Publication of this collection of essays was made possible thanks to the invaluable support of the University of Ottawa Library, and librarians Jeanette Hatherill, Mélanie Brunet, and Sarah Simpkin.

Copyright © 2018 Authors. Mary Aksim Brittany Melia Ravneet Kaur Bajwa Roshae Miller Xiaofan Cai Ellen O’Dair Grace Clark Raphaël Plamondon Anna Gopenko Sarah Potts Tom Jiang Evan Sterling Xiaohan Li Jiaxin Yao Wanting Ma Zhinan Yu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike International 4.0 license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) (terms available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).

You are free to: • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material

Under the following terms: • Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. • NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes. • ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original. • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Please cite, don’t steal!

Visit the accompanying webspace and blogs for this book to have access to additional resources here!

Cover design created by Grace Clark, Zongjun (Tom) Jiang, Roshae Miller and Raphael Plamondon. Set in Gill Sans by Grace Clark. Icons created by Grace Clark and adapted from Pixabay.

Article format by Xiaofan Cai, Xiaohan Li, Wanting Ma, Brittany Melia, Sarah Potts and Evan Sterling. Set in Gill Sans and Times New Roman. Marketing by Mary Aksim, Ravneet Bajwa, Anna Gopenko, Ellen O’Dair, Jiaxin Yao and Zhinan Yu. Supervising editor: Jada Watson.

Table of Contents

About the book ...... i Preface by Jada Watson ...... ii

1 | Canadian Publishing and CanLit: The Legacy of the Massey Report ...... 1 Sarah Potts

2 | White-Dominated Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry ...... 11 Zhinan Yu

3 | The Chinese Mark: How to Prevent Fake News by Chinese Publishers ...... 21 Zongjun (Tom) Jiang

4 | Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers: Opportunities and Challenges ...... 31 Xiaohan Li

5 | Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism: An Ethical Grey Area ...... 39 Wanting Ma

6 | The Rising Popularity of Preprints: More Power to the Community ...... 48 Evan Sterling

7 | Alternative Forms of Publishing for Academic Works ...... 61 Anna Gopenko

8 | Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works: A Case Study ...... 73 Mary Aksim

9 | The Future is Open Access ...... 83 Roshae Miller

10 | Digital Fiction: The Modern Alternative to Traditional Publishing ...... 93 Grace Clark

11 | Self-Publishing: YouTube Communities Contributing to Success in the Publishing World ... 100 Ravneet Bajwa

12 | Online Graphic Novels: A Case Study on Faith Erin Hicks ...... 109 Brittany Melia

13 | The Sustainability of Free Content: Learning from Webcomics ...... 119 Raphaël Plamondon

14 | Fan Fiction, Copyright Infringement and Fair Use in U.S. Copyright Law ...... 126 Xiaofan Cai

15 | From Blog to Blook ...... 136 Jiaxin Yao

16 | Acquiring Self-Published Material: Challenges and Opportunities for Libraries ...... 145 Ellen O’Dair

Contributing Authors ...... 153

About the book

Mary Aksim, Ravneet Bajwa, Anna Gopenko, Ellen O’Dair, Wanting Ma, Jiaxin Yao and Zhinan Yu

Moving Through the Grey: Publishing in Action was created as a project for ISI6314 - The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities course at the University of Ottawa. The book explores various aspects and perspectives of the publishing business in the context of both traditional and self-publishing practices. The advancement of technology provides more ways of communication; the trend of globalization also facilitates writers to have alternative options (eg: self-publishing) to disseminate their ideas with fewer biases and restrictions. At the same time, alternative forms of publishing may present challenges unforeseen before, like in the case of academic publishing, where no successful alternative has yet been found for a peer-review process. The scheme of self-publishing is open for opinion sharing, which helps to build a reciprocal and participatory community for those who hold common interest, and have passion to share with others. Moving Through the Grey: Publishing in Action has chapters speaking to the history of publishing, self-publishing, how social media interacts with publishing, publishing around the world, ethical issues to consider in publishing as well as the use and change of technology.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

Moving through the Grey: Preface

Jada Watson, Faculty of Arts (supervising editor)

In the conclusion of their article on “Non-traditional book publishing,” Jana Bradley, Bruce Fulton, Marlene Helm and Katherine A. Pittner challenge publishers, authors, distributors, retailers, librarians and readers to re-conceptualize the contemporary book environment as a living organism. Technologies, and uses of technologies, they argue, are “drivers of change for both traditional and non-traditional publishing” (2011, p. 12). These technologies have created a hyper-abundant world in which patterns of authoring, reading and readership, and options for publishing and reusing materials are constantly evolving, offering new opportunities and spaces in which books are created, edited, accessed and discovered (p. 12). Indeed, the boundaries between author, reader and publisher are blurring, and the notion of what constitutes a “book” is constantly evolving.

It is in this grey area of publishing that this volume lies. The work of the students in The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314) at the University of Ottawa represents a community of graduate students reflecting on how technology and uses of technology have changed the publishing industry. Their essays seek to understand a constantly transforming industry in the digital era, focusing on how we got here, where we are today, and where we’re headed. While some students unpack issues of national or cultural identity and appropriation in the publishing industry, others grapple with cultural and legal issues surrounding the impact of digital self-publishing and alternative forms of dissemination in all realms of publication (trade, academic and news), reflect on the rise of community-based authoring and reviewing platforms, and explore how social media has changed the publishing landscape in ways that challenge all preconceived ideas about the industry.

The book is not organized by section, but rather as an over-arching narrative that develops from cultural issues surrounding national publishing and information dissemination in

iii Canada and China, moving through transformations and challenges impacting academic publishing, and concluding in the world of self-publishing. The overriding narrative here is one of an industry in transformation, from the socio-cultural and political issues surrounding publishing as an industry, to the emergence of alternative forms of dissemination for trade and academic authors, and to the role of the reader, the reviewer and the library in this ever-changing ecosystem. Titled Moving Through the Grey: Publishing in Action, the students explore the in- between, the blurred boundaries, and challenge the notion of publishing in the 21st century.

The diversity of topics explored in this volume are a testament to the multi-disciplinary background of the students in the class. The course is offered as part of the Master of Information Studies program, but open to graduate students in the Master of Communications. The students within both programs come from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and have diverse interests, including Linguistics, Psychology, Canadian cultural studies, Journalism, Greek and Roman Studies and English (to name but a few). This collection speaks to that multi- and inter-disciplinarity. In addition to researching and writing their own chapters, the students featured in this collection peer-reviewed and edited each other’s work. Taking a modified review process, their goal was to provide constructive feedback to their peers, offer guidance on research and writing, and create an environment in which each author felt comfortable to share his or her work. They also developed a webspace for the collection, which includes an accompanying blog with additional information and resources for each chapter. Visit webspace and read their work here! Throughout the semester, they challenged each other to develop their ideas, deepen their arguments, and improve their writing. Their work engages with complex topics in a variety of ways – each with the goal of telling a piece of the publishing story.

For more information about the course, contact Dr. Jada Watson, Adjunct Professor, University of Ottawa, at [email protected].

References Bradley, Jana, Fulton, Bruce, Helm, Marlene, and Pittner, Katherine A. (2011). Non-traditional book publishing. First Monday 16(8).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

1 | Canadian Publishing and CanLit: The Legacy of the Massey Report

Sarah Potts, School of Information Studies

The Massey Commission, better known as the Massey Report legislated Canadian Publishing and Canadian Literature into being. Feeding off of a desire to protect Canadian culture, the Canadian government under the leadership of Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent and Vincent Massey decided in 1949 to produce a Royal Commission determined to promote what it meant to be Canadian and provide a sense of unity around these ideas. The Massey Commission was decided what it fundamentally intended to be Canadian and fiercely protect the ideas and concepts that were defined to be “Canadian.” The Massey Commission reflected upon the definition of Canadian Publishing and CanLit, providing a renewed raison d'être for Canadian publishers.

Keywords: Canadian Publishing, CanLit, The Massey Commission, Publishing History, Cultural Legislation, CanCulture

Introduction

We will write ourselves into existence. Nick Mount (2017).

After the Second World War, Canadian literary and art critics saw a bubbling crisis where Canadian culture was under threat from the United States and England. In comparison to the still austere post-war England, one critic declared the post-war literary era and its endurance as bleak as a Winnipeg winter (Woodcock, 1977), insinuating that the cultural forces were worse off than ever before. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent in 1949 decided, in response to statements such as these but also a growing presence of American cultural products entering the Canadian market to set up a Royal Commission to address these concerns. What resulted was the Massey

Copyright © 2018 Potts. The Legacy of the Massey Report 2

Commission, a report on the climate of the Canadian Arts and what could be done to enhance the Canadian cultural environment, and promote a greater sense of "Canadian-ness" among citizens. The most significant concern among publishers and authors at the time of the Massey Commission, otherwise known as the Massey Report, was it is almost miraculous that Canadian print culture existed at all (Woodcock, 1967).

This paper aims to explain how CanLit and the Canadian publishing revolution of the mid- twentieth century were written and in this particular case, legislated into existence. Publishing, and as an extension, CanLit experienced a rebirth after the release of the Massey Report however as a country, we are still, and forever it seems, trying to get by (Gadpaille, 2014). The issue at hand is understanding what the important impact of the Massey Report is and how this impact is still felt today through cultural institutions such as the Association for Canadian Publishers and the Canadian Council for the Arts.

The Meaning Behind the Massey Report

Mount (2017) found that the Massey Commission was at the core, a response to what was missing from Canadian print culture:

By the 1950s, Canadian art had a "distinct canon of images": the single pine…no such set of literary images existed in the national psyche until after the 60s-no double hooks, no stone angels… that's partly the problem addressed by the Massey Report (p.4).

The Massey Commission, formally titled the “Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences”, came to be in 1951. To the public, it is often known as the “Massey Report”. Importantly, the Commission wanted to instil a sense of nationalism from Canadian publications (Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, 1951). The Commission wanted to communicate that for the distinct nature of Canadian publication to survive (Royal Commission, 1951) and a means of explaining what Canada stands for and what makes this country different from all other developed nations.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 3

What the Report wanted to do for publishing was to ensure the future of the traditional Canadian identity and create a space for these institutions, and to explain what needed to come from the Canadian government to ensure they stayed in Canadian hands and not be handed over to global conglomerates. There was a subtle belief that if Canada began to fund its publishing industry, then the country could come into its own culturally. By injecting funding into Canadian publishing Canadian companies and information receivers could have reliable access to Canadian content, and Canadian produced texts. The Commission argued that the value Canadian publishers are immeasurable, something that needs protecting as these institutions are a means of promoting quality, Canadian materials to readers. On the same adage, the Commission suggested that for Canadian publishing to be a feasible industry, they must find a way to compete with outside publishers and publications via lowering the prices for a Canadian consumer to access Canadian content. In the end, publishers and the Massey Commission agreed: ask for government assistance through grants and tax breaks for companies that were Canadian owned and produced Canadian material (Royal Commission, 1951). A compelling implication of the Massey Commission was an acknowledgement from the government and stakeholders is Canadian publishing is valuable but vulnerable to outside influence. The Massey Commission provided a useful alternative model to guaranteeing Canadian arts survival; instead of complaining about American cultural influence the findings forced the Canadian government to take action and begin to realise what had to be done to ensure Canadiana would not fade into memory. 1951 was the beginning of arts legislated into being, through the creation of the Canada Council for the Arts (Vincent Massey’s legacy), and the creation of the National Library, where texts deemed important to Canadian history were to be stored (Stewart & Kallmann, 2006).

Canadian Publishing: An Act of Survival

Canadian publishing companies at their core were an alternative to traditional, external publishers based in the United Kingdom and the United States. When founded in 1927, Random house proclaimed they were to publish a few books, at Random while other, smaller publishers were considered to have an ideology focused on providing higher exposure for regional artists. Unlike larger institutions such as Random House or McClelland and Stewart (M&S) which

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 4 focused on a more global scale (Parker, 2012). Never once before the 1960s was Canada considered to be a primary and valuable place for Canadian authors to promote their content. Before this period, and into today publishing Canadian content is deemed to be a risk in the globalised world, but somehow houses such as Penguin and McClelland and Stewart kept doing so. They became known by some authors as the "midwives of Canadian culture” (Solecki, 1998) due to their tendency to publish and then ironically, forget what they had contributed to the growth of Canadian culture in the post-Massey era. The publisher is a curious part of Canadian culture and institutions because they exist as a result of CanLit – but CanLit, on the same adage cannot exist without publishing. I would like to suggest that after the Massey Commission, a new era of Canadian content and publishing standards released. Stated by Woodcock (1967)

The next necessary revolution in Canadian publishing is surely the production of separate Canadian editions of all books by writers working in this country, no matter what their subjects. When a Canadian publisher finds it commercially feasible to underwrite a separate edition of a book by a Canadian one will feel that Canadian publishing and the Canadian reading public have at last come of age (p. 98).

Publishing, after the Massey Commission became openly funded by the government and Canada's best-known publisher, McClelland & Stewart had just released a new set of library edition books that summarised what they believed to be representative of Canadian literature (Scherf, 2000). Canadian publishing exploded after that, and a new form of “literary consciousness” emerged, one that was interested in new wave, Canadian literature that represented what it meant to be Canadian. What was curious after Massey was how major publishers became loyal to their authors: McClelland and Stewart still publish for Margaret Atwood and Margaret Lawrence today, speaking to the unique nature of Canadian publishing. If there is a success, and due to the volatility of Canadian publishing, then the publisher will remain blindly loyal to the author, bordering on legendary in the case of Jack McClelland of McClelland and Stewart (Solecki, 1998). The fifties and sixties, notably were the happiest time to be a publisher (ibid); piggybacking off of the centennial of Canada and production of funding for culture produced some of the best CanLit and other works. Canadian publishing in this era was

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 5 able to define itself and provide a cultural currency that was then successfully thrust upon the world thanks to the Massey Report, through the Canada Council for the Arts. Through the likes of Alice Munro, Hugh McLennan, and Leonard Cohen there was finally a “clear-eyed” view into the world, and none of that was by accident (MacSkimming, 2012). The issue with Canadian publishing is that there is a lot of pride surrounding how it came to be, not how the industry survives. Within these statements, MacSkimming suggests there is not much has been written about the industry itself, only on the policy's that contribute to its survival (2012).

The problem with Canadian publishing having been legislated into being is not that it does not have a means to sustain itself but instead, a desire to survive and continue just to be. In that sense, Canadian publishing is especially fragile: the legislation that produced CanLit and publishing was inherently nationalist, and gradually reduced to nothing by the 1980s (Dewar, 2017). In the small segment of time (between the 50s and 70s) when policies such as the Massey Commission, and the Canada Book Fund there was a sense of social mysticism that suggested Canada could become a world leader in the dissemination of culture through policy subconsciously throughout literature. One of the most significant challenges within the Massey Report has been its lack of acknowledgement of culture in Canada, blaming geography for preventing CanCulture from spreading successfully. Although, there have been successful attempts of publishers and authors to cancel out this challenge, Canadian publishing cannot exist without CanLit but genuinely Canadian publishing is endangered, and as such, there must be a solution found to save the integrity of Canadian publishing.

CanLit Boom: The Golden Years

Some authors, Noah Richler, included, see that CanLit and Canadian content is something of a fiction, a result of continual telling and retelling of the same stories through generations (Richler 2007). The most substantial issue tabled by the Massey Commission was a lack of “Canadian- ness” in Canadian literature and content (Massey, 1951) and that is still a major concern for some in cultural studies today. One of the suggestions tabled to rectify the supposed lack of “Canadian-ness” in CanLit was to extend grants to authors who wrote in either official language and successfully demonstrated what Canadian culture was while promoting a sense of national

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 6 unity through their stories (ibid). Adding to this, Massey suggested that it is best that Canadians recognise the beauty of the content being created by authors in this country via prizes or fellowship with major universities modelled after existing fellowship programs in place in the United States. For this to happen, however, there must be a recognition that CanLit did indeed live, which is what occurred in the 1960s.

Within a fourteen-year time frame, from 1960-1974, CanLit exploded, providing a new literary identity for Canada, resulting in the identity synonymous in the post-Massey era (Mount, 2017). After this period, Richler ran out of things to write, funding started to become scarce, and Coupland began to suggest that the only way to keep CanLit on the track it was, was to find a way to force the government to fund the idea that CanLit could survive (Coupland, 1967). During this time, a significant struggle faced by CanLit in the 1960s, however, was that a majority of the publishers that were willing to publish Canadian content were Anglophone, leaving Francophone literature at risk of being forgotten. Despite these struggles, there was a beauty in the boom; bookstores that dealt exclusively with Canadian content, because they could, and the number of books published in 1969 by McClelland and Stewart extended beyond 70 per annum (Dewar, 2017). The fascinating part of the CanLit boom? How intertwined publishing and CanLit were; these two industries engaged with each other and as suggested by the Massey Commission, involved in such a way that they were able to support and create a possible trade. The form that CanLit took during the period is remarkable because a literary atlas became a reality; Mordecai Richler painted a stunning picture of Montreal while George Bowering attempted to recreate the arrival of George Vancouver in fiction. The cultural explosion did not come from anywhere, but was brewing; the talent that CanLit had was to survive, continue forward. Suggested by Margaret Atwood in her literary atlas, Survival, the only goal in CanLit and publishing was to survive and somehow continue to produce Canadian content, not thrive (Atwood, 2012). The form taken in the CanLit boom was a response to new funding and idealism; the idea that after Massey, CanLit could become its being, separate from the influence of Americana and British Literature. There was an admiration of CanLit and the thematic of survival, but something was left to be desired. In the golden years of the CanLit boom, there was success in doing more than just surviving, CanLit arrived because there was interest in understanding what it meant to be Canadian. The reality now is this boom will never happen

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 7 again. Canada experienced its cultural revolution its current form is embracing a newer kind of literature and writing, there is an ongoing trend called twitterature, a sort of alternative publishing in CanLit where authors and professionals alike come together, in less than 140 characters to discuss CanLit history, structure and the cultural phenomena that exist.

Seeing Red: The Future of CanLit and Publishing

When McClelland and Stewart split into two factions in 2001, it was almost like a death notice signed in the world of Canadian publishing. 75% of the company went to the University of Toronto Press, and the other 25% was sold off to outside subsidiaries like Random House. The sale was a lapse in reaction emerging from the publishing house crisis in 1971, when McClelland turned to government funding to ensure the houses’ survival, regardless of the time lapse, the loss was devastating (Dewar, 2017). Today, Canadian Publishing is dominated by the “Big Five” and outside conglomerates. Canadian publishing is slowly losing touch with its origins of small publishing houses that were supporting local stories, and instead of trying to survive a corporate world that diminishes the value of Canadian stories. Despite all of this, facets of the Massey Report’s initial suggestions remain Canadian Publishing and Literary grants handled by the Department of Heritage. Still, these grants make up a large part of the budget, 39.1 million dollars in 2016 and the Canada Council for the Arts provides a 250 000-dollar prize annually to support small publishers (Nawotka, 2017). The ideal, as the House of Anansi Press, suggests is to publish books without thinking of the bottom line, and thinking more about the cultural value that text will have on the literary atlas of Canada (ibid). The most hopeful image out in CanPublishing and CanLit is that print book sales are up, by 1.9% from the year previous, hinting at a revival of Canadian print culture potentially as a result of Canada 150, and other projects such as Canada Reads (ibid).

The future of Canadian publishing lies in the hands of the public and the government (Medley, 2017). The public can ultimately influence publishers to change their ways and go from traditional brick and mortar publishing to support smaller authors and other “non-traditional” methods of publishing while remaining true to the mission provided back in the 1960s by Massey to promote Canadian content. The Twitterature trend could be a solution to promote

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 8

CanLit and publishing, as social media use tends to be the norm, and avoid the continual proclaimed “dumpster fire” that CanCulture can become if there is a lack of consensus of what can be done to ensure its survival (Lederman, 2018). This form of new CanLit could retell the classics, while creating a new platform to engage with authors and readers who are social media savvy, therefore causing a potential cultural revolution and interest in Canadian content once more. The government should inevitably continue to find intuitive ways to support literary arts and publishers, especially those who are considered small. How did the Massey Report impact publishing then you ask? It forced Canadians to face the reality that for Canadian culture to survive; they must support businesses and authors of their own. It put in place the constant state of reinvention that Canadian Publishing experiences every few decades. Perhaps, a new term should be coined, encompass what this industry is: CanPublishing. Like the term CanLit, it speaks to Canada's enjoyment of euphemism, and an implication that for one to understand what Canadian Publishing is, one must take a deep dive into Canadian Culture to know, to know how this industry came to be. Today, Canadian Publishing is controlled by the “Big Five” and outside conglomerates.

To save Canadian Publishing and CanLit Canadian cultural critics must not think about going back, but adjusting to a globalised context, despite the desire to return to protectionism as a means of preventing the foreign destruction of what some consider quintessentially Canadian, our literature. Adding to this, the inherently hierarchal structure of Canadian publishing and culture must change; the culture of the Massey era was “highbrow” and interested in the pursuits of the upper-class, and this is no longer feasible as a result of the diverse nature of cultures and ways of knowing that exist in modern Canada. We can take this and thus, apply to Canadian content and not go back but go forward and be in competition with others, presenting the forward-thinking image while allowing CanPublishing and CanLit to take on this image and re- establish itself as a dominant, compelling narrative. Maybe the best solution, in a world where our own Prime Minister admitted that there is no dominant Canadian culture, is to establish a Massey Commission 2.0 to examine and restructure existing legislation and cultural institutions to allow for CanPublishing and CanLit to experience rebirth and recognition.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 9

References

Atwood, M. (2012). Survival: A thematic guide to Canadian literature. House of Anansi. Canada. (2002) Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences 1948-1951. Coupland, D. (2006). What is CanLit?. New York Times, 22. Department of Canadian Heritage. (2007) The Book Retail Sector in Canada. Retrieved from Gadpaille, M. (2014). Thematics and its Aftermath: A Meditation on Atwood's Survival. Primerjalna Knjizevnost, 37(3), 165. Government of Canada Publications. (2007). The Book Retail Sector in Canada. Dewar, E. (2017). The Handover: How Bigwigs and Bureaucrats Transferred Canada's Best Publisher and the Best Part of Our Literary Heritage to a Foreign Multinational. Biblioasis. Dobson, K., & Kamboureli, S. (2013). Producing Canadian literature: authors speak on the literary marketplace. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. Kallmann, H., & Stewart, J. (2006, July 02). Massey Commission. Retrieved February. Retrieved from The Canadian Encyclopedia.ca. Lederman, M. (2018, February 2). Twitterature: Wading into the choppy waters of CanLit. The Globe and Mail. Kallmann, H., & Stewart, J. (2006). Massey Commission. Retrieved from The Canadian Encyclopedia.ca. MacSkimming, R. (2012). The Perilous Trade:" Book Publishing in Canada, 1946-2006". McClelland & Stewart. Medley, M. (2017, June 9). What happened when a beloved book publisher changed hands. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/books-and- media/what-happened-when-a-beloved-book-publisher-changed-hands/article35268245/ Mount, N. (2017). Arrival: The Story of CanLit. House of Anansi. Nawotka, E. (2017, October 8). Canadian Publishing 2017: Celebrating the Story of Canada. Publishersweekly.com. Richler, N. (2007). This is my country, what's yours? A literary atlas of Canada. McClelland & Stewart Limited.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Legacy of the Massey Report 10

Scherf, K. (2000). A legacy of Canadian cultural tradition and the small press: the case of Talonbooks. Studies in Canadian Literature, 25(1), 131. Serebrin, J. (2017, February 13). A new wave of Canadian book companies taps into the popularity of self-publishing. The Globe and Mail. Smith, R. (2015, April 3). Russell Smith: How to publish a book in Canada. Globe and Mail. Solecki, S. (Ed.). (1998). Imagining Canadian Literature: The Selected Letters of Jack McClelland. Toronto: Key Porter Books. Woodcock, G. (1967). Preface to a Symposium. Canadian Literature, 33, 3-15. Woodcock, G. (1977). Massey's Harvest. Canadian Literature,73, 2-7.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

2 | White-Dominated Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry

Zhinan Yu, Department of Communication

This chapter seeks to explore cultural appropriation as a diverse, ubiquitous, and morally problematic phenomenon (Matthes, 2016, p. 344) emerging particularly in white writers’ novels. In approaching this goal, a case study based on English writer James Hilton’s best-known novel Lost Horizon (1933) will be given through addressing relevant theoretical concepts including imperialist literature, colonialism and orientalism. The case study aims at exemplifying how white-dominated cultural appropriation implemented by writer’s misuses and misperceptions toward Asian cultures. Then, in the second part of this chapter, multifaceted perspectives will be drawn into the discussion for giving cultural appropriation a further sight beyond the novel itself, and pay attention to the book publishing industry as an international yet still race-biased business in terms of globalization.

Keywords: cultural appropriation; imperialist literature; white-dominated; Lost Horizon; book publishing; globalization.

Introduction

In a 2015 article published in The Guardian, novelist, essayist and literary critic Anjali Enjeti astutely asserted that writers of colour are “severely under-represented in the literary world”. In this piece, Enjeti chronicles a controversy over the Best American Poets 2015 anthology, wherein the volume’s editor, Sherman Alexie, decided to publish the poem “The Bees, the Flowers, Jesus, Ancient Tigers, Poseidon, Adam and Eve” despite the author’s use of a racialized pseudonym. After selecting the poem, Alexie found out that the poem’s author, Yi-Fen Chou, was actually the Chinese pseudonym for Michael Derrick Hudson, a white man from Wabash, Indiana. In his bio as Yi-Fen Chou, the author indicates that this poem was rejected 40 times under his real name, but only rejected 9 times under his pen name, and he has realized he could

Copyright © 2018 Yu. Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 12 increase his rate of publication under this pseudonym (bio cited in Spears, 2015). Using a pen name is common practice, to be sure, but a white man using a Chinese pseudonymn to increase publication rate is a form of cultural appropriation that suggests there is a perceived privilege in assuming a stolen ethnicity (Enjeti 2015). In a perhaps strange move, Alexie chose to publish the poem under the Chinese pseudonym, seemingly condoning an act of cultural appropriation on the part of Hudson. Alexie justified his actions, blaming himself for racial nepotism when selecting the poem, arguing that he was drawn to the poem “because of his own personal bias to publish people of colour”. Enjeti (2015) disagrees with the editor’s designation of “racial nepotism”, arguing that “Nepotism represents shared alliances and acts of favoritism among people in power. And in the publishing industry, people of colour do not have power”. For Enjeti, then, this collection an example of a publishing industry rife with discrimination and cultural appropriation.

This chapter explores cultural appropriation and discrimination in the book publishing industry. In particular, it focuses on cultural appropriation as a diverse, ubiquitous, and morally problematic phenomenon in publishing (Matthes, 2016, p. 344), focusing on how white authors appropriate and often misrepresent non-white cultures. In approaching this goal, a case study based on English writer James Hilton’s best-known novel Lost Horizon (1933) will be invoked to help unpack relevant theoretical concepts including imperialist literature, colonialism and orientalism. Imperialist literature, according to Hall (1995) is a discursive frame referring to the ideology of colonialism, or white-centred expeditions that attempt to dominate the non-white cultures by propagandizing colonialist attitudes. Hall's study of culture and ideology is incredibly profound, and sparks further inquiries and debates between imperialist literature and individual and/or collective dignity within a culture that has been misappropriated. Lost Horizon offers a critical example in which we can see cultural appropriation served as Hilton’s colonial metaphor, fitting perfectly in the paradigm of imperialist literature. The second part of this chapter extends this narrative to the broader book publishing industry on a globalized scale. Drawing on Berry’s (2008) work on cross-cultural studies, this section will discuss racial discrimination in the industry (in general) and cultural appropriation (specifically) as a way to unpack the racial biases that dominate business practice.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 13 Cultural Appropriation and the Lost horizon

A second, powerful strand of the English literary imagination to set beside the domestic novel: the male-dominated world of imperial adventure, which takes empire, rather than Middlemarch, as its microcosm…In this period, the very idea of adventure became synonymous with the demonstration of the moral, social and physical mastery of the colonizers over the colonized. – Stuart Hall (1995, p. 20-21)

Cultural appropriation is a common phenomenon that can be pervasively seen in the literature and other forms of art. In an artistic and aesthetic sense, “cultural appropriation”, according to Young (2008) is defined as an act of borrowing specific cultural elements from other cultures and then incorporating those elements into the artists’ own artworks (p. 4). Especially in novels, as Young (2008, p. 31) claims, where cultural appropriation is more thoroughly conveyed because it is the thing that all novelists would do. Of course, the opening story about Hudson-as- Chou points to another form of cultural appropriation: a white man assuming the name, identity and cultural heritage of a marginalized minority writer. However, although cultural appropriation is such a commonplace in novels, since it always compounds ethical and cultural issues, it has become necessary to understand this concept as more than cultural borrowing but also a form of cultural misrepresentation. To a greater extent, cultural appropriation could place minority cultures in danger of being further misinterpreted and marginalized, and in this regard, Lutz (1990) gives the definition of cultural appropriation based on his aboriginal study, as part of a process of displacing people and history by other dominant cultural heritage (p. 167). No matter which angle you choose to approach cultural appropriation, cultural exploitation and domination will always be its intended ends.

Written by James Hilton in 1933, Lost Horizon tells a fictional story about four westerners' fantastic expedition and journey in a remote valley (called “Blue Moon”) of Tibet. This novel achieved huge success and immediately became popular in western societies following publication and made into a film (also named Lost Horizon) in 1937. Impressively, the mysterious Tibetan valley in the story becomes embodied as the hidden mythical locus of Shambhala, as well as the idealized projection of a Chinese-style paradise, characterized as

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 14 peaceful and transcendent, as having spectacular natural landscapes, and whose inhabitants enjoy longevity. This novel is the first document that narrates fantasies about Tibet and the myth of Shangri-La from a Westerners' perspective. But arguably, Hilton's imaginations and fantasies are not all positive, and the most obvious to detect is the persona setting of the major roles in this novel. Hugh Convey, one of the four foreign travellers, a veteran as well as the lover of Shangri- La who is assigned as the successor of the High Lama in Shangri-La at the end of the story. Charles Mallinson, a diplomat, who is also the only one desires to leave Shangri-La, but goes missing as a result. Henry Barnard, a fugitive who steals 100 million dollars, and finally decides to stay in Shangri-La for prospecting gold. Miss Roberta Brinklow, a Christian missionary who wants to remain in Shangri-La and preaches Christianity. Besides them, there are several Chinese characters should also be mentioned. Chang, the guide who leads the four Western travellers into Shangri-La and provides them much help. Lo-Tsen, a young and beautiful Tibetan girl, who falls in love with Mallinson and eventually leaves the valley with him. In this novel, the four protagonists more or less project Hilton's subtle colonizing attempts of Tibet. In the story, except Mallinson, the three other Westerners are willing to settle themselves in Shangri-La. Later, they even successfully proclaim their superior positions as whites. Convey is honoured as the new High Lama—the holiest religious leader, which implies he takes control of religion. Similarly, Brinklow's preaching also connotes religious imperialism of Christianity in local Tibet. Sadly, Chinese characters are not safe from Hilton's colonized depictions either; for example, Chang is good at speaking English, and Lo-Tsen (a Chinese girl who inhabits in such a hidden valley) can play the piano. From these descriptions, we can see even Hilton's imaginary wonderland is in the faraway East; white culture still inevitably embedded into Tibetans’ daily lives. As Said (1977, p. 18) notes, “the Orient was almost a European invention and had been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings, haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences”.

In this novel, the idea of “otherness” is also associated with cultural appropriation in tandem with Young’s (2008) analysis of subject appropriation. In general, subject appropriation describes a culture that has been represented by the writer, is not actually his/her own culture, but rather imaginations from an outsider’s perspective to depict insiders’ lives (p. 8). In this sense, writers taking elements and symbols from other cultures that they are not naturally engaged in, as does Hilton in Lost Horizon. Hilton, having never been to Tibet, would not have known what

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 15 real Tibet and Tibetan culture would look like; as such, his story is merely built upon his fantasies and imaginations. Also, in reference to Young’s argument, in Lost Horizon, Hilton portrays Tibet as the embodiment of Shangri-La and gives it dual natures. “Here the archetypal positive (as wisdom and sophistication) and negative (as roughness, simplemindedness, and superstition) images of Tibet find themselves juxtaposed on one and the same place, but while the negative connotations apply to the locals, the positive ones happen to be reserved for the white elite” (Dodin & Räther, 2001, p. 12). Hall and Said both agree that in imperialist literature, words like non-active, non-patriating, non-autonomous, non-sovereign, cheating, cunning, savagery, and barbarian are usually used to describe Orients or any “coloured” cultures as alienated and marginalized “others” (Said, 1977, p. 101). In saying this, their arguments attempt to illustrate that white superiority might always be privileged in dominating over non-white, human or non-human, like we can observe in Lost Horizon, even though the author’s colonized attempts are expressed subtly.

