Collaboration has been around since the first stories were told out over the campfire. Each story teller said over the basic story, history, morality play, and then added his own interpretations to the mix. It amuses me when people talk about book collaboration today as if it is a new idea, new invention. What’s different today is the amount of material being published and the available tools. Before the Internet/personal computer availability, authors on joint projects either needed to be within physical proximity or they needed a very good postal system and lots of time.
Each team approaches joint projects in a unique way, depending on the chemistry between the authors and the strengths each brings to the project. One person might be in charge of one theme which runs through the book while the others act a accessories, each contributing minor excerpts to support the main thread. Or the group might become decentralized where every author writes a chapter or section of the book independent of the other parts. Sometimes there are researchers and writers. The researcher finds all the supporting evidence and the writer mashes it, stirs it, and produces a cohesive final book.
Today there are books being written by many people, 144 characters at a time, on Twitter. Brandon Mendelson wrote The Falcon Can Hear the Falconer in Twitter. Instantaneous writing and reading. Ever sit on pins an needles waiting for the next installment of a sequel? Imagine the story is unfolding, tweeting out to your desktop, as your working. And these Twitter novels don’t have a plan, an outline, to speak of. How could thousands of people write to an outline, instantly, in 144 characters? The content reflects real time, it’s certainly not static. Current events make their way into the story as the event occurs. The downside to this is managing the contributors, writing time, and the danger of loosing the main theme.
Collaboration takes another twist in an Agile environment. For those of you who don’t know Agile development, on one foot, it is development to small goals within a limited time frame, usually a week to three weeks long. Certain small goals are set and worked towards. Then the project is reanalyzed and new goals set for the next round or sprint. Writers have to adapt to a new writing cycle between themselves and among the Agile team. Publishing collaborative works follows the general model, if you don’t look too closely. The introduction of writing sprints changes everything. Publication dates become part of a sprint. The piece might be “published” many times before it reached its intended audience.
The next model is slightly more complicated. I’ll be looking a single sourcing information and its relevance to commercial publishing.
Spending time with an agent to sell the idea before the book is written may clarify whether or not the book should be written in the first place. After all, the market may already be saturated with books about how to cook frogs and other potential road kill. The time spent marketing the idea is well spent if the author discovers that and avoids one more of such books. Then again, the author might find a publisher that is interested enough and encouraging enough to start the author writing.
