A Study of the Book Publishing Industry in the Era of Online Participatory Culture

Graduate School of Humanities

Media Studies

From Gutenberg to the wisdom of the crowd: A study of the book publishing industry in the era of online participatory culture

Radina Teodosieva Teodosieva

MA Thesis New Media and Digital Culture

University of Amsterdam

Date: 24.06.2016

Supervisor: Lonneke van der Velden

Amsterdam, 2016

Table of contents

Introduction ...... 4 Research question ...... 5 Methodological approach ...... 5 Main concepts ...... 6 Justification of relevance and feasibility ...... 7 Structure of the research ...... 8 Theoretical framework ...... 9 Characteristics of participatory culture ...... 9 History of participatory culture ...... 9 Web 2.0 as the new media environment of participatory culture...... 11 Social reading or the intersection between book publishing and participatory culture ...... 12 Participatory culture as an extension of the creative industries ...... 13 The roles of users and producers in participatory culture production ...... 14 Participatory culture beyond social collaboration ...... 15 Challenges for the cultural industries ...... 16 Methodology ...... 17 Shift to platforms...... 17 Platform-specific methodological approach ...... 18 Taxonomy of participation ...... 19 Selection of case studies ...... 22 Methodological apparatus ...... 22 Analysis ...... 25 Swoon Reads – crowdsourced publishing ...... 25 Epic Reads – the YA social reading experience ...... 33 Amazon Kindle Worlds – (self)publishing fan fiction ...... 38 Influence of online participatory culture on the book publishing industry ...... 43 Situating the platforms ...... 43 Transforming culture with affordances ...... 43 Implications of social reading integration in platform launched by publishers ...... 44 Participatory practices in book publishing ...... 45 Trends in book publishing ...... 46

Issues of book publishing and methodological insight...... 47 Conclusion ...... 50 Bibliography ...... 54

Introduction

"Someone ought to publish a book about the doomsayers who keep publishing books about the end of publishing" (Evgeny Morozov in To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism, 2013)

"Publishers and would-be publishers must be equally prepared to face the future and become not just instruments of publication but instigators and innovators in their own right." (Adrian Moore in A Short History of Future Publishing, 1972).

The two quotes pose interesting questions in terms of the topic of this research. The ever critical Evgeny Morozov states that scholars and professionals alike should rethink the idea of the end of the book publishing industry. Moore explores the role of the publisher as an innovator of the industry. Book publishing is one of the oldest creative industries with Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century. Nowadays the publishing business is proclaimed to be slow in terms of innovation and inadequate to the current new media environment (Carmody, 2012; DBW, 2015; Hofferder, 2015; Wiker, 2012). However, book publishing is expected to grow and expand (PWC, 2015). Observers state that the industry is becoming more and more competitive (Coker, 2015). The reason behind the steady development is that professionals use technologies and innovations to facilitate the process of publishing and to cater to readers (Hyrkin, 2014; Illian, 2016).

Nowadays readers are also new media users. Hence, the readership needs interactive, collaborative and personalized experience with media (digital or traditional) (Malama, Landoni, Wilson, 2005; Krozser, 2013). They want to participate actively in culture production – the main concept of participatory culture. The term refers to the changed relations between the audience and the media producers, where the lines between them are blurry (Jenkins, 2006: 3). Participatory culture is activated by the collective intelligence of users who create cultural meaning together. Moreover, participatory culture features became a requirement for a successful media venture. O'Reilly states that industries are propelled towards innovation in their business (2007). The development of Web 2.0 business is not technology-driven, but user-led. Nevertheless, the book publishing industry is not fully

4 explored as a field affected by online participatory culture. For example, a search on Google Scholar does not return relevant results on the topic. Publishers are defined as gatekeepers rather than participatory facilitators and intermediaries of innovations of the reading experience (Lee, 2010; Coser, 1975; Simon and Fyfe, 1994; Thompson, 1984; Pham, 2010). For this reason I chose this topic to explore in my master's thesis.

Research question

The main research question which I aim to answer is: How does the phenomenon of online participatory culture influence the book publishing industry? The objective of this thesis is to investigate the influence of participatory culture on the book publishing industry, its challenges, implications, and trends. The contribution of the research will combine theoretical insight of how to study user participation in cultural industries with contemporary analysis of social reading affordances. To achieve the goal of the research, I pose four concrete subquestions which will guide the study. The first is: How does participatory culture challenge the cultural industries? Here, I will focus on the issues, which the industry faces to meet the active user/reader demands for engagement and participation. These challenges are overcome by specific practices. They are the focus of the second subquestion: What participatory practices are incorporated in the book publishing business? I will explore these practices through three case studies. This approach will answer the third subquestion: What are the main trends in the book publishing industry? Finally, I will investigate the issues which these cases articulate. Based on the research of these four aspects, I will attempt to answer the main research question at the end of the thesis.