The case study of Lost Horizon, in conjunction with the analyses of cultural appropriation, attempts to not only diagnose cultural appropriation as a stubborn suppresser to non-white cultures, but also to facilitate deeper thought about whether such cultural nidus remains stagnant in its colonial and racial biases. The following section will extend the current discussion from the novel into the present-day book publishing business, to consider how cultural appropriation unfolds within the larger context of globalization.

Globalization and Book Publishing

Globalization can be seen as the process that increases interaction between communities on a worldwide scale thanks to intercultural communications and commercial collaborations across the nations. However, the effects of such process should be perceived critically because both positive and negative outcomes will arise out of it (Berry 2008). Taking minority cultures as an example, globalization on the one hand enables members within these cultures to resist cultural domination, homogenization, imperialism, and colonialism, thus they can have better chances to reclaim their cultural heritage as well as to modify the wrongly depicted cultural identities (p. 330). On the other hand, globalization can also lead to marginalization of alienated groups, and

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 16

“leaving their members without any cultural nexus in which to carry out their lives” (p. 332). Such arguments make a justifiable account that argue for treating the impacts of globalization not only as a cause but also an effect of cultural appropriation at stages of writing, editing and publishing. To explore this, it is crucial to figure out what role that globalization plays in transforming the traditional way of operation in publishing industry, as Davies (2015) writes: “in less than 100 years publishing has changed from a craft industry led by individuals…to one now dominated by giant international publishing corporations” (p. 23). However, even as the industry itself becomes increasingly international, there seems to be little interest in increasing the racial diversity of employees and authorship.

According to recent statistics, 79% employees working in the publishing industry are white (Deahl, 2016). Childress (2017) also points out, gatekeepers of publishing including literary agents and acquisition editors in the United States are 95% white. Among 1,200 literary agents, Childress observes that 38% of them show an equal interest regarding fictions but only 15% of them would be willing to take a look if the story involves ethnic and multicultural content. “I think some white agents and editors may shy away from multicultural texts, feeling that they are not qualified to judge or just scared of taking on subjects, topics with which they are not familiar”, says by Kannel, an African American writer (McGee, 2016). In fact, rather than consider it either as a matter of qualification or fear of taking on non-white content, it speaks more to an outgrowth stemmed from lacking of racial diversity in the publishing industry.

Not only are employees of book publishing industry overwhelmingly white, so are the majority of authors. Based on The Bookseller magazine’s statistical finding, among the 500 titles of 2016, 343 were written by UK authors, and only 1.7% of them were written by British black, Asian, and minority ethnic (BAME) writers. These data show that white-centric values in book publishing still holds a significant position, and in contrast, racial bias has not been eliminated. In addition, Childress (2017) argues that, compared to white writers, writers of other races are more harshly censored by publishers. For example, editors routinely ask them to “dumb down” their stories without considering it may damage cultural specificity and accuracy of the story, just simply because those editors do not believe “people talk that way” (cited in Childress, 2017). In dealing with this problem, authors like Zindell, who refuses to dumb down his stories, turn instead to self-publish their work, in doing so, he says: “My primary aim is no longer to be a

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 17 commercially successful writer… Today I’m writing for the pure joy of writing — the best motive of all for writing” (Evans, 2017). Writers like Deahl, Childress, Zindell and many others have begun to notice that book publishing has become less diverse, with less variety in the manner of cultural identifiers, including gender, race, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation (Masad, 2016). As Mejias argues, when “diversity” enters the discussion, there is an implication toward “variety”, which suggests a varied inclusion of materials and content from different cultures. In this sense, variety also means there should be an increasing number of non-white writers’ voices included in the publishing industry (cited in Masad, 2016). Unfortunately, as writer Ayesha Pande (2018) states, “the industry seems to have a tendency to glom onto and elevate the very few successful voices by people of colour and think of them as representative of their entire community”.

What are the larger cultural impacts of appropriation? Rogers (2006) believes that cultural appropriation can lead to exchange, domination, exploitation and transculturation, which may turn culture into “a relational phenomenon that itself is constituted by acts of appropriation, not an entity or essence that merely participates in appropriation” (p. 475). However, from a literary perspective, some writers insist that cultural appropriation should be allowed in fictional writing, otherwise writers can only write stories about themselves (Bolt, 2016, p. 68). As novelist Margaret Drabble argues: “appropriation is what novelists do. Whatever we write is, knowingly or unknowingly, a borrowing. Nothing comes from nowhere” (cited in Young, 2008, p. 31). Yet these arguments overlook the morally questionable and controversial nature of cultural appropriation: when writers (as outsiders) draw on their own experiences and imaginations of other cultures that they have never been engaged in, they are in fact distorting and misinterpreting them in a negative, or even offensive way (Young, 2008, p. 9). Such claims from writers’ point of view bring in debates about the boundaries on what content can be. Furthermore, with the popularization writing on web platforms, it is getting more challenging to control the dissemination of culturally appropriated messaging, and it will also be very difficult to subvert the stereotypical view that people already have about a certain culture. Iseke-Barnes’s (2005) research significantly articulates how indigenous culture, history and science has been overlooked and misrepresented by dominant cultures in the process of making and maintaining of power. In her analyses, the Internet is a tool used to entrench and preserve cultural

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 18 hegemonies (p.157). Thus, in the age of web 2.0, institutions like media and book publishing companies, then, should take more responsibilities not just for being the source of cultural appropriation, but also for being the distributors of these misappropriated ideas in the scope of race, gender, and culture.

Time to Embrace a Multicultural Future in Book Publishing

Cultural appropriation is a long-standing issue in the publishing industry. While the Lost Horizon offers a clear example of how cultural imperialism, colonialism, and racism are implemented through Hilton’s imaginations and appropriations of Shangri-La, the opening discussion of Hudston’s appropriation of a Chinese pseudonym suggests that these issues still resonate. Indeed, the Hudson-as-Chou case points to a perhaps even larger issue in the publishing world, wherein white authors do not simply appropriate cultural references in their stories, but they also appropriate identities and cultural heritages that are not their own. But these issues are not limited to white writers; indeed, cultural appropriation and discrimination resonates throughout the book publishing industry. As the second part of this chapter reveals, white-dominated cultural appropriation is an underlying threat to the broader publishing industry. Not only does it harm artistic creation, but it also results in a lack of racial diversity within the publishing industry. These issues have greatly restrained minority authors from sharing their own cultural heritage, as their work is either routinely rejected or harshly censored by a majority white publishing industry. In this regard, although the publishing industry is attempting to adapt to an increasingly globalized market, old racial biases remain at the core of the industry. It is thus imperative to call attention to these issues, and encourage renewed discussions about racial diversity and multicultural content in this global sphere. Through an increase in diversity in book publishing (both in terms of authorship and content), readers, then, will be in a position to explore the world through a variety of lenses and give greater power to writers of colour. In so doing, the experiences and cultural expression of the world’s authors, no matter what culture she/he comes from will have greater representation in the global book publishing industry.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 19 References

Berry, J. W. (2008). Globalisation and acculturation. International Journal of Intercultural Relations, 32(4), 328-336. doi:10.1016/j.ijintrel.2008.04.001 Bolt, J. (2016). Cultural appropriation. Review - Institute of Public Affairs, 68(3), 68. Chidress, C. (2017, June 27). Cultural appropriation and the whiteness of book publishing. Retrieved from The Conversation. Davies, G., Balkwill, R. (2011). The professionals' guide to publishing: A practical introduction to working in the publishing industry (1st ed.). London; Philadelphia: Kogan Page Limited. Deahl, R. (2016, March 11). Why publishing is so white. Publishers Weekly. Enjeti, A. (2015, Sept 9). Finding minority writers isn't 'racial nepotism'. it's the cure for bigotry. The Guardian. Evans, C. (2017, November 30). Self-publishing enables novelist, CU grad Zindell’s return to ‘pure joy’ of writing. Retrieved from Colorado.edu. Flood, A. (2018, November 8). Authors called David more likely to be on bestseller lists than BAME writers. The Guardian. Hall, S. (1995). The whites of their Eyes: racist ideologies and the media. In Gail Dines and Jean M. Humez eds. Gender, Race and Class in Media, 18-22. Hilton, J. (1933). Lost horizon. London: Macmillan. Iseke-Barnes, J. (2005). Misrepresentations of Indigenous History and Science: Public broadcasting, the Internet, and education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 26(2), 149-165. Lutz, H. (1990). Cultural appropriation as a process of displacing peoples and history. The Canadian Journal of Native Studies, 10(2), 167-182. Matthes, E. H. (2016). Cultural appropriation without cultural essentialism? Social Theory and Practice, 42(2), 343-66. Masad, I. (2016, April 18). Serious lack of diversity in book publishing. Retrieved from Vice.com. McGee, R. (2016, February 10). The overwhelming whiteness of the publishing industry. Ms. Magazine.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Cultural Appropriation in the Publishing Industry 20

Rogers, R. A. (2006). From cultural exchange to transculturation: A review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation. Communication Theory, 16(4), 474-503. Said, E. W. (1977). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Spears, B. (2015, September 7). Yellowface in poetry. The Rumpus.net. Thierry Dodin, and Heinz Räther, eds. Imagining Tibet: Between Shangri-La and Feudal Oppression. Boston: Wisdom Publication, 2001. Unknown. (2018). Literary color lines: On inclusion in publishing. Retrieved from LitHub. Young, J. (2008). Cultural appropriation and the arts: New directions in aesthetics. Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

3 | The Chinese Mark: How to Prevent Fake News by Chinese Publishers

Zongjun (Tom) Jiang, Department of Communication

This chapter will show the three interesting Chinese fake news, and these messages include the Chinese paper fake news and blog fake news. During the research, the author found the reasons why the fake news published by publishers in China and societal harm of the fake news published. Finally, the author puts forward reasonable recommendations about how to prevent fake news by the Chinese publishers.

Keywords: Fake News, Chinese publishers, Self-Publishing, South China Tiger Event, Chinese Cardboard Bun Hoax, Micro-Blog

Introduction

News – whether published in print or digital newspapers or broadcasted on radio or television stations – is a critical form of information that documents up-to-the-moment changes in local, national, and global communities (Alejandro, 2010), delivered to readers in both print and digital formats (Grimm, 2013). The news is characterized by authenticity, timeliness, conciseness, readability, and accuracy. Among all the characteristics, authenticity is the main point of the press, and it is the baseline of professional ethics that the journalists and the publishers must abide (Mirvajová, 2014). In recent years, with the development of digital and Web2.0 technology, an abundance of unreliable and often fake news has increasingly appeared in the mainstream media and has had a significant impact on society (Darwish and Lakhtaria, 2011). It has become increasingly important to be able to identify fake from accurate news and take effective measures to prevent and correct information to ensure the healthy development of journalism and mass communication. While fake news is increasingly a global problem, it has been a significant issue in China for the last twenty years (Bandurski, 2007), misleading public

Copyright © 2018 Jiang. The Chinese Mark 22 opinion, weakening the credibility of the media and creating negative emotions of the Chinese citizen. Drawing on three fake news case studies in China, this chapter will outline the emergence and dominance of print and digital fake news in China, address the harmful impacts of these stories on Chinese society, and suggest ways in ways in which fake news can be prevented.

What is Fake News?

In a recent publication, Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) worked toward a definition of “false news”. Their study defines this news genre as “A news story that has no factual basis, but it presented as news” (p. 213). False news, then, presents not just a lack of objectivity, but the actual reporting of facts that are inconsistent with news elements (including time, place, character, cause, process, and result) or falsified, or news details (Shu, Sliva, Wang, Tang & Liu, 2017). False reports published by news agencies violated truth of the news (Hanly, 2018), and has become a significant challenge to the authority and credibility of the journalistic reporting (Marchi, 2012).

Digital publishing has become a more efficient means of communicating news (Brown, Griffiths, Rascoff & Guthrie, 2007). Within China’s blog-sphere, journalists discover a lot of first-hand news (Jin, Cao, Zhang, Zhou & Tian, 2017). However, the convenience of publishing news digitally has also led to the development of fake news, which spreads quickly before truthfulness and accuracy are verified (Jin, Cao, Zhang, Zhou & Tian, 2017). Social networks have created serious issues in this regard. According to China’s report, micro-blog, which has more than 1/3’s current events, contains fake information or news (Zhao, Resnick & Mei, 2015). While some news stories might initially seem innocuous, they in fact point to a larger break in social systems that report on and rely on news. The following cases point, in particular, to a growing precedence not just for reporting on news, but for competing for the first publication of stories – regardless their truthfulness or accuracy.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 23

Case Studies: Cardboard Buns, Chinese Tigers and “Electrocuted Aliens”

In July 2007, a Beijing television station BTV7 (life channel) broadcasted a fake news about food counterfeiting (Olesen, 2007). In the report, the accompanying photograph suggests that the local peddlers were selling pork steamed buns, an ordinary breakfast food, full of 60% caustic soda-soaked cardboard and 40% compound pork (Grace, 2007). Published around the same time as several highlights publicized incidences of food safety issues in the country, the report sparked general outage for citizens of China. Following an investigation of Beijing health authorities, it was found that the reporter had fabricated the entire story: he paid workers to make cardboard buns while he filmed, claiming it was real. Taken in the context of real, documented cases of food safety in China, this report served to perpetuate a culture of fear amongst Chinese citizens. Once the story was discredited, the Beijing TV station and reporter apologized for the deception of the story and its “vile impact on society”. In addition, the reporter was jailed for one year and given a fine of $132 (Feng, 2007). At the same time, other Chinese newspapers had published the apologized for this news event.

Three months later, on October 12, 2007, the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau published a collection of photographs of South China tiger in China’s Shaanxi Province. These photos, taken by hunter Zhou Zhenglong with both digital cameras and film cameras (Ma, 2008), became a huge story because this particular breed tiger had been extinct in China since 1990 (Ma, 2008). The authenticity of the photos was immediately questioned by some “netizens”, South Chinese tiger experts and experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, triggering national discussion about the truthfulness of news (Wen, 2010). Print-newspapers were competing to publish breaking news (Wen, 2010), without pausing to verify the accuracy of its sources. In the end, the results were identified as downright fake news (Wen, 2010), and the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau released an apology in February 2008 and released a statement admitting to their forgery four months later (Wen, 2010).

Six years later, on June 9, 2013, a Chinese micro-blog reproduced a fake news story about a farmer coming into contact with 5 “aliens”. The original story reported that a man from Shandong Binzhou surnamed Mr. Li claimed that three earlier, he met five “aliens” in a flying saucer on the Yellow River in China (Barefoot, 2013). When one of them died, he hid the alien

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 24 in his own warehouse (Barefoot, 2013). Unfortunately for true believers, “The alien purported electrocuted and discovered by a man in Binzhou is a high-quality imitation,” the Jinan Police posted on their Sina micro-blog (Jou, 2013). The result is the “alien” body was made up of high- quality rubber (Jou, 2013). Unfortunately for Li, the public security bureau didn't like his fake alien as much as the internet did. Shortly after he proudly posted photographs of his alien on the internet, he was arrested by the police for five days in prison for "fabrications" that "disturbed the public order" (Moore, 2013).

The Reasons Why the Fake News Published by Publishers in China

Why is fake news such a rampant issue in China? Why are some citizens interested in fabricating stories? The above-described stories seem innocuous at first glance but are part of a much larger cultural issue. Three general issues can be identified in this context, including (1) a lack of legal consciousness, (2) an abnormal level of competition between press agencies, (3) the curiosity of readers. The rise of digital publishing compounds these issues, making it easier for publishers and reporters to fabricate and disseminate stories that an increasingly curious readership devours without critical reflection on accuracy and authenticity.

The first issue to be addressed her has perhaps the greatest moral and ethical implications. Chinese publishers seem to be lacking a legal consciousness (Cheng, 2006) and a sense of social responsibility (Oriel, 2018). Some Chinese media outlets, especially the local news publishers, do not have a good understanding of the state's laws and policies and misunderstand or unilaterally understand relevant policies. For example, the publisher published the above three news without strict censorship. Some news seemingly “powerful” and they can attract the eyes of the audience, but violated the principle of news authenticity, as well as the right to know the masses of the audience and interferes with the order of publishing.

The lack of such moral consciousness is further compounded by the abnormal sense of competition between Chinese press agencies (Ogden, 2015). These publishers are more concerned with the financial and competition benefit of publishing these news stories than the validity of the stories themselves. The benefit here includes two aspects of the spirit and the

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 25 economy: on the one hand, publisher create fake news for a more prominent place in the industry. For example, the “Chinese Cardboard Bun Hoax” story, brought much attention to the BTV7 news station. Despite the false nature of the story, their name was published widely and read by most Chinese citizens. In this way, the adage of “there is no such thing as bad publicity” seems to function as a motto for such agencies. Some publishing institutions, such as newspapers, publish unverified news to enhance their reputation. On the other hand, some reporters will offer a publisher “benefits” in order to have their stories published. At the same time, the interests can also affect the publishers' publication fairness and authenticity, concealing the unfavorable facts of the news happened (Dillet, 2016). Especially in the publication of South China tiger photos, which positively impacted local development and the tourism, but it violates the authenticity of the news.

The Chinese audiences are increasingly curious. According to a recent survey by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology shows that falsehood diffused faster than the truth (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018). In China, a socialist country, news stories tend to focus on the Communist party. The content is relatively simple, or “too boring” to some readers. In this way, some reporters are interested in creating “sensational” stories to peak the curiosity of readers. For example, the “electrocuted aliens”, which was a “self-directed” fake news, because aliens are always a topic that piques the curiosity of readers and the “electrocuted alien” story was no different. Fabricated (with quite a lot of creativity) to mislead the public about the existence of celestial creatures in China, this story (and indeed the others discussed above) demonstrates how quickly a falsified story can spread if shocking enough for readers.

In the new media era, the development of internet technology has, in fact, created the perfect conditions for the emergence and success of fake news (Rubin, Chen & Conroy, 2015). For example, the publication of “Electrocuted aliens” was self-published by the farmer on a Chines website and was disseminated at a very fast speed by news outlets. It caused a sensational social negative effect. Also, some people counted the news on micro-blog's publication and found that 1/3’s current news was false news, and the more serious thing is that micro-blog has become the source of Chinese reporters and news publishers to identify the authenticity of the news. If the source of the news is not guaranteed, it will cause the news authenticity of the publication to be questioned by the audiences.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 26 Societal Harm of Publishing Fake News in China

Publishing fake news has the potential to significant endanger for the credibility of the news agencies (Barclay, 2017). Truth is the vitality of press and individual titles, and publishing “real” news plays a role in guiding public opinion. However, the publication of false news has a significant impact on society: not only do fake news stories misinform a population on current events, but the prevalence of such stories leads citizens to question the credibility of authoritative news agencies. Therefore, this inevitably leads to the ineffectiveness of the media's doubts. Publishing agencies “manufacture” the fake news, the impact on the media image should be considered fatal.

Fake news can destroy the guidance of public opinion and cognitive bias for the audience (Viña, 2017). The publication of fake news is "deceiving" to the audience of the news. The credibility of the media and social responsibility have great confidence for readers. False news has not been exposed before once appeared to tend and not to doubt, so it will cause the audience as the "group of victims." Also, the false news will have the cognitive bias for the audience, and it will cause a lot of harmful effects to the audience and the real society.

Recommendations

How can fake news be prevented? Several scholars have offered suggestions on how fake news can be eliminated. First and foremost, the Chinese government must improve the system of accountability. Publishing agencies should be held accountable and asked to provide their information released to the public, be responsible to the society and must bear the corresponding legal responsibility. They should establish mechanisms monitor news agencies, and institute a system of accountability and discipline; in this way, an agency found to have published fake news would be penalized or perhaps lose its ability to publish news through officially sanctioned channels until its improves its internal system. Stricter systems of compliance might improve reporting and fully mobilize netizens to expose the enthusiasm of cracking down the fake news.

Second, Chinese publishing agencies themselves need to develop standards and regulations regarding news publication. Through the development of such regulations, agencies will be

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 27 required to verify the accuracy and reliability of news stories. In this regard, publishers must attach greater importance to the authenticity of news sources (Thompson, 2016). When publishing news stories, they should have the first-hand information and ensure that the news sources are authentic. When they encountered controversy of the news, they need to listen to the opinions of the experienced publisher, so that they can avoid the overgeneralization for the news and ensure the news stories are accurate, objective and impartial. In this way, publishing agencies are playing a larger role in protecting society (Ifijeh, 2017), by investigating and verifying the reports and stories to determine their truthfulness. To do so, they must improve internal management and the overall publication system (Xie, 2014). By developing a national, standardized system, agencies would be better able to verify the accuracy and authenticity of sources through the editorial and revision process.

Self-publishing remains a wildcard in this ever-expanding network of news publishing (Rudolph, 2017). The publication of micro-blog news has greater sense of randomness and freedom. Anonymity leads to malpractice, which makes fake news more rampant. Also, it cannot be regulated by the supervision of the society and the law. Micro-blogs thus need to use the real name system and it should be the editor and publisher name notes like the paper news, so that the news can find the original from which person (Branigan, 2012). Perhaps most importantly, information literacy of the general population needs to be improved overall (Prescott, 2016). While it would be ideal for micro-bloggers to stop publishing fake news stories, this is unlikely to happen until the general public has the ability to reflect more critically on the contents of what they are reading. This requires the Chinese government must to learn from the western country’s advanced methods to cultivate people’s information literacy such as the “media education” (Tan, Xiang, Zhang, Teng & Yao, 2012). As such, the general public needs to develop the ability to read news more critically, to recognize the difference between true and false information.

Conclusion

Preventing and eliminating false reports for publishers is a significant responsibility that will take a long time; it requires the joint efforts of the publishing industry and the whole society. In China, fake news has been a significant issue over the course of the last twenty years (Bandurski,

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 28

2007), and it’s time that Chinese publishers accept responsibility for their role in disseminating accurate, comprehensive, and objective news. Given their role in disseminating news, publishers are in a position to report on and indeed correct falsified stories, using their position to educate the population. Of course, reading audiences must improve their capacity to reflect critically on the validity of news. In so doing, the general population might develop a greater sense responsibility for the value of accurate and truthful information representation. By working together, Chinese audiences and publishers have the power to improve the publishing industry, and work toward eliminating fake news in China.

References

Alejandro, J. (2010). Journalism in the age of social media. Reuters Institute Fellowship, p.213. Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-236. Bandurski, D. (2007). Fake news. Retrieved from ChinaProject.org. Barclay, D. (2017). The challenge facing libraries in an era of fake news. Retrieved from TheConversation.com. Barefoot, P. (2013). Chinese farmer confesses 'electrocuted alien' was a hoax. Retrieved from ChinaSmack.com. Branigan, T. (2012). China to expand real-name registration of micro bloggers. The Guardian. Brown, L., Griffiths, R., Rascoff, M., & Guthrie, K. (2007). University publishing in a digital age. The journal of Electronic Publishing, 10(3). Cheng, Frank. (2006). Copyright in the US and China: differences in policy and in practice. Chinese librarianship: An International Electronic Journal, 22. Darwish, A., & Lakhtaria, K. (2011). The impact of the New Web 2.0 technologies in communication, development, and revolutions of societies. Journal of Advances in Information Technology, 2(4), 204-216. Dillet, R. (2016). Google and Facebook ban fake news sites from their advertising networks. Retrieved from Techcrunch.com. Feng, C. (2007). Chinese reporter jailed for supposedly faking story. The EpochTimes.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 29

Hanly, K. (2018). Op-Ed: Canada's PM Trudeau demands Facebook address 'fake news' problem. DigitalJournal.com Grace, F. (2007). China busts cardboard bun shop. CBSnews.com. Grimm, E. (2013). Digital newspaper: same advertising impact and so much more. Retrieved from Inma.org. Ifijeh, G. (2017). Emergence of predatory publishing in library and information science: issues and implications for scholarship among academic librarians in Nigeria. Bilgi Dünyasi, 18(1), 149-161. Jin, Z., Cao, J., Zhang, Y., Zhou, J., & Tian, Q. (2017). Novel visual and statistical image features for microblogs news verification. IEEE Transactions on Multimedia, 19(3), 598-608. Jou, E. (2013). Update: it's a hoax! Alien invasion in China? Man claims to have electrocuted an alien. Kotaku.com. Ma, L. (2008). South China Tiger snapper held on mystery charge. Retrieved from ChinaDaily.com. Marchi, R. (2012). With Facebook, blogs, and fake news, teens reject journalistic “objectivity”. Journal of communication inquiry, 36(3), 246-262. Mirvajová, V. (2014). The golden age of citizen journalism. Annales Umcs, Politologia, 21(1), 150-160. Moore, M. (2013). Chinese farmer jailed for making a rubber alien. TheTelegraph.co.uk. Ogden, C. (2015). Handbook of China's governance and domestic politics. London [u.a.]: Routledge. Olesen, A. (2007). Beijing's cardboard-stuffed buns a hoax. WashingtonPost.com. Oriel, J. (2018). “Good publishers copping a bad press from fake news.” TheAustralian.com. Prescott, J. (2016). Handbook of research on race, gender, and the fight for equality. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. Rubin, V., Chen, Y., & Conroy, N. (2015). Deception detection for news: three types of fakes. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 52(1), 1-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pra2.2015.145052010083 Rudolph, J. (2017). “New regulations reinforce real name verification.” Retrieved from Chinadigitaltimes.net.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Chinese Mark 30

Thompson, M. (2016). “In a world of fake news, real journalism must be paid for.” The Guardian. Sharma, R. (2017). Media trends: inside publishers’ battle against fake news. Retrieved from Agilitypr.com. Shu, K., Sliva, A., Wang, S., Tang, J., & Liu, H. (2017). Fake news detection on social media. ACM SIGKDD Explorations Newsletter, 19(1), 22-36. Tan, Q., Xiang, Q., Zhang, J., Teng, L., & Yao, J. (2012). Media literacy education in mainland China: a historical overview. International Journal of Information and Education Technology, 2(4), 381-385. Viña, T. (2017). Fake news, bad views, and society’s loss. Rappler.com. Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146-51. Wen, Q. (2010). Cultural resistances in Chinese cyberspace. M.A. thesis, Universidade de Macau, 2010. Xie, B. (2014). Media transparency in China. London: Lexington Books. Zhao, Z., Resnick, P., & Mei, Q. (2015). Enquiring minds: early detection of rumors in social media from enquiry posts. Proceedings of the 24Th International Conference on World Wide Web - WWW '15, 1395-1405.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

4 | Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers: Opportunities and Challenges

Xiaohan Li, Department of Communication

This chapter explores how social media platforms provide marketing opportunities in the Internet era for traditional publishers. By adapting to the current trend and becoming an active player on social media platforms like Twitter, publishers can enhance their marketing and publicity through better engagement with readers, more effective management of reputation and crisis, as well as achieving growth with their authors. The chapter also discusses challenges and concerns over social media marketing such as the devotion of time and staff, and the effectiveness of the attempts. It concludes that social media can be a powerful marketing tool that will benefit publishers in increasing their business.

Keywords: Twitter, social media, publisher, marketing

Introduction

The burgeoning of digital media has been projected as a challenge for traditional publishers. Addressing the innovation brought on by digital technologies to the book publishing industry, Lichtenberg (2011) refers to it as a “phase shift (like water to ice) from print to a complex new world of digital” (p. 103) and forecasted the weather of the publishing industry to be “a mix of ice, snow, high winds, and freezing rain” (p. 104). However, the picture is not all grey and gloomy. The digital technologies that bring challenges to the publishing industry also bring new opportunities. Among them are the online platforms of social media which are being harnessed by publishers for marketing and publicizing purposes.

Book publishing is a business that carries strong cultural connotations. For book publishers, this means their position in society is one at the intersection between culture and commerce, as they are responsible for cultural production and commercial marketing of these

Copyright © 2018 Li. Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 32 products (Rønning & Slaatta, 2011). Prior to the Internet era, books were usually promoted through a series of publicity campaigns initiated by the publishing houses. According to Morrell (2005), a former publicist for Random House, these marketing campaigns included interviews with print media, radio and television, book reviews, author tours, launch parties where influential figures and media were invited, etc. However, the exposure of a new book was only limited to the lifespan of the media coverage, and extending the exposure meant more financial input on the part of publishers (Morrell, 2005).

With the Internet and the emergence of various social networking sites, book marketing can be implemented in more innovative ways and at lower costs. In an article comparing the effects of word-of mouth (WOM) on the Internet versus traditional marketing strategies, Trusov, Bucklin, & Pauwels (2009) state, “The Internet provides numerous venues for consumers to share their views, preferences, or experiences with others, as well as opportunities for firms to take advantage of WOM marketing” (p. 90). In the case of book selling, for instance, it is not uncommon for potential readers to refer to the online book reviews from other buyers before making a decision to purchase a book. There are also instances of buying a book after reading a friend’s post on social media recommending a book that they enjoy reading themselves.

Evidently, publishers are sensitive to the new trend of social media marketing and are making efforts to take advantage of it. According to a survey conducted by the Book Business magazine in the U.S., 68% of the respondent publishers regard social media as the biggest opportunity in future book marketing practices (Harvey, 2015). Therefore, this chapter aims to investigate how social media can benefit the marketing efforts of publishers by discussing three aspects: reader engagement, reputation and crisis management, and author-reader interaction. Meanwhile, current challenges and concerns over social media marketing will also be addressed.

Twitter as a Marketing Tool

At the end of 2017, the total number of monthly active users of Twitter reached 330 million (Statista, 2018). This provides a valuable resource for publishers as the largest number of audiences in history are aggregated and can be easily reached through these online networking

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 33 platforms (Laudon & Traver, 2010). Social media platforms like Twitter have the potential to bridge the gap between readers and writers or publishers, which will benefit the publishing business in various ways.

Reader Engagement Marketing on social media platforms like Twitter offers two-way communication in which organizations pitch marketing messages to the public, with individuals playing an increasingly active role through social media engagement who become part of the greater marketing strategy (Weinberg, 2009). For readers, this means a stronger presence to voice their opinions and exert influence; for publishers, this means more opportunities to connect with existing and potential readers and to build a sense of community around their products and services (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).

Increasing traffic is one of the primary goals of social media marketing (Weinberg 2009). In an article discussing the benefits of using Twitter for book promotion, Abbott (2009) cites the example of Chelsea Green, an American publishing company that successfully used Twitter to gain more publicity. In one of such attempts, they posted on Twitter asking people to visit the Chelsea Green website and choose a book they wanted to read, and the 10th person participating in this contest would get a free book. When readers were asked to participate in the contest, they were not only directed to the publisher’s website, but were also motivated to be highly engaged with the website, as they would need to skim through the book catalogue of the publisher, gaining knowledge about the books available, with the possibility of discovering interested books. At the cost of giving away one free book to the lucky 10th reader, Chelsea Green managed to attract potential readers to their website and inform them about the titles available. For those participants who fail to get the free book, possibility is high that they might buy one copy on their own. This proved to be an smart way of driving traffic to the publisher’s website, thus getting more exposure to its existing and potential readers.

However, in their efforts to use social media for traffic driving, it is imperative that publishers post information on social media that is relevant to the mission of the website; as

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 34

Weinberg (2009) states, irrelevant content would fail to maintain the visitors and lead to high bounce rate, meaning visitors would leave the website soon after they enter.

Twitter can also help publishers improve their products and services through direct engagement with readers. For established companies, a Twitter search can produce a good deal of results, which provides immediate access to the feedback from customers (Weinberg, 2009). Paying attention to the comments and needs of readers, publishers can “streamline their publications to keep pace with current trends and cater to readers’ expectations, which in turn will help them avoid disappointing sales and losses” (Exeter Premedia, 2014).

Reputation and Crisis Management Social media like Twitter can also be used for reputation and crisis management, which is particularly important in the Internet era.

First, regular engagement on social media platforms contributes to building a positive image of the organisation. According to Zahoor and Qureshi (2017), consumers consider social media to be more trustworthy as a source of information than traditional marketing tools. This means publishers can be proactive in their communications and interactions with readers (Boon- Long & Wongsurawat, 2015) and leverage social media to build a positive image of their brand. Social media marketing activities are also found to have positive effects on brand awareness and brand image, which will further influence online word-of-mouth and consumer commitment (Seo & Park, 2018).

Second, social media plays an important role in addressing reputation crisis when it arises. In the age of the Internet, the reputation of an organisation can easily be tarnished, as Weinberg (2009) notes:

You may have spent decades building the empire that now houses your brands and hundreds of thousands of employees. But reputations are precarious; within a matter of moments, your hard work can come tumbling down when a customer (or even a competitor) uses the Internet to tarnish the good name that you have been trying so hard to maintain. Given the proliferation of content on the Internet, one bad story can easily

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 35

spread like wildfire. Companies that do not react to the firestorm can suffer considerable loss of trust and may even lose brand share (p. 75).

