Entries tagged with “collaboration” from Tools of Change for Publishing
Second "Open Feedback" Title Now Online
Andrew Savikas
October 2, 2009
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Over on the O'Reilly Labs blog, Keith Fahlgren talks about the latest title to go live in our Open Feedback Publishing System, which gives authors and readers a way to discuss a book while it's being written. The latest book, Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, also features a very nice upgrade to the system's CSS (its look-and-feel).
Keith also offers up a nice post-mortem on the first book to go through the system, Programming Scala, where "over the months, nearly 100 people left a total of 543 comments. Ten contributors stood out in particular, giving more than a third of the total comments."
New Project Examines Close Reading and Web Collaboration
Mac Slocum
October 31, 2008
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On Nov. 10, Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook will be read and discussed by seven readers in a new experiment that explores "close reading" and the mechanisms of online conversation.
The project is the brainchild of Bob Stein, founder of Institute for the Future of the Book. Stein outlined the project's goals in an email announcement:
Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don't yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web's two-dimensional environment and we're hoping this experiment will help us learn what's necessary to make this sort of collaboration work as well as possible.
The seven readers will discuss the book through margin notes and a group blog, and a public forum will be available for others to join the conversation. Further details are available through the project site.
The Crowdsourced Cat Book
Mac Slocum
August 19, 2008
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Amazing but True Cat Stories is a 38-page coffee table book born from the combined efforts of Mechanical Turk contributors. The creator/editor of the book, Björn Hartmann, describes the genesis of the project on his blog:
The idea for this book was born in Terminal A at Washington Dulles, where I was stranded for some hours in late July 2008. To spend my time, I posted the following two tasks on MTurk:
1. What's the craziest thing your cat has ever done? Write at least one paragraph about a funny, unbelievable or otherwise memorable incident involving your cat. This should be a real story that happened to you or your family.
2. Sketch a cat. With or without an environment and toys. The cat can be drawn in software or on paper. Do not upload photographs of cats. Have fun!
Before I got out of that terminal, it was already clear that the submissions were too good to keep to myself. My fiancee Tania suggested turning the stories into a book. So, after a few days of collecting, I selected about 25 stories and 20 images and spent an evening doing a nice layout for a Blurb book.
The book can be previewed here.
(Via the Reading 2.0 list and Boing Boing)
Cautious Optimism for Britannica's Hybrid Web Community
Mac Slocum
June 16, 2008
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Encyclopaedia Britannica continues to take baby steps into Web-based collaboration. In April, the Britannica Web site began offering free subscriptions to bloggers, journalists and other link-friendly folks, and now the company is cautiously embracing community collaboration. From Wired:
Britannica is going halfway to where it's never gone before: it is opening up its site to the crowd, but keeping the gates up against the barbarians as far as the official version of the publication [is] concerned ...
Members of the company's community of scholars and registered users will be able to post about new topics without intervention, but the company says all articles on new topics will be fact-checked and vetted before appearing in the main edition.
It's easy to toss off Britannica's conservative Web initiatives, but in this case they deserve credit for bridging the gap between top-down "expert" articles and user-generated content (UGC). In fact, Britannica's efforts might finally reveal viability in the commingling of crowdsourcing and editorial content. If the company can successfully attract useful UGC and then bubble the best of this content up into its core editorial products, we might finally see the beginnings of an actual UGC business model (other than OhmyNews).
That's an optimistic attitude, especially in light of failed citizen journalism efforts. But the Britannica model appears to acknowledge -- in a general way -- two common UGC pitfalls: lack of editorial guidance and little/no incentive to participate. Learning from past mistakes is certainly a step in the right direction.
Unfortunately, Britannica's official announcement has a number of red flags that could undermine this initiative. Vague talk of incentives only seems to apply to Britannica experts, not the regular folks who make successful Web communities vibrant. In the same vein, the company's messaging continues to push non-experts to the sidelines. Here are two recent examples:
Example 1: The level of quality and professionalism among Web publishers has really improved, and we want to recognize that by giving access to the people who are shaping the conversations about the issues of the day. Britannica belongs in the middle of those conversations. [Emphasis added.] -- From Britannica's free subscription announcement in April
Example 2: These efforts not only will improve the scope and quality of Encyclopaedia Britannica, but they'll also allow expert contributors and readers to supplement this content with their own. The result will be a place with broader and more relevant coverage for information seekers and a welcoming community for scholars, experts, and lay contributors. [Emphasis added.] -- From the recent community project announcement
Neither statement is egregious, but both show a misunderstanding of community. The goal with any Web community is to create an inclusive, interactive platform for discussion and collaboration (Wikipedia knows this). Marginalizing a community with pats on the head and "lay contributor" branding will stifle Britannica's project.
My criticisms are certainly nitpicky, but I'd hate to see this promising UGC effort fail to gain traction because of easily rectified communication issues. Even if Britannica only sees a modest success, we're bound to learn techniques that can benefit a variety of Web community initiatives.
German Wikipedia Coming in Book Form
Mac Slocum
April 23, 2008
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Bertelsmann is putting 25,000 German Wikipedia entries into The One-Volume Wikipedia Encyclopedia. From the New York Times:
Bertelsmann says the project should not be judged as a re-creation in book form of what appears online, but rather as an attempt to harness the collective wisdom of Wikipedia’s users.
Arne Klempert, executive director of Wikimedia Germany, says the book is a content experiment:
It is a very good example of the power of free knowledge, so anyone is free to use the content and do interesting things with it. It’s a nice experiment to see if the Wikipedia content is good enough to sell books.
Available in September, the book will have a 20,000-copy press run and sell for 19.95 euros. The Times says Wikimedia Germany will receive one euro per copy sold.