Methodological approach

To answer the research question I will use theoretical and empirical methodological approach. The thesis will interpret the works of Jenkins and Schaffer on participatory culture, Bruns' ideas on produsage, O'reilly's Web 2.0, Gillespie and Langlois' platform studies and Weltevrede's and Helmond's insight into affordances to build a theoretical framework of the new media environment, where contemporary book publishing is situated. Then the paper will identify the participatory practices such as collaborative reading, writing and fan fiction connected to the book publishing industry and briefly trace their development historically,

5 addressing their contemporary incorporation in the book publishing business. For the empirical part of the thesis I have chosen three different but successful platforms, affiliated with publishing initiatives, which represent aspects of the influence of participatory culture on the book publishing industry. Macmillan's Swoon Reads is a crowdsourcing platform for young-adult novelists, where readers can choose what the company will publish. This case study challenges the idea of how titles are picked to be launched – professionals make editorial choices – a core notion of the publishing industry. HarperCollins's Epic Reads is a platform which facilitates collaborative reading for the users by testing titles and their marketing and advertising strategy. Moreover, the publishing house gathers fundamental information for their readership preferences in order to launch successful books. This initiative challenges the traditional solitary reading experience, previously promoted by the publishing industry. Amazon's Kindle Worlds is a platform for publishing fan fiction. Here, the monetization model of traditional book publishing is challenged. Fans can make profit while the copyright holders can crowdsource new ideas without paying. I will explore the case studies through their platform affordances as well as their Terms and Conditions in order to produce an in-depth knowledge of their specificities and how they shape the book publishing industry and its practices. This analysis of the case studies will engage with new media issues, now problematic for the book publishing industry such as data collection, privacy and digital labor. Drawing from the theoretical framework and methodological consideration I will attempt to point out the modern challenges, faced by the publishing industry in participatory culture (the first subquestion). Then by discussing the analysis of the case studies, I will answer the second subquestion about the incorporated participatory practices – crowdsourcing and social reading. Building on the insight from the examples, I will articulate the trends in book publishing related to reader participation. Exploring the trends, I will be able to answer what are the issues for the cultural industry, connected to participatory culture.

Main concepts

The main theoretical concepts for this research are participatory culture, platform and affordance. Although participatory culture is not a new notion, introduced in the age of new media, scholars define it as the collaboration with others and the sharing of Web-based resources to create new content and construct knowledge (Carter and Nugent, 2011). The audience is not just a passive consumer but an active participant in the cultural creation of

6 meaning. Jenkins states that participatory culture is "community-driven appropriation of commercial media texts". He characterises it as a space with low barriers for novices to join, where they are supported to create and share their works (Jenkins et al., 2006, 7). New members are mentored by people with more experience so they can contribute when they are ready. That type of social relationship builds a community, where every member's contributions are valued. Other scholars like Schaffer investigate participatory culture as a dynamic and reshaping extension of the cultural industries into the domain of users. He affirms that participatory culture has a significant effect on the traditional creative industries.1 Although participatory culture is being applied to the publishing industry practices by professionals and its influence is being observed by journalists, the academia and scholarly research have not conceptualize this phenomenon, as shown from a Google Scholar and Uva's digital library search with no relevant results.

On the Internet, book publishing is a Web 2.0 business, which uses platforms, the latest stage of development of the online space. Platforms are the predominant infrastructural and economic model on the Internet (Helmond, 26). They are embodiments of Web 2.0 with their politics, economy, governance, legislation and citizenship. Their affordances articulate their norms. They are features of the platform which facilitate certain practices and constrain others through of a field of possible actions (Weltevrede, 10–15; Gibson 1986: 129; Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz, 2012).

Justification of relevance and feasibility

This research is both relevant to the field of new media and the study of participation. In addition, the paper suggests a distinct point of view into one of the oldest cultural industries – book publishing by simultaneously exploring platforms, affordances and participatory practices. The study will contribute to the academic debate about user participation, even offering a new classification of practices on the basis of incorporation into the business model of creative industries. The thesis will speculate on how practices such as crowdsourcing, fan fiction writing and social reading are changed online and how affordances affect them. Furthermore, the research will situate the book publishing industry in the new media landscape. The study will offer a new look on platforms – as a space for social reading and

1 For the objective of this study in the text creative and cultural industries are used as synonyms. 7 writing and will pinpoint their place in book publishing. In addition, the research is connected to the social aspect of participatory culture. Book publishing is an important part of the creative industries. Moreover, it is one of the pillars of literacy and education. So research on the participatory effect on the book publishing industry is socially relevant for the debates on topics of education and media literacy.

Structure of the research

The thesis is divided in several sections. After the introduction of the topic, the first section will elaborate on the theoretical framework, using works by scholars like Jenkins, Shaffer, Bruns, and Terranova. This section will include a brief historical overview of participatory culture. In the second section the thesis will discuss the methodology of the research, which includes platform studies, affordances and user participation taxonomies. In the third section the case studies will be analyzed and situated simultaneously in the book publishing business and cultural industries. The last section will conceptualize the insights, gathered from the analysis, and speculate about culture production. Then it will answer the research questions and articulate the academic contribution of this study. Moreover, I will speculate about the future of reading platforms and book publishing.

Theoretical framework

Characteristics of participatory culture

Although participatory culture is not a new phenomenon, it is quite clear that in the new media business, which involves data collection, content and technologies, user participation has a newfound power and influence on the creative industries. The term, originally introduced by Henry Jenkins, refers to the new role of the audience to be active in cultural production (Jenkins, 2003). The concept involves social interaction to consume media, comment on it critically and collaboratively produce new media texts. Participatory culture defines the shift from media industries, which make profit from ownership and consumerism, to a culture where everyone is actively participating in meaning-production. According to Henry Jenkins, participatory culture is community-driven appropriation with relatively low barriers to join artistically and civicly (Jenkins et al. 2009: 7). The members are supporting each other and sharing their contributions freely, with the belief that their work matters to the community. The more experienced participants act as mentors for the novices, sometimes even informally. The participants feel socially connected with one another (Jenkins et al. 2009: 7). In the realm of media literacy participatory culture shifts the emphasis from individual development to community involvement (Jenkins et al., 2009). Participatory culture is an effect of ever-developing new media technologies, which make possible for the normal user to annotate, discuss, archive, classify, appropriate, remix and even create media content.