In cases of reputation crisis, organisations can use social media to provide prompt response and control the potential consequence of the crisis. One success story of using social media for crisis management is the Southwest Airlines when its Flight 345’s nose gear collapsed while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport in 2013, causing minor injuries to 10 passengers. Roughly 30 minutes after the accident, Southwest Airlines was communicating with the public through Facebook and Twitter about the accident. The posts received positive comments from followers showing appreciation for the quick response, honesty and openness of Southwest Airlines.

Author-Reader Interaction Publishers can also use social media for marketing and publicity through authors. A study about authors’ engagement on social medial platforms (Laing, 2017) reveals that the primary purposes of using social media by authors include “sharing thoughts and opinions, interacting with readers and fans and marketing and publicity” (p. 264). In terms of marketing and publicity, Laing (2017) finds that there is generally a compulsion among authors to use social media, as “there is a commercial expectation and a financial pressure applied by publishers, albeit obliquely rather than directly” (p. 260). In engaging with readers on social media, as noted by Ldesai (2017), authors tend not to adopt a direct promotion strategy that overtly ask readers to buy their books. Instead, one strategy that many best-selling authors use is to build an informal relationship with readers, “to make them feel included in his decisions and to sustain a readership” (Ldesai, 2017). Readers often feel personally connected to authors through their social media interactions. Therefore, promotional messages generated by authors will be more relevant and attractive to their fans than directly from the publishers. According to Baverstock (2008), people can become part of the marketing process and promote book sales without being in the publisher’s marketing teams. This can be more easily achieved when authors use social media to actively engage with their fans and exert their influence.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 36 Challenges and Concerns

Although social media such as Twitter have become an integral part of business marketing, challenges still exist in the attempt to use social media for book marketing, including the effectiveness of this strategy, how to measure it, and the time and money devotion from publishers.

A survey conducted among authors using social media (Laing, 2017) reveals that many authors were uncertain about the effectiveness of using social media in enhancing marketing and sales of their books. Also mentioned in the survey was the lack of guidance and support from publishers who lack social media knowledge. In an article analysing the use of Twitter by trade publishers in the UK, Thoring (2011) finds that only 42 percent of the surveyed trade publishers had Twitter accounts, with larger publishers more likely than smaller publishers to use Twitter. According to Thoring (2011), possible explanations for non-use include the expenditure of time and effort, the noise on Twitter that makes it hard for smaller publishers to be heard, and the short shelf life of postings on Twitter.

While it can be difficult to directly measure the effectiveness of social media marketing, Boon-Long and Wongsurawat (2015) propose that online comments can be an indicator because word-of-mouth has great influence on people’s purchasing decisions. There are also various analytics tools that publishers can use to gather data on social media to monitor the effectiveness of marketing activities as well as achieving better understanding of readers. Compared with traditional marketing tools, social media is more cost-effective and therefore would worth the devotion of time and efforts from publishers.

Conclusion

Publishers, like any other business, live in an era of rapid change and uncertainty. The extensive use of social media has changed the dynamics of the “publishing field” that John B. Thompson (2010) refers to in his book Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-first Century. Publishers are not only “situated in complex relations of power, competition and cooperation with other firms and organisations” (Thompson, 2010, p. 4), but are also

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 37 experiencing a change in power relationship with readers (consumers). In this digital age, consumers have become more powerful, but they can also become part of the social capital that Thompson (2010) notes in analyzing the resources that publishers possess. By adapting to the current trend and becoming an active player on social media platforms like Twitter, publishers can enhance their marketing and publicity through better engagement with readers, more prompt and effective management of reputation and crisis, as well as achieving growth together with their authors. Despite the current challenges and concerns, publishers can benefit a great deal by drawing on successful cases of social media marketing, implementing marketing campaigns that cater to the needs of readers, and keeping abreast of the new technology and tools that will facilitate their marketing efforts.

References

Abbott, C. (2009, March 30). To tweet or not to tweet? The Twitter basics: Promoting books in 140 characters or less. Publishers Weekly, 256, 16-16. Baverstock, A. (2008). How to Market Books: The Essential Guide to Maximizing Profit and Exploiting All Channels to Market. London: Kogan Page. Boon-long, S., & Wongsurawat, W. (2015). Social media marketing evaluation using social network comments as an indicator for identifying consumer purchasing decision effectiveness. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 17(2), 130-149. doi: 10.1057/dddmp.2015.51 Exeter Premedia. (2014, March 6). Publishing in the age of social media. Retrieved from http://www.exeterpremedia.com/publishing-age-social-media/ Harvey, E. (2015, March 11). 2015 Book Business Trendspotting Report. Book Business. Laing, A. (2017). Authors using social media: Layers of identity and the online author community. Publishing Research Quarterly, 33(3), 254-267. doi: 10.1007/s12109-017- 9524-5 Laudon, K. C., & Traver, C. G. (2010). E-commerce 2010: Business, Technology, Society. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Twitter as a Marketing Tool for Publishers 38

Ldesai. (2017, October 2). Does social media boost book sales? Truth is stranger than fiction. Retrieved from Thinkubator. Lichtenberg, J. (2011). In from the edge: The progressive evolution of publishing in the age of digital abundance. Publishing Research Quarterly, 27(2): 101-112. doi: 10.1007/s12109- 011-9212-9 Mangold, W. G., & Faulds, D. J. (2009). Social media: The new hybrid element of the promotion mix. Business Horizons, 52(4): 357-365. doi: 10.1016/j.bushor.2009.03.002 Morrell, S. (2005). Book publicity in the internet era. Public Library Quarterly, 24(2), 47-63. doi: 10.1300/J118v24n02_03 Rønning, H., & Slaatta, T. (2011). Marketers, publishers, editors: Trends in international publishing. Media, Culture & Society, 33(7), 1109-1120. doi: 10.1177/0163443711416068 Seo, E., & Park, J. (2018). A study on the effects of social media marketing activities on brand equity and customer response in the airline industry. Journal of Air Transport Management, 66(Complete), 36-41. doi:10.1016/j.jairtraman.2017.09.014 Statista. (2018). Number of monthly active Twitter users worldwide from 1st quarter 2010 to 4th quarter 2017 (in millions). Statista.com. Thompson, J. B. (2010). Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge: Polity. Thoring, A. (2011). Corporate tweeting: Analysing the use of Twitter as a marketing tool by UK trade publishers. Publishing Research Quarterly, 27(2), 141-158. doi: 10.1007/s12109- 011-9214-7 Trusov, M., Bucklin, R. E., & Pauwels, K. (2009). Effects of word-of-mouth versus traditional marketing: Findings from an Internet social networking site. Journal of Marketing, 73(5), 90-102. doi: 10.1509/jmkg.73.5.90 Weinberg, T. (2009). The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web. Sebastopol: O’Reilly Media. Zahoor, S. Z., & Qureshi, I. H. (2017). Social media marketing and brand equity: A literature review. IUP Journal of Marketing Management, 16(1), 47-64.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

5 | Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism: An Ethical Grey Area

Wanting Ma, Department of Communication

Self-plagiarism is a controversial issue. It remains an ethical grey area as there is little consensus on what constitutes self-plagiarism in an academic context. Much debate focuses on the terminology of “self-plagiarism”, which has been criticized as an inaccurate representation of the practice of reusing one’s own work. There are also disagreements among scholars regarding two borderline tolerable forms: text recycling and salami slicing. While discussion surrounding text recycling has focused on the acceptable amount of text reuse, and whether there is a need to set up distinct text recycling rules in different article sections or academic disciplines, debate on salami slicing has focused on the potential harm that this practice inflicts both on readers and publishing industry.

Keywords: self-plagiarism, ethical debate, terminology, text recycling, salami slicing

Introduction Over the last couple of years, issues related to self-plagiarism in the publishing industry have gained increased attention. Although there is general consensus that plagiarism is an unethical academic writing practice, there are differing opinions about the ethicality of self-plagiarism. In fact, it seems as there is little consensus on what constitutes self-plagiarism in an academic context. This chapter aims to explore the ethical status of self-plagiarism through a discussion of the conceptual issues related to the term, as well as the debates around two borderline tolerable forms: text recycling and salami slicing. For each type of self-plagiarism, there are individuals who argue against the practice, while others provide reasons for legitimatizing it. This chapter will unpack both sides of these debates, and articulate the need for formal guidelines and principles surrounding the practice of re-using one’s own work.

Copyright © 2018 Ma. Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 40 Terminology of Self-Plagiarism Although the scholarly community agrees that plagiarism (in the general sense) is unethical, few can agree on the ethicality surrounding self-plagiarism. Much of this discussion surrounds different understandings of the term itself, which has generated significant debate among scholars. On one hand, some scholars see “self-plagiarism” as an incorrect term as it forms a contradiction. The word “plagiarism” originates from the Latin for “to kidnap” (Mathews, 2011), and it is defined as “the theft or misappropriation of intellectual property and the substantial unattributed textual copying of another's work” (Office of Research Integrity, 1994, p.5). If applying this definition to the term “self-plagiarism”, it becomes extremely confusing, as an author cannot truly steal from his own work. According to Scanlon (2007), self-plagiarism can be compared to ridiculous situation in which a person is accused of burglary for breaking into his own home because he forgets the key. Andreescu (2013) argued that “self-plagiarism” is a misnomer because it obscures about the nature of the acts it describes, and Broome (2004) claimed that the concept is built on an oxymoron. In short, these authors suggest that recycling one’s own work does not count as an act of plagiarism.

On the other hand, some scholars believe that the terminology of “self-plagiarism” is correct and applicable. Firstly, some have argued that there are indeed situations in which one might steal from him/herself. Hexham (2005) listed insurance fraud and embezzlement as two examples. For him, self-plagiarism can be viewed as theft since the author misleads his readers by letting them believe there is a new publication, which is the same thing as selling a second- hand car while claiming it is brand new (Hexham, 2005). Secondly, although the analogy between self-plagiarism and theft is a seeming impossibility, it can still be considered as a form of plagiarism, as plagiarism does not only focus on the dimension of “theft”. According to Scanlon (2007), plagiarism is a complex issue that the ethical failing is based on both theft and imposture. In this case, self-plagiarism deceives a reader, by presenting “material as original when it is not, even if it was original with the current author” (p.63). In general, the debate about the terminology of “self-plagiarism” focuses on whether the formation of term is contradicting and whether it can be considered as a form of plagiarism. This debate accurately reflects the situation that self-plagiarism is a grey zone of plagiarism.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 41 Types of Self-Plagiarism: Text Recycling and Salami Slicing There are four main types of self-plagiarism, which are duplicate publication, salami slicing, text recycling, and copyright infringement (Scanlon, 2007). Among them, text recycling and salami slicing are the most heatedly debated. While text recycling seems to be the most controversial form for unclear guidelines surrounding levels of acceptability, critics of salami slicing focus on the possibility that readers might be misled by a study’s results. Both forms, however, are readily practiced in academic writing and the boundaries between ethical and unethical use of previous materials remains blurred.

Text Recycling

Text recycling emerges in literature on the topic as the most controversial form of self- plagiarism. Roig (2006, p. 22) defined it as “a writer’s reuse of portions of text that have appeared previously in other works”. The ethical features of text recycling are unclear because there are few relevant guidelines for authors and the reuse of text is only partial (Scanlon, 2007). There are three main debates surrounding text recycling, including the acceptable amount of text reuse, text recycling in different sections and in different academic disciplines.

According to Boisvert and Irwin (2006), reusing significant portions of one’s own work is not acceptable if the previous work is not cited properly. The key question here is: how much is too much? Roig (2006) noted the amount of allowable textual recycling has not been generally addressed in literature. Samuslson (1994) suggested a rule of thumb that one can reuse as much as 30% of his previous work in the current publication, and she called for the establishment of an official law regulating the upper limit. By comparison, in a preliminary study aiming to identify the extent of self‐plagiarism in Australian academic research, Bretag and Carapiet (2007) defined self-plagiarism as “10% or more textual reuse of any one previous publication by the author without attribution” (p.92). Therefore, the permissible amount of text recycling varies from one scholar to another. Additionally, the determination of the amount of textual reuse is also associated with subjective views of what practices can be considered as self-plagiarism. For example, Bretag and Carapiet (2007) considered “chain of textual reuse” as a form of self- plagiarism, which the new publication is a patchwork of one’s previous publications and contains

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 42 minimal original material. These authors mention Samuslson’s “30% rule”, questioning how the author determined the 30% rule. “For example, does this mean 30% from one source, or is it 30% as a total of all re‐used text from multiple sources?” (Bretag & Carapiet, 2007, p.95).

Focusing on textual recycling in purely quantitative terms may not achieve the most ideal outcome of detecting self-plagiarism, however. First, there are situations in which the amount of textual recycling does not accurately show the extent of self-plagiarism in a publication work. For example, Bretag and Caraopiet (2007) highlight a textual reuse practice called “cut and paste”, which “entails piecing together small sections of previously published material” (p.101). Because each text-match in “cut and paste” textual reuse is less than 10%, the authors could not count them as self-plagiarism. However, the authors argued that the practice is unethical (particularly when the new material comprises less than 50% of the paper), and they put forward the need for further research and the provision of more comprehensive guidelines on the issue of self-plagiarism (Bretag & Carapiet, 2007). Second, it is important to make reasonable distinctions between permissible and impermissible reuses of text when judging the written work. For example, under the situation of having same number of words in both texts, “copying a standard way of expressing a common mathematical formula” is different from “mimicking a distinctive interpretation” (Bruton, 2014).

Scholars also tend to have different opinions regarding whether originality in some sections of the research is less important than in others. Project methodologies, for example, receive the greatest amount of attention in literature addressing textual recycling. In a preliminary study exploring the extent to which authors reused portions of their own text from previously published papers, the results suggested the recycling of text did exist, but it was “largely confined to complex methodological descriptions of a research design and procedure” (Roig, 2005, p.245). Some scholars believe recycling the methodological section should be accepted within subsequent publications on the same or similar topics, with three reasons for this practice emerging in scholarship on the topic. First, methodological description is likely to contain highly technical wording that cannot be paraphrased without changing its meaning (Bruton, 2014), and some scholars found themselves struggling when they needed to spend precious time rewriting materials that have already been clearly stated (Roig, 2008). Sometimes

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 43 the method section in the previous publication may represent the best possible version of the concise and accurate description of materials and procedures (Roig, 2008). Secondly, making changes might be a bad idea as scholars lay the groundwork for an ongoing discussion, particularly when researchers want to replicate an experiment and compare the current one with the previous one (Bruton, 2014). On the other hand, some scholars do not think reusing the text in the method section is ethical, criticising the reasons supporting this form of text recycling. Some argue that there are many ways to say the same thing, even when it comes to very technical languages (Bruton, 2014). Coming up with alternative wording of method descriptions does not cost much effort if authors know their subjects well. Some authors do not even make minor changes when they repeatedly recycle the same method section and instead describe the methods that are not actually used (Roig, 2006). It is advised that the template for the method section should be updated to reflect the context of the current research project (Roig, 2006). In some cases, serious legal and ethical consequences can be raised. If an author takes the method section from one of his papers that had been published in a journal owned by one publisher and recycles that text in his new paper that will be published by another, the author may be violating copyright rules of the publisher (Roig, 2006). In another situation, if a member of one team of authors wrote the original method section but is not in the team when the method section is recycled in a later publication, an accusation of plagiarism can easily be developed (Roig, 2006). The inability to come to a consensus on this topic, shows the complexity of the situation and the variety of contexts that need to be considered when applying generalized rules.

In addition, there have been several discussions around the need to establish specific text recycling rule in each academic discipline. The debate is very much focused on whether or not rules should be adjusted based on the discipline of the author. Some argue the core of science are facts and theories, while words are more important in arts and social sciences. According to Bouville (2008), words are only ways to communicate knowledge, and the knowledge is made of facts and concepts. For example, a scientist whose ideas are strong is a good scientist, although his language skill might be weak. It is acceptable, then, to borrow better English as “Science would be more hurt by an incomprehensible article than by copied words” (Bouville, 2008, p.315). In contrast, a poet who does not know how to express the words in a good way is a poor poet. In poetry, “the wording is the essence of the novelty” (Bouville, 2008, p.314). Although

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 44 poem is not academic publication, the example shows the idea that words are more important in the arts than in the sciences. Therefore, this perspective suggests that textual recycling has more serious consequences in arts and social sciences than in science. Avoiding a disciplinary division, several scholars believe that the text recycling rule should be the same across all academic disciplines. The results from a survey of over 300 journal editors and editorial board members in 16 different academic fields showed that there were no consistent associations between disciplines and attitudes about text recycling (Hall, Moskovitz & Pemberton, 2018). The reasons for supporting the same text recycling rule across all disciplines are the same ones that are mentioned in the previous paragraph.

Salami Slicing Salami slicing is another form of self-plagiarism that generates much ethical discussion. Salami slicing refers to the practice of cutting up the results of a study and publishing them in multiple articles (Scanlon, 2007). There are three different forms of salami publishing. First, some studies reuse all or some of the same set of data (Scanlon, 2007). Second, a dataset might be segmented into distinct smaller pieces, and those pieces are used to produce different publications (Scanlon, 2007). Third, an author might explore a single issue from different perspectives in several publications, thus there can be overlaps among papers (Scanlon, 2007).

If each publication addresses a different angle of an issue, why might some scholars consider salami slicing an unethical practice? It is believed that the most significant issue is that it might mislead readers, who might assume each article is derived from a distinct research study (Roig, 2008). As a result, the readers might not see individual articles as part of a larger research study and fail to understand the comprehensive nature of the study (Roig, 2008). Additionally, salami slicing can lead to exaggeration of research findings and have the impact of increasing/decreasing the author’s impact (Norman & Griffiths, 2008). For example, in a case study aiming to find the impact of duplicate data on estimates of efficacy, Tramer et al (1997) examined 84 trials detailing the effects of the drug ondansetron on post-operative sickness, which were featured in multiple publications. The results showed that positive trials are more likely to be subject to duplicate publication than those with negative results, thus led to a 23%

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 45 overestimation of ondansetron's antiemetic efficacy (Tramèr et al., 1997). Finally, salami slicing has been criticized for taking space away from other valuable articles, as publication space is a precious resource and ought to be used judiciously (Norman & Griffiths, 2008).

In contrast to those who view salami slicing as an unethical practice, some other people believe it is acceptable in some degree. According to Bird (2012), it is reasonable for authors to seek to publish more than one article containing same dataset, as this can ensure the results from interdisciplinary research are disseminated to readers in each specific subfield. Furthermore, if two authors in different disciplines are involved in multidisciplinary collaborative research, each might want to publish the work in journals recognized by their disciplinary peers (Andreescu, 2013). Finally, authors feel that they should use different tones, different levels of details and different themes when writing to different audiences (Samuelson, 1994). Sometimes there are overlaps among the articles as some content can be bodily lifted from one article to another. As noted by David (2008), salami slicing is a good way to help authors reach a broader readership nonetheless limited to a particular discipline.

A third group weighing in on the discussion have maintained a relatively neutral attitude toward salami slicing. Although they believe it to be an unethical practice, authors who produce salami publication should not be blamed. Rather, as Andreescu (2013) argues, the publish-or- perish culture in the current academic assessment and promotion system is the real cause. This means a scholar’s academic achievement is evaluated based on the quantity rather than the quality of their published articles. Due to the pressure to publish, some authors have no other choices but to produce salami publication. It is “the wrong response to a wrong set of standards” (Andreescu, 2013, p.783).

Summary Self-plagiarism remains a heatedly debated practice within academic scholarship – labeled unethical by some, and acceptable within certain contexts for others. It is essentially an ethical grey area in between plagiarism and appropriate recycling of texts, ideas and research results. Much of the debate has centered around the terminology itself, “self-plagiarism”, which has been criticized as an inaccurate representation of the practice of reusing one’s own work. The two

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 46 writing practices discussed here, text recycling and salami slicing, remain controversial amongst scholars. While discussion surrounding text recycling has focused on the acceptable amount of text reuse, and whether there is a need to set up distinct text recycling rules in different article sections or academic disciplines, debate on salami slicing has focused on the potential harm that this practice inflicts both on readers and publishing industry. Others, however, believe salami slicing is a smart way to reach a broader readership across multiple disciplines. Throughout literature on the topic, scholars have suggested that it’s time the publishing industry set up a sequence of clearer rules to regulate writing practices surrounding self-plagiarism. Until a set of guiding principles or rules have been established for academic writing practices, self-plagiarism will remain an ethical grey area in academic publishing.

References Andreescu, L. (2013). Self-plagiarism in academic publishing: The anatomy of a misnomer. Science and Engineering Ethics, 19(3), 775-797. Bird, S. J. (2002). Self-plagiarism and dual and redundant publications: What is the problem? Commentary on ‘seven ways to plagiarize: Handling real allegations of research misconduct’. Science and Engineering Ethics, 8(4), 543-544. Boisvert, R. F., & Irwin, M. J. (2006). Plagiarism on the rise. Communications of the ACM, 49 (6), 23-24. Bouville, M. (2008). Plagiarism: Words and ideas. Science and Engineering Ethics, 14(3), 311- 322. Bretag, T., & Carapiet, S. (2007). A preliminary study to determine the extent of self-plagiarism in Australian academic research. Plagiary: Cross-Disciplinary Studies in Plagiarism, Fabrication and Falsification, 2(5), 1–15. Bruton, S. V. (2014). Self-plagiarism and textual recycling: Legitimate forms of research misconduct. Accountability in Research, 21(3), 176-197. David, D. (2008). Duplication spreads the word to a wider audience. Nature, 452(7183), 29-29. Scanlon, P. M. (2007). Song from Myself: An anatomy of self‐plagiarism. Plagiary: Cross‐ disciplinary studies in plagiarism, fabrication, and falsification, 2, 57‐66.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Problematic Nature of Self-Plagiarism 47

Hall, S., Moskovitz, C., & Pemberton, M. A. (2018). Attitudes toward text recycling in academic writing across disciplines. Accountability in Research. Manuscript in preparation. Hexham, I. (2005). The plague of plagiarism: Academic plagiarism defined. Retrieved from Irving Hexam’s website (University of Calgary). Mathews, W. (2011). Copy, paste, steal? Communication world, 28(3), 26-28. Norman, I., & Griffiths, P. (2008). Duplicate publication and ‘salami slicing’: Ethical issues and practical solutions. International Journal of Nursing Studies, 45(9), 1257-1260. Office of Research Integrity. (1994). ORI policy on plagiarism. ORI Newsletter 3(1), 1-15. Roig, M. (2005). Re-using text from one's own previously published papers: An exploratory study of potential self-plagiarism. Psychological Reports, 97(1), 43-49. Roig, M. (2006). Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing. Retrieved from the Office of Research Integrity, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services. Roig, M. (2008). The debate on self-plagiarism: Inquisitional science or high standards of scholarship. Journal of Cognitive and Behavioral Psychotherapies,8(2), 245–258. Samuelson, P. (1994). Self-plagiarism or fair use. Communications of the ACM,37(8), 21–25. Tramèr, M. R., Reynolds, D. J. M., Moore, R. A., & McQuay, H. J. (1997). Impact of covert duplicate publication on meta-analysis: A case study. Bmj, 315(7109), 635-640.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

6 | The Rising Popularity of Preprints: More Power to the Community

Evan Sterling, School of Information Studies

Preprints have grown significantly in popularity in the life sciences in the past few years via sites such as bioRxiv, as researchers want to share their work rapidly without waiting for a peer- review process that many of them view as lengthy and ineffective. Some advocates see them not merely as an adjunct to traditional journals, but as a means to disrupt and improve this model and reduce the power of publishing gatekeepers. This change is having unintended effects on life sciences communication such as increasing the pressure to publish, while new hybrid platforms are being created in the grey area between journal article and preprint.

Keywords: preprints; peer review; open science; arXiv; bioRxiv; scholarly communities

One would not expect preprints, shared drafts of scientific papers, to be a contentious or even a particularly interesting topic. But they are currently a bone of contention in the life sciences as they rapidly grow in popularity in 2018, one change among many underway in scholarly communications. The discussion has played out on Twitter, blogs, academic papers, and even in WIRED and on NPR radio. Some researchers make passionate cases for their adoption; others write survival guides for scientists; others still call them a “moral hazard” or write that they are in danger of being “hijacked by pseudoscience” (Teixeira da Silva, 2017; Thompson, 2017) . This paper will review the growth of preprints and their effects, in particular on peer review.

Origins and Overview Preprints are usually defined as a draft version of an academic article which is shared with others for comment, before having been peer-reviewed. Preprints allow researchers to share their

Copyright © 2018 Sterling. The Rising Popularity of Preprints 49 nearly-completed work with colleagues without having to wait for the delay imposed by the peer review and editorial process.

Preprints began as letters exchanged between scientists, and in their modern form first became popular in physics in the 1980s – specifically in theoretical and high-energy physics. Researchers shared papers via postal mail, then e-mail, and then via the website arXiV, which was founded in 1991 (Luther, 2017). Over time this became the standard mode of scholarly communication in that subfield; a 2009 study found that over 95% of the articles in the five most prestigious journals in the field had been previously posted in draft form on the site (Gentil- Beccot, Mele, & Brooks, 2009). Preprints have been popular in mathematics and economics for roughly the same length of time. Currently, according to Google Scholar, 4 of the most cited ‘journals’ in physics are categories (subdisciplinary sections) of ArXiV; the top journal in economics is the NBER Working Papers series, also a preprint archive.

In the life sciences, researchers have not released their articles in preprints in great numbers until the past 3-4 years, despite efforts and forums such as ‘Nature Precedings’ which operated from 2007-2012. They were held back by worries about being ‘scooped’ or plagiarised, and a lack of clarity from journals in the field on whether they would even accept an article previously released as a preprint (Callaway, 2012; Kaiser, 2017b; Norman, 2017). However, journals have recently liberalised their policies, new preprint sites have opened, and importantly, funding agencies including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States have announced they will consider preprints in their grant reviews (Kaiser, 2017a) 1. This has led to an eight-fold increase in the number of preprints on life-science specific forums since 2013, as shown in Figure 1, with at least 1600 papers per month currently being posted. The majority of this growth has been on bioRxiv, which was founded in 2013 and received financial backing from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in 2017. However preprints still represent a relatively small fraction of all biology papers – one estimate from 2017 was 1% – and are still far less popular than preprints in physics and math (arXiV, n.d.; Molteni, 2017).

1 One medical researcher tweeted his surprise at quickly journals have accepted preprints has changed in the past 3 years (Gejman, 2018).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 50

It is important to note that preprint forums are not a complete free-for-all; many disciplinary pre-print archives exercise some editorial oversight of submissions. For example, arXiV moderators perform a basic review of submissions for being of “plausible interest” to the academic audience before posting them (Kuperberg, n.d.). On a continuum of oversight, preprints lie between a scholarly blog post (all control and responsibility lies with the author) and a traditional journal article (much of the control and responsibility lies with the journal).

Figure 1 - The number of preprints posted on prominent websites for life sciences preprints, as of January 2018. Adapted from "Monthly Stats," by J. Anaya, 2018, PrePubMed. Retrieved February 16 2018, from http://www.prepubmed.org. Copyright by Jordan Anaya; data and code are made available under the MIT License.

Motivations for scholars Academic scholars have several typical motivations in the act of publishing, which can work at cross-purposes. Hangel & Schmidt-Pfister (2017) identified the following four major categories based on their interviews: sharing and disseminating their work to benefit the scholarly community; gaining recognition from peers; obtaining funding; and the sheer enjoyment of writing. Two specific reasons relevant for preprints are establishing a record that you have originated an idea (staking a precedence claim) and seeking feedback to improve your research.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 51

A dominant factor cited by many scholars who use preprints is the increase in author control and flexibility it offers, which allows them to improve dissemination while retaining the validation from traditional publishing. A paper shared earlier in the process can receive feedback, generate buzz, and lead to invitations from peer-reviewed journals. An example is a preprint on ribosomes posted to bioRxiv in 2014 by Nikolai Slavov, which led to active discussion and a tenure-track job offer from Northeastern University before the final version of the paper even appeared (Kaiser, 2017b). On a more altruistic level, a paper shared earlier can benefit society; a just-published paper shows that preprints published during the Ebola and Zika virus outbreaks appeared more than 100 days before the full peer-reviewed version, even with accelerated journal review (Johansson, Reich, Meyers, & Lipsitch, 2018).

Woven through these arguments are the weaknesses of the traditional journal peer review model, especially for biomedical sciences. Researchers argue that (1) the review timeframe is excessive and inhibits research dissemination; one biomedical researcher discussed how a four- year publication lag for one paper helped increase his support preprints (Dessimoz, 2016); (2) that it does a poor job of weeding out bad science (Eisen, 2011; Smith, 2006); and (3) that it inhibits the publication of negative or “contrarian” results (Kaiser, 2017b). Norman (2017) points out that this was not that long ago that not all research in journals such as Nature was peer reviewed.

Two improvements to peer review that are often advocated for along with preprints are:

• Post-publication peer review (PPPR). This term is used to refer to both to an organized system of peer review combined with the posting of a preprint; and to informal, voluntary comments and discussion taking place about the “published” version of record (either on the journal website, on websites set up for this purpose such as PubMed Commons, or on social media). • Open peer review, a loosely-defined term in which attributed peer reviews are shared in some way with the author or the public, either during or after the publishing process. The British Medical Journal, for example, has used open peer review since 1999. Post- publication peer review is usually but not always open. A systematic review of the term

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 52

generated 122 distinct definitions of ‘open peer review’, indicating that there is a lack of clarity around this term (Ross-Hellauer, 2017).

ASAPbio, a non-profit scientist collective founded in 2015 to promote preprints, held a symposium in February 2018 to discuss improvements to peer review (ASAPBio, 2018).

The decline of importance, originality and novelty as acceptance criteria used by science journals is also related to this movement. While at first glance this may seem unrelated, the goal of reducing the role of the gatekeeper is the same. PLoS, the Public Library of Science, explains its decision to publish all submitted papers which are technically high quality, regardless of their perceived importance, thusly: “Judgments about the importance of any particular paper are then made after publication by the readership, who are the most qualified to determine what is of interest to them” (Norman, 2017; PLoS, n.d.).

Effects and Concerns For years, concerns about researchers stealing or copying ideas, or ‘scooping’ a colleague by rushing to submit their similar research to a peer-reviewed journal, held back preprints in the life sciences (Callaway, 2012). However, in an about-face, scholars seem to be adopting preprints as a method of ‘claim-staking’ or creating a record of precedence for their work, which has a rich tradition going back to the Philosophical Transations of the Royal Society of London in the 1600s (Guédon, 2010). This has created its own unintended consequences with researchers being pressured even more to publish quickly, exacerbating personal stress and increasing the odds of premature results being rushed onto the internet (McGlynn, 2017). In 2017 two preprints on bioRxiv were found to have been posted without a methodology section. One was updated immediately after the authors were notified (albeit 4 months after publishing), but the second group did not update it until they were contacted two weeks later by the media; they stated they were not aware of standard practise in the field (Kwon, 2017).

This latter occurrence is especially important in in the health sciences and medicine, as the danger of exposing unvalidated work or “pseudoscience” (Thompson, 2017) to readers who are are not equipped to evaluate it themselves is higher than in most disciplines (Kaiser, 2017b).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 53

There remains a very real risk that early results could be used and later found wanting, although this risk is not removed by the peer-reviewed process. Teixeira da Silva (2017) draws an analogy from preprints to predatory journals, in that both create an ethical hazard by providing unvetted material. BioRxiv consequently does not accept most clinical research, and the upcoming launch of a preprint server at Yale University for clinical research has met with some negative reaction (Enserink, 2017; Kaiser, 2017b). The case of the Zika and Ebola virus preprints above is an example where the ethical risk of publishing erroneous material must be weighed against the potential benefit of publishing early – a balancing act that is now left mostly up to the researchers themselves.

For early-career researchers, being able to cite preprints in grant applications will help bolster their CVs in the early years when they may only have one or two published papers. However, it does not appear that tenure review boards are taking preprints into consideration, so this help is only limited.

Finally, a result of the dynamic, unsettled status of these trends, and the disappearance of print as an end-stage for many ‘traditional’ journal articles, is confusion about what is a preprint versus a ‘journal article’, and what is a journal versus a preprint platform. The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology released an open letter when the NIH started to review preprints, highlighting the lack of uniformity among preprint services and the difficulty of distinguishing a preprint from a peer-reviewed product (Freeze, 2016). This is only heightened for interdisciplinary research, as Neylon, Pattinson, Bilder, & Lin (2017) point out in a detailed argument for a conceptual model of communication which distinguishes between a preprint’s state and its standing in the community. This confusion about community norms was claimed as an explanation in the article above (Kwon, 2017).

