What is the Publisher's and Agent's Project?

[Aaron Stanton]

At the time I'm writing this, it is about 20 hours before this project is supposed to go live - I know, because I can see the counter on the top of CanGoogleHearMe.com on the other monitor.

What that means is that most likely I won't have the video introducing the Publisher's Project done and on the front page of BookLamp.org by the time this forum goes live - which means you've arrived wondering what the Publisher's Project is.

Since I intend to have the video and the Publisher's Project FAQ - which will do a better job of explaining it than I will here - up within a few days of launch, I won't go into detail yet.  Once it's up, I'll come back and replace this post with additional information and links.

In the mean time, let me leave it at this - the Publisher's Project is a system that allows unpublished writers to upload their manuscripts to BookLamp for analysis and comparison to books that have already been published.  It then cross-references that analysis with published books within genre, and matches the writer's unpublished manuscript with the back-catalog of publisher's and agents.  In other words, it tells you which publishers and agents have a history of publishing books similar to your own. 

It also then lets a publisher or agent choose to set up a Publisher's Alert, which is basically an e-mail that notifies them whenever a book matching their genre and writing style specifications is uploaded to the system by an author.

Ideally, this information will help change how the publishing industry finds new authors - the current system hasn't changed for nearly 89 years, and depends on the author near-randomly choosing publishers out of publications such as Writer's Market to send their works to.

If I've ever referred to "the idea" in an interview (I think I have once or twice) as having the potential to be a disruptive technology, or to change industries... this is the aspect I was referring to.

In this one aspect, at least -  if I possibly can - I intend to change how the publishing industry works.  Why?  Because I'm an author, and I have been since I was 16, and the current system kills off talent that's good at writing, but bad at marketing.  And that shouldn't be.

I'm making that my new year's resolution... a few months late... 

[Marri Champie]

I am a writer.  I write Science Fiction and Fantasy.  I have had a novel sitting at a publisher--lanquishing at the publisher since June of 06.  It's very frustrating.  I think this is a fabulous idea and IF--and that's a big big IF--the publishers would come on board, and the agents, it would be great for the writers.  But getting such an old, slowmoving establishment to change, to even accept the idea of change might be challenging.  I have had a terrible time finding an agent, so I could really see the advantage of this there.
   

[Aaron Stanton]

Writer's Market is currently in something like the 89th edition, which means this approach is well established.  Getting movement will be difficult, but...

... but, the catch, of course, is in whether or not it works.  A writer can use the system to get a good idea of where to submit his or her manuscript without a publisher or agent's knowledge.  As long as we make sure that we only return agents and publishers that are actively accepting submissions (something Writer's Market already does), there's no reason BookLamp can't be useful to a writer independently of the publishing industry.

If writers have success (more success than alternatives) at submitting books to the publishers that are recommended, the system will be adopted by the industry without anyone really noticing it; the quality of book submissions will simply improve as a result, for unknown reasons as far as the publisher or agent are concerned.

Where it really turns gold, though, is if the publishers find the system useful too.  Then, it serves to drastically reduce the turn around times of the whole publishing system, and gives writers, agents, and publishers tools to interact with a manageable way.

But yes, as a writer myself, I know how difficult this area of the industry can be. 

Aaron
Founder

[Andy]

Just wondering Aaron, did you come up with this idea originally. I mean when you first started writing you were looking at the way publishing worked and decided to look into making a better system!

I think publishers would do this as it would make them more money, they would be able to see who are really going to be their best writers and give them a chance!

[Bryon Sabol]

Not to be pessimistic, but as a writer I dislike the idea.  There are a lot of elements that go into good writing that cannot be measured by the criteria that your video shows being used at the current time.  For example, there are more to point-of-views than first person and third person.  How are the other points of view/perspectives handled: second person, first person plural, third person complete objectivity, third person limited objectivity, third person limited omniscience, third person complete omniscience?  Voice, tone, style, setting, images, symbols, diction, and a lot of other techniques play a huge role in good writing and to sum them up as density seems extremely naive to me.  Also, your system doesn't (and probably can't) measure the quality of character development, plot, and story.  These issues would stand in the way of any publishers from using the system.  Plus, I dread the day books are selected by a Da Vinci Code cookie-cutter criteria.

As a reader using this system, would you really want to see the graph of the storyline and know what's going to happen next based on books you've read in the past and like.  There are already issues in predictability in books, especially in genre fiction.  Why would a reader want a visual presentation of  a huge peak in action before they read it?