History of participatory culture

Throughout history participatory culture has been a persistent phenomenon. Scholars like Jenkins put the start of participatory culture when the photocopier was invented (Jenkins, 2003: 289). He argues that technologies enabled citizens to participate in the media industry. The photocopier became the people's printing press and zines and samizdat were launched as alternative media forms. After that fans used VCRs, camcorders, computers and the Internet to create videos, using the footage of their favorite shows and movies, and to share their

9 creations. Jenkins observes the first grassroots culture creations in the Star Wars and Star Trek fandom2. Jenkins acknowledges that culture production started as a collaborative process of meaning creation (Jenkins, 2003: 290). Cultural artifacts such as myths, legends, tales, and folk songs were recreated and modified by the person who told or sang them. Later after the Industrial Revolution the concepts of authorship and intellectual property were introduced. Moreover, culture production was privatized (Jenkins, 2003: 290). These processes were detrimental to citizen participation in culture creation. However, Jenkins' dismissal of citizen participation before the photocopier is unreasonable. One of participatory culture's first instances is fan fiction and the history of that practice is older. Scholars argue that actually Homer and Shakespeare's plays can be interpreted as fan fiction, because the drama texts are based on oral traditions, legends and tales in the respective cultures or earlier writings (Reich, 2015; West, 2014). Before the introduction of copyright, writing was not fixed and open for interpretation (Morisson, 2012). So people were retelling these stories, adding details or changing aspects of them. For example, Shakespeare's plays are based off earlier writings by Plutarch and Herodotus (Reich, 2015). Scholars interpret this process as fan fiction. However, without the concept of the author, there were not fans and all people participated in literature (Reich, 2015; West, 2014; Morisson, 2012). Later copyright law and the printing press established and facilitated the role of the professional paid author and a subclass of fans. That is why the history of fan fiction starts with the concept of authorship during the Romanticism in the 18th century when Daniel Defoe, Miguel de Cervantes, and Jane Austen had dedicated fans who were writing their fan works (Reich, 2014; Morrison, 2012). Moreover, one of the first fanzines were not published by the trekkis3, but actually by the Jane Austen readership (Morrison, 2012). Furthermore, Sherlock Holmes inspired its fandom and even Isaac Asimov started his career from a fan fiction group before the Star Trek franchise (Morrison, 2012). Nowadays, fan communities have simple rules, which are followed strictly. There are two main regulations – correctly cite the author and the source material, and distrubute fan works non-commercially (Hetcher, 2009: 1880–1896). Participatory culture was alternative to the traditional industrial production of culture, based on ownership and consumerism, but now the Internet is changing the paradigm and user participation is crucial both for Web 2.0 businesses and society.

2 Fandom is a community of fans of a specific book/TV series/movie/franchise. 3 Star Trek fans call themselves trekkies. 10

Web 2.0 as the new media environment of participatory culture

Web 2.0 is the new media space for participatory culture. It is the second stage of the development of the web, also called social web (Maged and Wheeler, 2). The term Web 2.0 was coined on a conference, organized by O'Reilly and MediaLive International in 2004, to refer to the web as a platform (O'Reilly 2007: 17–19). The concept reflects two major shifts: one in user behavior and another in online business. Instead of browsing for information users, begin to create content and publish it. New media practices like blogging, wikis, social bookmarking, reading, writing and networking, and podcasts characterize this change in user online behavior (Maged and Wheeler, 3). Web 2.0 is built on user participation. Every user adds value to the web. It grows organically from the user participation, adding, remixing and transforming content. The second shift refers to Web 2.0 business providing services, rather than selling digital goods (O'Reilly, 2007: 36–37). Moreover, the best examples of business models of Web 2.0 are using user activities to perfect their services through data collection and performing tasks. The companies aggregate user data not only from their activities and profiles, but from the sensors on their devices (even using cameras on smartphones) (O'Reilly and Battelle, 2009). Thus, every user adds collective value to the web explicitly and implicitly. Platforms are perfected through their user experience and the aggregated data. This data loop makes the Web 2.0 industry data-driven. As O'Reilly puts it, Web 2.0 businesses harness collective intelligence through "architecture of participation" to advance in their ventures (O'Reilly, 2005: 22). The architecture of participation is described as the implicit user involvement in the web development. Companies use their customers to test services and cater to better user experience. Moreover, platforms are constructed to engage more and more people to perform tasks. Thus, the web is becoming smarter with every platform. In addition, big part of the business model becomes a race to acquire huge data assets and metadata (O'Reilly, 2007: 36–37). So Web 2.0 is all about data industry – making profit from aggregated data (O'Reilly, 2007: 36–37). These features of the Web 2.0 business model build on an argument that the success of Web 2.0 platforms is not only based on the user participation, but it is valorized by user activities. As part of this thesis book publishing should be represented as a Web 2.0 business. Book publishing is a cultural industry. Moreover, it is a copyright industry, a term coined by Siwek in a 2004 work (Shaffer, 127). Big part of the revenue for the industry is based on

11 ownership. Still, as a media business, big publishing houses are on the web to find wider audience. However, the strategy now is not to sell books, but to provide services. Nowadays, there are lending and subscription services (Kindle Owner's Lending Library and Scribd). Furthermore, there are innovative platforms such as Goodreads, Glose, and Open Bookmark which provide more than just the usual reading experience. They cater to the new reader, who expects the same level of efficiency, interactivity, social networking, sharing, easy-to-use interface from every Web 2.0 business.