Preprints, Self-Publishing, and the Role of Communities Viewing preprints through the lens of non-academic self-publishing, we see many parallels, from the desire to share work quickly and flexibly with an audience, to the potentially beneficial effect of feedback from that audience on future revisions; the term ‘self-publishing’ is not generally used in the preprint world, however (possibly because papers in the life sciences are almost

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 54 always the work of more than one person, or because there has been no suggestion of authors charging money for their articles).

Just as the community of readers plays an important role in self-publishing, informal scholarly communities play an important role in a world in which preprints are part of scholarly discourse, since the preprint reduces or eliminates the role of the journal as a gatekeeper and quality controller in the field. The word ‘community’ is used frequently in the discussion of preprints, and is an important aspect to understanding the drawbacks and effects of preprints. There is no one scholarly community – it is a network of galaxies connected by filaments, as shown dramatically in citation analysis visualizations of academia such as one below from Boyack, Klavans, & Börner (2005). Even medicine contains many distinct communities. This pattern helps explain why community norms vary from subfield to subfield, and why clearly explaining these norms to outsiders is so important.

Figure 2 – Part of a cluster network visualization of science and social science, based on citations. Each dot represents a journal. From Boyack, Klavans, & Börner (2005). Copyright 2005 by Springer-Verlag/Akadémiai Kiadó.

Ideally, academic communities provide peer review and feedback, amplify good work, call out errors and bad actors, and recommend resources to each other. This latter role is important since it is harder to browse and search through preprints than academic articles, as

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 55 there is not yet a popular or robust central search engine for preprints; in lieu of this, social networks such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu and Twitter are a prime method of sharing. As one genetics researcher says, “it can be difficult to find a specific [preprint] unless you know where to look for it. But using social media makes a big difference…. By using social media, communities of shared interest start to share their information on what they’ve found interesting” (Baker, 2017).

Jason Priem, a prominent member of the open access and altmetrics community, sees preprints as part of the broader move to a new scholarly communications system: “The Web opens the workshop windows to disseminate scholarship as it happens, erasing the artificial distinction between process and product … The editors and reviewers employed as proxy community assessors will be replaced by the aggregated, collective judgements of communities themselves. The information-overload problem supplies its own solution” (Priem, 2013). In this world, gatekeepers are replaced with curators and commentators. Biologist and PLoS co-founder Michael Eisen also advocates for a community rating model, and laments that reviews of pen refills on Amazon are more helpful for users than article peer reviews (Harris, 2018).2

The optimism of people like Priem and Eisen in the self-organizing power of online communities is apiece with the optimism of Silicon Valley, but in 2018 it seems naïve. Scholarly communities are not in fact altruistic meritocracies which inherently surface and validate the best work, any more than is the self-publishing world, or are online communities like Twitter or Reddit. Without intentional work by preprint forums, they can exhibit some of the same unintended dynamics as online communities, which allow unhealthy behaviours to disproportionately impact some members of the community.

To give one example, leaving peer review up to ‘the community’ disadvantages early career and unconnected researchers. In the traditional system, peer reviewers are incentivized by the recognized role of peer reviewer and relationships with journals and editorial staff (even if there is no compensation or valuation in the tenure process). But in the new system, this incentive is lessened, and those in the author’s existing social network are the likeliest to

2 This prompted a satirical April Fool’s Day article on the Scholarly Kitchen website announcing “Amazon Peer Review” https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2018/04/01/amazon-peer-review-coming-preprint-near/

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 56 contribute. For those without a large network, “[w]ill their papers ever be read if even more papers are added to the already bloated scientific literature?” (Irizarry, 2012) His colleague later agreed, writing for all the drawbacks of ‘glamour mags’ like Nature and Science, “it is possible for someone to get a paper in no matter who they are” (Leek, 2016).

The future of preprints and traditional papers

The name preprint itself implies that it is an initial version of an article to be published later in “print”. Many advocates of preprints are careful to claim that it is in no way meant as a replacement for traditional peer review. The NIH for example referred to them as “interim research products” in their statement approving their consideration (Kaiser, 2017a). One of the directors of the ScienceOpen research network, in his personal blog, emphasized repeatedly that preprints complement, not replace, formal peer review (Tennant, 2017).

However, this is not always the case – as discussed above, many researchers are advocating for preprints because of their unhappiness with peer review, and some would prefer that peer review be entirely post-publication. One geneticist, Graham Coop, generated a minor stir in 2017 by tweeting that he had decided to not submit his preprint to a journal at all, though he admitted that he would not do this if he had a co-author without tenure (Singh Chawla, 2017).

In high-energy physics, “[p]eer-reviewed journals have lost their role as a means of scientific discourse, which has effectively moved to the discipline repository” according to a summary of scholarly communications in the field (Gentil-Beccot et al., 2009). In general, most articles on arXiV are still submitted to journals and published, though the percentage not appearing in journals at a later stage had risen to 35% by 2008 (Gentil-Beccot et al., 2009).3

A more likely scenario than this though is a new hybrid between an arXiV-style bare- bones preprint server and a traditional journal model, tailored to the life sciences. The F1000 site, which also runs publication platforms for the Wellcome Trust and Gates Foundation, already checks “whether it is scientific work from a scientist, whether it is plagiarised, whether it meets ethical requirements, whether it is readable and meets community standards, and whether we

3 The authors did not discuss this rise, which seems a notable omission.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 57 have source data (which we require) and it adheres to FAIR [data management] principles” (Lawrence & Tracz, 2018); this process takes 2-3 weeks and rejects over 20% of submissions. Meanwhile Michael Eisen has recently announced an experimental post-publication assessment and curation tool called ‘APPRAISE’ in which a team of reviewers will add reviews and comments to bioRxiv preprints; he describes it as ‘an editorial board without a journal” (Eisen, 2018). As described, this is not an ‘Amazon-style’ free-for-all, which is a good thing. However, since the choice of what to comment on is left to each member of the team, this could still have the same unintended community effect of missing important work from unconnected researchers.

Conclusions

The discussion around preprints exposes the duelling principles of dissemination and community validation which are at the heart of the broader Open Science movement. Preprints offer much potential to open up scientific discourse. However, they are not an unalloyed good, and in the rush to adopt them, each research community needs to establish norms and definitions in order to clarify a document’s status not just with fellow researchers but with outsiders as well. They also need to consider whether their desired community participation model creates enough incentives for adequate and healthy participation from community members. One thing is almost certain: with all of these new experiments and existing models in flux, it will be a more confusing time for anyone reading a scientific paper.

References arXiV. (n.d.). arXiv monthly submission rates. arXiv.org. ASAPBio. (2018). Transparency, Recognition, and Innovation in Peer Review in the Life Sciences (February 2018). Retrieved from ASAPBio.org. Baker, I. (2017, February 13). Preprints – what’s in it for me? Retrieved from InSight.mrc.ac.uk. Boyack, K. W., Klavans, R., & Börner, K. (2005). Mapping the backbone of science. Scientometrics, 64(3), 351–374. Callaway, E. (2012). Geneticists eye the potential of arXiv. Nature News, 488(7409), 19.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 58

Dessimoz, C. (2016, March 31). Thoughts on pre- vs. post-publication peer-review – Open Reading Frame - Dessimoz Lab. Retrieved from Dessimoz Lab. Eisen, M. (2011, October 28). Peer review is f***ed up – let’s fix it. Retrieved from MichaelEisen.org. Eisen, M. (2018, January 24). APPRAISE (A Post-Publication Review and Assessment In Science Experiment). Retrieved from ASAPBio.org. Enserink, M. (2017, September 12). Plan for new medical preprint server receives a mixed response. Retrieved from ScienceMag.org. Freeze, H. (2016, December 6). FASEB Highlights Concerns Regarding Use of Preprints in Grant Applications. Retrieved from Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Gejman, R. S. (2018, February 13). 3 years ago: I was advised to refrain from posting a manuscript to @biorxivpreprint b/c risk of scooping & not all journals accepting preprinted manuscripts. Today: I was advised to post to biorxiv and wait a month to get comments before submitting to a journal. [Tweet]. Retrieved from https://twitter.com/rongejman/status/963565796281679872 Gentil-Beccot, A., Mele, S., & Brooks, T. (2009). Citing and Reading Behaviours in High- Energy Physics. How a Community Stopped Worrying about Journals and Learned to Love Repositories. arXiv:0906.5418 [Cs]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/0906.5418 Guédon, J.-C. (2010). In Oldenburgś long shadow: librarians, research scientists, publishers, and the control of scientific publishing. Washington, D.C: Association of Research Libraries. Retrieved from http://www.arl.org/storage/documents/publications/in-oldenburgs-long- shadow.pdf Hangel, N., & Schmidt-Pfister, D. (2017). Why do you publish? On the tensions between generating scientific knowledge and publication pressure. Aslib Journal of Information Management, 69(5), 529–544. https://doi.org/10.1108/AJIM-01-2017-0019 Harris, R. (2018, February 24). Scientists Aim To Pull Peer Review Out Of The 17th Century. Retrieved April 8, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/sections/health- shots/2018/02/24/586184355/scientists-aim-to-pull-peer-review-out-of-the-17th-century

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 59

Irizarry, R. (2012, October 8). Why we should continue publishing peer-reviewed papers. Retrieved February 16, 2018, from https://simplystatistics.org/2012/10/08/why-we-should- continue-publishing-peer-reviewed-papers/ Johansson, M. A., Reich, N. G., Meyers, L. A., & Lipsitch, M. (2018). Preprints: An underutilized mechanism to accelerate outbreak science. PLOS Medicine, 15(4), e1002549. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002549 Kaiser, J. (2017a, March 24). NIH enables investigators to include draft preprints in grant proposals. Retrieved January 24, 2018, from http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/03/nih-enables-investigators-include-draft- preprints-grant-proposals Kaiser, J. (2017b, September 21). Are preprints the future of biology? A survival guide for scientists. ScienceMag.org. Kuperberg, G. (n.d.). (In)frequently asked questions. Retrieved from Front for the arXiv. Kwon, D. (2017, August 1). Do Preprints Require More Rigorous Screening? The Scientist. Lawrence, R., & Tracz, V. (2018, January 30). F1000: our experiences with preprints followed by formal post-publication peer review. Retrieved from ASAPbio.com. Leek, J. (2016, February 26). Preprints are great, but post publication peer review isn’t ready for prime time. Retrieved from SimplyStatistics. Luther, J. (2017, April 18). The Stars Are Aligning for Preprints. Retrieved from ScholarlyKitchen.sspnet.org. McGlynn, T. (2017, July 24). What’s up with preprints? Retrieved from SmallPondScience.com. Molteni, M. (2017, July 8). Biology’s Roiling Debate Over Publishing Research Early. WIRED. Neylon, C., Pattinson, D., Bilder, G., & Lin, J. (2017). On the origin of nonequivalent states: How we can talk about preprints. F1000Research, 6, 608. Norman, F. (2017). The history of peer review, and looking forward to preprints in biomedicine. In What might peer review look like in 2030? London: SpotOn, BioMed Central, Digital Science. PLoS (Public Library of Science). (n.d.). PLOS ONE: Journal Information. Retrieved from Journals.Plos.org.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) The Rising Popularity of Preprints 60

Priem, J. (2013, March 27). Scholarship: Beyond the paper [Comments and Opinion]. Retrieved from Nature.com. Ross-Hellauer, T. (2017). What is open peer review? A systematic review. F1000Research, 6, 588. Singh Chawla, D. (2017). When a preprint becomes the final paper. Nature News. Smith, R. (2006). Peer review: a flawed process at the heart of science and journals. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 99(4), 178–182. Teixeira da Silva, J. A. (2017). Preprints: ethical hazard or academic liberation? KOME, 5(2), 73–80. Tennant, J. (a.k.a. protohedgehog). (2017, May 14). Should we cite preprints? Retrieved from FossilandShit.com. Thompson, B. (2017, June 4). The danger for bioRxiv is being hijacked by pseudoscience chasing a veneer of respectability. [Tweet]. Retrieved from Twitter.com.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

7 | Alternative Forms of Publishing for Academic Works

Anna Gopenko, School of Information Studies

Academic publishing relies heavily on the peer-review process. The reason for this stubborn attachment is in the very nature of academic community: the scholarly truth can never belong to one individual, no matter how smart, knowledgeable or open-minded s/he is. According to K. Popper (2009), “objectivity rests solely upon pertinent mutual criticism”. This exchange of knowledge within the community of scholars takes place in time. So far, in spite of all the frustration with the process of peer-review the academic journals are offering, there has not been developed a better method of insuring the integrity of academic community, the quality and trust of academic publications. New forms of academic publishing are, however, on the rise.

Keywords: academic self-publishing, alternative forms of publishing, electronic books, authors – attitudes, privately published books, e-publishing

Introduction

Traditional forms of publishing are deeply ingrained within our culture (in general) and in academic publishing (specifically). Academia, a traditionally conservative sphere of information dissemination, is fully entrenched within a system in which publishing is at the centre of career development, tenure and promotion, granting opportunities and other achievements or benefits. The structure of publishing in the academic sector has remained predominantly conservative, with a strong reliance on peer-review. The value and importance of this system cannot be overestimated. At the same time, it has a number of disadvantages, weaknesses and flaws, so researchers are turning increasingly to alternative forms of dissemination to self-publish their work and reach wider audiences. Social media, blogs, wikis, and video lectures—all forms of self-publishing—

Copyright © 2018 Gopenko. Alternative Forms of Publishing 62 are emerging as alternative formats for researchers wishing to share their work with a wider audience.

This chapter will investigate the transformation of academic publishing, considering in particular the challenges and opportunities that arise for scholars wishing to take a self- publication route using websites of two University of Ottawa professors, Patrick McCurdy (http://www.mediatoil.ca/) and Constance Crompton (http://lglc.ca/), as well as the website of publishing consultant Thad McIlroy (http://thefutureofpublishing.com/) to illustrate a possible impact of self-publishing on an academic career and strategies used to achieve desired results.

Traditional Forms of Publishing for Academic Works

The corner-stone of academic publishing is peer-review. This process has as its goal to evaluate the validity, quality and sometimes the originality of publications and it has been used in one form or another since the beginning of academic scholarship. (Guédon 2001, p. 6) The main idea behind this approach is to use the scholarly community (experts in the field), their experience and knowledge to filter out research of poor quality, in order to preserve and advance knowledge and scholarly truth. Peer-review, it is argued, not only adds value to publications, but is essential to the integrity of the scholarly community. (Popper 2009)

Karl Popper wrote in his Thirteenth Thesis of The Logic of the Social Sciences that “objectivity rests solely upon pertinent mutual criticism”. It means that the truth is unattainable for an individual regardless of how smart, knowledgeable or open-minded s/he is, but is possible for a community of scholars in the process of, what we now call, peer-review. “The truth” in our case is the old term for what we now call scholarly objectivity. According to Popper, objectivity is only possible as competition (both of separately taken scientists and of groups or schools); tradition (the critical tradition is implied); social institution (for instance, publications or conferences) and the power of the state (liberty of speech in the society). (Ibid.)

The following principles underlie the process of peer-review: confidentiality, impartiality, protection for peer reviewers, findings and recommendations supported by evidence-based research, protocols and guidelines, system process issues, tracking of peer review cases, non-

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 63 punitive education. (Peer-Review Structure). The Peer-Review committee consists of specialists from various disciplines, whose task is to establish guidelines, strategies and rules, watch for ethical issues and develop policies. (Ibid.). The process is a multi-step activity, in which the researcher/s submit an article to an editor, who then distributes the manuscript to two experts in the same field for evaluative review. These two reviewers assess the manuscript and provide comments to the editor, along with a recommendation for publication or rejection. If there is a doubt, another (third) reviewer may be consulted. The article may be accepted with minor or major changes or it may be rejected.

This traditional way of publishing peer-review materials is still by far the predominant (and often the only possible) way of gaining weight for promotion and tenure within the academic structure. Although the culture of online publishing is changing the mentality of scholars and readers, the value of peer-review is too deeply ingrained within academia to change the evaluation of authority and prestige. Tenure, promotion and authority are still determined based on publication in peer-review journals. However, slowly but surely, we are starting to see changes within this structure; as Tappeiner explains: “Mobile reading, self-publishing, and ubiquitous user feedback, among other innovations, are changing habits and expectations of not only the general reading public, but also of students, researchers and other academics.” (Tappeiner 2013, p. 11) This slow change is due, in large part, to an upsurge in criticism of the traditional model in the past decades. (Tappeiner 2013, Wagner 2011)

The advantages of peer-review are obvious: it has the potential to improve quality, catch errors and enforce standards. However, this process has come under increased scrutiny criticized for being costly and time consuming, so this model is questioned by scholars. The main problem is not even the cost and time as such, but the fact that in spite of the time and expenses invested, there are still issues with quality during the peer-review process. (Wagner 2001, Smith 2006)

The main weaknesses of peer-review have been identified by several researchers. These weaknesses include lack of transparency, slow dissemination of new ideas, costly in terms of human resources and time and frequent inadequacy when it comes to spot really original (creative) and important work. (Tappeiner 2013) There are also concerns with detection of fraud and general concerns about objectivity of reviewers. (Wagner 2001) On the whole, the

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 64 publishing system of the academic world suffers from two major handicaps: its process is slow and offers few economic gains. (Ibid.)

Although self-publishing is still a rare occurrence for scholars in Western countries, some turn to this form of publishing for side-projects (secondary, less important or assistant research) in order to spread periphery information related to their findings. Yet some others choose to establish independent presses or journals or they prefer to use blogs as a form of publication to reach a broader audience. (Tyson 2014) It should be noted, however, that any online independent journal or press falls under the same tradition process of peer-review. (Ibid.) Some researchers argue that new digital modes of authoring and publishing, as well as new technology in the area of research have been neglected by the academics. As identified by the authors of the New Media Consortium project, the traditional and new forms of publication can be self-exclusive:

Traditional approaches to scholarly evaluation such as citation-based metrics, for example, are often hard to apply to research that is disseminated or conducted via social media. New forms of peer review and approval, such as reader ratings, inclusion in and mention by influential blogs, tagging, incoming links, and retweeting, are arising from the natural actions of the global community of educators with increasingly relevant and interesting results. These forms of scholarly corroboration are not yet well understood by mainstream faculty and academic decision makers, creating a gap between what is possible and what is acceptable. (NMC Horizon Project 2013, p. 17)

In the following section, I will demonstrate some strategies of alternative models of publishing in the academia.

Alternative Forms of Publishing for Academic Works

Although academics are embracing the internet to reach out to remote geographic areas, promote research and exchange knowledge, establishing academic social networks is not a fast-growing area within the universities. Social media (such as Academia.edu or ResearchGate) is used mainly as an enhancement and support of traditional scholarship, as it increases author visibility

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 65 and provides communication across many disciplines. In addition, these platforms may present a great opportunity as a pre-publication evaluation (Cf Tappeiner 2013, p. 3).

Fabio Rojas, an associate professor of sociology at Indiana University affirms, there is “no single way to self-publish” as an academic. (Cited in Anyangwe 2017) As he explains, self- publishing strategies range from e-books to self-publishing services and none of them can be relied on for promotion and career development. In order to use the alternative modes of publishing in the skeptical academic environment, one has to be an established scholar with solid credentials. Only then can a researcher feel safe to move toward self-publishing. Since success relies on self-promotion, any method of dissemination will help, including social media, blogs and face-to-face interactions with researchers. No matter what form of publishing a researcher will use, feedback and quality editing is the key: manuscripts should be proofread by a professional. (Ibid.) In the following section we are going to look at various models of alternative publishing and at strategies used for delivering the published material.

Models of Publishing

With the emergence of new avenues for sharing research and new publishing formats, it is quite obvious that the quality of evaluation requires new forms as well. At present, there are a few publishing models that may be precursors of the future format of academic publishing. Tappeiner (2013) offers an overview of new publishing models for researchers.

The International Journal of Technology, Knowledge, and Society This type of press follows a traditional peer review publication model, but with features of social media, including feedback and discussion forum. This press offers end user open access and alternative pricing options.

PeerJ A recent initiative in STEM publishing offers open access publications in the fields of biology, medicine and health sciences. The journal’s approach to making a revenue is through a membership fee, where the cost is based on the number of publications. However, membership

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 66 does not guarantee publication. Since 2013, they have included a preprint tab on the website, which allows authors to disseminate draft work and receive feedback. The list of tools on the right-hand side of the page gives such options as “Ask questions”, “Citations”, “Views” and “Visitors” and more.

PLoS ONE Established in 2006, PLoS ONE belongs to the group of Public Library of Science journals. The journal is open access, fee-based and peer reviewed and it allows for international submissions. It has similar citation metrics to PeerJ.

VIVO This is a means of communication and exchange of research findings for scholars. It was launched at Cornell University as an alternative to academic journal in scientific domain. Again, like the above-listed alternative publishing models, it does not replace peer review. At the same time, it uses technological advances to add to scholarly research. As to academic publishing in humanities, its process differs somewhat from scientific publishing models. Monograph publications are still predominant among the Liberal Art scholars. Here are a few examples of alternative publishing in the humanities:

Media Commons Press This is an e-publishing initiative that promotes open access digital publication of texts in the field of media studies, ranging from article- to monograph-length. It also has a discussion board and a search feature.

Digital Humanities Now This is an online resource not assigned to any university. Digital Humanities Now selects material from the subscribed feeds, including personal websites of researchers or institutions, blogs, and other similar sources. This platform evaluates and makes available scholarship in the digital humanities. Its goal is to publish journal of humanities and like the others it does so through peer review and open access. It also works as a communication source for scholars.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 67

The publishing initiatives listed above represent a hybrid form of publishing, wherein the traditional approach of peer review is mixed with new technology, allowing internet-based communication and dissemination of information. All the initiatives mentioned have earned their respect and trust in the academic world thanks to their adherence to high standards of quality publications.

Self-Publishing

Another alternative form of dissemination is self-publishing. Although this model remains an exception for academics, some researchers are not afraid to take this route and it is quickly gaining momentum in academia. Yet some others see it as a sign of failure—as proof that the author could not publish with a reputable publisher (Tyson 2014). Still, many scholars are increasingly frustrated with traditional publishing. The high liability and lack of control over the published material, long wait times for publication paired with preoccupation with economic gain over contribution to the academic community are among their concerns (Ibid.). Some scholars, like the founders of Mayfly Books, an independent open-access press, were frustrated with the timeframe of academic publishing in the traditional model and decided to create an alternative solution to speed up the process (Ibid.).

The above-mentioned researcher Rojas self-published a book in 2011, called Grad Skool Rulz: Everything You Need to Know about Academia from Admissions to Tenure. The book was the result of his online advice column intended for graduate students. (OEDB) Although Rojas is a strong believer in traditional publishing and peer-review as a guarantor of quality, he places his hopes in the self-publishing. He grants it a place in the traditional world, saying it is now “a new tool in the tool box” (Ibid.).

Rojas’ book sells for $3 online – significantly less than academic books published through traditional publishers (which cost at least $40). Although tenured academics are in a better position to experiment and use various alternative forms of publishing, they will still have to face a marketing problem. Even if they have a wide network and are comfortable using social media, credibility may be an issue (See Thad McIlroy in Tyson 2014).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 68

Constance Crompton’s site is a repository of essays on the issue of gender minorities. This is not her first trial in the world of self-publishing (see below for information on her first collective blog the Floating Academy). Crompton’s research on the Lesbian and Gay liberation in Canada (LGLC) is shared via a platform, which includes a repository of searchable event records of the LGLC movement. The material deals with questions such as:

What is gay liberation? How do the politics and activism of the 1960s and 1970s differ from contemporary queer politics and activism? What is the best way to preserve gay liberation history and ensure the transmission of our cultural history across generations? What are best ways to digitize and visualize Canada’s gay liberation movement?1

Crompton built lglc.ca with her research partner and a group of research assistants a few years ago. In fact, the web-site is still in the works. The website reconfigures Don McLeod’s book Lesbian and Gay Liberation in Canada as a database. The interface is in the process of perfecting, the researcher admits, but future iterations will let readers reconfigure the book on maps, timelines, and in network graphs. (Email correspondence from March 20, 2018)

Crompton configured two important books on the Lesbian and Gay liberation movement in Canada in a TEI-format that allows for an easy search for people, places, events, and publications on the LGLC. It also offers a selected annotated chronology of the LGLC demonstrations, legal reforms, lobbying and other political reforms. The editorial principles of the project are rooted in the culture of the LGLC. The project intends to contribute to preservation and transmission of gay cultural heritage. The language of the publications is that of 1960-1980 and is purposefully preserved. The project makes use of technology by employing the resource beta through incorporating plain text, as well as charts, graphs and maps and is housed by Canadian Writing Research Collaboratory (CWRC) being part of its Online Research Canada (ORCA) database.

In addition to this website, Crompton has a personal website (constancecrompton.com) and a website called the Floating Academy: Victorian Review (http://victorianreview.org/?cat=217),

1 Crompton, Constance (n.d.) Lesbian and Gay liberation in Canada. Retrieved March 19, 2018: http://lglc.ca/about.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 69 an interdisciplinary journal on Victorian Studies. Crompton started writing for the Floating Academy as a graduate student. According to Crompton, many PhD students working on the blogging collective were “frustrated by how slowly the academic publishing cycle was and wanted to get [their] ideas out in the world before going on the job market.” (Email correspondence from March 20, 2018) The blog has since been picked up by The Victorian Review, the only peer-reviewed Victorian Studies journal in Canada.

The project of Patrick McCurdy is a database of oil sands campaign from 1970 to present day. It is a project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada called Mediatoil. It examines the evolution of oil sands advertising in Alberta. More precisely, it studies “varied and interwoven communication strategies pertaining to the Alberta oil sands employed by government, civil society and industry in the battle for the public imagination”.2 Apart from the database containing 848 oil sand documents, images and videos, it offers information on the following list of materials: oil sand campaigns, documents and videos by shareholders and images graphs analysis featuring reports, photographs, and factsheets published between 2006-2015. It also allows for an overview of key events related to oil sands on the Timeline.3

Thad McIlroy’s site serves publishers and self-publishing authors. It also promotes self- publishing by listing and explaining the future of self-publishing in various domains. The links to particular domain elaborate on the “influences that are changing publishing, and the impact of those changes”.4 From book publishers to textbook or scholarly presses, self-publishing is rapidly becoming a rival of traditional publishing, in McIlroy’s view.5 Three monographs of the author are published on the front tab and a blog is located on the right-hand side of the web-page.

Unlike the previous two researchers, Thad McIlroy is not a scholar in the proper sense of the word. In fact, he does not have a degree past high-school. He comes from a family of writers and his career started in journalism. “As an electronic publishing analyst, consultant and author, -

2 McCurdy, Patrick (n.d.) LinkedIn Profile. Retrieved March 19, 2018: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick- mccurdy-phd-9919b510/. 3 McCurdy, Patrick (n.d.) Mediatoil. Retrieved on March 19, 2018 from: http://www.mediatoil.ca/. 4 McIlroy, Thad (n.d.) The Future of Publishing. Retrieved on March 19, 2018 from: http://thefutureofpublishing.com/. 5 McIlroy, Thad: http://thefutureofpublishing.com/hire-thad/.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 70 explains McIlroy, - I’ve spent my career exploring the technology and marketing issues surrounding electronic publishing, books and digital magazines, metadata, XML, PDF, EPUB, ONIX, and publishing automation.”6 As the number of his self-publishing authors increases, McIlroy reflects on the benefits of the “sophistication and professional skills of the self- publishing community”. (Ibid.)

These examples demonstrate to us that scholars are no longer satisfied with their research projects being locked within the constraints of the traditional publishing. In fact, it was not so much a question of dissatisfaction, but rather a new opportunity to share a vast amount of material at their disposition. When it comes to wide distribution and communication, social media and self-publishing are a source of creative, immediate power that nevertheless adheres to traditional academic methods of quality control. Self-publishing is dependent on working with newest technology to a greater degree than traditional publishing. It also provides possibilities for publishing in other often interactive formats than the traditional article structure.

Conclusion

It has been noted that self-publishing contributes to democratization of literature. (OEDB) Although there is often a fear that self-published materials might be of poor or inferior quality, this system frees authors from the structures of traditional peer-review. Self-publishing is often faster and free of cost, offers more flexibility or even creativity, and, as a result can be disseminated to a wider audience, which is especially important for young scholars. There is also a possibility to publish research in batches, as the research goes along. (See ibid.) Finally, there are almost endless opportunities for various formats of publications.

The stigma around self-publishing and all other forms of alternative publishing is slowly disappearing. While traditional publishing is still the safest way to go for promotion and career advancement, accomplished scholars may afford self-publishing without compromising their names, so scholars and institutions are increasingly seeing their value as a complement to traditional publishing. As Anyangwe remarks on the success of self-publishing, it all comes

6 McIlroy, Thad: http://thefutureofpublishing.com/about-thad/

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 71 down to self-promotion through social media or through personal network. (Anyangwe 2017) Although young researchers are still dependant on the traditional model of publishing, accomplished tenured scholars can allow themselves alternative forms of self-marketing. It is possible that with time these new models will be readily accepted alongside traditional forms of publishing, but before this happens, the new forms of publishing need to find a reliable and trusted method of incorporating peer-review into their format. For now, however, there has not been developed a publishing model that would surpass the traditional process of peer-review the scholarly journals are offering. The traditional form of publishing for academic works remains the only sure way to guarantee quality, insure trust and preserve integrity of scholarly community.

References

American Heart Association. Peer-Review Structure. American Heart Association. Retrieved from Heart.org. Anyangwe, Eliza (2017). 20 things you need to know before you self-publish. The Guardian. Dilevko, Juris and Keren Dali (2006). The self-publishing phenomenon and libraries. Library and Information Science Research, 28, pp. 208-234. Elsevier. (2018). How to publish in scholarly journals. Retrieved from Elsevier.com. Guédon, Jean-Claude (2001). In Oldenburg’s long shadow: librarians, research scientists, publishers, and the control of scientific publishing. Retrieved from ARL.org. NMC Horizon. (2013). Project Short List (2013). Retrieved from issuu.com. OEDB. (2018). The academic’s guide to self-publishing. OEDB.org. Popper, Karl (2009). Thirteenth Thesis. SemanticScholar.org. Smith, Richard (2006). Peer Review: A Flawed Process at the Heart of Science and Journals. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 99, no. 4, pp. 178-92. Tappeiner, Elizabeth and Kate Lyons (2013). Technology Innovations in Publishing: New Directions in Academic and Cultural Communication. In International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society, Vol.9 (2), pp.205-214. Tyson, Charlie (2014). A publisher of one’s own. In Inside Higher Ed. July 17.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Alternative Forms of Publishing 72

Wagner, Elizabeth and Tom Jefferson (2006). Shortcomings of Peer Review in Biomedical Journals. Learned Publishing 14, pp. 257-63.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

8 | Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works: A Case Study

Mary Aksim, School of Information Studies

This paper presents a solution for publishing digital exhibits that contain unpublished archival “orphan works”, items that fall under the legal Canadian copyright period but whose creators cannot be found and hence copyright permissions cannot be sought. The University of Ottawa has developed a risk-based copyright framework to assess the risk of publishing orphan works without copyright permission since their creators cannot be found. Throughout the case study the author describes the challenges she encountered when trying to publish her own exhibit Reasons We Are Part of the Feminist Movement (Aksim, Fortin and Parsons, 2017).

Keywords: Orphan Works, Digital Exhibits, Copyright, Risk-Based Copyright Framework, Canadian Women’s Movement Archives

Introduction

Digital exhibits are becoming more popular for digital humanists who are increasingly interested in sharing their research with a wider audience and these exhibits often include copyright works. In most cases, including a case in which I am personally involved, however, exhibit creators do not immediately hold the copyright for the items in their exhibits. Copyright, in Canada, is the sole right to produce, reproduce, perform, or distribute any published or unpublished work or any substantial part thereof in any material form whatsoever (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 3.1). Not only are curators required to seek copyright permissions from the item’s original creators to publish their exhibits online, but there are difficult cases in which an item/work’s creator is not explicitly known. This “orphan works paradox” poses a challenge to exhibit creators who want to legally publish their exhibits online but they cannot without permission from the copyright owners (i.e. the original creators). Under current Canadian legislation, there is

Copyright © 2018 Aksim. Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 74 no legal way to publish the exhibit containing unpublished orphaned works. This paper investigates the issue of publishing online exhibits that contain items with unlocatable copyright owners and cites a specific exhibit that was created as part of a course at the University of Ottawa. It discusses solutions that Canadian Universities have put in place to address the problem and concludes describing the specific unlocatable copyright owner risk-based framework that the University of Ottawa’s Library developed to enable its users to disseminate their projects online.