Now from a pedagogical stand point, I think you might have a market.  A beginning writer could upload their stories and see how they measure in terms of dialogue, action, description, and density.  They can see how they compare with published writers and learn from their balance.  I can see teachers using it to point out visually to a student his/her lack of action, dialogue, description, etc.

Sorry to be pessimistic, but I don't see publishers and agents adopting this system because it doesn't really measure quality, i.e., one of the greatest books of the 20th Century, 1984, matches almost perfectly with the USA Patriot Act.  That's a huge problem.
 

[Therin]

Aaron, I think you're going to have to remove that little easter egg.     It's causing a few problems...

Then again... having googled your idea you'll find that just about every social site that talks about booklamp also mentions it.  So maybe not   

[Willyiam]

I agree with Bryon Sabol, although I’m not a writer.  I’m an enthusiastic reader, and I regularly purchase books online.  I’ve never paid attention to socially driven recommendations on retailers’ web sites, and I can’t imagine having an interest in BookLamp’s recommendations.  The technology may serve another purpose, but the idea of seeking venture capital in the hopes of selling the concept to online retailers seems farfetched.

[Andy]

I think a few good points have been made there, but I think he's only seen the bad ones, some people will want to see the graphs cause its nice to know that it will get interesting.
It also seems a bit weird that one sec Bryon was saying that it will spoil the book and the story, but then saying that the system dosn't follow the plot line or the character development.
I think that you dont have to worry about every little part of the book to recommend it, just so long as you can find a book you will enjoy reading that might be similar to another book.
The same with a publisher, you would be able to see how it compares to other books, plus from a marketing point of view if it does get a good rating against Dean Koontz or Stephen king, or even Tolkein, people would go out and try that author!

[steve goodwin]

Aaron, you are dealing with forces mere mortal cannot understand. What you seek is talked of only in whispers behind lead doors. You seek... The Magic Slush Pile, every editor's favourite forbidden fantasy.

The Agent's Project greatest application could be not so much identifying good books, but identifying bad books. That pile of 800 "My First Novels" over there? Mostly rubbish. Imagine reducing that to n books quickly? Sure you may miss a few good ones anyway, but that's happening at the moment. How long do you think editors really spend reading some books, anyway?

An interesting problem surfaced recently in the world of plagiarism-detection software was at a university students who were gaming software by submitting their plagiarised essays multiple times until they passed the test. The Agent Project needs to consider whether it should be open to use by authors as authors will, naturally, game the system if they can [edit: making the entire system pointless]. And this, in turn, will fuel further speculation whether concepts like BookLamp improve literary quality or not.

Extending BookLamp's current set of measurements is an obvious future direction. It's not too hard to imagine extra dimensions such as "misspelt words" or "adjective abuse" or "hackneyed phrases" or "stiltedness" or "Reading Level", and given this is the internet and you're probably after the big bucks, the inevitable "eroticness". Couple that with a more customisable recommendation / matching engine and then it gets far more interesting to the industry ("Hmmmm... that Robert Jordan's selling well, who else writes like him.")

Tangent: fanfic. 99% dreadful. Imagine being responsible for rating most fan fiction out of existence -- that would put Booklamp on the same page as Gutenberg (in an ideal world this would include published fanfic novels such as star wars, star trek, forgotten realms, dragonlance and those "Famous Author presents" novels).

BookLamp is an interesting concept. How good the current implementation of that concept is cannot be determined by the currently visible public database, it's several orders of magnitude too small for any valid analysis.

Finally, the animated marquee button in your forum software? Just don't.

[Daniel Bowen]

Steve, I don't have an answer for your entire post, but I have previously thought about the "gaming" concern.  The way I understand the system, editing a text in such a way to "game" the search process would be quite difficult, and however one might think it possible, it seems like it would not be worth the time.

Now, editing your own manuscript based on the metrics BookLamp can provide is a different story.  This is a definite possibility, and we hope this sort of process will lead to more informed/self-consious authors as well as better quality literature for the rest of us.

I'm not sure where the post is, but there has been a mention of worry about "writing to a formula" ... I truly can't see how that would work, so...

I hope that helped shed a little light on some of your concerns.

-Dan

[winnieqin16 qin]

you can see the beautiful pictures here.
you need to click the link then you can see the photo.
Also you can shopping here,like TAOBAO,WOW GOLD
so let's go!
Black Junior Bridesmaid Dresses;maternity wedding dresses;trumpet wedding dresses
Have a nice day!
Holp you can choose your best dresses!