal with this principle: "For us, success is not made from 100 books that sold 100 000 copies, but 100 000 books that sell 100 copies each."
The hundred thousand titles printed in one hundred copies each, correspond to a hundred authors, each with a hundred copies of his self-published book on Lulu.
So is one of many sites, the most aggressive, multiply that a few years the web by offering various publishing services to authors, first of all the self-publishing, or self-publishing.
There is a correlation between these sites on the universal understanding of the self-publishing: it is a way to publish and distribute their books made by the author, without the intermediation of the publisher. The absence of a filter between the author and the audience is presented as an achievement of technological progress, a real alternative to traditional publishing.
For the rest, the competition is very strong and mainly concerns the range of services offered. Graphic design is the common denominator. But we also offer editing, proofreading, personalized sites, Internet advertising, event promotion, media relations, online sales and so on. In essence, all activities related to the editorial work are taken away from traditional publishing, fragmented and made available to authors in different combinations, with a schedule of such charges.
The stars of this "publishing service" agencies are publishing services. Do not occur with the face editor (in fact, their name will not be on the cover), because the authors do not choose, publish anything. They have the ambition to leave a memory trace of itself, does not care to emulate a Feltrinelli, a Laterza or Einaudi. Nevertheless, public agencies, such as publishing houses. Specifically, authors who publish through the self-published. The pun of words depends on the facts, ambiguous. In the lexicon of these agencies, the words "publish" and "edit" change of meaning. Traditionally, publishing and editing are synonymous: a book is considered published when it comes from a publishing house, which gained, recognizes the qualities deserve to be offered to the public. This however is no longer true with agencies.
What do the agencies do?
The agencies work only with the web. The site is the focus of this publishing, set up to mimic that of a publishing house, with several necklaces, suggestions for reading, editorial boards, events, news, forums. Inevitable community, virtual meeting place for affiliates to the site to exchange opinions.
In case you are interested in buying a book, appears as a small cart to fill in the real publishers. The site contains, therefore, virtually an audience of readers and a market, or so he suggests. The staging is perfect.
This "publishing service" has received an extraordinary momentum of technological development in recent years, there's no doubt about this. Digital printing is ideal for a clientele of authors who are content with a few dozen copies and is not able to spend mind-boggling. In addition, the ability to print on demand, ie only the requested copies, free from any risk of yield.
But it is especially the advent of the web and e-book to mark the turning point. As is known, an unlimited amount of information is accessible to a vast number of Web users. And every Internet user can disclose its contents to a vast audience of readers.
The electronic book, which appeared after 2000, did the rest. It gives the content in digital format as similar to that of a book in print, but has the advantage that it does not need to be printed, the e-book is immaterial.
The potential synergy between the web, print on demand and electronic books were soon picked up by agencies of editorial services that emphasize quality "democratic" and "free" web, as opposed to the rigidity of traditional monolithic. They dazzle the authors, intolerant toward traditional publishing, emphasizing the horizontal and the circularity inherent in the communication web. The absence of a hierarchical structure passes for freedom. The immediacy of the relationship between author and audience, allowed by the Web, is used to make people believe that a book on the Internet really is equivalent to a book published. Through these agencies came out, unfortunately, the image of a publishing seems libertarian and liberating, wrapped in the feeling of technological progress. Opposed as "secular", non-ideological, the dinosaurs of traditional publishing. Massacres of hearts among young people fighting alongside them against the common enemy, the publisher. Ride the battles against the copyright. Recirculate slogan of the counterculture.
Agencies gladly leave the driving to the authors of publishers because, then, publishers have no account.
The division of labor within them is nearer to web technology, which are also generated, and is very different from traditional publishing. The latter, linked to the print paper, has its center of gravity in industrial production, where the book is a material product. Printing, storage, transportation, location of books in stores, are essential aspects of traditional, and entirely lacking in the agencies, flying on the wings reading software. With graphics software you get the ebook other software used to manage the promotion, sale online, print on demand at any terminal.
Because of these characteristics publishing service is located in the tertiary sector. The agencies are publishing the variant outsourced publishing fee for customers on the same point, that the authors wish to publish. But, unlike that do not need to hide the purchase, because they are not publishers.
The assault to the diligence
The commercial success publishing service causes an effect on publishing traditional-trailer, which fears being passed over, and emulates the strategies (1). Just a few years ago a book written by Sara Lloyd, head of the British publisher Pan Macmillan. It's called "Manifesto of the publisher of the twenty-first century." It is addressed to the publishers to urge them to re-engineer its function in the light of the changes that are shaking the publishing industry. Pragmatics, in operation, the author explains how to retain power in the storm publishing technology. I will mention a few steps.
The advent of the Web and digital, says Sara Lloyd, undermines the role of the publisher as a "referee, filter, custodian, trader and distributor" of content, as breaking the linearity of the process (by the author to point of sale) replacing with the circularity of its network; impossible to think of the book as a finished product (a "well-defined object within a cover") and requires rather as a place of permanent transformation brought about by media players-consumers, dismantles the read as a continuum, replacing it with the search, ie search. But above all, generates a new type of consumer, prosumer.
The term prosumer, coined in 1980 by Alvin Toffler mixing English words producer and consumer, identifies the tendency of consumers to become producers, called this a production system that, having already met the basic needs with standard products, is now looking to sell more and more personalized services.