Social reading or the intersection between book publishing and participatory culture

When discussing participatory culture and the book publishing industry, there is an argument to be made about reading being developed through a collaborative stage (Heap, 1991). In Antiquity people usually read out loud to an audience (Manguel, 42–46; Knox 1968; Balogh 1927; Jaynes 2000). Texts were written to be performed and recited. Actually, silent reading became a trend only after 10th century in the West (Manguel, 42). Gradually people started to understand reading as a private and solitary activity. However, now the paradigm is slowly changing. The digital shift reintroduced the reader to social (collaborative) reading (Stein, 2010). Social reading is a reading experience of sharing opinions, comments (margin notes) and highlighted excerpts. The umbrella term encompasses different social behaviors of individuals to collaborate in reading. The collaborative experience can be off- and online. The clear example of social reading is reading groups, where people share their ideas and opinions and discuss main concepts of a text. Nowadays social reading can be mediated on the Internet. E-readers, reading applications and platforms offer sharing notes in the margins. However, writing notes in the margins of a book has been practiced in paper books, too. Collaborative reading firstly is mediated through devices. Kindle e-readers keep track of hightlighted text and aggregate user data to find the most interesting excerpt for the readership (Stein, 2010). Moreover, Kobo readers give their readers the option to chat with each other about books and send paragraphs. Then social reading can be facilitated by software and platforms. For instance, Goodreads affordances give the reader the option to share when they start a book as well as their progress. Furthermore, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and their social buttons are incorporated in many media sites online which make the sharing frictionless (Richards, 691).

The notion of social reading is not only a buzzword for the publishing industry, but it is controversial as well. Richards warns that social reading and frictionless sharing threaten the intellectual privacy (691). He uses this concept to talk about data for user online activities and behavior – what they read, watch, write. His opinion is that readers should share consciously and be aware of what data is shared and how (689). Furthermore, claims about frictionless sharing experience and making everything sharable and social through social buttons, made popular by digital media giants such as Twitter and Facebook, are targeted at the naiveté of the user and the notion of technological utopianism. Helmond and Gerlitz argue that these platform-specific objects are building a technical infrastructure in which social activities are turned into valuable data or “Like economy” (2013). Moreover, as part of an empirical research in 2012 The Electronic Frontier Foundation published a chart about e-readers' privacy. They explored the privacy policies of devices such as Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Barnes and Noble's Nook, and platforms like Google Books. The research showed that most applications record data about reading habits and purchases of users. In addition, most companies share data with third-parties without the readers' consent. Their privacy policy is unclear on questions such as monitoring online behavior.

Participatory culture as an extension of the creative industries

In the sections above it was established that participatory culture and cultural businesses in Web 2.0 are strongly connected. Participatory practices like social reading are incorporated in the industry. Participatory culture is positioned as an extension of the creative industries, because it is incorporated both in the production of artifacts and their distribution. Shaffer elaborates that participatory culture should be understood as a hybrid constellation of information technology and audience interacting in a socio-technical system (space influenced by society and technology such as a platform), and every act of user participation can be perceived as a continuance of the cultural industries (Shaffer, 77). Furthermore, he coins the term bastard culture to indicate the complex intertwined relationship between creative industries and users' media practices in Web 2.0 (Shaffer, 11). He argues that participatory culture cannot be perceived only as a site of user participation, but information systems and software should be taken into consideration (Shaffer, 14). Technology represses or stimulates certain actions through its affordances, hence influencing user participation. The term "affordances" refers to

13 the relation between software and user and the assumptions built in the interface, which make some activities possible and others not (Weltevrede, 10–15). For example, often user activities and their data trail (for example cookies) are implemented into the software design. Cultural businesses provide platforms for participatory practices to take advantage of the contributions of users (Shaffer, 79).

The roles of users and producers in participatory culture production

From the historical review of participatory culture, it was seen that there is a tradition in the roles in culture production, based on ownership and authority of creative industries. However, this is not true anymore in the social web. Many scholars agree that the roles of users and producers are interchangeable and blurred in the production of culture in the Internet age. Jenkins argues that fans should be perceived as producers (2006). Shaffer gives examples of social shaping of technologies with users repurposing their consoles and software to create different electronic game artifact and homebrew programming (22). Moreover, Bruns goes further when exploring the blurred roles of producers and users. He works on the concept of produsage to describe the paradigm shift from the traditional media industry trichotomy producer–distributor–consumer to culture production where every actor can be both user and producer at different stages of the process (2007: 4). Bruns defines produsage as a process of collaborative and continuous building and extending of existing content in pursuit of improvement. The power of culture production shifts from highly educated professionals to a wide community of participants. Furthermore, produsers4 change their roles depending on their wishes, abilities, skills, and preferences. Their community is diverse with both professionals and amateurs. Bruns elaborates that the produsage is regulated by copyright and merit – authorship is acknowledged and unauthorized commercial distribution is prohibited, but collaboration based on merit, not ownership, is encouraged. Bruns' concept of produsage and collaboration between professionals and amateurs is relevant more than ever in a time, where services like YouTube Red5 are publicly introduced. It offers YouTube original series and movies, internally-produced videos with the most popular vloggers/creators on the platform (Constine, 2015). YouTube started as the embodiment of participatory culture – a

