Dressed to impress

The Publishing Echo Chamber.

According to the alien (and vastly superior) intelligence of Wikipedia, an Echo Chamber refers to a situation in which “information, ideas or beliefs are amplified and reinforced by transmission inside an enclosed space.”

The news media echo chamber is the most popular example. A moron in some desolate portion of the country claims to have proof that President Obama was born on Saturn. Local news picks  up the story and interviews him. CNN picks up the story from local news and runs a segment on it (perhaps refuting the claim, frequently not). MSNBC sees it on CNN and runs its own segment. FOX has been promoting this story for years. End result? Three quarters of the country hears the story by the end of the week. Due to the high proportion of morons to sane people, a quarter of those who hear the story believe it.

Think echo chambers can only have intangible effects? Take a look at the financial sector. It took one greedy and innovative firm to create the first mortgage backed derivatives on Wall Street. This Firm A then convinced another Firm B to buy some. Firm B did so and asked Firm C to buy some. When Firm C wanted to check on the value of these derivatives, it called Firm A to see if they were kosher. Soon everyone was in on it, even the mostly ethical firms (I am an optimist) were participating in this exchange. When firm D in the UK wanted in on the fun, it called Firms A, B and C on Wall Street. All good. End result? Billions in global losses.

Every industry is susceptible to echo chambers, no less the publishing industry.

Take the current YA gold rush for example. The frenzy is not a 100% result of a consumer trend among readers. When Random House sees the success Hachette has with Twilight (through Little Brown) and hears Hachette editors yell that YA is hot, it throws it’s full weight behind YA. Now think about what happens when the biggest publisher in the world throws its weight behind a genre. Think about what the other publishers will do? Think about what this does to other genres. Same story for all the other big trends in books (chic lit, memoirs, etc.) in the last decade.

Consider all the ridiculous industry wide policies in publishing? Reserve on returns, the devil’s contract (heavy discounting, 100% returns) with booksellers, royalty rates, record keeping etc?  Why aren’t individual publishers doing things differently? Yes there are outliers like Harpers Studio (now defunct) and other small presses but as a whole there’s as much variety in industry policy as in a slathering of mayonnaise.

Visit a popular agent blog (the esteemed Nathan Bransford for example) and check out the agent’s blog roll (the list of blogs the agent reads), you’ll find links to some of the other popular agent blogs like Rachelle Gardner and Janet Reid for example. Follow those links to their blogs and you’ll find links back to Nathan Bransford (and from Rachelle to Janet). These are some of the most popular agents and the most widely read blogs among writers. What happens when a popular agent adopts an idea that doesn’t exactly benefit writers? What happens when publishers hand down some ridiculous policy and one of the popular agents accepts without a fight?

Writers as a group are also susceptible to echo chambers. I follow the blogs of several writers, some of those writers follow this blog (now is the time to laugh at my pitiful number of followers). Take the wonderful QueryTracker or AgentQuery communities where writers congregate. What happens when I propose some moronic idea (e.g. echo chambers are dangerous)? What happens when a long time/well respected member of the QueryTracker or AgentQuery proposes an idea harmful to writers and readers?

It is easy to explain all this away by claiming that the members of any industry will always share news and opinions, or that they will always compete over portions of the market (a genre for example). The truth is that echo chambers stifle dissent and contradictory opinions. It blinds entire industries to reality and frequently smothers the views of parties outside the industry (especially the industry’s customers).

Let us learn from the news media, the financial sector, telephone companies and the music industry.

Beware the publishing echo chamber.

Related Posts:

1. A Reformed Publishing Industry: What Does It Look Like?
2. Ten Reasons to Get to Know and Get Involved in the Publishing Industry
3. The Death of Young Adult Fiction.
4. Criticizing the Publishing Industry: Ground Rules
5. Self Publishing Success Is Possible