Around the prosumer unfolds the strategy advocated by Sarah Lloyd. The prosumer not be satisfied just being the reader, want to interact. "If there's one thing in the world of Web 2.0 that has shocked more than any other traditional media companies, is the desire of consumers to produce their own content and share media, rather than (or in addition to) remain passive consumers governed by the corporate media (...), all attest to the strong desire on the part of individuals to express themselves and their creativity and share their products with the world via the web. "
In this world where "readers are also writers and opinion makers who operate on-line within a network and through them" becomes crucial connection control. Publishers will need to gain a strategic position to control and manage the connections between the book and user, between book and book, between the user and consumer. "Publishers," says Sara Lloyd "if they still have a role, must be placed in the middle of these digital conversations, guiding the development" must "take steps in the digital places where readers can discuss and interact with their own content"; in other words, they must immerse themselves in the web communication to dominate (2).
The community, social networks are the cornerstone of this domain. The self-published authors are eager the ideal prosumers .
The web of Lulu
It's worth while to enter the site Lulu to experiment on your skin condition prosumers. With Lulu fact the author can enjoy the thrill of the "do-it-yourself". Guided by the software, he designed his book in an ongoing dialogue with the site. It is a pervasive model of the relationship between the author and the publisher-that-doesn't-exist.
On our home page you will be assaulted by the messages addressed to the authors frustrated by the fruitless search for a publisher to publish them: "Make out your talent. You no longer have to jump through hoops to find a publisher! Lulu eliminates traditional barriers to publication. Take advantage of the global market Lulu. "
On the same page there is a button labeled "Start your book", beautiful and very fingertips. Clicking it once you are designing the book, including title. I wrote the first title that came to mind, Bizarre Hell, and went forward. Option after option, I selected the cover (soft or hard), binding, paper, size, and so on until ready to load the file with the text. I added a file with one word and I gave the okay. It is the message "Congratulations! you are now a published author. "
Catapulted into the do now, it is easy to neglect to seek the information necessary to understand what you are doing. This information is contained in the links. In contrast with the laconic language of design, the explanations in the links are far too long. But not necessarily contain the information you seek. So the link titled "Additional information on ISBN numbers and distribution," says the most important thing and that is that the ISBN identifies the publisher and therefore, if one accepts the code of Lulu, Lulu appears to be the publisher, not the 'author. Instead, he says that to sell the book "published" must buy "distribution package".
In another link, we learn that the "package" is used to enter the book "published" in the database of Lulu, so it becomes "available" for online libraries that request it. But libraries are not obliged to ask why Lulu has a distribution agreement with them (we are informed of this in another link). At this point the question arises whether "published" means a "printed" in the language of Lulu. Indeed. Leaping through the links it is established that the book "published" is printed if anyone needs it. On demand means precisely this: if no one question the book "published" fetal remains in the state of design. A larva, a ghost. Unless the author is not buying it, himself, a certain number of copies.
In summary: the author must pay to print his book "published" and this only after paying the "package" to sell.
Finally (but this list would be long), the author can not put his book on the Internet, downloadable for free, can only sell it. Lulu fact is entitled to 20% of the profit on each book sold and will not give up, that's why the cover price is automatically determined during the design and can not be changed. The author can not even sell at a discount, without the consent of Lulu. In fact, the purchase of the package amounts to a contract. But this is not clear if you stop the slogan: "Sell your book and you keep 80% of the proceeds."
You sweat shirts for four piece the puzzle (3). While in a speech, done from top to bottom, inconsistencies and omissions will strike you with links there is no danger of that happening because they are fragmented, lacking a common line of reasoning even though technically they are connected. We wander through the links without being able to establish a hierarchy of information, an order of importance. Lulu wants to silence the information that are placed in the last link, which you get exhausted, and where it says "Sorry, the page is under construction."
Why editing themselves?
I know more than someone who has "published" or with Lulu publishing agencies. These writers believe they are because they have decided auto-editors them (not the publisher) on the cover, paper, binding, and so on. Because they made the layout yourself.
They think that publishing in this way is convenient. If a publisher had paid, say, would have spent more. Eventually they got their book and they are happy.
I do not care to find a way to save money. I want to be able to decide every aspect of the editorial process. I have a will to self-determination. So I do publishing, in addition to writing my books. I did not pass the editors: I am the editor.
But above all, the editor does not identify itself the source of the evils that afflict the authors, but I'm looking for in the relationship between freedom and power: who has dominion over the communications have the power to exclude the authors.
This view allows me to recognize a threatening power for my freedom even where the publisher is not there.
With sites like Lulu my freedom is very low. Decisions are taken by the count-Lulu. The very fact that everything revolves around the sale of the book (the book is published only if requested), hangs my book to a market logic that I disagree. It is obvious that if I publish with Lulu, his logic becomes mine.
Similarly, attending a community created by an agency so that hampers my freedom in their own community because the web of horizontal communication intersects with the vertical control exercised by the agency on notice.
Equally suspicious of the publisher of the future envisioned by Sara Lloyd, who "interacts" with prosumers penetrating to their needs and who speaks their language, which blends in an aggregate "elective affinities" and "friendship" formed by the publisher .
The need to edit themselves stems from the fact, obvious, that subjective freedom of expression, the author specifies, is connected with the power to someone else to prevent it or condition it. This freedom "auteur" is much larger, the smaller is the conditioning that suffers. Clear the air conditioning is the goal of the author who appropriates the tools of publishing (4).
The heart is therefore the feeling of freedom in his breathing political, not limited to only need "authorial" to express themselves; libertarian because it is specifically identified in antagonism between freedom and power, its vital core. Why do we want as a model (or rather, pursues an ideal) that contains in itself the antidote against the risk that is regenerated, inside, a new form of power.
If this is not the auto-publishing not worth it. Any other solution is better.
anno
41 n. 364
Claudia Vio