4 As part of the produsage theory, the actors of culture production are called produsers – a combination of producer and user. 5 YouTube Red is a Google ad-free subscription service similar to streaming services like Netflix and Hulu. 14 platform for people to create video clips and share them. The creators showed their grassroots creativity. In time videos became more creative with premium quality. Vloggers became celebrities and monetize their works with advertising and sponsors. Professional-like shows were launched on YouTube. The grassroots community was transformed into an elite group of creators with millions of subscribers and millions of net worth. YouTube Red is capitalizing on this shift from amateur to cultivated professional creators to monetize their content. In this context the produsage is a process where amateurs are cultivated by traditional creative industries to be professionals.

Participatory culture beyond social collaboration

Jenkins' fan-based view on participatory culture influences most of the scholars who work in the field (Shaffer, 43–46). That is why most academic texts focus on social collaboration and action, rather than technologies of participation and influence of participatory culture on creative industries (Shaffer, 45–46). However, participatory culture is more than a collaboration for a social common goal. Shaffer argues that participatory culture is not exclusively connected with the idea of community, social belonging and interaction (35). User participation is used to master the software or for targeted marketing and advertising. Shaffer notes a shift in the media business – rather than providing content now companies like Facebook and Google provide users with platforms and enlist them to work for them – to organize, create and distribute data (105). For example, even though a user does not upload pictures on Facebook, they browse other pages and like them. A user may never upload a video on YouTube, but they can watch freely without an explicit agreement (creating a profile). Nevertheless, their activities would create metadata and their contribution would be valorized and monetized by the company. Terranova calls this free labor (Terranova, 2000: 33). The labor is unwaged and enjoyed, exploited volunteer work. According to Terranova users add value to the web. Furthermore, she does not mean only explicit labor when adding content evaluating or tagging, but the metadata that user activities online produce. Thus, the success of Web 2.0 platforms is not only based on user participation, but it is valorized by user activities. Moreover, for a website or a platform to be visible and successful, users should browse through it, communicate and comment – their labor is free.

Challenges for the cultural industries

From the theoretical review, several challenges for the cultural industries can be articulated to answer the first subquestion. The first challenge in front of the creative industries is the battle for control over culture production and making space for community collaboration. On the one hand, people want to participate in meaning creation and their contribution to be valued. Moreover, Web 2.0 companies use the human desire to participate in their advantage – perfecting their system, infrastructure and services and profiting from user data. On the other hand, cultural industries are traditional and their profits are based on concepts like copyright and intellectual property (Shaffer, 127). The second challenge, which creative industries face, is how to reconcile participatory creations with traditional culture artifacts. Moreover, as exemplified by Jenkins' exploration into complex relationships between the fandom, the company as the rightsholder and the author, building up a sustainable engagement with the audience is a very difficult and ever-developing issue (Jenkins, 2006, 18–24). In many ways one decision can change the sentiment of the community forever. A good example is the campaign of cease and decease letters to young readers of Harry Potter, which were sent by Warner (Jenkins, 2006, 169–171). The third challenge for the creative industries is finding a way to produce culture in Web 2.0. In online participatory culture grassroots creativity and mainstream culture production intertwine. Launching a platform is the best way to cater to participatory culture and to the business requirements.

Methodology

Shift to platforms

Because of the shift of cultural industries from producers of media content to providers of services, the question of participatory culture cannot omit platform studies and their perspective on the business model. Anne Helmond argues that platforms are the dominant infrastructural and economic model of the social web and calls that process platformization (Helmond, 26). Platformization entails the extension of social media platforms into the rest of the web and their drive to make external web data platform-ready (Helmond, 22). Broadly, platforms are embodiments of Web 2.0 worlds with their politics, economy, governance, legislation and citizenship. The term platform is a way for companies to communicate both with their users and third parties (advertisers and professional media producers) and to situate their business in a place not bothered by legislative restrictions and responsibilities (Gillespie, 2010). Langlois argues that platforms are convergence of technocultural processes that connect people, protocols and practices. She points out that platforms are negotiating with stakeholders and users about what can be produced and publicized or not, as well as how media practices work (Langlois, McKelvey & Elmer, 2009). The trope platform implies what the platform is and is not and what are its characteristics. Gillespie investigates the semantics of the word "platform" and how the biggest contemporary companies of the data industry exploit the term to cater to both users and industrial stakeholders. On the one hand, platform refers to the ability to express an opinion, be heard and civically engaged, in other words empowering users. Platforms are not restrictive and are not gatekeepers. Every user has the same rights according to the terms of the service. It is relatively cheap or free. This is the selling point for users who want a space, dedicated to their needs. On the other hand, platform means an intermediary, which implies that it does not take responsibility for the hosted content. Nevertheless, platforms like YouTube work with professional media producers and advertisers and give them more control over the platform. Thus, platforms host not only grassroots content but professional media, too, and appeal to users, media industry, and advertisers. The commercial interest drives the decisions about the politics of platforms –

17 from how a certain content appears and is organized, what is visible, the affordances or the possible user actions, how content is monetized, restricted and censored. A similar concept is presented by Bogost and Montfort. They argue that a platform is an abstraction, which has to be manifested materially. Moreover, platforms are an understudied level of new media.