The Exhibit

Reasons we are part of the feminist movement (RWPFM) was curated to satisfy the course requirements of ISI 6354: Cultural Heritage Resources for Professor Jada Watson at the University of Ottawa. We discussed a variety of issues related to cultural and natural heritage resources and institutions throughout the term. The goal of the project was to have an opportunity for critical reflection on the issues discussed in the readings through practical experience in collecting, cataloguing, interpreting and facilitating access to a collection of cultural significance. RWPFM explores the Canadian feminist movement from 1970 through 1995 through a collection of paraphernalia from the Canadian Women’s Movement Archives (CWMA, 2011), which are hosted at the University of Ottawa’s Archives and Special Collections (ARCS). The digital exhibit (Aksim, Fortin and Parsons, 2017) comprises a collection of 15 pieces of unpublished materials including buttons, t-shirts and posters.

The Problem

At the time this paper is being written, RWPFM is not available to the public online. Publishing the exhibit is difficult because of the copyright restrictions on the fourteen orphan works it contains. Orphan works are items for which owners/creators cannot be located (Brunet, 2017). RWPFM contains 14 orphan works, whose creators cannot be found for one of three reasons:

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 75

1) The organization is known but not the individual within the organization who created the item; 2) The organization is known, but it does not exist anymore; or 3) Both the organization and the creator are unknown.

Since the exhibit’s items were made within the last 50 years, they are protected under Canadian Copyright Law period, which subsists for the creator’s lifespan plus 50 years (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 6). While the Canadian Women’s Movement Collective, CWMC, gathered the items in the CWMA archive, they do not hold the rights to them. They are not the creators, nor are the organizations for which the items were created. The individual creators of the CWMA items are the copyright holders and it is from them that we would need to seek permission to publish the exhibit. Identifying unknown creators to seek copyright permissions from them is very difficult, if not impossible, but even if the creators turn out to be anonymous, the items are still covered under copyright law until at least 2020 – 50 years from 1970 (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 6). Traditional Copyright Act exemptions, such as the Fair Dealing (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 29) or Educational Institution (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 29.4) cannot be used because they do not allow for digitization for wider public dissemination without permission (Brunet, 2017). While the Copyright Act contains a clause and procedure for owners who cannot be located (Government of Canada, 1985, Section 77), it can only be implemented for published works and therefore not for RWPFM’s buttons, t-shirts and posters.

Under current Canadian legislation, there is no legal way to publish the exhibit containing orphaned unpublished works. Traditionally, archives and exhibit creators have been restricted to posting materials to which they own the copyrights and/or of which the copyright period has expired (Dryden, 2009, p. 123). Canadian universities are seeking to solve this problem with a risk-based framework for the “digitization and dissemination of library and archives materials with unlocatable copyright owners” (Brunet, 2017).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 76

The Solution

A risk-based framework for the digitization and dissemination of materials is a legal process put in place by a university for users to disseminate orphan works. The institution’s Copyright Office assesses whether or not disseminating a work with an owner is unknown or cannot be located without copyright permissions is either high risk or low risk to university. If an item is deemed low risk, the user can disseminate their content containing the orphan work. Examples of low risk cases for disseminating orphan works without copyright permission are:

1) There is a low-risk of damage to the university’s reputation from dissemination; 2) There is a low-risk of damage to relationships with university donors, or university communities; and 3) There is a low-risk of exposing the university to prosecution for copyright infringement.

In some frameworks, risks are evaluated on a matrix. Within the matrix, the consequence of publishing the work without copyright permissions is compared with the likelihood of prosecution. Consequences include damage to the university’s reputation (i.e the intensity and duration of bad media coverage), infrastructure (i.e. financial losses), education/research (i.e. time and number of people affected) and safety/security (i.e. health effects, injuries, fatalities) (Wakaruk et al., 2017, slide 4). Likelihood refers to how often it is likely to occur within 10 years (Wakaruk et al., 2017, slide 4). An example matrix is presented in Figure 1 (retrieved and adapted from Wakaruk et al., 2017, slide 4). Under this specific matrix framework, anything that is a Level 1 is “low risk” and anything Level 2 and above is “high risk” and requires copyright permissions for the item to be published.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 77

High Level 3 Level 4 Level 4 Level 4 Level 4

Major Level 2 Level 3 Level 3 Level 4 Level 4 Moderate Level 2 Level 2 Level 2 Level 3 Level 3 Minor Level 1 Level 1 Level 2 Level 2 Level 3

Consequence Negligible Level 1 Level 1 Level 1 Level 1 Level 2 Rare Unlikely Moderate Likely Almost Certain Likelihood

Figure 1: Example risk analysis matrix (adapted from Wakaruk et al., 2017, slide 4).

Three Canadian universities have implemented such risk-based frameworks: Simon Frasier University, Dalhousie University and the University of Ottawa. In fact, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) encourages institutions to have a copyright risk assessment framework for digitization projects (Wakaruk et al., 2016, slide 7). Simon Frasier and Dalhousie University’s processes arose out of large scale digitization projects. Both institutions were under tight timelines to digitize collections of thousands of archival items that fell under the creator’s copyright period. Neither could afford to halt the process to seek copyright permissions for every item. The framework allowed them to continue their projects in an efficient manner (Yolkowski and Jamieson, 2017). Under their risk-analysis assessments, both universities decided to digitize and disseminate low-risk items and seek explicit permission for high risk items.

Both universities acknowledge that any digitization and dissemination done under this framework may be an infringement, but they also consider that the rights holder may not be interested in “taking any steps to enforce their [creator rights] that are protected under copyright” (Taylor and Zerkee, 2017, p. 2). Considering the rarity of copyright lawsuits against archival institutions (Yolkowski and Jamieson, 2017), the institutions advance the argument that it is better to share these low-risk works instead of being overly cautious and not sharing them. Even if a creator were to suddenly protest, there are methods for them to request the material be taken down. Under the framework, all low-risk material must be published with a link to a take-down request form hosted on the university’s copyright office web page. If the creator receives notice

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 78 from the copyright office that there has been a take-down request, the material must be removed immediately.

The University of Ottawa’s risk-based analysis framework, the framework I will be working within to publish RWPFM, is slightly different from SFU’s and Dalhousie’s. It was not designed specifically for large scale digitization projects (Brunet, 2017). Instead, it was designed with the CWMA collection in mind. It is ironic that items created by the grassroots second-wave feminist movement, whose focus was to increase engagement and participation with these buttons, posters and t-shirts, are legally locked away under copyright. Instead of being implemented for the sake of efficiency, the University of Ottawa’s framework is designed as a last resort for creators who have attempted to find a creator to seek permissions but have failed. The process, which was launched in March 2018 (University of Ottawa, 2018), is managed by the University Library’s copyright office, which hosts an application on their websites. The application form contains a series of ten questions to be answered by the applicant to help assess risk, determine effort that has already been made to obtain permission, to identify the content in question, the context of its creation and the proposed use (Brunet, 2017). The questions are intended to determine whether the commercial value of the material and/or the creator’s moral rights through alterations to the original will be affected and also whether there would be public interest or benefit in disseminating the materials (Brunet, 2017). An example application form for an orphan work can be found in Appendix A.

Requests can only be made by University Personnel. In my case, my professor (Jada Watson) would “sponsor” my applications for each item. Once my application is submitted, the Copyright Office will conduct the risk analysis and approve or reject my request. If permission is granted for every item, I may publish the exhibit, provided I include a link to the take-down request.

Conclusion

This paper presents a solution for publishing digital exhibits that contain archival “orphan works”, items that fall under the legal Canadian copyright period but whose creators cannot be

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 79 found and hence copyright permissions cannot be sought. Canadian universities have put risk- based frameworks in place for the digitization and dissemination of archival materials hosted at their institutions. These frameworks assess the risk of publishing orphan works without copyright permission since their creators cannot be found. Under the framework, if items are classified as “low risk” they can be published online. The University of Ottawa’s framework is currently being used to disseminate items within an exhibit, Reasons We Are Part of the Feminist Movement (Aksim, Fortin and Parsons, 2017) that contains 15 items from the CWMA collection hosted at the university’s Archives and Special Collections (ARCS). When the items from the CWMA second-wave feminism collection can be brought out from behind the copyright wall and disseminated online, they can regain their original purpose of engaging people in the feminist movement, whose issues still resonate today.

References

Aksim, M., Fortin, F., Parsons, C. (2017). Reasons we are part of the feminist movement. Retrieved from. Linking-Cultures. Brunet, M. (November 13, 2017). DH toolbox – testing the limits: a panel on digital exhibits and Copyright [Presentation]. University of Ottawa, Ottawa. Canadian Women’s Movement Archive (CWMA). (2011). Canadians Women’s Movement Archive. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections. Dryden. J. (2009). Copyright issues in the selection of archival material for internet access. Archival Science 8 (2008). p. 123-147. DOI 10.1007/s10502-009-9084-3 Government of Canada. (1985). Copyright Act. Retrieved from the Justice Laws Website, Canada. Taylor, D., and Zerkee, J. (2016). Risk management copyright policy framework for SFU Library Digitization Projects. Simon Fraser University. University of Ottawa. (2018). Library materials and archives – unlocatable copyright owner. Retrieved from The Copyright Office, University of Ottawa. University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections. Canadian Women's Movement Archive (February, 2017). Reproductive Rights for Women: CA-ON0034 10-001-S4-I93. Atom. Wakaruk, A., Taylor, D., and Zerkee, D. (2016). Assessing copyright risk tolerance for large scale digitization projects [Presentation]. University of Alberta Library.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 80

Yolkowski, J., and Jamieson, K. (2016, December 20) Access and preservation in archival mass digitization projects. Practical Technology for Archives (blog).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 81

Appendix A: unlocatable copyright owner form

1. Please provide a detailed description of the project and the materials in question. This includes your role in the project, as well as the department responsible for the project.

This Reproductive Rights for Women button is part of the Canadian Women’s Movement Archive hosted at the University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections (University of Ottawa Archives and Special Collections, 2017). While it is known that the button was created in 1983, its creator remains unknown. A picture of the button is presented below

This button’s photograph is part of a digital exhibit titled Reasons we are part of the feminist movement (Aksim, Fortin and Parsons, 2017) an exhibit that showcases the unique Canadian Women’s Movement Archive at the University of Ottawa. The exhibit remains private until copyright permissions can be obtained. The exhibit was created as a project for ISI 6354: Cultural Heritage Resources course at the University of Ottawa’s School of Information Studies. I, Mary Aksim, created the exhibit with two classmates, Christina Parsons and Felicia Fortin, under the supervision of professor Jada Watson, the sponsor of this application.

2. What steps have been taken to identify and seek permission from the owner of the copyright? If identified, who is the owner?

The archival description of the button does not contain any information about the individual or organization who created the button. Online searches of “reproductive rights for women” turns up multiple organizations who are supporting the cause. There is no way to discern for which organization this button might have or was made for and which individual specifically made it.

3. Is the material published or unpublished?

The material is unpublished.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Publishing Online Digital Exhibits Containing Orphan Works 82

4. Are there any alternatives to the material in question for which permission is not required, or for which permission can more easily be obtained?

No. The exhibit it meant to showcase unique items from the Canadian Women’s Movement Archive. While another button could be chosen from the available 600, most of them also have unlocatable copyright owners.

5. What type of material is in question and in what context was it created?

The button is question is 5.8cm wide promotional button, meant to be worn on clothing or pinned to something and displayed. It was created during the second-wave feminism movement in 1983. It was probably made to advertise an individual’s opinion that women should have reproductive rights, an opinion.

6. Is the material of significant commercial value, either currently or potentially? What is the potential impact of digitizing and disseminating this material on its current or potential value?

This button currently holds no significant commercial value. It remains unclear if it. It was most likely made as part of the grassroots feminist movement and to publicize an individual’s stance on women’s access to their own reproductive rights.

7. Will the material be altered in any way that could affect the creator’s moral rights? This includes alterations occurring as a part of the digitization process, such as cropping or deleting parts of the material.

No. A photo of the front of button on a black background will be published in the exhibit.

8. What portion of the material would be digitized and disseminated?

The complete front side of the button.

9. What is the public interest or benefit in digitizing and disseminating the material, and how substantial is it?

The feminist cause did not stop with the second wave feminist movement. There has also been a recent resurgence in involvement in defending women’s rights internationally. This button, and exhibit in general, would appeal to anyone interested in the history of the women’s rights movement. It could also appeal to anyone who was hoping to start their own grassroots women’s rights movement or rally in their own country, outside of Canada.

10. Are there any other factors relating to the project in question that you believe are relevant? If so, please include these.

No.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

9 | The Future is Open Access

Roshae Miller, Department of Communications

Open Access has been a recent topic of discussion for academia and publishing agencies. The conversation surrounding the movement has a lot to do with sustainability, quality and academic infringement. However, the quality of any literature, especially a scholarly journal, is a function of its authors and editors, not its access policy, and depending on the selected model, Open Access does not necessarily infringe on academic freedom. Most importantly, article publishing charges (APCs) have been introduced by some publishers to make Open Access practicable, while remaining free to readers.

Keywords: open access, sustainability, quality, academic infringement

Close to completing a two-year research project on vascular and interventional radiology, Yanique discovered that she was unable to gain access to a newly published scholarly article whose abstract seemingly overlapped with her own research topic. Strapped for cash, Yanique went to see the librarian at her school to find out if the institution could purchase the article. The librarian proceeded to tell her that the school had been negotiating with that specific publishing company for some time, but was unsuccessful in striking a deal regarding the cost of their service. Disappointed, Yanique completed her research with thoughts of how that article might have helped her improve her thesis, if only she could access it.

Research is a pertinent part of learning that is not only required in the academic community, but for all professionals (Zarah, 2017). Information gathered from conducting research, fuels new ideas that scholars and professionals alike rely heavily on to assist with understanding, problematizing, improving or solving the various phenomena prevalent in society (Sprac, n.d.; UNESCO, 2015). The information revolution brought on by the internet has played an enormous role in having a plethora of research journals published online. Journal articles are increasingly

Copyright © 2018 Miller. Open Access 84 being offered and retrieved in digital formats as opposed to paper editions (Laakso et al., 2011). Locating research has become faster and easier, but not necessarily more accessible, because many scholarly published articles are hidden behind a paywall. This has prompted an ongoing debate in the academic publishing industry about whether or not online literature should be made Open Access (Banks, 2004; Gwynne, 2017; Suber, 2004). Open Access is a model for retrieving scholarly peer reviewed journals online, free of charge with little or no copyright restrictions (Laakso et al., 2011; Sprac, n.d.; Suber, 2004; UNESCO, 2015). The existing procedure for sharing research is being stifled by an old model that dismisses the presence of new technology (Sprac, n.d.). Opponents of Open Access argue that it not a viable model for producing quality scholarly journal articles (Shaw, 2013). However, champions for Open Access have been advocating to increase the information available to scholars and professionals to ultimately improve their quality of education and work (Manista, 2017; Sprac, n.d.). Still, amidst the tug of war between those for or against Open Access, it undeniably represents a fast-growing segment in the publication of academic journals. This paper will explore the history of Open Access, the various business models as well as a few arguments surrounding the movement.

The Emergence of Open Access

The high production cost for physical journals accompanied burdensome distribution, a long waiting time for authors to get published or be listed in indexing services, increasing subscription rates for maintenance and archiving of back volumes. This has led to “Serials Crisis” where prices for journals, have risen beyond the budget that most libraries or universities could afford (Panitch & Michalak, 2005; UNESCO, 2015; Laaskso et al., 2011). Responding to these challenges, university libraries began developing initiatives for Open Access in the 1990s.

In 2002, the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI), a statement of principles relating to Open Access, was released to the public.

An old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment, for

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 85

the sake of inquiry and knowledge. The new technology is the internet. The public good they make possible is the world-wide electronic distribution of the peer-reviewed journal literature and completely free and unrestricted access to it by all scientists, scholars, teachers, students, and other curious minds (BOAI, 2002, para 1).

The Bethesda Statement on Publishing Open Access was another initiative that unfolded in 2003, which defined and supported the Open Access movement. The Berlin Declaration on Open Access was a third important statement which followed the BOAI and the Bethesda Statement on Publishing Open Access. This statement acknowledged the increasing importance of the internet and the previous discussions on the need for open access.

These initiatives surfaced in response to the increase in publication prices and accessibilities issues with research, alongside the belief that research funded by taxpayers should be able to be accessible by them free of charge (Gwynne, 2013; Laakso et al., 2011; Manista, 2012; UNESCO, 2015). This is because a majority of researches are funded by the government or through institutions. Researchers publish their findings without the expectation of payment. Other researchers review the submitted work through the process of peer review, which is also free of charge. However, once the work is published, those who contributed to the research (taxpayers and the institutions that supported the research itself), have to pay again to access the findings (Manista, 2012; Sprac, n.d.; UNESCO, 2015).

Open Access Business Models

Retrieving scholarly peer reviewed journals online for free can be regarded as the main function of the Open Access movement. Publishers, who enforce Open Access, have sort to apply compatible business models for the movement. As a result of this, different categories of Open Access have emerged (Burtle, 2017; Meadows, 2012). These forms of access and usage varies from a free model in which there is no associated cost with “full permission to copy, download, print, distribute, archive, and even change format to its usage with varying restrictions” (UNESCO, 2015, p. 3). Some categories carry a publishing fee or article processing charges (APCs) as a way to generate funding for Open Access publishing. The APC method was

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 86 developed in 2002 by a start-up publishing company called BioMedCentral (Bjork, 2012). It is important to note that Open Access does not necessarily mean free. The costs attached to Open Access journals are distinctly different and mostly consists of copy-editing and web-hosting. According to Laakso et al. (2011), “Open Access business models have been introduced in parallel to these traditional subscription-based models” (p. 1).

There are three levels of access within academic publishing that determine how open and accessible scholarship is for a reader. The first level is often referred to as “toll access”, which indicates that a work is available for a price (a “toll” fee). This level of access is applicable to scholarship that has both financial barriers and usage rights). The second level is “Gratis Open Access”, which removes just the financial barrier; in this way, the work is accessible for free but has usage rights. The third level, “Libre Open Access”, is the most accessible, and removes financial and some usage rights barriers. As Suber explains (2012), within Libre Open Access, there are various levels of usage rights:

• Public domain - works in public domain may be used in any way without violating copyright. • Creative Commons license (CC-0) - for authors to assign their works to the public domain. • Creative Common Attribution license (CC-BY) - allows any use so long as the work is attributed to the original author • Creative Commons, Attribution-NonCommercial (CC-BY-NC) - requires attribution but blocks commercial use. • Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC-BY-ND) - requires attribution and allows commercial use but blocks derivative works (p. 69).

In addition to the level of access, Open Access is also typified by its mode of delivery. Here too, there are three categories of delivery: (1) Gold Open Access, (2) Green Open Access and (3) Hybrid or Paid Open Access. Gold Open Access refers to work published in a scholarly journal that makes its articles immediately available online and free of charge to members of the public (Christensen, 2013). According to Vincent and Wickham, Green Open Access is work that is made publicly available in a repository after serving a period of restriction or embargo (as

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 87 cited in Christensen, 2013). The Hybrid Open Access model refers to traditional closed access subscription journals, which offer individual authors the possibility to open up their articles for free access through the payment of a fee. The author, the author's organization, or the research funder is able to pay this fee (Bjork, 2012; Burtle, 2017). All three types of Open Access make the research free for readers. Additionally, there is the controversial Black or Pirated Open Access, “which provides access to a large part of the pay-walled article output which cannot be found in repositories” (Bjork, 2017, p. 1). In essence, scholarships originally hidden behind a pay-wall are made accessible to readers for free. This form of Open Access, although very common, is illegal.

The Argument of Sustainability, Quality and Academic Infringement

Open Access has, understandably, been met with concerns regarding its viability, sustainability and quality. Despite the advantages of OA, many scholars remain apprehensive about it because they are under the impression that the movement’s aim is to make publishing completely free, which is not viable. However, Open Access advocates are aware that publishing is a business and Open Access literature is not free to produce or publish, hence the different forms of Open Access and Open Access APCs (Bjork, 2012; Van Noorden, 2013). Open Access is much less expensive to produce, as opposed to conventionally published journals. Therefore, the argument put forth by advocates is not to necessarily make it free, but find other ways to cover associated production costs instead of creating access barriers and charging the readers. This forms the basis for many Open Access advocates, to make the literature free for users and not free for the producers (Hagemann, 2002; Suber, 2012). After all, if the government covered a large amount of the fees generated for conducting research through grants (from tax-payers dollars), it only makes sense for taxpayers to have free access to the information.

One way in which journals have managed the associated costs of publication is by using the APC method, which is one variant of Gold Open Access. According to Bjork, 2012:

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 88

APCs should be set initially at the level of the average current subscription revenue per article, so that the publisher’s income would remain constant if the whole journal converted to full OA, as well as during the gradual transition if subscription prices were reduced linearly as uptake grew. The strategy would thus be risk-free from the publisher’s viewpoint (p. 1497).

This type of Open Access has expanded at a fast pace, increasing in market share every year (Meadows, 2012; Tananbaum, Tenopir & Anderson, 2016). This is because within this model, the financial viability shifts from the demand to the supply side with APCs. Ideally, this model would be sustainable for academic research institutions, in that it would cost them cumulatively no more in APCs than what they pay now in the traditional subscription model (Tananbaum, Tenopir & Anderson, 2016).

Other opponents of Open Access argue that journals and other publishers represent important gatekeepers and Open Access will essentially compromise the quality of scholarly journals. They argue that the peer review process guarantees that published research is relevant, accurately reported, and of high technical quality. They believe that these processes cost money and, by undermining the subscription model, Open Access threatens the revenues that have traditionally funded scientific publications (Gwynne, 2013). This argument is flawed on several points, however. First, quality is not an issue that plagues Open Access alone, as traditional subscription-based journals have the same issues with quality due to issues in the peer-review process more generally (Meadows, 2012). The quality of a scholarly journal is a function of its authors, editors, and referees, not its business model or access policy (Suber, 2013). Second, the Open Access model does not dismiss the peer review process. In fact, the majority of Open Access journals have a peer-review process as rigorous as subscription journals. This misconception may have developed because vanity publishers or predatory publishers are increasingly taking advantage of the Open Access movement. These publishers scout professional email lists, then proceed to solicit article submissions for a cost. They could have false-front or non-existent peer review processes (Beall, 2012). Therefore, the onus is on the author to ensure that their work is being submitted to credible publishers.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 89

Opponents argue that Open Access infringes on academic freedom, as researchers are often required to only submit work to that specific publisher as part of their institutional policy. Admittedly, as Johnston (2017) posits, not all Open Access policies are created equal as it pertains to their potential tensions with academic freedom. Green open access mandates can respect author freedom to publish where they please (Johnston, 2017). According to Suber (2013), this maybe the reason why a vast majority of university open access mandates are green, not gold. In accordance to Johnston (2017), “policies that simply encourage Open Access or request faculty to opt-in to a policy are not in conflict with academic freedom given that faculty are under no obligation whatsoever to follow the policy” (p. 6). The Canadian Tri-Agency policy is one that requires the faculty to provide open access to their work within a given timeframe without the option of a waiver this may appear to introduce potential conflicts with freedom of publication (Johnston, 2017). The Green Open Access and Hybrid Open Access models immensely reduce the possibility of an obstinate conflict between researchers who need to comply with an Open Access policy and publisher’s contracts. However, the emphasis of such policies is on ensuring faculty compliance with the policy, rather than developing a policy that emphasizes protection of the researcher’s academic freedom. It therefore, cannot be concluded that policies which introduce requirements of this kind necessarily violate the researcher’s academic freedom, if it is the researchers themselves who have opted to sign with models of such policies (Johnston, 2017; Suber, 2013).

Conclusion

The internet has contributed greatly to the emergence of the Open Access movement, as scholarly journals are increasingly being produced in digital formats. The movement, which has been characterized as the most recent development in the history of increasing access to knowledge, advocates for research to be free of cost to its users, preventing them from paying twice for literature that they have already paid for through tax deduction. Individuals like Yanique would never have to worry about paying “tolls” to access scholarly literature, she would instead have no barriers to the journals needed to advance her research. Similar to the traditional subscription-based model, some publishers have introduced article publishing charges (APCs) to

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 90 make Open Access viable and sustainable while remaining free to readers. Additionally, Open Access does not disregard the peer review processes. The quality of a scholarly journal is a function of its authors, and to an extent its editors, not its business model or access policy. Authors must therefore put deep consideration into ensuring that wherever they submit their research, it can be trusted to undergo a thorough peer review process. Many Open Access publishing companies adhere to a preferred Open Access model and have developed its own institutional policy. Depending on the model, Open Access does not necessarily infringe on academic freedom. The type of policy that an institution decides to accept has that power.

Advantages and disadvantages accompany every new initiative. However, misconceptions surrounding Open Access may have resulted in its ongoing debate. The opportunities significantly outweigh the risks. According to Meadows (2012), “exciting new prospective services and products beckon; and a mixed economy, in which subscription journals, hybrid journals, and Open Access journals co-exist peacefully, is already becoming a reality” (para. 9). Undoubtedly, the Open Access movement has gained support from many scientists, educationists, publishers, research institutions, professional associations and library organizations, as a result of its ultimate aim to make research available to all, irrespective of the users paying capacity (UNESCO, 2015). Therefore, this seismic shift in scholarly publishing is inevitable and is only a natural step in the future of online publishing.

References

Banks, M. (2004). Connections between open access publishing and access to gray literature. Journal of Medical Library Association, 92(2), 164-166. Beall, J. (2012). Beall’s list of predatory, open access publishers. Retrieved from Linkoping University Electronic Press. Bjork, B. (2012). The hybrid model for open access publication of scholarly articles: A failed experiment? Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 63(8), 1496-1504. Bjork, B. (2017). Gold, green and black open access. Learned Publishing, 30(2), 173-175. doi https://doi-org.proxy.bib.uottawa.ca/10.1002/leap.1096

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 91

Budapest Open Access Initiative. (2002). Burtle, L. (October 30, 2017). Open access: Types of open access. Georgia State University Library. Retrieved from http://research.library.gsu.edu/c.php?g=115588&p=754380 Christensen, S. (2013). The difference between green and gold open access. University of Syndey. Gwynne, P. (2013). The blossoming of open access: News and analysis of the global innovation scene. Research Technology Management, 56(2), 6-7. doi 10.5437/08956308X5602001 Hagemann, M. (February 14, 2002). Budapest open access initiative supported by the open society institute's information program. Budapest Open Access Initiative. Retrieved from http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/commitment Johnston, D. (2017). Open Access policies and academic freedom: Understanding and addressing conflicts. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 1(5). doi 10.7710/2162-3309.2104 Laakso, M., Welling, P., Bukvova, H., Nyman, L., Bjork, B., & Hedlund, T. (2011). The development of open access journal publishing 1993-2009. PLoS ONE 6(6). doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0020961 Manista, F. C. (2012). “Open don’t mean free”: A reflection on the potential advantages and disadvantages of open access publishing. Journal of Librarianship and Scholarly Communication, 1(2). Meadows, A. (October 22, 2012). Open Access: Some thoughts from a publisher’s perspective. Creative Commons. SPARC. Open Access. [def. 1]. (n.d.). In Sprac. Panitch, J. M., & Michalak, S. (2005). The serial crisis. Retrieved from University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Shaw, C. (October 4, 2013). Hundreds of academic journals accept fake science paper. The Guardian. Suber, P. (June 21, 2004). Open access overview. Earlham College. ______. (2012). Open Access. Massachusetts: MIT Press. ______. (October 21, 2013). Open access: Six myths to put to rest. The Guardian.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Open Access 92

Tananbaum, G., Tenopir, C., & Anderson, I. (2016). Is a gold open access world viable for research universities? Charleston Library Conference. doi 10.5703/1288284316481 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. (2015). Introduction to open Access. Retrieved from UNESCO. Van Noorden, R. (2014). Open Access: The true cost of science publishing. Nature, 497(7442), 426. Zarah, L. (December 27, 2017). 7 reasons why research is important. Retrieved from Owlcation.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

10 | Digital Fiction: The Modern Alternative to Traditional Publishing

Grace Clark, School of Information Studies

The Internet has played a prominent role in the modernization of the publishing industry, as aspiring authors are finding more creative ways to distribute their work, reach readers, and gain exposure with the help of technology. This chapter will explore the ever-growing popularity of digitally self-published fiction, the many platforms and services it’s popularity produced, industry responses, and some success stories such as E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey (2011) and Andy Weir’s The Martian (2011) to illustrate the drastic changes between traditional and contemporary publishing, as well as the modernization of the publishing industry.

Keywords: self-publishing, digital, fiction, websites, platforms, services

Introduction

Digital self-publishing has become a popular method that enables creators of varying levels of experience to share their work and “bypass the gatekeeping practices” of traditional publishing (Vadde, 2017, 27). From its humble beginnings on blogs and online boards, the rise of digitally self-published fiction has influenced the development of many online services aimed to help authors produce and circulate their work without the rigidity and risk of rejection commonly seen in traditional publishing houses. With a growing amount of online services and platforms that cater to hopeful authors, digital self-publishing is beginning to impact the publishing world in ways that are hard to ignore, and is not only a more convenient way to broadcast one’s work, but it is managing to ignite an evolution in publishing. This chapter aims to explain the digital self- publishing revolution and consider how it has rocked the foundations of traditional publishing, offering a modern approach to authors seeking an alternative format for sharing their work with the world.

Copyright © 2018 Clark. Digital Fiction 94 The rise and popularity of digital publishing

Digital self-publishing, the utilization of digital and multimedia technologies to publish fiction, is a modern development of what Vadde calls “amateur literary creativity” (p. 29) that offers a more convenient alternative for authors attempting to publish their work. The notion of digital self-publishing has evolved along with the rise of the Internet, as it helped provide an outlet for the mass amateurization (Vadde, 2017, p. 27) of contemporary publishing through sites dedicated to showcasing amateur writing, services aimed towards self-publishers, and through common social media platforms. With a growing number of platforms and services that cater to self-publishing, it seems that digital fiction is not only becoming more popular, but also challenging the traditional publishing industry. Self-publishing fiction digitally has grown in popularity due to the ease of the process, as the convenience of showcasing one’s work on digital platforms has lead to the steady increase of self-published titles. Bowker’s 2009 statistics revealed that there were almost 300,000 digital publications produced that year, which rivaled the amount of titles produced by traditional publishing (Albanese, 2010). In the following year, the Bowker statistics showed that there were over 2 million self-published titles, eight times more than traditionally published books (Bradley, 2011). It is perhaps due to the popularity and convenience of creating and marketing digitally self-published fiction that lead library book vendors such as Baker & Taylor and Ingram to become more than just vendors (Nardini, 2015). Both now offer programs to help self-publishers, with Ingram offering IngramSpark, a self- publishing tool, and Baker & Taylor offering author services after procuring Bookmasters in 2013 (Nardini, 2015, p. 66), a company that aims to help authors publish work both in print and electronically. What began as merely the sharing of creative content online has evolved into a legitimate, widely recognized publishing option, with more and more aspiring authors using digital self-publishing as a contemporary alternative to traditional publishing methods.

Websites, services and social media

Digitally self-published fiction gained traction at the beginning of the 2000’s, where websites of such as Usenet, ListServs, newsgroups and bulletin boards (Hellekson & Busse, 2006, p. 16) offered spaces in which users could interact and create a variety of posts, including fiction. These

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Digital Fiction 95 types of sites attracted creators due to the fact that they were free, accessible, and easy to use (Hellekson & Busse, 2006). Since then, self-publishing fiction has spread to a wide range of web platforms, and some have even developed services catering specifically to aspiring writers. Some popular sites were designed to help writers self-publish their fiction, such as The Archive of Our Own and FanFiction.net, which is currently the “largest platform for writers of fan fiction on the Web.” (Vadde, 2017, p. 34). Another platform, Wattpad, claims to have more than forty million members (Vadde, 2017, p. 36) and offers a space for aspiring authors to post stories to be read by a “growing, global audience” (Wattpad, n.d.). There has also been a development of online programs for digital self-publishing, such as Amazon’s Kindle Worlds, a service that began in 2013 that aims to help authors “package and self-publish their work” (Vadde, 2017, p. 34). Another Amazon service called Kindle Direct Publishing promises free self-publishing that will appeal to millions, broadcast books globally, give authors as much as 70% royalties, and all in “less than 5 minutes” (Kindle Direct Publishing, n.d.).

