Category Archives: Strategic publishing

Strategic publishing, AI, and the battle for heart and minds

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Strategic publishers have to make an impact – our books are in a battle for hearts and minds. That battle is increasingly won or lost in AI chat windows. How do we ensure that our ideas are in those conversations?

The answer is simple, but it’s not cheap: we have to publish writing that is great for humans – clearly and creatively written, well-structured, carefully edited, cleanly presented, interesting, novel, accessible, and trustworthy. And we need to publish it on the open web as well-constructed HTML pages.

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AI companies have stopped at nothing, least of all the law, to hoover up every bit of good writing they can find, because that’s what makes AI worth anything at all. They’ve triaged and ingested it all to feed their magnificent robots. And they absolutely can’t afford to stop now. They also can’t afford to feed AI’s own writing back to itself over and over: the models will collapse. They need fresh content, rich with human ingenuity, to keep their models alive.

Read my new post on the Electric Book Works website or on LinkedIn, where you can also leave your thoughts in the comments.

Who chooses your book, and who reads it? The crucial distinction for strategic publishers

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While working on a publishing strategy for a new project recently, I was reminded how important it is to distinguish between who selects your book and who actually reads it. That distinction has implications for almost every downstream editorial, design, and distribution decision.

‘Who chooses your book, and who reads it?’ is an essay about this.

As writers and publishers, it’s crucial that we know who will select our books and who will read them, and whether or not that’s the same person. It will inform many of our decisions about the book, from writing and style through editing and design, to formats, marketing, and distribution.

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selectors and readers are motivated differently. They are looking for different things when they pay their costs. That’s easier to cater for when they are the same human, but if they are not, and especially if they are very different, we have to prioritise one or the other. In parts of our work selectors will matter most, and in other parts readers will. We have a difficult balance to strike, and we have to be very deliberate about where we spend time and money.

Read the full post on the EBW website or on LinkedIn.

 

Making the most of your publishing budget

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In my job, I get to talk to many different people about their publishing projects – big and small. And the biggest concern is always: what can we achieve with our budget?

The first step is always to ask: what is your book’s job?

Second, we make sure that all their bases are covered: expertise, development, distribution, and promotion.

Third, we get brutally honest about cost-and-quality trade-offs.

I’ve written about these three steps in a series of articles on LinkedIn (at the links above) and also published on the Electric Book Works website. I hope they are useful if you are planning a publishing project.

And do get in touch if you’d like a friendly conversation about your project. I have no-obligations calls with people planning new publishing initiatives all the time, and would be happy to chat about yours, too.

 

What to do about AI, and The Great Asymmetry

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Tim O’Reilly’s compelling post on regulating AI, ‘To understand the risks posed by AI, follow the money‘ is a must-read. O’Reilly is one of my publishing role models, the founder of O’Reilly Media and a key figure in the early conceptualisation of open-source software. Among the hundred articles you’ll see on AI today, his credibility should jump the queue.

A key takeaway is that, in trying to mitigate the potential harms of AI, rather than focusing on the technology itself and what it might be capable of, we should focus on sensible regulation. And, more importantly, that that regulation is feasible and has good precedents. We really can influence what people – and people as corporate decision-makers – are able or likely to do with their technology:

So perhaps it is time to turn our regulatory gaze away from attempting to predict the specific risks that might arise as specific technologies develop. After all, even Einstein couldn’t do that.

Instead, we should try to recalibrate the economic incentives underpinning today’s innovations, away from risky uses of AI technology and towards open, accountable, AI algorithms that support and disperse value equitably.

This emphasis on what people do with technology, rather than on the technology itself, reminded me of Stephen J. Gould’s wonderful essay, ‘The Great Asymmetry‘. In describing the great asymmetry, Gould explains:

We can only reach our pinnacles by laborious steps, but destruction can occur in a minute fraction of the building time, and can often be truly catastrophic. […] We perform 10,000 acts of small and unrecorded kindness for each surpassingly rare, but sadly balancing, moment of cruelty.’

A crowd of thousands of people stand beneath an enormous, floating black sphere. The sky is dark and menacing. This image was created with AI.

Gould argues that we obsess too easily over whether a particular scientific development is helpful or harmful, and we should focus rather on the great asymmetry. What science does is exacerbate the great asymmetry, because science makes it easier for people to destroy: ‘our particular modern tragedy resides in the great asymmetry, and the consequential but unintended power of science to enhance its effect.’

Whether or not we’re working with AI, what matters is what our work does for the great asymmetry. I find it grimly motivating to know that the daily slog – let’s not sugarcoat it, it can be a slog – of building things properly, of being kind, and of telling stories that make people better, is the steady work of shoring up the right side of the great asymmetry.

Professional advice for book publishing

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Book publishing can be overwhelming, especially if you’re new to it. There is so much to learn! There are so many options! So many pitfalls! You can lose so much time and money along the way.

Before you go any further, get independent, expert advice in a one-hour consultation with me. We’ll talk through your project in detail, and get you on the right track to achieve your aims.

I’ve been working with authors and publishers for over 25 years. I run Electric Book Works, which manages world-class publishing projects for organizations. My private, one-on-one consultations are something different: they are for people who can’t afford to hire a studio like mine, but do need some expert advice.

Note: I don’t provide input on your story or your content. I can refer you to reviewers and coaches for that, if you need it. We’ll focus on how you’re going to turn your idea into a beautiful book that others can read.

A one-hour consultation over Zoom costs $60 (USD). To make a booking, email book@arthurattwell.com.