(Via Publishers Weekly)
Q&A with WEbook President Sue Heilbronner
Mac Slocum
April 15, 2008
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WEbook is a new Web-based platform that blends traditional writing workshops with Web 2.0 functionality. Authors and groups can use the site to develop manuscripts, novels, screenplays and other publishable content, and if their efforts are well received, the projects are published by WEbook.
In the following Q&A, WEbook president Sue Heilbronner offers further details on the company and its collaborative process.
How did WEbook start?
WEbook is the vision of Itai Kohavi, our founder and CEO. In addition to being a twice successful entrepreneur in the technology space, Itai is a twice-published author. When he "completed" his manuscript of his third project -- certain that it was in good shape -- he sent it to a few sharp friends for their feedback. The critiques he received were superb and comprehensive, but he realized that if he had the reactions and input throughout the writing process, he would have produced a far better written product in far less time. In addition, he would have enjoyed working together with friends and fellow writers. He looked online to see if anyone had created a cooperative publishing tool that would have met his needs. Finding nothing suitable, he conceived of WEbook, doing away with the age-old vision of the lonely author and embarking on a community-sourced content creation environment for book publishing.
Is the platform based on wikis? Blogs? Is it proprietary?
Our platform is proprietary and was built for this purpose. It is based in part on wikis, with additional focus on inline comments, inline ratings, and versioning.
How many people are currently participating in projects?
As of April 9, the day WEbook opened its public beta following the alpha, there are 750 registered users of WEbook. Many of the alpha users were recruited in to the process to help provide valuable feedback on the platform and prove that collaborative authoring works.
How are projects created and managed?
Projects are created by an instigator who has an idea for a new book, collection, story, screenplay, etc. That person, the "Project Leader," has the ability to invite others to participate in the writing, give feedback, or both. She sets exposure level and permissions for the project when she establishes it. The Project Leader is charged with managing the project, but in many cases the work can take on a life of its own, with other writers or reactors moving it ahead at a rapid pace.
Are all projects public?
No. WEbook felt it was extremely important to balance the interests of writers -- who feel very strongly about the ownership and protection of their written work -- with the wish of WEbook to create a vibrant community. WEbook allows a project leader or author to make a project private. In doing so, she can be the only member of the project or elect to invite a few friends. A "private" project can stay that way so long as it stays under 35 people (not coincidentally the size of the largest possible creative writing class). At member number 36, the project is effectively a WEbook public project. Users are made aware of this when their project hits that limit, and there are implications of this decision within the Terms of Use and the rights allocation.
Do authors maintain copyright?
The Terms of Use for WEbook required some really new thinking, as the model doesn't exist anywhere else on the Web, and we needed terms that departed in important ways from copyright law in order to make the process possible. Authors who work on private projects with fewer than 35 people retain rights throughout. Once they hit that 36th member, put their work into the public realm, or submit their work for contention as a published WEbook, WEbook takes a six-month option to publish. If WEbook does indeed publish a book, rights are transferred to WEbook, the publisher. If WEbook does not publish, rights revert to the author. That's the simple version. The WEbook Terms of Use are more detailed. We're also producing a short, snappy video to highlight key issues of this all-important topic.
What is the revenue split with authors?
Authors and substantial contributors receive a total combined royalty of 5 percent of net sales.
How are substantial contributors determined? Is it a quantifiable level (i.e. they posted x number of times)?
We use a formula to determine materiality. It has a few softer inputs beyond quantity, which constitute attempts to create a measure of quality and significance to the ultimate work. This is not fully refined, and we expect this algorithm to be a continually moving process as the site evolves. Ultimately, users will see a measure of how they stack up against the algorithm to give them motivation and transparency. We also are intrigued by the idea of giving authors marketing tools to motivate users to contribute to their projects. This might have royalty implications in the future.
Have you found certain topics that are suited for collaboration?
Our goal is to provide a platform that adapts and grows in the direction the community sets. Our first book is Pandora, a fictional thriller written by 17 authors and 17 other contributors and editors. We believe a novel is the highest challenge for collaborative writing, and we took it with the alpha community to prove the concept and learn how writers could write together in the hardest scenario -- a continuous work of fiction.
That said, we think the majority of the WEbook successes will fall into the category of non-fiction or fiction collections. Topics that resonate most with users and, presumably, with the reading public, will be those that are enhanced in coverage because they have input from a community. So, for example, we have a project on our site related to successes families have achieved at home with kids diagnosed on the Autism spectrum. On a far less serious note, there is a great collection of essays on 101 Things Every Guy Should Know How to Do and The First Year, a collection of harrowing essays from first-year teachers.
How will books be selected for publication?
The community will vote on projects that have been put into contention for publication.
How will voting be managed?
Voting will be done on the site. Ratings already occur there for in-progress works and submissions. You will need to be a member of the community to vote. The bar to join is low, joining is easy, and we feel that in order to give an important thumbs-up or down to a work, you should at least identify as a member of the community.
The community will be the overwhelming majority voice in what is selected for publishing. This makes sense, as we view the community as an ingrained base of potential buyers. That said, it would be disingenuous to say that WEbook will move ahead on 100 percent of their top selections or not move ahead on something that just missed the cut. We have strong writers on staff and in our adviser circle (mainly coming out of the alpha experience), and we intend to use them as an occasional input to ensure we're on a good quality path for constantly improving the brand and the work we bring to the market out of the site community.
What formats will books be available in?
WEbook plans to leverage the full range of existing formats -- paper books, ebooks, audiobooks -- as well as delve into new potential formats, including mobile dissemination and unique, customizable downloads.
Will the books be made available through retailers?
Pandora will be available at Amazon.com, BN.com and other Ingram-related online retailers. As WEbook establishes critical mass, a following, and a brand, we will pursue favorable distribution opportunities with brick-and-mortar retailers.
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