With the rise of self-publishing authors, there is an increased need for the editorial services that a traditional publisher offers its clients, and there are now online services that provide authors with “editing, copy editing, proofing, marketing, public relations, access to social media and even strategies for drawing search engines to a book.” (Finder, 2012, para. 9). One example of this service is Lulu, a publishing program that edits work for less than $500, provides a book cover for less than $200, and helps with editing, design and formatting, with a price that ranges from $729 to $4,949 (Finder, 2012). CreateSpace is another online service that sells design and editing packages to self-publishers, but also includes assistance with “promotion and publicity assistance and a video book trailer.” (Finder, 2012). While both services are more costly than those with no associated fee, authors do earn 60% royalties through CreateSpace and 80% through Lulu (Finder, 2012), making such services an attractive and profitable option to self-publishers.

Social media platforms have also played a significant role in this digital ecosystem. Many authors are choosing to post their fiction to popular sites and apps in order to reach a wider audience. Ingram’s platform IngramSpark advocates for the use of social media to post and promote self-published work, providing tips for authors on its website. IngramSpark suggests Facebook to self-publishers, as authors can find a substantial amount of readers with it’s large

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Digital Fiction 96 amount of users, and allows authors to post stories, connect with readers, and even promote themselves using ad options (King, 2016). While IngramSpark warns that Twitter “is not the place for authors to share in-depth content” due to the character limit on posts, it can be useful to share links or short excerpts to create interest (King, 2016, para. 5). The utilization of social media has become so common among self-publishers, the term “Instapoets” (Vadde, 2017, p. 38) has been developed to refer to those who post poetry and other creative works on social media sites. The growing amount of online services, including social media platforms, are able to tempt creators and produce more titles not only by promising the exhibition of work, but by also offering a faster alternate to traditional publishing, generally without the threat of rejection.

Success Stories

With the high volume of fiction being produced online, there have been several instances in which digitally self-published fiction has become highly successful. Two of the most popular self-published fiction novels that originated on the Internet are E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey series and Andy Weir’s The Martian, which not only have become popular in the literary world, but both have acquired highly successful movie adaptions. Fifty Shades of Grey, which began which began as a fan-fiction of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series (Vadde, 2017), became “the fastest-selling book in Britain since records began”, as well as “spawned the most successful 18- rated film ever” (Petersen, 2015, para. 1). What started as a digitally self-published story, has since earned $500 million in the box office following the first installment of the film franchise, sold over 125 million copies, and earned James £75 million (Petersen, 2015). Similarly, The Martian had humble beginnings on a blog before being sold for the lowest possible price on amazon for a whopping $0.99 (Dickerson, 2015). From there, the self-published title topped Amazon’s list of bestselling of science fiction novels, and lead to both Random House offering to publish copies and a movie deal following just four days after (Dickerson, 2015). The success of James’ and Weir’s work, although uncommon, offers some degree of legitimacy to digital self-publication as a publishing option, and conceivably encourages other self-publishers to post their work digitally.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Digital Fiction 97 Industry Response

The growth of digital self-published fiction has significantly transformed the publishing world. Traditional publishers have had to change their practice and find ways to enter the self- publishing world. As Vadde (2017) explains in her article, “amateur writing platforms are structurally changing the publishing business in ways that literary historians cannot ignore.” (p. 36), and publications have had responses to the rising popularity, volume and occasional success of digitally self-published fiction. Traditional publishing houses have seemed to recognize the popularity of digitally self-published fiction, as they have started to engage in the support and promotion of self-published titles. Prominent publishing houses have started purchasing self- publishing services to help “expand the traditional publishers technological reach,” (Grobelny, 2015, p. 35). Alan Finder of The New York Times notes the popular trade publisher Penguin had recently purchased Author Solutions, an online platform offering a number of self-publishing services, for $116 million (Finder, 2012). In a similar move to control the market, Random House purchased Figment in 2013, a platform developed by former writers of the New Yorker (Vadde, 2017). Furthermore, a traditional publishing house chose to mimic aspects of James’ self-published work, hoping to utilize some successful tactics for their own publications. Following the print release and popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey, publishers were “prompted […] to rejacket” many of their previously published works to emulate James’ work - something that had been previously called “‘cheaply put together’” (Petersen, 2015, para. 11) by some in the publishing industry. Also mimicking James’ publishing style, the publisher of Fifty Shades of Grey had released the trilogy as quickly as possible to simulate digital publishing, where content is often delivered “thick and fast” to readers (Petersen, 2015, para. 10).

Conclusion

The practice of digital self-publishing fiction, something that began as a simple way to share work online, has evolved into a legitimate publishing option that has generated online platforms, services and diverse industry responses. With websites dedicated to helping self-publishers develop their work, success stories such as Fifty Shades of Grey and The Martian, as well as a response from the traditional publishing industry, it is clear that digital self-publishing fiction is a

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Digital Fiction 98 viable option for those looking to produce their work, as well as evidence that the publishing industry is currently undergoing a distinct modernization and evolution.

References

Albanese, A. (2010). BiblioBazaar: How a company produces 272,930 books a year. Publishers Weekly. Bradley, J., Fulton, B., Helm, M., & Pittner, K.A. (2011) Non-traditional book publishing. First Monday, 16(8). Dickerson, K. (2015). The surprising story of how Andy Weir’s ‘The Martian’ topped best seller lists and got a movie deal. Business Insider. Finder, A. (2012). The joys and hazards of self-publishing on the web. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.todroberts.com/USF/Self-Publishing-on-Web.pdf Green, H. E. (2014). Publishing without walls: building a collaboration to support digital publishing at the university of Illinois. Fire!!!, 3(2), 21-36. doi: 10.5323/fire.3.2.0021 Grobelny, J.D. (2015) Self-Publishing: A bibliographic essay. Against the Grain (25)3 p. 34-36. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/2380-176X.6522 Hellekson, K. & Busse, K. (2006). Indroduction. In. K. Hellekson & K. Busse (Eds.), Fan fiction and fan communities in the age of the internet (pp. 5-32). North Carolina: McFarland & Company Inc., Publishers. Kindle Direct Publishing. (n.d.) Self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free with Kindle Direct Publishing, and reach millions of readers on Amazon. Retrieved from KDP.amazon.com. King, C. (2016). Social media: choose it and use it, self publishers! IngramSpark. Nardini, B. (2015). Book vendors and self-publishing. Self-publishing and collection development: opportunities and challenges for libraries (pp. 65-82). West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. Petersen, H. E. (2015). Fifty Shades of Grey: the series that tied publishing up in knots. The Guardian. Vadde, A. (2017). Amateur creativity: contemporary literature and the digital publishing scene. New Literary History, 48(1), 27-51.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Digital Fiction 99

Wattpad. (n.d.) What is Wattpad? Retrieved from Wattpad.com.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

11 | Self-Publishing: YouTube Communities Contributing to Success in the Publishing World

Ravneet Bajwa, School of Information Studies

The definition of “publishing” has evolved over the past decade. With the emergence of various social media platforms such as YouTube, authors now have the option to self-publish, a non- traditional, yet similarly effective method to disseminate their works to people worldwide. One academic journal article provides a case study of a musician who posted cover songs on his YouTube channel, gained enough popularity to build a solid fan base who supported him through to achieving success. A case study on a YouTube “Vlogger” and self-published author proves that for writers, success can be gained by taking the self-publishing route via social media.

Keywords: YouTube, Novels, Self-Publishing, Communities, Marketing, Social Media Platforms

Defining YouTube, Publishing & Self-Publishing

In 2018, everyone is using YouTube as a form of entertainment, education and social media. The question is: can this everyday resource be transformed in order to be used as a self-publishing tool? Could YouTube become the next way of self-publishing by allowing users to build and cultivate large communities and fan bases? Drawing on Christopher Cayari’s (2011) investigation of how a young musician used YouTube to develop his career, this chapter will present a case study of a similar nature, to explore how “vlogger” Jenna Moreci used the popular platform to build her career as a writer.

YouTube’s “mission is to give everyone a voice and show them the world.” They believe that “everyone deserves to have a voice, and that the world is a better place when we listen, share and build community through our stories.” They achieve this by supporting and upholding four freedoms or principles that they say define them: freedom of expression, freedom of information,

Copyright © 2018 Bajwa. YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 101 freedom of opportunity and freedom to belong” (YouTube.ca, N.D.). “First launched in February 2005, YouTube has quickly become the largest video sharing service on the internet” (Rotman & Preece, 2010, p.320).

YouTube is a social media platform that allows people to broadcast and share their work with the world. However, a study done in 2010 on what YouTube authors now feel of online communities, confirmed,

The extent of interaction between users, and the means they used to communicate with each other, received a lot of attention in users’ videos. The opportunity for personal interaction changes users’ perception of YouTube from a broadcasting tool to a place where personal relationships can be built (Rotman & Preece, 2010, p. 326).

The millions of people that use YouTube not only watch and listen to videos, but also often end up following well known YouTube sensations. As “vlogs” (video blogs) trend, they are liked and shared by viewers and fans. The shared vlogs often lead to more viewers and fans, and then eventually to the development of a solid community. The community then interacts with one another and with the original YouTube sensation, sometimes requesting other vlogs about specific topics of interest, or to communicate the likings or disliking they take to the published video. Sometimes, the fans will ask the publisher additional questions about products or topics introduced in the vlog as well, and this provides fans with a means to communicate with the vlogger or publisher and provide a form of feedback. In 2018, videos and vlogs that are published on YouTube range from tutorials on makeup, shopping trips, product reviews and cooking recipes to experiential vlogs on travel, autobiographies, cultural norms and so much more. YouTube is a limitless resource for entertainment, learning, teaching, sharing, story telling, advertising, and communicating in an endless way.

“Publishing,” as defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is “the business or profession of the commercial production and issuance of literature, information, musical scores or sometimes recordings, or art” (2018). This definition determines that publishing a work means making money out of producing and sharing content. YouTube allows users to earn money from posting and sharing their content and videos: “the YouTube Partner Programme lets creators

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 102 monetise their content on YouTube. Creators can earn money from advertisements served on their videos and from YouTube Red subscribers watching their content” (YouTube Help, N.D). In order to make money, YouTube sensations must meet the determined eligibility criteria that is set out by the YouTube Partner Programme. “On January 16 2018, we [YouTube] announced new eligibility requirements for the YouTube Partner Programme. Once a channel reaches 4,000 watch hours in the previous 12 months and 1,000 subscribers, it will be reviewed to join the programme” (YouTube Help, N.D.). Vlogging on YouTube can be seen as a form of publishing, although not the traditional form where an author goes through an established process to submit versions of a work to an agent, who then puts the draft through various levels of editing, and eventually publishes the book for public dissemination. YouTube might be considered self- publishing, which means one puts their work out into the world him/herself. Creating the content of the work, recording of the work, editing and reviewing, quality assurance, marketing and final publication of a given work is all done by the author or content creator him or herself.

Another way of looking at YouTube is that it is a social media platform that helps authors self-publish their work. Based on the fact that taking this route implies that authors do not pay anyone to publish their work, and eventually have a community of fans who religiously watch their videos or vlogs, and make money off of the YouTube Partner Programme, it is clear that this form of social media, YouTube, can be a stepping stone for authors to become well-known and established professionals. From here, these self-publishers can become authors, teachers, makeup gurus, and IT professionals, all based off of their fan base and the sheer amount that their videos are liked and shared.

The specific case of YouTube self-publishers creating their own fan base or community is one way to see how this social media platform leads to professional careers. This can be seen through a case study of a teenage boy and how he used YouTube as a platform to publicize his music or the way that Jenna Moreci, author, self-publisher and vlogger, uses YouTube to reach out to fans and followers.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 103 YouTube: Creating Communities for Self-Publishers and Leading to Success

The question remains: how can self-publishers or content creators use YouTube to cultivate a community to the point where they can eventually become established professionals? Rotman and Preece’s research (2010) found,

Integrating applications that will cultivate interaction among users in media sharing sites, even on a partial and smaller scale than that of the whole network, may shift users’ patterns of interaction from broadcasting to communicating, and create a stronger sense of affiliation among them, transcending media sharing or social broadcasting to create even more socially cohesive environments, which will promote participation and users’ engagement (p. 330).

YouTube is a way to publicize and create a network to the point where you not only have a solid fan base, but also end up making connections with business owners who may reach out with interest in professionally publishing the work of a given self-publisher or YouTube sensation. In music, this is often the case, self-publishers will post videos of their work, and eventually amongst thousands of likes and shares, the video will be found by someone who works in the music industry. If the music is of interest to the industry professional, he/she may reach out to the YouTube sensation in hopes to collaborate with the person, which is a means of making money and success for both involved parties.

In his study about teenage musician Wade Johnston, Christopher Cayari (2011) demonstrates how the young artist “started his channel, gained popularity, interacted with others, and promoted his musical career through YouTube”. The article explains that “YouTube users have developed community in which technology has enabled new kinds of musical creativity” (Cayari, 2011, p. 2). The study continues to detail how YouTube and the communities that get created by users are a form of motivation for many of the content creators. The communities are so involved in the work of the user that the fans urge and push the users to continue to work hard. In Wade’s case, within four months of self-publishing videos on YouTube, he realized that his community was large enough now that he might be able to get the attention of one of his

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 104 favourite musicians. He posted a cover song of the artist’s and said her name numerous times at the beginning of the video with high hopes that he would be noticed, and he was. Although Wade was not a professional musician, and had only self-published four videos of himself on YouTube up until this point,

His video brought about a number of opportunities and benefits that Wade did not even imagine. Jacqueline noticed his video. She also featured it on her YouTube channels. This brought a number of viewers to Wade’s channel and his subscriber count climbed exponentially from 54 to 390 seemingly overnight. It was Wade’s obsession with a famous YouTube artist, his determination to get noticed, and his willingness to take risks that brought him that lucky break. His fan base exploded, but that was not the only thing that gaining Jacqueline’s attention did for Wade. […] he was invited to perform live with Jacqueline at YouTube Live! 2008 (Cayari, 2011, p. 13).

From this point forward, Wade’s YouTube career grew so much that by 2009, he had a solid fan base of 9,000 followers. He linked himself to other artists, and he leveraged his new network to gain access to others’ fans as well. His success included having 11,000 subscribers and 1,000,000 video views, and even 3,000 comments on one video in particular.

This article and case study presents a well documented case of how YouTube can lead to the success of a self-publisher in the field of his/her choice. In this case, it was music, but the principle of this social media platform being used as a stepping stone to lead to a professional and established career can be used in any field. Writing is a similar field in which authors often use YouTube to leverage a fan base in order to get the attention of others. In some cases, self- publishing on YouTube leads to trade publishing. The case study that Christopher Cayari did on Wade Johnston depicts what success is in the YouTube world. The standards consist of having thousands on subscribers, followers, fans, comments, network connections, being noticed by established professionals, and monetisation.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 105 Case Study: Jenna Moreci

Jenna Moreci is an author, a self-publisher, and a YouTube Vlogger. Since she joined YouTube in 2013, she has built a fan base of 117,000 subscribers, and has self-published a book Eve: The Awakening (2015) which she advertises and sells through her vlogs, Amazon, as well as her website: https://www.jennamoreci.com/. She is also currently in the process of self-publishing her second book The Savior’s Champion (2018). Moreci comes from Silicon Valley, has a business background and began vlogging in July 9th, 2014 as a way to help others work through writing and publishing issues. Although she does not have a background in literature and writing, she had wanted to be a writer since the age of six and seized this opportunity to become part of a writing community through vlogging. Moreci was working as an accountant, a loved-one fell ill and she decided to quit her job and take on the role of full-time caretaker. With a little extra time on her hands than when working full-time, she used this opportunity to explore writing more seriously, launching her YouTube channel and writing her first novel (Moreci, 2017).

With nearly 135 videos posted on her channel that she has self-published via vlogging, she has gained thousands of views in a matter of weeks. For example, in one week, her video, “10 Worst Villain Pet Peeves,” gained 40,000 views. In her video, “Why I Decided to Self- Publish my Book,” which has 58, 036 views, Moreci lists out five reasons for which she chose to self-publish instead of working with a publishing company: 1) money, 2) marketing, 3) creative control, 4) feminization of a book cover therefore decreasing audience, 5) negotiation power – with self-publishing you have the option to work with a publishing house down the road, you will have already created your own loyal fan base and decent sales, so when you go to the publishing house, you have leverage to negotiate better deals (Moreci, 2014). In one video, “BIG CHANNEL ANNOUNCEMENT! + Quarterly Writing Goals Winter 2017 Recap,” Moreci states that due to viewer requests, she is moving from posting videos once a week to twice a week. In the comments section, a fan, Ivypool of ThunderClan, has posted a comment stating “Hey Jenna, I just want you to know I stayed up until 6 Sunday morning reading Eve: The Awakening and don’t regret a second of it! After being a fan of your channel for so long, I was worried that your real writing wouldn’t live up to my expectations – which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Rest assured, I will be pre-ordering ever new book you come out with from now

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 106 on and staying up until midnight to get them on my Kindle the second they come out!” (2018) to which Moreci responded with: “I’m THRILLED you enjoyed it!!!! <3 <3 Thanks for being so amazing!” (2018). From the reactions and comments, as well as the number of fans and subscribers Moreci has, it is clear that she is able to successfully market her self-published books.

As seen in the case study done by Christopher Cayari of Wade Johnston and his music success, Jenna Moreci is also using YouTube as a social media platform to build a loyal fan base in order gain success as a self-published author of novels. The thousands of people watching her videos and providing her with limitless feedback contributes to this author’s writing career in an extremely positive way.

Conclusion

YouTube can be used by anyone, regardless of their past experience, to disseminated their works to audiences worldwide. While traditional publishing is a limited and structured process, self- publishing allows for anyone to post their work on social media outlets in order to build a community of fans or followers, eventually, leading to the same results as someone who goes through the traditional publishing process. What any book, literary or not, needs in order to be successful is readership. Publishing companies create readership for authors, if an author chooses not to go with a publishing house, the same possibility exists for the author to build their own readership; however, it does require that the author actively market him/herself. One way to build such readership is through social media platforms, and in particular, YouTube.

YouTube is an endless world of videos, ranging from vlogs to tutorials on subjects ranging from A-Z, and can be used as an extremely powerful business tool. Creating and posting YouTube videos on any sort of topic can create a buzz amongst viewers, each having the choice to comment, rate, and if interested enough, to subscribe or follow a given individual’s YouTube channel. As views, subscriptions and followers increase, the video and the topic being presented gain advertisement and interest. Followers may share the video with all of their friends through various methods of social media, thereby, increasing counts in views, subscriptions and

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 107 followers, yet again. With this circular process, social media has the ability to be a highly useful tool for anyone interested in the self-publishing business.

In Cayari’s article (2011), a case study is done on a subject who starts off posting song covers on YouTube, builds a fan base on his own, and then is noticed by a professional in the music industry, leading to his overall success. Similarly, YouTube vlogger, Jenna Moreci, speaks to the reasons for which she chose self-publishing over traditional publishing for her first novel. The reasons she chose worked out, allowing her channel and fan base to grow, and leading her to expand her career to a second self-published novel. Through her videos, she engages with her readership, allowing them to comment on her vlogs, her novels, and other various aspects of her life. Through continuously building her own readership via YouTube vlogging, as an author, Moreci is eliminating the need for a publishing house. With thousands of likes, comments, and subscribers, Moreci too seems to demonstrate that self-publishing can be successful if the right platforms are utilized.

References

YouTube. (n.d.). How to earn money from your videos - YouTube Help. YouTube.com. YouTube. (2017, June 22). YouTube: Our Brand Mission. YouTube video. Cayari, C. (2011). The YouTube effect: How YouTube has provided new ways to consume, create, and share music. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 12(6). Moreci, J. (2018). YouTube Channel. YouTube.com. ______. (2017). Jenna Moreci website. ______. (2015). Eve: the awakening. Place of publication not identified: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ______. (2018, January 8). Re: BIG CHANNEL ANNOUNCEMENT! Quarterly Writing Goals Winter 2017 Recap [Video Blog Comment]. YouTube video. Moreci, J. The Saviour’s Champion (2018). Place of publication not identified: Publishing Company not identified.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) YouTube Communities Contributing to Publishing Success 108

Rotman, D., & Preece, J. (2010). The WeTube in YouTube – creating an online community through video sharing. International Journal of Web Based Communities, 6(3), 317. doi:10.1504/ijwbc.2010.033755. Unknown. Publishing. (n.d.). Retrieved from Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

12 | Online Graphic Novels: A Case Study on Faith Erin Hicks

Brittany Melia, School of Information Studies

The following case study focuses on Faith Erin Hicks, a Canadian graphic novelist, who began her career by self-publishing webcomics. Eventually, she was able to branch into commercial publishing, and make a living as a graphic novelist. I will examine how cultivating a passionate fanbase through self-publishing graphic novels online can help support a creator’s transition to traditional publishing for profit. Furthermore, this case study also demonstrates how respecting and remaining connected to one’s online community can be incorporated into commercial publishing, creating a balancing act between the two worlds of creation. Overall, the pros and cons of self-publishing or traditionally publishing graphic novels will be investigated through the lens of one woman’s experience.

Keywords: self-publishing online, graphic novels, faith erin hicks, commercial publishing, fanbase

Introduction

Self-publishing online has become one of the most barrier-free ways to make one’s work widely available. Creators of comics and graphic novels, in particular, are finding a niche in which to garner a greater international fanbase for their work where a traditional publisher could not do the same. Graphic novelists have used their online popularity to transition to the commercial publishing sphere. This phenomenon of online communities for authors and readers to share and develop their work is at the root of successful self-publishing online. This chapter will focus on Faith Erin Hicks, a Canadian graphic novelist and cartoonist who currently lives in Vancouver (Hicks, “About Faith,” n.d). Throughout her career, Hicks has been nominated for and won numerous awards such as an Eisner award in 2014 for The Adventures of Superhero Girl (2014), and her acclaim and talent have since garnered her an artist position for graphic novels based on

Copyright © 2018 Melia. Faith Erin Hicks 110 the video game The Last of Us (2013), and as the next writer of the comics that continue the widely successful animated series Avatar the Last Airbender (2005) (Hicks, November 5, 2017). While Hicks has reached a high level of success commercially publishing graphic novels, her start in comics began by self-publishing graphic novels online. I will investigate how Hicks’ transition from self-publishing online to commercial publishing has been aided by the fanbase she developed at the start of her career, and what part of the self-publishing process is most impactful for both author and readers.

I will also note that for the purposes of this chapter, the terms “graphic novels” and “webcomics” will be used interchangeably. There is much debate about what exactly each term refers to; some argue that comics are stories that are updated serially and use very flat characters while graphic novels are standalone stories that intimately explore the motivations and storylines of characters (Turk, 2012). Since Hicks’ online works were all published serially but each investigated the psychological and emotional arcs of the characters, this distinguishing of “graphic novels” and “webcomics” does not work. This being the case, the terms will be treated as synonymous.

Literature Review

Impact of Fanbases on Online and Commercial Publishing

Although academic works on self-publishing graphic novels online is limited, there are a number of books and articles that focus on the fanbases that arise from self-publishing any form of material online. In his work, Timothy Laquintano (2016) notes that authors who publish online will often acquire a fanbase who will give them the popularity to publish commercially. For example, he explains that commercial publishers began seeking out self-publishing authors who had made a major impact online, writing, “Agents and publishers began to monitor self- publishing for emerging stars to sign … but the commentary also pointed out that there was no guarantee that a loyal readership built on inexpensive eBooks sold through Kindle would translate into a large print readership” (p. 44). While fanbases are clearly not synonymous with

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 111 book sales, the fact that commercial publishers are still willing to take the risk of approaching self-publishing authors speaks to the power of this online phenomenon.

Furthermore, Laquintano writes that, “authors believed that the material and sociotechnical conditions of publishing could eventually recede into the background as they established an immediate and intimate relationship with readers through their books—the kind of unmediated relationship so often fantasized about in the age of print” (p. 94-5). This demonstrates that the key to being successful when self-publishing online is to fully engage with the fanbase that is cultivated both through the work and through the sharing of personal stories. The readership is valued beyond their financial support of a project.

Finally, Maria Walters (2009) focuses on the specifics of communities being created online through author’s self-published works. In particular, Walters explains how these works allow the authors to connect with their readership, but also foster relationships between the readers. She writes:

Another effect of these forums is the relationships formed between readers. Forums allow users to introduce conversations that are not directly related to any particular comic, which is vital to the formation of a true community. … Plus, forums provide authors with the opportunity to get to know their audiences, interact, and answer questions in a public place (p. 1-2).

This highlights the way in which graphic novels self-published online can reach a greater, more passionate audience, and ultimately contribute to a successful commercial career for the author.

Permanence and Impermanence of Material

The fluid existence of the graphic novels that authors self-publish online is a big topic of discussion in articles on the matter. On the one hand, Timothy Laquintano writes that changes made to published materials are seldom to avoid upsetting or confusing the readership. He explains that, “Readers made it difficult for the authors to make any substantive changes to the content of their fiction because they had invested intense emotional resources into a story and its

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 112 plotline. … This problem was particularly acute for one author when she faced the prospect of having to make changes to sell a book with a particular retailer” (p. 105). The author did not make changes out of respect to the fanbase, demonstrating the strong bond that develops between the author and their readership as well as the permanence of the work despite the creator having a greater ability to edit things. However, on the other hand, authors can also make drastic changes at the request of the readers or remove content altogether. Gabriel Romaguera notes that,

Alterations to the text can be done almost instantaneously through this format and affect all readers from that point on. New editions of the text through the updated document of the website automatically replace the previous version. There are no ‘early editions’ of the webcomic available to readers (2015, p. 4).

The ease and speed with which authors can make changes to their online graphic novels means that readers can sometimes lose access to the original versions of the webcomics as they are replaced with edited versions. Readers in the future who do not read the graphic novels in real- time will be at an even greater disadvantage when it comes to seeing all that the author has self- published online. As well, readers can also be at the mercy of the author to continue their graphic novels and keep them online whereas a commercially published book obtains a physical form that exists outside of the author’s control. This is one of the difficulties of self-publishing online.

Diversity in Stories Published Online

Self-publishing graphic novels online also leads to a greater diversity in characters and storylines, be it from the perspective of gender, race, or sexuality. In The World Needs More Sheroes (2017), Jennifer McCartney conducts a case study on graphic novelist Shequeta Smith and how she brought diversity to the medium through a black female lead in her work. She notes that Smith said, “’Women make up like 46% of comic book readers, so it’s a no brainer that we should be creating these stories” (p. 42). Having characters that resonate with different types of people allows for a greater audience, particularly when the material is also available online without international borders or prices separating it from certain fans. This is one of the ways

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 113 that online graphic novels can cultivate such a passionate fanbase as readers are viewing themselves in characters that are not often portrayed in mainstream publishing.

Discussion

In 1999, Faith Erin Hicks, a teenager at the time, started serially publishing a young adult fantasy graphic novel known as Demonology 101 (Hicks, July 25, 2004). The comic ran from 1999 to 2004 and gained a healthy fanbase online. Discussion forums about the comic were used on LiveJournal, Hicks’ own website where she published Demonology 101, and her personal email was also available to readers. After finishing the series, Hicks wrote a blog post speaking about her relationship with the community, noting that while the passion for her work was wonderful, the heartfelt responses to problems in her personal life were astounding. She said:

One thing I will mention (and then hopefully never bring up again) was the issue of the closing note for Episode 4, in which I told about my parents separating. I felt that I had to explain myself, as at one point I'd considered shutting down the comic, and maybe the readers should know what exactly had been going on then. What surprised me was the outpouring of reader response to my post, as people wrote email after email offering condolences as well as telling me about their experiences with a wayward parent. I don't think I answer one email about that topic. For some reason, I didn't have it in me at that time to deal with the kindness of strangers (July 25, 2004).

Hicks makes the important distinction that her fans are strangers; they have never met face to face, they do not know what the other looks like, and, in Hicks’ case, might not know their real names given the prevalence of usernames online. Nevertheless, author and readership are bonded through their love of the artistic work being shared, and, when a personal tragedy or problem occurs, this connection can reach beyond the graphic novel, and offer real, human messages of support and empathy. This phenomenon has been seen across self-publishing graphic novelists online. For example, in a case study on Rick Burlew and Tarol Hunt’s graphic novels, Gabriel Romaguera noted that both authors were met with wide emotional support

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 114 respectively when Burlew’s comic was put on hiatus due to a hand injury sustained in a car crash, or when Hunt was forced to back away from his work because of crippling anxiety and depression (2015, p. 6-9). These moments of humanity between author and community make the experience of publishing the graphic novel and reading it a more meaningful and memorable one.

Furthermore, the diverse characters often present in graphic novels published online, and certainly present in Hicks’ work, could also be a factor in creating such a dedicated fanbase. Hicks’ works have largely included very strong female leads and supporting characters such as Raven, Poe, and Mac in Demonology 101. That being said, Hicks feels she can do more in terms of representing people. In a blog post related to her work on Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong, Hicks wrote that,

I’ve been very focused on women in comics (we are pretty underrepresented), and I feel I’ve been successful in making lots of comics with women and girls in them, and encouraging my fellow Lady Cartoonists. Now I need to look beyond that, and do a better job of representing the diversity of the world around me (Hicks, 2013).

This commitment of Hicks’ demonstrates her willingness to support and accept all types of people or characters as well as fans. In this way, fans are more likely to flock to Hicks’ work as they recognize themselves in her characters. The fact that much of Hicks’ earlier work was published online during the 90s meant that she could sidestep commercial publishing barriers that refused to allow women, homosexuals, or other marginalized individuals to flourish in comics. When artists like Hicks create such an experience for their readership, they are likely to follow when the author transitions to commercial publishing. It also helps that, at present, traditional publishing companies are much more willing to deliver content that displays greater diversity.

Before Hicks got a publishing deal with Slave Labor Graphics, she worked fulltime as an animator in Halifax (Hicks, “About Faith,” n.d). It was only when the animation company was forced to let go of most of its staff that Hicks chose to pursue publishing graphic novels commercially (Hicks, January 25, 2012). Her first graphic novel was Zombies Calling (2007)

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 115 and she published her second The War at Ellsmere (2008) shortly afterwards. While both novels did reasonably well and earned Hicks a few awards, her best-selling work came in the form of her third graphic novel Friends with Boys (2012) which she published with First Second Books. Interestingly, Hicks and First Second Books created a website dedicated to the project in which a page was uploaded daily leading up to the market release of the full book after which the archive of pages was removed. On the site, Hicks wrote,

My roots are in online comics, in the constant discussion that arises from putting your work online, and I’m incredibly happy that First Second is allowing me to do this. So please, spread the word, drop a comment in the comment section, or shoot me an email! I hope to hear from you (2011, para. 6).

Hicks actively invites readers to develop discussion and community around the book, hoping to cultivate the bonding experience that worked so well for her first online comic. Both Hicks and First Second Books seemed to have faith that rewarding readership with free access to the full story and an environment for speculation with the author and fellow fans would ultimately help with the sales and popularity of the commercially released edition rather than hinder it. The fact that Friends with Boys is one of Hicks’ most successful and well-known works perhaps supports their theory.

Hicks and First Second Books continued this process when she teamed up with writer Prudence Shen to create the graphic novel Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong (2013). Shen and Hicks accompanied each new page of the comic with blog posts about their processes writing and drawing it (Hicks & Shen, September 24, 2012). Once again, the interaction between author and readership is prioritized. The insights creators can offer about their work makes the readers feel that they are in a privileged position and valued for their own input on the material. In turn, authors ideally benefit from this by having fans invest in their future commercial work. Hicks is a success story of self-publishing online before graduating to mass market publishing, in no small part, it seems, from her dedication to the fanbase she cultivated with her first online work.

Now, in 2018, Hicks’ first self-published works have greatly diminished. The second online graphic novel Hicks began working on called Ice was last updated in 2010, and Hicks

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 116 confirmed on Tumblr in response to questions from fans that the project was essentially abandoned (December 12, 2012). Hicks continues to create other popular novels commercially such as her new trilogy The Nameless City (2016); however, new projects do not necessarily make up for unfinished storylines that fans have come to care about. Unresolved stories are a danger of self-publishing online either due to authors having less time because of commercial work or other fulltime jobs, or for other personal reasons. In any case, it poses a unique situation for creators to deal with in trying to maintain reader support while also moving on to other material. This is largely due to authors having contracts and deadlines for specific works for commercial publishers but having no fixed deadlines for their online graphic novels. The commercial work must be prioritized while the self-published material online can no longer be updated regularly, creating a juggling of responsibilities between fans and publishers. Unlike authors who self-publish texts in full online, serially published webcomics often result in authors having to put their works on hiatus when it comes to also working in commercial publishing.

