Yeah – after all, focus groups created the excellence we see today in Hollywood, the television industry, and the CBC. Think of what the publishing industry can achieve with them! For how many years have authors been burdened with the terrible responsibility of coming up with ideas, or choosing how to write them down? And now editors will be freed from the workaday drudgery of critical thinking! Finally, we have the fusion of literature, committees, and reality-TV that we’ve all been waiting for.

“authoring process”

That’s all I can say. Otherwise speechless.

This sounds like high-school nonsense. Perhaps they could have a writing camp–something like a drama camp–too, just to round things out. Well, at least, authors know now to stay away from ‘indie publishing veteran Richard Nash, formerly the publisher of Soft Skull Press’ and ‘Dedi Felmen, a former senior editor with Simon & Schuster’.

Isn’t there also the potential for chaos? With so many varied opinions, it may be difficult to reach a consensus.

I fear the commenters are reading their own anxieties into our project. There are no focus groups. There is in fact writing camp—almost every writer of any serious has multiple readers whom they entrust with their manuscripts at various points in the writing process. Many attend writing workshops, or create peer-based writing groups, for feedback, discipline, and support, and community. And almost every published writer because published through a crowd-sourcing process—the recommendations of friends, agents, fellow writers, and other influencers. We are simply rendering this process more transparent.

The article does however slightly misreport one concept, peer editing, to which some of you are reacting. Books to be published by the conventional means would not be peer edited—what the reporter is referring to I suspect is that some books would have their editorial process available for viewing online, ie. drafts and commentary between the writer and editor. But also the members of the community, as part of their own writing process, would if they so choose, open their work for peer review, as happens in a great many professions, including the writing professions.

As for staying away from me, I edited Miriam Toews’ The Flying Troutmans, and Lydia Millet’s Oh Pure & Radiant Heart, both of whom expressed the desire to work with me in future, should circumstances permit.

“…almost every writer of any serious [sic] has multiple readers whom they entrust with their manuscripts at various points in the writing process…almost every published writer because [sic] published through a crowd-sourcing process”

Maybe the writers you edit, but there are lots who can write without opinion-polling the public, or immersing themselves in a “crowd-sourcing” club of amateur writers that try collectively to do the job of a real editor.

I thought Michael Schellenberg at Knopf Canada was Miriam Toew’s editor.

I think people are missing the point, Mr. Nash isn’t running a self-publishing company, but a company that asks trained professionals to connect with their authors. They share skills along with opinions.

This isn’t about focus groups or collective amateurs, it’s about building a supportive, non-exclusive community for writers, editors, and people who care about books.

Wow, I’d no idea I’d get folks so upset! Why must it be either/or? No writer will be forced to do anything they don’t want to do, and the whole shebang will rise and fall on whether it works for all concerned. For example, Michael and I *collaborated* working on Miriam’s MS, and if I remember correctly her UK editor at Faber offered some useful ideas too. Nic sums up the principle nicely. Anyhow, let’s reconvene in a year, and see where things stand, eh?

Some huge issues behind this debate.
“The New Socialism”…Hm. I’ve voted socialist all of my life, yet the thought of ‘collective authoring’ fills me with a form of dread. The “product” (horrible inhuman word, always makes me think of its partner, “process”) may well be ephemeral drivel; the references to Hollywood and TV made above hit the mark. If the mass of expressed opinion in this internet society could be weighed, I think that it might sink the world.
Curious issues raised here; a democratic socialist (me, for want of a better description) dreading mass participation.
These are interesting times for us all…