Gatekeepers

For those who fret over the perilous state of publishing in the 21st century, Lev Grossman's article in the January 21st issue of Time is a solid summary of all we need to know as we stand at the crossroad where the Old World of Tangible meets the New World of Virtual. Read Books Unbound and find your own place at the intersection.

To exemplify the paradigm shift Grossman cites a number of self-published novels - notably Still Alice by Lisa Genova and Daemon by Daniel Suarez - that became wild successes. He suggests that this proves that the conventional book industry has been cut out of the loop and that the public is "rising up to claim its right to act as a tastemaker." The so-called "gatekeepers" of the traditional publishing game - editors, bookstore buyers, reviewers and critics, literary agents - are given short shrift in their role of tastemakers and kingmakers:

In theory, publishers are gatekeepers: they filter literature so that only the best writing gets into print. But Genova and Barry and Suarez got filtered out, initially, which suggests that there are cultural sectors that conventional publishing isn't serving.

Has the elite gatekeeper role truly passed from publisher to the man and woman in the street? About a year ago I asked, Do Amazon Reviews Count? Noting the success of Zagat restaurant guides, which rely on the ratings of just plain folks like you and me, I wondered if a similar phenomenon could occur in rating books. "We live in an age when peer review is meaningful if not significant, and Amazon.com has used this fact to create a cadre of reviewers who must be taken seriously," I wrote, noting that although I hadn't seen too many traditional books with Amazon.com quotes emblazoned on the cover, I wouldn't be surprised if that changed before long.

Well, a year later I still haven't seen one. What I continue to see however are blurbs by those familiar gatekeepers known as household name bestselling authors. Clicking on Genova's Still Alice page on Amazon.com, I was greeted by raves from Brunonia Barry, a New York Times bestselling author; Beverly Beckham of The Boston Globe; Phil Bolsta, author of Sixty Seconds; Julia Fox Garrison, author of Don't Leave Me This Way; and Charley Schneider, author of Don't Bury Me, It Ain't Over Yet. Similarly, Suarez's Amazon.com reviews were keynoted by a rave by the flagship of book industry gatekeepers, Publishers Weekly, followed by plugs from: William O’Brien, Director of Cybersecurity and Communications Policy, The White House; Craig Newmark, Founder Craigslist; John Robb, futurist & Author of Brave New War; Stewart Brand, Founder Whole Earth Catalog & co-founder of the Long Now Foundation; etc. etc. Not a Just Plain Folk Like You And Me in the lot. To learn what the man and woman in the street think about these books you have to click on all editorial reviews. In short, when it comes to promoting books, brand name celebrities are firmly in control of the gates and the hoi polloi remain outside.

Of far greater significance is that while Genova and Suarez were carried into the stratosphere on the wings of viral popularity, it took traditional publishers paying big bucks, printing tons and tons of tangible books, and distributing all those copies through brick and mortar bookstores to monetize their success. Nor must we forget that the fame of their books was measured by yet another traditional gatekeeping institution - bestseller lists.

Of course, some authors may be satisfied with egoboo in lieu of cash. Grossman says,

And speaking of advances, books are also leaving behind another kind of paper: money. Those cell-phone novels are generally written by amateurs and posted on free community websites, by the hundreds of thousands, with no expectation of payment. For the first time in modern history, novels are becoming detached from dollars. They're circulating outside the economy that spawned them.

That is most assuredly not music to the ears of this gatekeeper, who holds with the immortal words of that dean of gatekeepers, Samuel Johnson: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

Perhaps the best way to characterize the state of the publishing industry is that it is a complex ecosystem where exciting new species are identified by the proletarian processes of the Internet, but their commercial potential can only be realized by the traditional book industry. In time the former may eclipse the latter, but at this moment in time the two cannot really live without each other.

Richard Curtis