Moving on, the most interesting thing to note about Hicks’ online self-publishing career is that Demonology 101, the work that garnered her original fanbase is no longer available online as of the fall of 2017. Hicks deleted the original website she had posted the comic on, but another site agreed to host the comic in its stead (Hicks, November 5, 2017, para. 3). However, when that site also shutdown, access to its archive was lost to the readership. Hicks wrote the following on her current website:

Demonology 101 is 18 years old at this point. I started drawing it in 1999 when I was a teenager. It used to be hosted on another website, but now that host, who very generously provided space for this comic for years without charging me money, has decided to take that site down. So, D101 has passed on into the internet either. As of now, I have no plans to bring it back. I feel like 18 years is long enough for a webcomic to exist on the internet, and I’ve received many wonderful comments from people who have enjoyed reading it. And … well, I feel like it’s just time to let it go (November, 5, 2017, para. 3).

This highlights a unique dynamic of online self-publishing: while printed books that are commercially published can often be found on Amazon or in a library if they are out of print,

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 117 online comics exist for readers at the discretion of the author. That being said, perhaps Hicks’ decision demonstrates that the most powerful component of publishing graphic novels online is the experience of it being updated and discussing it with readers and the author in real time rather than reading the full version years later. Whatever the verdict, Demonology 101 can, in fact, still be retrieved online using The Wayback Machine1, although it requires a lot of sorting through dead links to find all of the pages. Still, this greatly reduces the accessibility of the graphic novel. If Hicks, the author, based on her blog post, does not know of the comic’s continued existence on that site, it seems unlikely that most of its readers will know about it or find it.

Conclusion

Self-publishing online provides an experience that connects author and readership in their shared love of the material. This cultivation of support can bolster the creator into successful commercial publishing; in the case of Hicks, online publishing and traditional publishing can be combined to account for her original fanbase as well as support her financially. For all the benefits of online self-publishing graphic novels, it is possible that the experience in real time is what makes the process truly special and impactful. Potentially, the excitement generated by updating a graphic novel and discussing it cannot be replicated by only reading the finished product. While the story may be strong, the priority is the journey of seeing it realized as a community.

References

Dimartino, Michael Dante & Konietzko, Bryan. (Creators). (2005). Avatar the Last Airbender [Television series]. Hollywood, CA: Nickelodeon.

Hicks, Faith Erin. (1999). Demonology 101.

1 Demonology 101 can be found on The Wayback Machine at the following link: https://web.archive.org/web/20040624024304/http://faith.rydia.net/.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Faith Erin Hicks 118

_____. (2004, July 25). So what’s it like, doing an online comic? [Blog post]. Retrieved from the WayBackMachine. _____. (2007). Zombies Calling. San Jose, CA: Slave Labour Graphics. _____. (2008). The War at Ellsmere. San Jose, CA: Slave Labour Graphics. _____. (2011-2012). About Friends with Boys. [Blog post]. _____. (2012, January 25). The financial reality of a full-time cartoonist. [Blog post]. _____. (2012, December 12). Is Ice really abandoned??? [Blog post] _____. (2012). Friends with Boys. New York, NY: First Second Books. _____. (2013). 5 Things Faith Erin Hicks Learned While Drawing Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. Diversity in YA. _____. (2013). The Adventures of Superhero Girl. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics. _____. (2016). The Nameless City. New York, NY: First Second Books. _____. (2017, November 5). Two questions and two announcements! [Blog post]. _____. About Faith. [Blog post]. Retrieved from Hicks, Faith Erin & Shen, Prudence. (2012, September 24). Page 001. [Blog post]. Laquintano, Timothy. (2016). Mass Authorship and the Rise of Self-Publishing. Iowa: University of Iowa Press. McCartney, Jennifer. (2017). The World Needs More Sheroes: Publishing and Promoting a Graphic Novel. Publishers Weekly, 264(9), p. 41-2. Naughty Dog. (2013). The Last of Us [Playstation 3 video game]. Sony Computer Entertainment. Romaguera, Gabriel. (2015). Waiting for the Next Part: How the Temporal Dimensions of Digital Serialisation Have Changed Author-Reader Dynamics. Networking Knowledge, 8(4), p. 1-14. Shen, Prudence. (2013). Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong. New York: First Second Books. Turk, Savannah. (2012). Graphic novels vs Comic Books: What’s the Difference? The Daily Utah Chronicle. Walters, Maria. (2009). What’s up with Webcomics? Visual and Technological Advances in Comics. The Journal of Education, Community and Values, 9(2), p. 1-15.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

13 | The Sustainability of Free Content: Learning from Webcomics

Raphaël Plamondon, School of Information Studies

The majority of webcomics are available for free to everyone, yet some of the most popular webcomic creators are able to make their work a full-time job. This paper explores how they can afford to do so using alternative sources of income and marketing. While the money made from these doesn’t compare to what traditional comics make, as a one-person operation, they reap all of the profits, and the unique content of their webcomic allows them to have a dedicated audience. This model is becoming prevalent in the digital economy, and traditional creative licenses could learn from it.

Keywords: webcomics, comics, free content, self-publishing, digital content.

Introduction

As digital technologies and the internet evolved, so too did the mindset of the general population. The majority of content on the web is freely available to anyone with a connection. Digital games and songs are available for less than their physical counterparts, and even then, people find plenty of ways to access them for free, some of which are even more convenient than buying the product. This has led to a shared belief that web content should be free and that charging more than a couple dollars for content is considered overpricing. What is often overlooked in this line of argument is the livelihood of the content-creator: if people who create content want to make it a full-time job without having to also work a separate job to sustain themselves, they need their work to be profitable. Which begs the question: how are they supposed to earn anything from free content? This idea might have seemed absurd a couple decades ago, but the

Copyright © 2018 Plamondon. Learning from Webcomics 120 rise of digital technologies has also made it a viable and crucial question today, and it touches on a number of creative domains, including webcomics. After defining the term, this chapter will explore in depth the roles of their creators, what their income is constituted of as well as their target audience. Webcomics show that it is possible, in fact, to profit from free content, maybe even more so than by charging for digital content.

What are Webcomics?

Webcomics are, in its simplest terms, comics that are created and published on the web. They “are not a genre. They are a medium… They’re everything you loved about long-form comics, short-form comics, sequential strips and single panels – transposed to a new means of distribution” (Guigar, Kellet, Kurtz, & Straub, 2008, p.13). However, this alternative medium does mean that there are a few differences between them and physical comics. Unlike most traditional comics, they are not managed and disseminated through a publisher; rather, they are posted by their creators on either social media such as Tumblr and DeviantArt, specialized webcomic platforms such as Webtoons or Taptastic, or through a website created by the author. Furthermore, as they are self-published work, they are not required to go through a printing process or a peer review process, which makes the process of creating them accessible to almost anyone with an internet connection and a drive to create. While the illustration process and construction of a narrative is similar to traditional comics, the medium of webcomics is generally more diverse, both in illustrations and narrative, than traditional ones, where the superhero genre dominates the medium.

Webcomic Business Model

Creators of webcomics are, first and foremost, persistent. The majority of popular full-time webcomics authors started posting their webcomic as a hobby, and a lot of them did not expect to make it a sustainable career out of it until later on. Even assuming that their creation is instantly popular at the start,

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 121

webcomics that are able to attract a following usually have to wait years before they’re financially stable. Bloggers and webcomic artists frequently develop and maintain their websites as side projects while working full time in another job. If the website becomes profitable, then it might turn into a full-time job. But building a large audience usually takes a while (Liming, 2012, p. 21).

In order to get to that point, creators of these comics need to be willing to post regularly with little to no reward from their work other than praise from their followers and the self-satisfaction that comes with the completion of a project. Secondly, these webcomics artists tend to engage more with their audience than traditional creators, cultivating a community through their work (Walter, 2009) and are more open to criticism from their fans. By posting their comics online, one or a few pages at a time, they get instant feedback on their work, which lets them improve and adjust the direction of their comic and what is presented. Engaging with their audience is crucial in the world of webcomics, as word-of-mouth is their main and often only source of advertising in the medium. It is also crucial if the artist considers making their comic a full-time job and therefore needs ways of supporting themselves through their readers. Finally, in the event that these creators do become full-time artists, it’s important to be entrepreneurial. As the comic remains free to read, artists need to be creative in finding ways to profit from their work. For example, John Allison, a webcomic artist in the UK, the person behind webcomics such as Scary Go Round and Bad Machinery, “emphasizes the individual effort of the web cartoonist and implies, in suggesting that a cartoonist must be ‘Marks and Spencer’, that to succeed a lone cartoonist must become a one-person corporation” (Johnston, 2015, p. 9). A webcomic creator must be an artist, but also a publisher, an advertiser and a merchandise creator and distributor all at once in order to make his work marketable. Being a full time webcomic artist requires more business skills than artistic skills, as it is comparable to starting their own business. They have the freedom to do anything they want with their comic, but they are also responsible for everything concerning their success. Individuals who go in that industry need to be willing to put in the work necessary to make their comic first successful, then profitable, as well as being able to connect to their audience in order to advertise their sources of income.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 122

While there exists some webcomics that require a subscription fee to access them and are therefore profitable on their own, the general rule in the medium is that webcomics are available in their entirety to everyone who knows where to find them for free. So how can full-time webcomic artists support themselves on free content? The answer is that there are a few alternative ways to earn their income, such as:

• Donations • Advertising; • Commissioned work, and; • Merchandising (Johnston 2015).

Advertising is one of the most commonly used as it is relatively easy to initiate; but in recent years, it has quickly become unsustainable as a mean to make money from webcomics. More and more users, tired of the overabundance of ads present on the web, navigate with an adblocker extension. If someone with an activated adblocker reads a webcomic on a webpage that is normally supposed to show ads, the artist makes no money from their visit. As such, the artist has to create their own source of revenue.

Commissions and merchandising have become viable options for webcomic creators. Commissions are increasingly becoming an avenue for generating income, where an artist receives personal request from fans to create a specific artwork for a fee. This method can quickly become overwhelming however, as the artist has to draw these requests on top of making art for their free comic. Then there's merchandising, where the artist sells various objects such as keychains, mugs and the like with designs or logos related to their comic. This also includes physical editions of specific parts of the webcomic, much like traditional comics. The creator of Questionable Content, for example, has developed shirt designs that the characters in his comic wear, then creates actual shirts from these designs that readers can purchase online. While this type of approach relies heavily on branding and marketing skills, the process itself is simple once the artist is familiar with the process, and can make most of their earnings through it. The person behind the comic Cat & Girl, Dorothy Gambrell, reported making around seventy to seventy- five percent of her income from her comic merchandise (Kleefeld, 2010). Then there are fan

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 123 donations. Nowadays, when a webcomic creator wants to profit from their work, one of the first things they will do is set up a Patreon, or some other donation service, to accept fan donations. A popular webcomic such as Ava’s Demon, which makes around two thousand US dollars a month through its Patreon, can support the artist full time by itself (Farley 2017), even for webcomics with smaller audiences. While the creator can entice people to donate with rewards such as commissions or early access to the newest pages, donations are usually made by people who genuinely want to support the comic, and it is completely optional, as all other options covered. But does the majority of the fanbase actually support the comic in one shape or another? According to Lovell, journalist and consultant, “the majority of consumers of content given away will be, in his terminology, ‘freeloaders,’ who never pay, while the ‘superfans’ at the top of the graph will be responsible for the vast majority of money that a creator receives from selling his or her content” (as cited in Johnston, 2015, p. 6). Therefore, in order to make a sustainable profit, these artists have to gather a very wide audience, accounting for the fact that the majority of a webcomic’s audience will not support the comic. While that kind of business model may seem unsustainable on paper, it’s important to keep in mind that webcomic creators are a one-man operation. “In doing this, they can remove the middleman, and instead of sharing any money made with others, they reap 100% of the revenue” (Volo, 2011, p. 12).

Building a Readership

While it may seem at first that traditional comics have a bigger audience and reach more people than webcomics, that couldn't be farther from the truth. First of all, simply by being digital, a webcomic reaches far more people across the globe than its physical counterpart could, since there is an unlimited amount of copies available to everyone who has an internet connection. Even when accounting for the fact that many traditional comics are also available digitally, the price tag of a webcomic cannot be beat. Furthermore, webcomic are not just more accessible due to their format or price, but also in terms of content. As traditional comics need to make a lot more money than the average webcomic to be profitable and are limited in the audience they can reach, they will seek to appeal to the majority and what is considered popular. This results in a market full of comics resembling one another and covering the same themes, with an

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 124 overabundance of superhero comics. Webcomics, on the other hand, aren't limited by these factors, and as a result are very diverse and unique from one another. According to Volo (2011):

They are stories of everyday life, fantasy, gamming, etc... Webcomics cater to comic readers looking for something different, and there are as many webcomics as there are interests. There are webcomics for every niche comic consumer online (p. 12).

In addition, webcomics do not suffer from the censorship that traditional comics do, and therefore are free to cover risqué themes and ideas. “The webcomic revenue market was a creation of the modern era of web sales, a market that caters to a niche of readers and enthusiasts” (Volo, 2011, p. 11), otherwise known as the “long-tail” effect. In other words, according to the S.R. Ranganathan’s (1931) principles of library science, every webcomic has an audience, and there is an audience for every webcomic. However, what really gives webcomic creators power in reaching an audience is that they can have significantly more interactions with their readers than traditional comic creators can have. By default, people will usually be able to comment on each webcomic page posted, giving feedback to the author and starting discussions on the story. “Some authors even involve their audience in the comic writing process. Tim Buckley enjoys getting reader feedback intermittently in a create-your-own-adventure-style storyline, as readers vote on plot changes” (Walters 2009). Another approach is the creation of separate forums. As Maria Walters (2009) points out,

[s]ome authors prefer to have discussions between readers take place on forums, which allows for greater continuity in discussions. Another effect of these forums is the relationships formed between readers. Forums allow users to introduce conversations that are not directly related to any particular comic, which is vital to the formation of a true community (p. 1-2).

As such, webcomics allows not only for a better author-reader relationship, but also for a stronger sense of community between readers.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Learning from Webcomics 125 Conclusions

In this digital economy, webcomics strive because of the mindset of their creators, their business model and the audience they target. It can be said that, in the context of both the comic industry and the digital products industries in general, they push their way through with a model that, while not perfect, allows them to strive and shine in an economy where other traditional media struggle to adapt. In my opinion, those traditional media could learn a lot from the webcomic medium, which is adapted to big currents in the information field such as the "long-tail" model, self-publication and open access. More research on how to adapt this business model to the comic industry and other industries needs to be done in order for them to embrace the digital economy.

References Farley, A. (2017, July 2017). How profitable are webcomics? [Msg 4] Message posted to quora.com. Guigar, B., Kellett, D., Kurtz, S., & Straub, K. (2008). How to make webcomics. Berkeley. CA: Image Comics, Inc. Johnston, P. (2015). Bad Machinery and the economics of free comics: a webcomic case study. Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network, 8(4). Kleefeld, S. (2010, April 15). How much a real webcomic creator earns. Retrieved from Kleefeld on Comics. Liming, D. (2012). Bloggers and webcomic artists: careers in online creativity. Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 56(3), 16-21. Ranganathan, S. R. (1931). The five laws of library science. Madras Library Association (Madras, India) and Edward Goldston (London, UK). Volo, K. (2011). Webcomic distribution: distribution methods, monetization and niche markets (Doctoral dissertation). Walters, M. (2009). What's up with webcomics?: author-reader relationships and finances. Interface: The Journal of Education, Community and Values, 9(4).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

14 | Fan Fiction, Copyright Infringement, and Fair Use in U.S. Copyright Law

Xiaofan Cai, Department of Communication

Fan fiction is a kind of fan-based, unprofessional creation which features characters from works of popular culture. Some original writers reject the fan fiction versions of their works and believe it is the copyright infringement. Under the U.S. Copyright Law, fan fiction may constitute the infringement of original writers’ reproduction right and derivative works right. Fan writers can defend themselves by using the Fair Use doctrine. However, relevant laws and regulations are far from perfect and fan fiction remain within a grey area of copyright world.

Key Words: Fan fiction; Copyright; Fair Use; U.S. Copyright Law

Introduction

Fan fiction is a form of unprofessional, fan-written artistic creation that develops its stories based on already-established characters, scenarios and settings from popular publications. Although fan fiction has gained in popularity worldwide, it remains a controversial genre of writing. Despite opposition from many original writers, fan fiction writers also have to contend with possible Copyright issues. In the context of fan fiction, the two main issues that emerge surrounding evaluation of possible copyright infringement (1) whether or not the original work contains copyrightable subject matter and (2) whether or not the fan-written work infringes upon the Copyright owner’s rights. Although there are established tests that can be used by lawyers to evaluate if the original characters are copyrightable, authors of fan fiction have at their disposal the “fair use” clauses to defend their works. Because most works of fan fiction are not commercial ventures and draw elements of an original work’s plot, elements of “fair use” become viable arguments because they do not harm the potential market of the original works. Yet, even with the availability of the “fair use” doctrine, published literary works remain

Copyright © 2018 Cai. Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 127 protected by Copyright Law and fan writers are at risk of infringement if they cross certain boundaries of artistic creation. The question remains: how does Copyright Law apply to works of fan fiction? And how can works of fan fiction exist exist within the boundary of Copyright and not infringe upon the rights of the original author? This chapter will explore these questions and work toward a better understanding between an original and fan-written work in the context of U.S. Copyright Law. I will first offer a definition of fan fiction, and then unpack how these works figure within Copyright Law, including discussion of Copyright infringement, and the “fair-use” method of self-defense for fan writers. Using Fifty Shades of Grey as a case study, this chapter argues that fan fiction operates within a grey area of fan fiction, showing how the law remains very much open to interpretation.

What is Fan Fiction?

Fan fiction is the product of popular culture in recent years. People have different opinions the origin of fan fiction, but it could be tracked back to the 20th century (Reißmann et al., 2017). With developments in cheap printing techniques and distribution, Jane Austen inspired fanzines. Her dedicated fans called themselves the Janeites and the first published work of Austen fan fiction, Old Friends and New Fancies: An Imaginary Sequel to the Novels of Jane Austen by Sybil Brinton, released in 1913 (Morrison, 2012). Fan fiction of popular culture and organized media fandom have been traced to the second season of Star Trek (Tushnet, 1997). In the 1960s, groups of Star Trek fans began writing and exchanging stories based on the characters and settings of the Star Trek universe. The stories were compiled in magazines and were distributed to limited audiences (Becker, 2014).

The definition of fan fiction varies from person to person. One of the definitions that has been broadly accepted by researchers describes fan fiction as: “any written creativity that is based on an identifiable segment of popular culture, such as a television show, and is not produced as ‘professional’ writing” (Tushnet, 1997). Another defines fan fiction as a category of amateur creative expression that features characters from movies, TV shows, and popular culture in new situations or adventures (Christian, 2013; Lipton, 2014). Oppenheim and Turner noticed the intersection of different works in the fan world and defined fan fiction as a genre that “makes

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 128 use of characters, situations, and concepts from the series and may include crossover stories between more than one series” (1999). Generally speaking, fan fiction is a kind of fan-based, unprofessional creation which features characters from works of popular culture.

Original Works, Fan Fiction and Copyright

Given that fan fiction grows out of a previously published work of fiction and that their creators are the fans of certain original works, fan fiction, and original works are inextricably linked. Authors have divided attitudes towards the fan fictions of their original work. Some of them tolerate or support such secondary creation; for example, J.K. Rowling approved non- commercial and web-based fan fiction and Paramount decided not to sue fan-writers even when it does not approve of the fan fiction (Peaslee, 2015). Others show intense opposition to fan fiction, seeing it as a personal violation and copyright violation (Roth & Flegel, 2014). Diana Gabaldon, the author of the popular Outlander series, for example, stated her opinion that fan fiction is immoral and illegal (Christian, 2013) and author Anne Rice stated that she does not allow fan fiction because the characters are copyrighted (Roth & Flegel, 2014; Peaslee, 2015). Here, authors explicitly put forward the copyright issue. Yet the potential illegality of fan fiction remains unclear. Since copyright laws differ from one country to another, we only take the example of U.S. Copyright Law, which states:

A form of intellectual property law, protects original works of authorship including literary, dramatic, musical, and artistic works, such as poetry, novels, movies, songs, computer software, and architecture. Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.-b)

Under this law, Copyright is defined as:

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 129

A form of protection grounded in the U.S. Constitution and granted by law for original works of authorship fixed in a tangible medium of expression. Copyright covers both published and unpublished works. (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.-b)

Two aspects must be concerned when deciding whether or not a work of fan fiction infringes upon the copyright of the original work: (1) whether the original work a copyrightable subject matter and (2) whether the fan works infringe upon the copyright owner’s rights (Peaslee, 2015). In accordance with the above definition, published (and unpublished) novels (literary works) are a form of intellectual property protected by Copyright Law. However, as fans fiction writers borrow characters or settings instead of taking the original work as a whole, the issue that emerges concerns whether or not characters are independently copyrightable. One way in which infringement can be tested is through the “story being told” and the “sufficient delineation” tests (Peaslee, 2015).

The “story being told” test originated from the “Sam Spade” case (Christian, 2013; Peaslee, 2015; Tushnet, 1997). In this case, Dashiell Hammett and his publisher sold motion picture, television and radio rights for the Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon to Warner Bros. Later, Hammett granted the exclusive right to use Sam Spade, the lead character in the story, and other characters from the story to a third party, but withheld the right to use the story itself. Warner Bros. brought the action for copyright infringement and unfair competition (Nimmer, 1955). The Ninth Circuit court1 was asked to decide whether Warner Brothers' copyright to The Maltese Falcon had been infringed (Tushnet, 1997). The court claimed that the character “Detective Sam Spade” was not copyrightable because he was only “the chessman who told the story”, not constituted the story (Christian, 2013; Peaslee, 2015; Tushnet, 1997). However, it was not clear that how to define “tell the story” and “constituted the story.” When the “story being told” test was criticized by courts, the “sufficient delineation” test emerged (Peaslee, 2015). In the “Nichols v. Universal” case, the plaintiff is the author of a play Abie’s Irish Rose, which is a story about a Jewish man who marries an Irish Catholic girl against the wishes of both of their

1 Known popularly as the Ninth Circuit court, The United States Courts of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit hears challenges to district court decisions from courts located within its circuit, as well as appeals from decisions of federal administrative agencies (United States Courts, n.d.).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 130 fathers, with a happy ending. In the movie produced by the defendant, characters’ features and plotlines are highly similar to Abie’s Irish Rose (Digital-law-online, n.d.). Judge Hand claimed that a character could be protected independently in certain situations, including when this character was sufficiently delineated or developed in the original work (Peaslee, 2015). That is to say, there is greater risk a well-developed protagonist is the focus of a fan fiction. However, if they create a new story about character with a marginal role in the original work, the risk of Copyright infringement decreases. After confirming the copyright of the original work,whether infringement exists in fan fiction should be investigated.

The process becomes more complicated when judging the infringement of fan fictions. Firstly, according to U.S Copyright Law, copyright owners have several rights to their work. Researchers focus mainly on two kinds of rights that are tightly related to Copyright infringement in fan fiction: (1) the right to reproduction and (2) the right to authorize derivative works (Peaslee, 2015; Lipton, 2014; Roth & Flegel, 2014). Reproduction right protects the copyright holder’s work from being copied by the third party without authorization (Lipton, 2014). With regard to fan fiction, infringement of reproduction right occurs when fan fiction is “substantially similar” to the original work. Meaning, if the fan work copied elements such as characters and settings, it is at risk of infringing the reproduction right (Lipton, 2014; Peaslee, 2015). Speaking in defence of fan fiction, Tushnet (1997) argues that fan writers do not claim originality of their characters. In fact, Tushnet posits that fan fiction readers know very well they are not reading the original work. Regardless, the boundary line on infringement is challenging, especially for cases of fan fiction that uses existing roles and contexts to tell new stories, or expanding upon plot lines from the original work. Thus, fan fictions could fall into the field of “substantially similar” easily.

U.S Copyright Law contains a clause on derivative works, which protects copyright holders’ exclusive right to create derivative work based on their copyrighted works (Morrow, 2009). “Derivative work” means a work based upon one or more pre-existing works, like a TV series dramatized from a novel, but the right is equally implicated in a secondary work in the same format of the original one (Lipton, 2014). Therefore, fan fiction could be seen as the derivative

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 131 work because they are indeed based upon the original works; as such, they are likely to constitute the infringement of the exclusive right of copyright holders.

What does this mean for fan fiction? Does it mean that works of fan fiction are automatically infringing upon Copyright Law? The answer, though complicated, is no. If a fan author is granted creative license from the copyright holder or his/her work constitute “fair use,” then he/she would be free to use copyrighted characters according to U.S Copyright Law (Peaslee, 2015). However, since it is impossible for every fan writer to be authorized in practice, authors tend to turn toward the fair use doctrine to defend their rights. The fair use doctrine, in effect, establishes limitations on a copyright owners’ exclusive rights. Four factors determine whether or not a work of fan fiction meets the standards of fair use:

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether it is commercial or nonprofit; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. the amount and substantiality of the portion related to the copyrighted work; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work (Lantagne, M.,2011; Christian, 2011; Lipton, 2014; Peaslee, 2015).

Since most fan fictions are nonprofit and non-commercial, the first factor weighs heavily in favor of the fan fiction author. Similarly, since fan fiction materials are not typically published and sold commercially, they are not in a position to harm potential market of the original work. Sometimes, fan fictions can even provoke their readers’ interest in the original work. For example, in Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.2, the Ninth Circuit held that a computer program that allowed Nintendo players to change character features was a fair use, in large part because it had the potential to improve the market for the original by adding variety to it (Tushnet, 1997, pp.670). Also, fan writers sometimes create content or plots that would not be favoured to original writers, like romantic elements (Lipton, 2014); thus, conflict between fan

2. The Nintendo Entertainment System is a home video game system; users control game characters and progresses through the game. The games of this system are protected as audiovisual works. The Game Genie is a device manufactured by Galoob, which allows the player to alter up to three features of a Nintendo game, including increase the number of lives of the player’s character, increase the speed of the characters, etc. Thus, Nintendo sued Galoob for copyright infringement (Justia Law, n.d.).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 132 fiction and original works in the market remains rare. It is not hard to defend fan fiction using abovementioned first and fourth factors because they are non-commercial and would not affect the potential market of the original work But what about the second and the third factor of fair use? The second factor depends on the degree of original works’ creative expression. Under fair use, creative works such as novels, movies, and songs will be given more protection than factual works like technical articles. Also, published work will be given more protection than unpublished ones (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.-a). As such, fan fictions is at a disadvantage, as many fan creations were based on previously published pop-culture products. The third factor of fair use considers the amount and substantiality of copyrighted works used in fan fictions. This factor could be hard to measure in fan fiction, as fan writers do not quote directly from the original work. Instead, they use the settings and characters from the original material (Christian, 2011), which lies under the “substantially similar” clause of protecting copyright owners. As mentioned above, if fan writers use scenic and character elements from the original work, then they take the risk of infringement of reproduction right. In this perspective, fan fiction seems to be in a grey area, that the U.S. Copyright Office would have to evaluate on a case-by-case basis. That is to say, in certain cases, the use of an entire work could be seen as fair use, while using a small amount of a copyrighted work could be determined as unfair if the fan writer chooses an integral or work-defining moment of the original (U.S. Copyright Office, n.d.-a).

Case: Fifty Shades of Copyright

When people talk about fan fiction, the first example that comes to their mind is often Fifty Shades of Grey. Written as a fan fiction spin-off on the of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series on a small, online writers community, Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James became the best-selling erotic romance novel (Business Insider, 2015). Fifty Shades of Grey evolved from Masters of the Universe, in which E.L. James borrowed the character names from Twilight. Bowne (2015) claimed it was “an unauthorized derivative work” and “technically illegal”. Before publishing, E.L. James changed the characters name, leaving certain plot elements (found throughout

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 133 literature) to link Fifty Shades of Grey to Twilight. However, Bowne (2015) still argued that since the original fan fiction is known and available, according to U.S. Copyright Law, it “renders the entire work, including the latest movie, absolutely illegal unless granted license by Twilight’s creator”. Because the author of Twilight, Stephenie Meyers, has shown no interest in getting involved to this issue (Abrams, 2015), legal disputes around these two works have not emerged yet. Nevertheless, the success of Fifty Shades of Grey has triggered much discussion about issues of fan fictions and Copyright infringement. From the discussion above, we can see that there is no absolute law for defining whether a fan fiction work infringes the right of the original writer. While some sections of Copyright Law stand in favour of fan fictions, others do not. Determine whether or not work of fan fiction constitutes Copyright infringement needs to be analyzed on a case-by-case instance, evaluating the relationship between the original and fan-written works, and relies in all instances on the judgment of the court. For now, the law leaves much room for interpretation, and the increase in fan-written works might lead to new regulations within Copyright Law.

Conclusion

The Internet has provided a fertile ground for the creation and dissemination of fan works, and the number of fans writers is increasing rapidly–even though fan fiction writers know that their creative works fall into this grey area of publishing. Under these new circumstances, new practices have emerged to encourage the amateurs’ self-expression and provided resources for selling their work. For instance, Amazon’s “Kindle Worlds” program, which based on Kindle Direct self-publishing platform has obtained licenses from copyright holders to allow fans to sell their secondary creations directly to consumers (Kindle Worlds, n.d.; Lipton, 2014). Although their creative work and profits may be restricted under the licenses, the program still signals a major shift toward offering fans an outlet for sharing and selling their work in a legal context.

Although Copyright Law and regulations are far from perfect, and there are many disagreements among original writers about the attitude of fan novels, a fan fiction writer’s passion for writing should not be cast aside. What drives them to pick up the pen on the hand is

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 134 not the predatory desire to harm the copyright owners, but the enthusiastic love for the original works.

Reference

Abrams, D. (2015). 50 Shades of Copyright Infringement? Retrieved from PublishingPerspectives.com. Becker, J.M. (2014). Stories around the digital campfire: Fan fiction and copyright law in the age of the Internet. Connecticut Public Interest Law Journal, 14(1), 155. Business Insider. (2015). ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ started out as ‘Twilight’ fan fiction before becoming an international phenomenon. Business Insider. Christian, K. (2013). Fan Fiction and the Fair Use Doctrine. The Serials Librarian, 65(3-4), pp.277-285. Copyright Law of the United States, 17 U.S.C.§101 (2016). Digital-law-online (n.d.). Nichols v. Universal Pictures. Downes, N. (2015). 50 Shades Of Copyright Infringement — How The Broken Copyright System Renders A Story Illegal. Justia Law. (n.d.). Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., Plaintiff-appellee, v. Nintendo of America, Inc., Defendant-appellant.nintendo of America, Inc., Plaintiff-appellant, v. Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc., Defendant-appellee, 964 F.2d 965 (9th Cir. 1992). Katz, R. (2014). Fan fiction and Canadian copyright law: Defending fan narratives in the wake of Canada's copyright reforms. Canadian Journal of Law & Technology, 12(1), 73-107. Kindle Worlds. (n.d.). Kindle Worlds - How It Works. Retrieved from KindleWorlds.com. Lantagne, M. (2011). The better angels of our fanfiction: The need for true and logical precedent. Hastings Communications and Entertainment Law Journal (COMM-ENT), 33(2), 159- 180. Lipton, J. (2014). Copyright and the commercialization of fanfiction. Houston Law Review, 52(2), 425-466. Morrison, E. (2012). In the beginning, there was fan fiction: from the four gospels to Fifty Shades. The Guardian.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Fan Fiction and U.S. Copyright Law 135

Morrow, S. (2009). What Are Derivative Works Under Copyright Law? Retrieved from Legalzoom.com. Nimmer, M. (1955). Copyright 1955. California Law Review, 43(5), p.791. Oppenheim, C., & Turner, M. (1999). Copyright and Internet fanzines. Aslib Proceedings, 51(9), 290-301. Peaslee, S. S. (2015). Is there place for us: Protecting fan fiction in the united states and japan. Denver Journal of International Law and Policy 43(2), 199-228. Rebecca Tushnet, Legal Fictions: Copyright, Fan Fiction, and a New Common Law, 17 LOY. L.A. ENT. L.J. 651, 655 (1997). Reißmann, W., Stock, M., Kaiser, S., Isenberg, V. and Nieland, J. (2017). Fan (Fiction) Acting on Media and the Politics of Appropriation. Media and Communication, 5(3), p.15. Roth, J. & Flegel, M. (2014). It's like rape: metaphorical family transgressions, copyright ownership and fandom. Continuum, 28(6), pp.901-913. Singh, A. (2012). 50 Shades of Grey is best-selling book of all time. Telegraph.co.uk. U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.-a). More Information on Fair Use. U.S. Copyright Office. Copyright.gov. U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.-b). Copyright in General (FAQ). U.S. Copyright Office. U.S. Copyright Office. (n.d.-c). Copyright Law of the United States. U.S. Copyright Office. United States Courts for the Ninth Circuit. (n.d.). What Is The Ninth Circuit : Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. [online] United States Courts. (n.d.). Court Role and Structure. [online] Retrieved from usacourts.gov.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

15 | From Blog to Blook

Jiaxin Yao, Department of Communications

This chapter discusses the relationship between bloggers and publishing industries. Using a case study about K-beauty makeup blogger, named Pony, this chapter examines how one author found success with her blog, parlaying that success into a book publishing deal and line of beauty-products. Through an analysis of Pony’s blog and books, this chapter identifies key elements that have led to her success.

