Hello class. In today’s post I will be going over everything we talked about in class last week, as well as give a brief insight into what to expect for next class.

“Book publishing is a complex, adaptive, semi-chaotic industry with Bose-Einstein distribution dynamics, dual-sided uncertainty, and Pareto power law characteristics”

(Greco et al. 3)  

 

This quote made me really think, mainly because I didn’t understand any of the words that were said in that sentence. But still, it made me think about their connection to the publishing industry.

 

Bose-Einstein distribution/ Pareto power law

Upon researching into these terms, I found that Bose-Einstein distribution is described as a collection of non-interacting indistinguishable particles that may occupy a set of available discrete energy states, at thermodynamic equilibrium. Where as the Pareto power law is a power-law probability distribution that is used in description of social, scientific, geophysical, actuarial, and many other types of observable phenomena.

 

Now these terms don’t really make sense to you at first, given the fact that were researching this in a Fundamentals of publishing course. But since this program encourages us to look further into things then we normally would and given Greco’s history of deeper meaning in his words I decide to look in further myself. While establishing that Bose-Einstein distribution/ Pareto power law are metaphors for the publishing industry, and that the “collection of non-interacting indistinguishable particles” can easily be seen as the collection of different works and materials flowing through the publishing world that help come together to help create a new work of material. And the “power-law probability distribution” relates to the outside factors the come into play at the industry. Things such as marketing, advertisement, media outreach etc. They all play a part in the success in the work of the published material. This is what Greco means when he relates these terms, he’s showing that the industry is much more integrate and complex then what’s let on.

 

What We Talked about

At the beginning of class this week we started off with a compelling presentation by Alex, Ash, Maggie and Chloe on the book the “Six of Crows”. This helped start off the class in good form to prepare us for the rest of the lecture.

 

After the presentation we started looking over the chart we filled out in last weeks class pertaining to the roles of Publisher, Author, Editor in the industry.

 

 

Publisher	Author	Editor
Negotiate offer	Write manuscript/purposal	Select manuscript
Devise and sign contract	Query (agents, editors, publishers)	Extend offer, negotiate contract
Analyze editorial L/P sheet	Negotiate and sign contract	Devise L/P sheet. Schedule etc.
Etc.	Etc.	Etc.

 

 

We further discussed the inner workings of each title. Describing the in and outs to each of there roles in the industry along with the procedures that take place in establishing a published material. We looked at how the process begins from getting one’s work published, along with looking at how each role starts out and then continues on to another, showing how each role is needed along with the connection it all has in the publishing industry.

Finishing up the class. We watched a ted talk by the speaker Chip Kidd. He talked about what it was like designing book covers for Knopf titles, as well as showing us the need for creativity in this business by showing us how he made a unique cover fitting for the titles and how it truly showed him how to sell the books and what the reader is going to notice on the cover.

My Question to you

This week we talked a lot about the publishing industry, along with its confusing and complicated systems in play. My question is, how do you think the current industry will continue to adapt to present day and will the systems still be needed in the future?

Please feel free to leave a comment below on any thing you’d like to discuss about this blog and again thank you for reading

Sincerely Andrew Ramsay

 

 

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Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton