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In the wake of last year's Motley Fool bestseller, large publishing houses have begun panning the Net for publishing gold after several years of anxious bystanding. Random House's Ballantine Books, Hyperion, Henry Holt, and HarperEdge have signed contracts to debut books by a motley group of personalities and products, including Cybergrrl Aliza Sherman, wedding info site The Knot, parody paper The Onion, and even Columbia University's Health Service site.
"[The Web] is a big pool of talent - why shouldn't I go fishing?" says HarperEdge editor Eamon Dolan, who is currently developing books by ex-Suck editor Carl Steadman and the Electronic Frontier Foundation for publication in the winter of 1998. Scouring the Web for new writers is simply an "outgrowth of what good editors have always done," says Dolan. "Every newspaper headline, you hope there's a potential book in it ... [but] the Web is as good as those traditional media because it's text-based."
For publishers, the Web site is becoming secondary to personality. Aliza Sherman, who heads up content and consulting company Cybergrrl, submitted her manuscript to Ballantine this week for her book, Cybergrrl: Your Guide to Going Online, due in stores by Christmas. The book, geared toward getting women online, is "an antidote to the 'Dummies' books," says Sherman. The book builds on the Cybergrrl's community online, but doesn't crib directly from the content.
"All of book publishing is looking for ways to get into this market without being redundant with things that are already online," says Sherman's editor, Amy Scheibe. "But Aliza's story is so compelling. She's from a generation where she didn't have computers in school or college, and that's the type of women that she's trying to reach."
Having several outlets for its content didn't hurt The Onion, however. Though the Madison, Wisconsin-based publication exists in print form, the Net was instrumental to their exposure and success. "The Web definitely led to our book deal, no question about it," says editor in chief Scott Dikkers, noting that publishers "who never would have heard of us" got free access online.
Leveraging their online exposure, The Onion managed to foment a bidding war this spring, snagging a whopping six-figure deal with Hyperion to produce two books. The contract has not been finalized (Dikkers says it should arrive this week), but editing has already begun on the first of two books, a history of the 20th century by The Onion, followed by a selection of the best works.
The Net can sometimes allow publishers to exploit certain elements not available in other media. The frank Q&A section in Columbia's online health-services site, called "Go Ask Alice," attracted the attention of David Sobel, a senior editor at Owl Books (a subsidiary of Henry Holt), because of the unique "honesty" of the exchanges possible only on the Web. "The anonymity of the Web allows people to ask questions they might not [otherwise]," Sobel adds. "It's riotous ... there are questions I would have never been able to ask when I was their age."
The critical question for publishing houses is how to translate successful online brands for the potentially technophobic book-buying world. As a result, Ballantine plans to push Sherman's book not as a trade book, but as a mass-market paperback, planting it in supermarket check-out aisles. "It doesn't go on the computer shelf, to where women won't be," says Sherman. By marketing it in grocery stores, Sherman hopes to reach "women where they actually are."
But publishers are certainly aware of potential pitfalls when repurposing Web content. According to Dolan, one of the big mistakes is producing books that are "downloads" of content you can get for free. Sobel echoes the dangers of doing a "straight translation" of the Web product, stemming from the resistance of the sales people. "A lot of booksellers ask, 'Why buy the book when it's free on the Web?'" Sobel says, which ultimately forced the publisher to add "connective tissue" to the Go Ask Alice book, due out in fall 1998. The literary markets also remain largely untested, Sobel adds. "You can't always translate the electronic product to a book." (Disclosure: Wired Books has an upcoming book based on the Wired Digital property Suck. HarperEdge is publishing a book by FEED editor in chief Steven Johnson.)
From the Wired News New York Bureau at FEED magazine.