Keywords: blogger, publishing, makeup tutorial, blook

Introduction As a little girl growing up in South Korea, Hye-Min Park was fascinated by makeup. In her early twenties, while working as a graphic designer, she posted makeup tips online and decided in 2008 to start her own makeup blog on Cyworld (K. 2016). Her blogs found an immediate audience, and she quickly parlayed that success book publications, a line of makeup, and a career as a cosmetics expert. Known internationally as Pony, Hye-Min Park's story offers a fascinating backdrop for considering how this blogger turned her talent and technical into a prolific career in the beauty industry. By discussing Pony’s publishing experience as case study, this article provides few elements that should be considered when transferring from blog to “blook” writing.

From Blogs to Books

The concept of a “blook” is emerging in discourse about bloggers and book authors. A “blook”, which refers to a book written by a blogger. The “blook” is constantly evolving and has an ever- growing presence in the publishing business (Davidovich, n.d.). “As might be expected, the

Copyright © 2018 Yao. From Blog to Blook 137 styles of writing diverge in blooks and books. Blook texts tend to have an informality and conversational intimacy, whereas books appear to be more thoroughly digested and structured. They come from different literary heritages” (Wallis, 2008). How does one parlay the success of a blog into the publication of a blook? What are the options for authors? How does one transition to from the freeform structure of a blog to the very structured format of a book?

Starting and managing a blog is relatively easy. In a paper report written by Head, Van Hoeck & Hostetler (2017), blogs were defined as frequent, medium-length posts (longer tan a Facebook post but shorter than a magazine article), written in an informal style and reflecting an assumption of a community of regular readers who leave comments publicly on them. They summarize key studies and Investigate the writing as well as reading of the blog format into three sections: (1) writing for a community of readers; (2) writing as an exercise in social learning; and (3) reading as part of a shared community (Head, Van Hoeck & Hostetler, 2017). Bloggers today have a variety of (often free) platforms to choose from, and they can write (or speak) about any topic they wish. Indeed, many bloggers choose to share their personal experiences—even if they are not experts in the selected area. One study found that “Blogs shared a common purpose: to express the author’s subjective, often intimate perspective on matters of interest to him or her (in the case of most blogs, the matters of interest concern the authors and their daily lives)” (Trammel & Keshelashvili, 2005, p. 972).

Like blogs, publishing is another popular endeavor for those interested in writing. Transitioning from blogs to a book deal might seem like a natural move for writers, but it does not guarantee success. Bloggers that have found success publishing book do so after developing an authoritative voice and strong following. Once a blogger emerges as a leading voice in a given area, they stand apart from others in their field and attract a wider reading audience. As Engel states, “Being seen as the expert in your niche can enable you to set higher prices for those product and services, and be more in demand” (Engel, 2017). It is perhaps only once a blogger can position him/herself as an expert that transitioning into books is a possibility, often achieved first through self-publishing. In so doing, a blogger is able to solidify his/her position as an expert in a niche topic (Engel, 2017). What makes bloggers attractive authors for a publisher is their ready-made audience (Kurlantzick, 2004). Mount (2006), a writer from the Wall Street Journal also speaks to this phenomenon, stating, “writers who turn their blogs into books have

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 138 two advantages available to budding authors: an existing dedicated readership and a free platform to publicize their work.” Awareness to the identity of a fanbase is crucial here. Before launching the books, bloggers need to have a general cognization about their audiences, which will be their fanbase after publishing books. A good and honest communication and time spent nurturing online relationships are best way to grow a loyal fanbase. The reason why having a fanbase is so important is because they are the best team of sales people because they will then share with their network of friends (Halliwell, 2016).

It is imprortant to consider how those working outside of the traditional publishing stream can write books – or blooks. Self-publishing has emerged as a viable and often success alternative to working with traditional publishers. While authoring books used to require an agent and publisher, today anyone can become an author thanks to a variety of self-publishing services. As Fenton has observed, “Web-to-print technology has clearly revolutionized the production aspects of self-publishing, while the Impact of Self-Publishing on Digital Book Printing growing acceptance of search technology offers alternatives to costly marketing. Today, anyone with a computer and a desire to publish a book can use a template-based publishing strategy from companies such as Lulu.com” (2007). Lulu.com, for example, allows authors to choose different layout, binding style and cover art from its site. They offer services for layout and copyediting as well, and set the price of paper version or online version (Fenton, 2007). Furthermore, services like Kindle Direct Publishing, ResearchGate are also potential choices for bloggers to self-publish their works. Kindle Direct Publishing is an e-book self-publishing service offers services including editing, designing, book packaging and pricing. ResearchGate’s community extends to 2.7 million academics mostly in the area of medicine and the biological sciences. Tens of millions of papers have been uploaded to the site, which serves as a blend of publishing company and social network, nurturing collaboration between researchers worldwide (OEDB, 2018). In order to consider more fully the elements at play in such a transition, examining a successful case study, like that of makeup-blogger Pony, offers a fruitful example. The following case study will briefly talks about Pony’s successful story and analyze the key elements enlighten from her story that may need to be considered from blog to publishing.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 139 Case Study: Pony

Pony started her makeup blog in 2008 on Cyworld, a South Korean social networking service. At the time, she was a graphic designer in environmental design, posting makeup tips as a side hobby. The initial focus of her blog was to share makeup experiences, offering tutorials, tips, and trying on new makeup. Her blog posts received an almost instant following and overwhelmingly positive feedback, and has thousands of readers who enjoyed and learned from her makeup tutorials (Ho, 2017).

After establishing a strong fan following, Pony was discovered by a publishing company asking if she wants to publish her own makeup tutorial books. She quickly accepted their proposition. In an interview with a beauty website CLEO, Pony was asked about how she was approached to write her first book. She answered:

Managing a personal homepage is very hard. From my daily photos to taking charge of my own makeup, hair and outfits, and taking the photographs and art direction. I started taking photos as a hobby and for my portfolio, but they started to become popular, and so a publisher approached me and I published my first book (Idris, 2016).

Her first book, The Secret of Seasons Makeup, published in 2011, focused on different makeup techniques to find the right look for each season. Since this book, she has written three more makeup tutorial books with Login publishing company (K., 2016; Pony’s Special Makeup, Pony Hotdataset Beauty Makeup Sweet Talk & Pony's 4d Make up). The books also come with CDs for more makeup tutorials. Perhaps most remarkably, “Her books have been published in Taiwan, Thailand, China, Indonesia and Japan. One of the series, Pony’s Special Makeup (2011), was translated into Japanese, a rare case of a Korean makeup book being released in Japan, where makeup skills are considered to be much more advanced than in any other Asian country” (K., 2016). That her books have been so successful and been translated into Japanese suggests that she has really cornered the market and developed a strong fan/reader following.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 140

Developing a Voice

Success occurred relatively quickly for Pony: her blog began in 2008, just two years before her first book publication. That said, this early success does not mean that it was an easy process. Pony worked hard and invested a lot of time in setting up her blog, cultivating an audience, honing her skills, and developing her artistic practice. Through interview and examination of her blogs, four elements emerge as being helpful in guiding her transition from blogs to books, including the development of the following criteria:

1. A clear voice or blogging identity; 2. A focused organizational structure that helps readers navigate the blog; 3. Technical skills that can be used to design an aesthetically pleasing and user-friendly blog space; and 4. A large and loyal community of readers.

In order to build such a readership, blogs need to have a clear, concise identity and voice. This is achieved not just through the aesthetic of the blog, but through a clear definition of blog’s intended goal and readership. While much of this is done through a focused topic for a blog, the organization and structure of a blog is often integral to assuring this voice emerges clearly in a blog space. Her blogs provide makeup tutorials for star-inspired makeup looks, the cartoon- protagonist inspired looks and more and offer formal and informal looks for her readers to use during their daily activities. For formal occasions, including black-tie events, cocktail parties, and graduation, for example, she focuses on sophisticated looks that bring out the elegance and style of the person. For more informal occasions including school, casual hangouts with friends, different types of parties, bars, and clubs, she emphasizes fun, unique looks that show off one’s personality. The tutorials have step-by-step instructions with pictures that are easy to follow, featuring photos of herself as the model. Using her design sensibility and editing skills, Pony tried to make her posts as appealing as magazine covers (Idris, 2016). When writing a blog, it is often helpful for the blogger to develop categories to better organize posts. An examination of Pony’s blog output suggests that the following structing ideas are key to developing an aesthetically pleasing, interactive and user-friendly blog:

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 141

• Organize blogs in practical way; • Categorize blogs accurately so that they can be easily retrieved; and • Ensure that blogs are easily-retrievable through a database search engine.

This does not just make it easier for readers to follow a particular theme of interest, but it also helps save time (in the future) with the organization of their content. This is especially helpful for a blogger with thousands of posts, who want to develop this content into a book. A blogger with a clear vision, who can develop their categories in the early stages of blogging, will have longer-term success with defining the overall goal and identity of their space (R., 2018). Over time, what began as a hobby develops into an expertise. New categories can be added, but it is important to be careful when defining new blog topics so as not to alienate the original audience. They can set a category of “others” if they are not sure about what it is all about until they find a suitable one instead.

Aesthetics are important to consider in the development of a blog space to ensure the clarity and focus of a blogger’s voice and identity. They should not just be informative, but engaging, pleasing to look at, and user-friendly. It is often helpful to have theoretical knowledge about photographic skills or even drawing and designing skills. A former graphic designer, Pony is fortunate to have exceptional editing and design skills. She uses these skills in her beauty- product business – from blogs to books to her makeup line. Her books contain quality images that are helpful to keep an audience interested. For those without such skills, bloggers now have many easy-to-use photo-editing software to guide their work. However, if they really want their photos have good quality that can be used in publishing, they can learn some basic photo editing skills like Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, DxO Optics Pro and etc.

All of this is useless without a large and loyal community of followers. This reader/viewership will move toward a particular blog because it speaks to their interest and is aesthetically pleasing for the user to engage with. The value of a solid fanbase cannot be understated, as their loyalty to a product is what helps that product succeed when it shifts into new markets (i.e., the book world). Jenkins (2006) argues that media effects are involuntary and unconscious. When bloggers decide to publish their own book, their existing fans are the natural target audience. Fans will not only buy these books, but they will also recommend the books to

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 142 others – thus expanding the readership and audience base. These fans do not necessarily focus on the quality of book, but rather, the feeling that the book brings to them – a feeling of inclusion and community. As the reader becomes increasingly present in blogs, the knowledge of an audience has an impact on the blogger’s posts because real-time readership consistently offers feedback, which further shapes the direction of the posts. Audience awareness results in bloggers censoring their posts. While this move can result in a potential increase of the audience's authority over the direction of the blog and the loss of power and authorship (Stutsman, 2012), it can be an attractive idea for publishers seeking an instant success. As a well-known makeup blogger and author, Pony is aware of her international fans. She tries to create makeup tutorials that can be used by them and relevant to their lives. She used to make a hijab makeup tutorial in her books to her Soompi fans. She said: “Among my international fans, many of them reside in countries where wearing a hijab is common. So, I wanted to create a makeup tutorial for them and be able to identify with” (Idris, 2016).

These elements have been key to the success of Pony’s blogspace, and offer just one example of how a blogger can create a cohesive environment for developing a supportive and loyal web-based community. When parlaying that success into a book deal, it’s imperative that bloggers figure out their objective for publishing. Fletcher (2014), a famous author of The Rock Star’s Daughter, noted that having a clear scope of what to gain by publishing before releasing a book is important for blogger. The significant goals that bloggers have for books and careers should play strategic role in the selection of the publishing platform, the book's price, and the book's marketing campaign.

Reflections

In a very short time, Pony has translated her success in blogging into blook writing and finally into a thriving business in makeup. After Pony published her blooks, several famous makeup brands invited her to be in commercials and she has launched a new line of makeup with her. In 2013, she launched her YouTube makeup channel “PONY Syndrome”. In addition to her own makeup line, she has 3,572,344 subscribers to her YouTube channel and plans to write more

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 143 books in the future. Thanks to her blog, and dedicated readership, Pony is one example of a blogger that has been able to transition into a successful published author.

It would be natural that other bloggers would want to emulate Pony’s method to find their own success. However, there is no shortcut to success in publishing. Pony’s model and method is not one that can be guaranteed; in addition to natural artistry with makeup and technical skill in blogging, a lot of her success is thanks to luck and timing. She was discovered by a publisher at a critical moment in her career and has parlayed that success into a book deal.

What is increasingly evident, however, is that bloggers right now are in an exciting position to share their work with larger audiences than ever before and have at their disposal a variety of new opportunities for publishing. While success cannot be guaranteed, it has become relatively easy for authors and bloggers to self-publish thanks to new technologies and platforms. Although new services such as Lulu.com have made it easier than ever to help authors publish, the landscape has become saturated, making it difficult for authors to stand out and make a profit ("Self-Publishing in 2017," 2018). While this might seem to be a challenge for authors wanting to break into the publishing market, it can be seen as an opportunity for bloggers who are seeking for broader space for development and being noticed by public. With a ready-made community of loyal readers, bloggers are now, more than ever, in a position to transition with greater ease into blook-writing.

References

Engel, K. (2017, May 01). 5 Big Reasons Bloggers Should Self-Publish a Book. Retrieved from Web Hosting Secrets Revealed. Davidovich, J. (n.d.). One for the Books. Retrieved from Disney.Wikia.com. Fenton, H. (2007). Self-Publish or Perish? The Implications of Digital Book Production. Seybold Report: Analyzing Publishing Technologies, 7(5), 7-10. Fletcher , A. (2014, June 08). Self-Publish Like a Pro: Setting Goals for Your Book and Career. Publishersweekly.com.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) From Blog to Blook 144

Halvorson, R. (2014, January 22). Why You Should Self-Publish a Book. IDEA Health & Fitness Association. Halliwell, N. (2016, July 18). Growing Your Fanbase is the Key to Author Success. Bing.com. Head, A. J., Van Hoeck, M., & Hostetler, K. (2017). Why blogs endure: A study of recent college graduates and motivations for blog readership. First Monday, 22(10). Ho, K. (2017, December 01). Behind the Pony Effect. Retrieved from HastagLegend.com. Idris, H. (2016, June 24). Exclusive: Interview With Korean Beauty Guru Pony. CLEO. Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, bloggers, and gamers: exploring participatory culture. New York: New York University Press. K. (2016, March 22). Pony, trendsetter of K-beauty. Retrieved from KPopHerald.com. Kurlantzick, J. (2004, December 14). A New Forum (Blogging) Inspires the Old (Books). The New York Times. Retrieved from p.E1(L) Mount, I. (2006). Blook; A New Genre—Books Based on Blogs—Gains Ground. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved March 25, 2006. OEDB. The Academics Guide to Self-Publishing. OEDB.org. Trammell, K.D. and Keshelashvili, A. (2005), “Examining the new influencers: a self- presentation study of a-list blogs”, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, Vol. 82 No. 4, pp. 968-982. R. (2018, April 01). Starting a Blog: A Complete Guide for Serious Beginners. Retrieved April 08, 2018, from https://www.blogtyrant.com/start-a-blog-2014/ Daniel, Alex. 2017. Self-Publishing in 2017: The Year in Preview. PublishersWeekly.com. Self-publish eBooks and paperbacks for free with Kindle Direct Publishing, and reach millions of readers on Amazon. (n.d.). Retrieved April 09, 2018, from https://kdp.amazon.com/ Stutsman, S. (2012). Blogging and blooks: Communal authorship in a contemporary context. Transformative Works and Cultures, 11. doi:10.3983/twc.2012.0413.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

16 | Acquiring Self-Published Material: Challenges and Opportunities for Libraries

Ellen O’Dair, School of Information Studies

The phenomenon of self-publishing has emerged over the past decade, with hundreds of thousands of self-published books being created every year. Libraries have been unable to keep up with the volume of self-published work being produced, and as a result self-published works are largely missing from library collections. This chapter describes the challenges that libraries, particularly public libraries, face when attempting to acquire self-published material. The chapter then addresses the opportunities that self-publishing presents for libraries, with proposals about ways that libraries can acquire self-published material.

Keywords: self-publishing, collection management, acquisitions, public libraries

Introduction

Over the course of the last decade, the phenomenon of self-publishing has emerged to challenge the traditional publishing process. Authors are able to skip the time-consuming process of submitting pieces to publishers, waiting for approval or rejection, and the entire editing process to publish works independently—especially online. Currently, around 80% of newly published books come from self-publishing or small presses, and this number is expected to increase in the coming years (Carolan et al., 2013). Self-publishing has moved from a small portion of the publishing industry to its fastest growing sector, exceeding the number of titles published in the traditional manner (LaRue, 2014). Libraries have been unable to keep up with the fast-growing phenomenon, and as a result most collections lack self-published material. Most libraries only acquire self-published titles when a patron requests it, and do not yet have a collection policy for acquiring self-published works on a larger scale. There are many real barriers that prevent self- published materials from being part of a library’s collection. This chapter will explore the

Copyright © 2018 O’Dair. Acquiring Self-Published Materials 146 challenges that libraries face when attempting to acquire self-published works, and highlight opportunities they can seize in order to close the gap in their collection.

Challenges

The traditional view of self-published books is that they are not high quality literature. The perspective still exists that if a book was not considered good enough to be accepted by a publisher, then it is not high quality, and should not be supported by a library. However, with the ease of self-publishing today, there many types of authors who are self-publishing. There are two types of authors that are predominately using self-publishing: authors beginning their writing career, looking to put works out easily and quickly to gain readers, and established authors who are independently publishing their books in order to get a better royalty structure and more control over their work (Brantley, 2012). Since self-publishing bypasses the traditional publishing barriers and process, authors can quickly make their works available to readers and retain more of their rights (LaRue, 2014). The idea that self-published books are not worthy of our attention is coming to an end. Readers today care more about finding books that interest them than the publishing pedigree of the book (Bradford, 2016). There are even self-published works that have become famous, such as the Fifty Shades of Grey series by E. L. James, which started off as self-published fan-fiction and has now permeated popular culture and been made into a hit movie series (Brantley, 2012). In fact, many self-published books are best-sellers. On some lists, nearly 20% of top sales are coming from self-published authors, and in best-selling eBook lists this number is closer to 50% (LaRue, 2014).

Despite the popularity of many self-published books, it is true that there are often issues with quality, namely because they do not go through the same editing process as a traditionally published book. Without this editing process, some self-published books are full of typos and grammatical errors, or have confusing plotlines. These books do not get the same level of professional proofreading and feedback as traditionally published books, which can bring their quality down and make it impossible for libraries to accept them into their collection (DeWild & Jarema, 2015). Although there are excellent self-published books, there is a plethora of poorly written books as well. The challenge lies in separating the good books from the bad.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 147

The traditional publishing process offers a variety of services that help libraries build collections, including generating product metadata and cataloguing information, and sending material for professional review. A lack of metadata, reviews, and cataloguing information make it difficult for libraries to acquire self-published books. Employees who select books for libraries rely on this information, especially reviews, in their vetting process. Without this information librarians often have to read large portions of the book to determine the genre, main plot, and the ages a book might be appropriate for. As librarians do not have the time to do this, the absence of metadata and reviews emerges as a big reason why libraries tend to ignore self-published books when looking to acquire new material for their collection. Another issue that comes with a lack of metadata and cataloguing information is that the book will most likely need to be catalogued from scratch. Manually cataloguing a book is time-consuming and requires highly-trained staff, so this is yet another deterrent to acquiring self-published materials (DeWild & Jarema, 2015).

One of the biggest challenges for libraries is the significant volume of self-published works created each year. Whereas in 1950, only 11,022 titles were published, in 2010 alone 328,259 new books were published (Vinjamuri, 2013). Two years later, 235,000 new print and eBook self-published titles were produced (Hadro, 2013). This number increases each year, and it seems nearly impossible for librarians to be able to sort through the hundreds of thousands of available self-published books, rooting out the ones that are poor quality, to be able to find the few that would interest their patrons. A popular vendor for libraries, OverDrive, sells some self- published books to libraries, but even searching this collection is difficult. Searching “adult, fiction, eBook” brings up over 100,000 results in OverDrive’s self-published category (Bradford, 2016). This is far too many results for a librarian to handle—and this is a vendor that is actually providing access to self-published books. Most vendors do not support self-published material, however, so discoverability remains a significant problem. Most libraries have efficient processes in place to discover and order new books, and self-published books are very rarely accounted for in this process. They require independent processes for both ordering and discovery, and with the number of books that would need to be searched through– without proper metadata, reviews, or cataloguing information to help speed the process—it is simply impossible to expect a library to acquire self-published books on a large scale, on top of the acquisition work they already do.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 148

The abovementioned challenges that public libraries face are also felt by national libraries responsible for preserving cultural heritage. National libraries are typically responsible for copyright registration, preservation of national cultural output, and have specific deposit requirements. For example, national libraries are typically required to collect two copies of every work published in the country. Library and Archives Canada, for example, uses legal deposit to preserve Canada’s published heritage. All materials produced by Canadian publishers become part of Library and Archives Canada’s collection (Library and Archives Canada, Legal Deposit). Canadian publishers are expected to provide copies of the published work to Library and Archives Canada. This includes self-publishers; however, the burden is on the author as publisher to then provide them with a copy. It is unlikely that every self-publisher knows about this requirement, and even if they do, they may fail to provide the copies. Since the works are being self-published and are not going through formal publication channels, Library and Archives Canada would not even know that the work was published or that it should be part of their collection. It is impossible for national libraries to keep up with discovering all of the self- published works produced in the country. This means that there is a growing amount of content missing from national repositories, which Peter Brantley describes as “the new missing books.” These works are not being acquired, and are therefore not being preserved for the future. The more works that go missing, the more gaps there are in the national collection, leading to a loss in the country’s published cultural heritage (Brantley, 2012).

Opportunities

Despite the barriers to acquiring self-published material, there are several solutions to these challenges that have been proposed or implemented in libraries. Most of these solutions deal with the problems created by the large volume of available self-published material, and focus on ways to increase discoverability and make their addition to library collections feasible. There may be challenges to acquiring self-published books, but self-publishing also provides excellent opportunities for libraries.

David Vinjamuri (2013) has proposed a method for reviewing and weeding through self- published material through collaboration between libraries:

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 149

Now let’s do some simple math: there are 16,000 library buildings in the United States. If each library were to review just one unique book a month, as a group they would cover 192,000 titles in a year. That’s 58% of the total books published for 2010. Many of these books could be reviewed quickly: they are poorly written, unedited and lacking any redeeming virtues. Perhaps one in ten would be worthy of a detailed review. Yet if each library discovered just one interesting book a year – and shared that result with other libraries who could review and rate those interesting books there would be 16,000 interesting books for libraries to review. If we assume that just one in one hundred of those reviewed books are “great,” libraries would still have discovered 160 great new books to recommend to library patrons each year.

Vinjamuri’s proposal, focused on the collaboration between libraries, is an entirely feasible and realistic proposal. Adding one book for a librarian to review each month is not an increased workload – this is a small task for the course of a month, and it is typical for librarians to read books to recommend to their patrons. What does not exist right now is coordination between libraries, but if the communication channels were opened and libraries could work together to review and weed through the mass of self-published material, great headway would be made.

Robin Bradford (2016) proposes that librarians look to alternative, non-professional sources for reviews of books, particularly for public libraries. Bradford recommends the site Goodreads which is a website where the public can review, rate, and comment on books they have read. In addition, Goodreads contains a lot of reader reviews for self-published materials. This can be very helpful for public librarians as it shows what real readers thought of the book and its entertainment value, as opposed to a professional literature critique. Public libraries serve customer’s interests, which tend not to be for the most critically acclaimed works (Bradford, 2016). Goodreads, and other reader review websites, can help librarians make decisions about acquiring self-published books without having to read the book themselves.

The collaboration between libraries and self-publishing outlets is another widely suggested solution. Creating a direct relationship with self-publishing providers such as Smashwords, Author Solutions, Amazon, Apple, and Kobo will greatly increase the discoverability of works and the ease in which libraries can order them. This has also been

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 150 suggested as a solution to help national libraries keep up with their legal deposit requirements, because the providers can actively support the deposit of material (Brantley, 2012).

Another idea is to integrate self-publishing providers with pre-existing library distribution platforms. This means that self-publishing providers such as Smashwords and Author Solutions would integrate their material with library platforms such as 3M, Baker & Taylor, and OverDrive (Hadro, 2013). In fact, this has already been implemented by Smashwords and OverDrive. The two companies have combined resources in order to provide packages of self-published eBooks to libraries, for a price of around four dollars (Holley, 2015). If more self-publishing providers and library distribution platforms integrate their resources it will be much easier for libraries to discover and acquire self-published books.

Specific libraries have come up with their own individual solutions to try and deal with the issue of self-publishing. The Los Angeles Public Library (LAPL). The LAPL began to recognize the trend towards self-published books after consistently receiving a high volume of user requests for self-published books, typically eBooks. The staff noticed that when those titles were made available they were in high demand, and so the LAPL decided to look into self- publishing. They decided to work with local authors to foster self-publishing in the community, and to move themselves away from only being a content provider towards becoming a facilitator for content creation. The LAPL partnered with a self-publishing software called SELF-e, and gave their users free access. Using SELF-e, authors can simply submit their book to be made available on the platform, and all patrons can then access and read it. It simplifies the process by removing the barrier of communicating with vendors to set up distribution, which causes access delays for patrons (Royalty, 2016). Now, it is automatic. By going local and setting up a partnership with a self-publishing software, LAPL increased their presence in the community as well as their ability to provide patrons with self-published eBooks of interest to them. Creating a self-published collection that primarily focuses on the local area has been suggested and implemented in other libraries as well, as this is a manageable size for libraries to handle (DeWild & Jarema, 2015).

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 151 Conclusion

The dramatic rise in self-publication over the past decade has created both challenges and great opportunities for libraries. With hundreds of thousands of self-published books being produced every year, it seems like an overwhelming feat for librarians to sort through and acquire self- published books for their collection. With a lack of metadata, reviews, and plenty of poorly written pieces to sort through, finding a new great book might seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. However, there are many opportunities for libraries that arise out of self-publishing. Self-published works can be on any topic, providing resources for patrons who perhaps are interested in something very specific and less popular. Self-published works can therefore broaden the collection considerably. These topic-specific pieces may also provide an even greater understanding of the popular culture of a time, which creates an opportunity for national libraries to preserve their country’s published heritage. Working with other libraries and self- publishing providers can facilitate the inclusion of self-published material into libraries, and help build a network and open lines of communication between institutions. Libraries can even follow the model of the Los Angeles Public Library and provide a self-publishing platform for their patrons, developing stronger relationships with their community and local authors, while building their collection at the same time. In doing so, they have an opportunity to become a facilitator for creation instead of only being a provider. Self-publishing provides libraries with numerous opportunities to build their collection and engage with their community; hopefully over the next few years libraries will take advantage of these opportunities, and we will see an increase of self-published material in library collections.

References

Bradford, R. (2016). Discoverability in self-publishing. Library Journal, 141(14), 24. Brantley, P. (2012). The new missing books. Publishing Research Quarterly, 28(3), 172-175. doi:10.1007/s12109-012-9283-2 Carolan, S., & Evain, C. (2013). Self-Publishing: opportunities and threats in a new age of mass culture. Publishing Research Quarterly, 29(4), 285-300. doi:10.1007/s12109-013-9326-3

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Acquiring Self-Published Materials 152

DeWild, M., & Jarema, M. (2015). Supporting self-publishing and local authors: from challenge to opportunity. In Self-Publishing and collection development: opportunities and challenges for libraries (pp. 21-26). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. Hadro, J. (2013). What’s the problem with self-publishing? Library Journal, 138(7), 34. Holley, R. P. (2015). Why academic libraries should consider acquiring self-published books. In Self-Publishing and collection development: opportunities and challenges for libraries (pp. 37-46). West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University Press. LaRue, J. (2014). The next wave of tech change. Library Journal, 139(16), 47. Library and Archives Canada. (n.d.). Legal Deposit. Royalty, C. (2016). Serving self-publishing. Library Journal, 141(8), 25. Vinjamuri, D. (2013, January 16). Why public libraries matter: and how they can do more. Forbes, 1-3.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018) Contributing authors

The contributing authors for this collection of essays are graduate students in the Master of Information Studies and Master of Communications programs at the University of Ottawa. They were supervised by Dr. Jada Watson, an Adjunct professor in the Faculty of Arts.

Mary Aksim is a second-year Master of Information Studies student at the University of Ottawa's School of Information Studies and is expected to graduate in Spring 2018. She also holds an MA in Linguistics from the University of Toronto. She has split interests in information management, cultural heritage resources, digital humanities and exhibits. She works as an information management consultant in Ottawa.

Ravneet Bajwa obtained a B.A. with specialization in Psychology and Minor in French as a Second Language. Started Master of Information Studies in 2015 part-time, and has worked for the Government of Canada since 2013. She expects to complete her MIS in December 2018.

Xiaofan Cai is a first-year student of Master of Communication program in University of Ottawa. She completed a Bachelor of Arts with Major in Journalism in China. Her research interests include social media, fan culture and feminism.

Grace Clark is an artist and master’s student in the Information Studies program at the University of Ottawa, with a background in English and Greek and Roman Studies. Moving Through the Grey: Publishing in Motion is her first written publication, but will hopefully not be her last.

Anna Gopenko was born in Leningrad, USSR and has lived in Canada for over 20 years. Her background is in Linguistics/Translation, but her new passion is library management. Her dream is to be part of a systematic review team, working on a health science/medicine related research issues.

154

Zongjun (Tom) Jiang is a Master of Communication student at the University of Ottawa. He has a background in media and communication theory, and post-video production and creative 3D design.

Xiaohan Li is currently in the first year of the Master of Communication program at the University of Ottawa. She has experience working as an editor and am interested in the role that new media plays in the publishing industry.

Wanting Ma is a first-year Master of Communication student at the University of Ottawa. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Carleton University. Her research interests lie in the field of academic writing practices, particularly associate with ethical grey areas.

Brittany Melia is first year Master of Information Science student at the University of Ottawa. She completed her undergraduate degree at Carleton University in English literature. She is interested in reading and writing all types of fiction and literature, particularly fantasy and British literature. This summer she will be working as a co-op student and research librarian at the Library of Parliament.

Roshae Miller is a communication enthusiast from Jamaica. She earned her undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of the West Indies, Mona. Before pursuing a Master of Communication degree at the University of Ottawa, she worked as a Television Producer, a Social Media Manager and a Public Relations and Education Officer.

Ellen O'Dair is in her final year of the Masters of Information Studies program at the University of Ottawa. She is interested in collections management and the challenges facing libraries in the 21st century. She holds an Honours degree in English and Ancient Mediterranean Studies from Wilfrid Laurier University.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)

155

Originally from London, Ontario, Raphaël Plamondon is a first-year student in the Masters of information studies program at the University of Ottawa. He completed an Honours degree in psychology at the same university. He has an avid interest in webcomics – following more webcomics than he can now keep track of. He currently works at the University of Ottawa’s Management Library.

Sarah Potts is a first-year Masters of Information Studies student at the University of Ottawa. Her research interests lie within understanding Canadian cultural phenomena and the importance that reconciliation plays within Indigenous Librarianship and principles. At current, she is a teaching assistant in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Ottawa and part-time student Doula.

Evan Sterling is a second-year masters' student in the Information Studies program at the University of Ottawa, with an undergraduate degree in applied mathematics and engineering. He is interested in changes in how scientific research is communicated and shared, and will be a science and engineering librarian at the University of Ottawa starting in May 2018.

Jiaxin Yao is a Master of Communication student at the University of Ottawa. She completed a Bachelor of Arts in Communication with a concentration in Public Relations at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With a strong interest in makeup blogging, she set up her own makeup blog on Wordpress in 2016. View her blog here.

Zhinan Yu graduated from Carleton University’s Communication Program and is now in the Master of Communications program at the University of Ottawa. She has a strong interest in the dynamics, intersecting natures, evolutionary process, and interdisciplinary nature of communications research, and is interested in its potential for negotiating relations to various social contexts like gender and religion.

Moving through the Grey: Publishing in Action The Publishing Business: Transformations and Opportunities (ISI6314 – Winter 2018)