Scholars like Bogost, Montfort, and Flanagin argue that platforms facilitate culture production through social activities (Bogost and Montfort, 1; Flanagin et al., 180). Flanagin states that technology design provides opportunities for social outcome (Flanagin et al., 180). Technology has the capacity for innovations and personalization while facilitating collective social activities for users to gain agency in culture production (Flanagin et al., 179). Technologies reflect social needs and technical capacities. Technological artifacts are situated in the intersection between innovations and developments, and interest groups and organizations (Flanagin et al., 179). Flanagin puts forward the idea that these perspectives are the most important for understanding technology. These arguments make the status of platforms very important in the new media landscape. Therefore, to investigate society, contemporary culture production – in the case of this thesis participatory culture – and creative industries – in this instance book publishing – all simultaneously, the focus should be on platforms.

Platform-specific methodological approach

As Helmond notes in her dissertation there are different approaches to new media research (2015, 18). There are established methodologies such as looking at code, back-end, infrastructure, which is mainly medium-specific research (Helmond, 2015: 20). Furthermore, Helmond states that insight into the platform politics can be gained through looking into developer and help documentations, developer and company blogs, privacy policy and terms of use/service (2015, 18). Another methodological approach is suggested by Shaffer. He suggests exploring user participation through discourse, media practices, and technological design (15). Esther Weltevrede put forward the idea of repurposing platform affordances for research, where the research emphasizes digitally native objects rather than using traditional humanities methods on the new media field (2016, 5). Hence, platform specificities like affordances are valuable for new media exploration.

The term affordances refers to the qualities of the platform and what actions it facilitates or constrains. Shaffer describes affordances as material features and design choices, which affect the act of appropriation (20). An affordance is related both to the artifact (system) and the user (Gibson 1986: 129; Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz, 2012). As Charles Lemert elaborates in his book, technologies are designed to change "social things" (2012). At the same time users are forces to comply with the new technology requirements (Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz, 2012). The affordance theory explains the term, claiming that technologies produce fields of action, including unexpected and impossible activities. Thus, affordances privilege some practices, cultures and actors, instead of others (Weltevrede, 12). Therefore, platform politics and norms can be investigated through their affordances, because they are the result of design choices, made before the actual creation of artifacts (Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz, 2012). The examination includes how the platform is designed, what are the possible actions and the privileged practices and their purpose in the interface (Stanfill 2015; Van Dijck and Poell 2013; Weltevrede 2016). Because of the platform life and politics, the affordances influence both the social activities, happening on the web and in real life. Technologies can drive meeting, agendas and business restructuring (Neff, Dossick, 2010; Neff, Jordan and McVeigh-Schulz, 2012). Weltevrede argues that when examining affordances, the object of study is always ambiguous – focused on the social aspect and the medium at the same time (2016: 15). This type of research puts the emphasis on the question how the medium shapes communication and culture production.

Taxonomy of participation

In order to explore in-depth participatory culture and its practices, this research needs to use taxonomy of participation. Jenkins, Shaffer and Bruns suggest different typologies. I combined them in four aspects: mode of participation, form of participation, outcome of participation and exploitation strategy.

Mode of participation

From the technological point of view, Shaffer argues that user participation has two modes – explicit and implicit (51). Explicit is a conscious contribution, which is motivated and the user agrees to it. Explicit participation is fan works and editing Wikipedia articles (Shaffer, 52). Implicit participation is a design solution, which the user is unaware of. Implicit

19 contribution is when users watch videos on YouTube, or rate and tag pictures and services. Users usually participate both explicitly and implicitly.

Form of participation

Jenkins suggests taxonomy based on the form of collaboration. In MacArthur Foundation Report on Digital Media and Learning from 2009 Jenkins and other scholars define 4 forms of participation – аffiliations, expression, collaborative problem-solving and circulation (3). Affiliation is formal or informal membership in online communities like social networking sites, photo-sharing sites, message boards. Expression often is connected with fan works like fan art and fiction, or remixing media texts. Collaborative problem-solving is in the core of projects like Wikipedia or spoiler groups such as the infamous case with Survivor (Jenkins, 2006: 25). The community is solving a problem all together to achieve a common goal or a social good. Circulation form is changing the medium and adopting new media practices such as blogging or podcasts.

According to Shaffer, there are three forms of participatory culture – accumulation, archiving/organizing and construction (Shaffer, 48). First is accumulation which the scholar connects with fan culture. It builds on Jenkins' idea of expression. Users use media content, originally produced by a company, and create their own artifacts which discuss or expand the original text. The second domain is archiving or organizing. For instance, social bookmarking sites represent this type of activity. Users store files, organize them with tags and create collections. The third domain is construction – these activities are not regulated by the creative industries. Users create brand new content and technologies. The three domains often overlap both with each other and with the commercial interest of the cultural industries.

