If this is the Attention Economy, why are we shouting into a black hole?

I’m really interested to read in this morning’s Independent the revelation from Bloomsbury Chairman, Nigel Newton, of his company’s ambition to create a literary alternative to the likes of online communities such as YouTube and Bebo.

No one has yet done the same for books, especially in a way which will benefit all the main players in the book business

Cough. Because let’s not forget that this is the industry leader who said last year

[Google’s] quest to monetise for its own benefit the literature of the world must be stopped. So I call upon internet users worldwide to boycott the Google search engine until it ceases to scan books.

Back to the Bloomsbury set. First, it’s one heck of an ambition. In fact creating the MySpace of the books world (as the Bookseller puts it) is a more ambitious project than finding the next J K Rowling. (See here for evidence.) So this is no quick fix.

Second, I don’t deny there be gold in them there hills, Mr Newton, and if you do it, I’m either on board or I’m jealous.

Nevertheless, the question has to be asked, who needs this ‘literary alternative’ to MySpace or Bebo more? Readers and consumers of books, or the old players of the publishing industry looking with trepidation at the balance sheet and Brave New World of the Attention Economy? I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but from reader’s perspective, why split oneself in two? Is it not possible for discussion and enthusiasm about literature have a legitimate place in mainstream social networking, alongside music, film and other media?

It may be true that nobody has built a seriously trafficked online community in a way that would benefit all of the [current] main players in the book business, but to assert that nobody at all from outside the current cartel of stakeholders in the traditional book business is benefiting from new wave of social connectivity is something with which I’d have to take issue. I wonder if you’ve visited LibraryThing recently? (Founder Tim Spalding — not someone who gets out of bed with the aim of benefiting the ‘main players in the book business’, but someone who’s provided a compelling service and inspired a community which has now discussed, reviewed and catalogued 12 million books (and rising ) )

The fact is, as the minority of publishers who are actively committed to building up popular social community such as The Friday Project will contest, a profound shift in attitude has to take place if you’re to have any hope of success. This is the currency of goodwill, and whereas, say, LibraryThing or FridayCities has it in spades, a large part of me wonders if the majority of existing players in the book business possess enough goodwill to sustain the kind of traffic and loyalty Bebo garners, let alone the understanding that for the populace of such communities, the aim is not to benefit main industry players or company shareholders, but to enjoy; to get traction for one’s own appetites and friends. And that, notwithstanding subscription, the most likely source of any revenue from such communities is (close your ears, literary people) advertising.

It’s not easy to forget the article in the Guardian last year, arguing that Google Book Search is an indecent use of literature, and that advertising near literature would be crass.

If you click on Great Expectations by Charles Dickens in Google Book Search, you may find yourself taking an unexpected journey. Google’s ambient advertising programme hotlinks to a dating agency. How crass is that?

How crass is seeing an advert next to Dickens text? Well, I’d say about as crass as reading Dickens in its original 19th century context — in the commercial advertising-funded periodicals and newsprint.

But the stance that Google book search shouldn’t be about advertising seems to me to be missing the point about new media. In fact, for the vast majority of authors today, Google Book Search is all about (free) advertising. Not in the context of becoming a ‘crass’ billboard for other products, but in the very real sense of getting their work to market in the new attention economy. Most writers – perhaps those not lucky enough to secure the services of a publisher’s marketing department – worry about getting people to acknowledge the existence of their work, let alone go the next step and buy it. For most writers, becoming the result of a Google Book Search IS the advert, bringing thousands of potential customers directly to your product.

Search engine optimization is big business. As anyone who maintains a website or who aims to build a community to rival Bebo should testify, getting decent and consistent rankings in search engine results is not straightforward — in fact for most web developers, it’s the Holy Grail. Nevertheless in that same article arguing against Google Book Search, it is written that

Search engines can find the same content on publishers’ websites in a nanosecond.

Well yeees, maybe if your site is built right and verifies properly, the search engine can find it, but it can also find it and rank it 584,520 on the list. Which any author of a self-respecting publishing company wanting to earn a crust cannot not be satisfied with.
(Besides, according to many publishers’ call to arms last year, aren’t we all now boycotting Google, one of the most efficient search engines, and any anything else that uses Google API?)

The basic fact is, if you want to bring something to market, you have to let people encounter it. And that means letting people find your product, right? I simply don’t buy the argument that ‘no one will write much in future if they don’t receive money for it because books are suddenly free on the net.’

For that to hold, you have to ignore a huge body of evidence to the contrary (see here) plus continue to misrepresent the fact that, as far as Google Book Search is concerned, nobody is giving away whole copyrighted books for free. With works in copyright, for a third party to reveal a snippet of your work is not an infringement of copyright. Back to the historic argument against, and something I’ve heard from several industry people:

What Google is doing to books is, by contrast, positively indecent. It is a good search engine, frequently used by all of us. I for one would like to see it keep to that core business.

But, you know what? I, for one, suspect Google would too.

Google Book Search increases the value of Google search proposition. That’s why they are doing it. All evidence points towards this being the case. How to say this? I strongly suspect Google’s march into the 21st century and world domination doesn’t depend on selling copies of Dickens, but on selling advertising. Incidentally, the only thing that makes me pause for thought with GBS project is the scarcity of advertising, not the proliferation of it. If I were a Google shareholder rather than a Bloomsbury one, I’d be somewhat underwhelmed by the level of advertising on GBS.

Meanwhile, from a user’s perspective, they are offering an extension to this ‘good search engine service’, by providing a book search service, of value that might be equivalent to the role of the library to the populace 100 years ago.

Audacious and guilty of putting interests of community over those of the ‘main players of the book business’ it might be, but illegal or indecent it is not.

So, for the fact that Bloomsbury’s experienced and many-bodied web/tech team exists today, and for the chance that, with today’s announcement, the industry is about to see the light, I’m all set to get past last year and cheer them on – I really hope this works. But just for today, whilst the news is fresh at least, I just can’t square the ambition to build a community comparable to MySpace with 2006’s conviction that literature must be separate, and treated with kid gloves.

(the views of Kate Hyde are her own and are not necessarily a reflection of those of the company that hosts and pays for 5th Estate)