Outcomes of participation

To examine further participation as an extension of cultural industries, this thesis will build on categories of outcomes for users and industrial strategies to exploit participation. Shaffer defines three types of socio-political outcome of the user participation – confrontation, implementation and integration (126). Confrontation refers to the conflict between the traditional media industry and new media user practices. The industry seeks to

20 implement restrictions and control or to prevent appropriation. The confrontation is rooted in the renegotiating power relations between users and media companies. This outcome is often associated with fan culture where the original source is not only discussed but extended to new media content. An interesting example here is open access and the idea of implementing in academic publishing. Big publishing houses such as Elsevier and Springer lobby for the rejection of this model in the whole niche and even had several publicized conflicts (Shaffer, 127; Barbour, 2015; Hu, 2016). Implementation is the incorporation of user participation into the business model of cultural industries (146). It opposes the confrontation strategy as providing platform for user activities. However, users are often unaware that their activities are employed for commercial purposes without acknowledging their labor. Users are visibly free to participate, but actually their activities are restricted by the software, design, and even Terms and Condition provisions. The last outcome is integration – responsible employment of user activity (Shaffer, 157). Integration is expanding the business model of media companies explicitly into the sphere of users and actively participating in their processes of appropriation of traditional cultural artifacts. Hence, creative industries integrate user hacking, remixing and fan works in their business model.

Strategy of exploiting user participation

Bruns also investigates the commercial industry approaches towards user-driven culture development. He recognizes the role of software as a facilitator of collaboration and uses harvesting the hive to note the business potential of these media practices, part of the participatory culture. The scholar identifies four strategies of exploiting user participation – harnessing, harvesting, harbouring and hijacking the hive (Bruns, 102). Harnessing the hive refers to the non-commercial or commercial utilization of produsage artifacts by organizations inside and outside the produsage community, while at the same time respecting authorship and cooperating with the community. Harvesting the hive describes the model of value-added services using artifacts developed by the produsage community, aimed mainly at non- members. Harbouring the hive model is value-added services into the produsage community, catered to members (Bruns, 103). The last model hijacking the hive is detrimental to the community because the industry stakeholders lock out the members for financial gain.

The taxonomy of participation will give a deeper insight into the influence of participatory culture on the book publishing industry. The typology of participation will elaborate on modes of participation and main user activities. The outcome typology will direct

21 the analysis into the business appropriation of user participation. The strategies will elaborate on the relation between platforms and user contribution.

Selection of case studies

My selection encompasses different aspects of the publishing industry. All three case studies are innovative in one way or another, addressing a section of the book publishing business. The first case study is called Swoon Reads. It is a crowdsourcing platform for romance young-adult literature, launched by the publishing house Macmillan. On the platform readers can choose what the company will publish. The second case study, Epic Reads, is a platform which facilitates innovative social reading experience with articles, video, quizzes, games and giveaways. Furthermore, it is focused on young-adult literature. The platform is launched by HarperCollins. The last case study is Kindle Worlds, launched by Amazon. It is a platform for publishing fan fiction. Fan authors can make profit while the copyright holders can crowdsource new ideas without paying.

In addition to the innovative business models of user participation which the case studies represent, there is another reason to choose them. Both Macmillan and HarperCollins are part of the Big Five of book publishing – the five biggest trade book publishing corporations in the United States (Peterson, 2016). They are both international as well. In 2012 the US Department of Justice proved that Apple and the Big Five have conspired to fix the e-book prices, so that they can fight back Amazon's dominance in the book market (Carmody, 2012; Albanese, 2013). However, in the last two years the Big Five have been negotiating with Amazon for selling their books (Milliot, 2014). So the selection of case studies will exemplify polarizing strategies of competitors which are now trying to coexist and make profit out of book publishing.

Methodological apparatus

I decided to incorporate platform-specific methods with an exploration of discourse and media practices, as suggested by Shaffer (15). I used the taxonomy of participation in order to explore in-depth participatory culture incorporation into the selected case studies.

1. Critical overview of the platform

First, the empirical part will include an overview of the platform, based on articles from relevant media outlets and trade press sites such as Techcrunch, Mashable, The Guardian, Publishers' Weekly and The Digital Book World. This overview will help situating the platform both in the new media technology scene and in the publishing industry, broadly the cultural industries. It will point out innovations.

2. Platform documentation

Then, the investigation will continue with the privacy policy, terms of service and use and other company documentation. Firstly, as Gillespie suggests in his work on platform studies, I will examine how the platform situates itself in the new media landscape. Secondly, this documentation will show how the platform is placed in the business model of the publishing house, and lastly what is the platform's life. Then, I will look more closely into how concepts like data collection, aggregation monitoring, privacy, consent and data trade are defined to show potential issues and controversies. Here, I will use some of the insight from the Electronic Frontier Foundation report.

3. Platform affordances

The empirical research will continue with examining platform affordances through the user interface to a non-member user and a logged-in reader. Firstly, I will investigate the features of the website without a log-in. Then, I will create a profile and examine the options as a member. The profile will be affiliated with a email, outside the Google business, so there is no influence of its powerful politics. I will document the research through screenshots.

4. Participation exploration

Then, I will explore the participation activities facilitated by the platforms. I will identify the user participation as explicit and/or implicit. Moreover, I will explore how the publishing initiative, affiliated with the platform, exploits the user participation using the diagram below:

Taxonomy of participation

Modes of Outcome of Strategy of Types of participation

participation participation exploitation

According to According to Jenkins Shaffer

Explicit Implicit

Integration

Confrontation

Implementation

Harvest thehive Harvest

Harness the hive Harness

Harbour thehive Harbour

Hijackingthehive

solving

Archiving

Affiliation

Expression

CIirculation

Construction

Collaborative Collaborative

Accumulation problem

Fig. 1. Taxonomy of participation

First, I will identify the forms of participation and the content created by the user. Then I will look into what kind of outcome the participation in this platform has and explore the strategy of exploitation.

Through this methodology at the end I should be able to answer the subquestions which participatory practices are incorporated in the book publishing industry and what are the issues and trends articulated through the case studies. Using the typologies, suggested by Shaffer, Jenkins, and Bruns, I will identify the participatory practices. Using the review of the relevant press I will show that are the issues with user participation and its exploitation by the book publishing business.

Analysis

Swoon Reads – crowdsourced publishing

Swoon Reads is a crowdsourcing platform, launched by Macmillan in September 2013. It targets both young-adult romance fiction readers and writers. The platform facilitates new authors who freely publish their works on the site and then gives the editorial decision of what will be published to the avid readers' community. The publishing house Macmillan launches the titles which were the readers' favourites. The first published book of this initiative is called "A little something different" by Sandy Hall in August 2014. While I was writing this thesis there were 406 manuscripts and 36 chosen projects.

1. Critical overview

First, I will review how Swoon Reads is represented in the relevant press and how it is situated in the new media landscape. There are several claims which the press put forward. The first is that Swoon Reads is the American Idol/X Factor of publishing (Larson 2013; Strickland 2014). This comparison was used by Jean Feiwel6 to describe the platform (Larson 2013; Strickland 2014). Thus, this claim emphasizes the platform's crowdsourcing aspect. Swoon Reads facilitates finding talented young-adult writers. Moreover, it is powered by the readership, who decides what will be published and even how (for instance, the readers deliberate on covers and book jackets). Hence, the second claim, made by the press, is that Swoon Reads has a strong community aspect (Larson 2013; Strickland 2014). The third claim positions the platform as an innovative publishing model, which facilitates big publishers to monetize the self-publishing trend (Charles, 2014; Hoffelder, 2012). However, Hoffelder put forward the notion that the idea is not really original and suggests that writers can also use the platform for their own advantage and then self-publish, rather than being published by a traditional company (2012). He also criticizes the small compensation for authors of published manuscripts, which is lower than the average rate for a publishing deal.

Another claim in the press is that Swoon Reads is democratic and makes the publishing process transparent (Strickland 2014; Lodge 2012). However, the articles dedicated to Swoon Reads described the process differently. Only a few discuss the monitoring of content and comments – editors monitor obscenity and who is actually commenting (Charles, 2014). In

6 Jean Feiwel is senior vice president of Macmillan and publisher of Feiwel and Friends, the imprint which owns the platform and its books. 25 addition, not every top rated manuscript will be published, but only the ones that pleased the editorial team (Charles 2014).

2. Documentation

The documentation will reveal how the publishing house situates Swoon Reads as a platform and as a business branch of Macmillan Publishers. The platform is documented with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), Terms and Conditions, Privacy Notice and even publishing contracts. Swoon Reads is articulated both as an imprint and as a community. The platform is an imprint7 in the FAQs, but a community in the Terms and Conditions. On the one hand, Swoon Reads is an imprint, because it is launched by Macmillan and its goal is to publish books. On the other hand, the community is a place for writers, readers, and publishers to work together.

The privacy terms are shorter and reference the privacy terms of the publishing house site (Swoon Read Privacy Notice, 2012). The privacy notice deals with the information which the user provides when signing up and exploring the platform. It explicitly states what type of data is collected – the profile information, the profile photo, tracking activities like commenting and reading. However, the privacy notice on the site does not address if the company shares the data. This issue is considered in the Macmillan privacy notice, referring to it as sharing, omitting the trading characteristic of the data industry.

The Terms and Conditions of Use section discloses some facts about governing the community and maintaining a business. In almost every section the platform is declared not responsible or liable about content hosted on it. However, Swoon Reads and its affiliates are granted "nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute and display such content throughout the world in any media now known or hereafter invented." (Swoon Reads Terms and Conditions, 2013).

The FAQs section elaborates on the role of readers and writers. Swoon Reads has a lot of requirements for the manuscripts – in English, at least 45 000 words and 3 submitted manuscripts at a time in Microsoft Office document format. The most important of all clauses is "by submitting your manuscript, you are granting Swoon Reads permission to use,

7 An imprint is a publisher's trade name under which works are published 26 reproduce, distribute, and display your manuscript on the site and to consider your manuscript for publication on an exclusive, worldwide basis, without charge... However, Swoon Reads is not obligated to post your submitted Manuscript to the site; we may post or remove submitted Manuscripts at any time in our sole discretion." (Swoon Reads Manuscript Submission Rules and Guidelines, 2015). Thus, the manuscript could be published non-commercially before submitting, but then there is a 6 months exclusivity clause for Swoon Reads, during which the user cannot publish it anywhere else. Furthermore, the manuscript can be removed without the user's consent.

Another important fact of the Swoon Reads process is disclosed in the end of the publishing contract: "Manuscripts may be chosen for publication at the sole discretion of Swoon Reads staff. Swoon Reads staff may take user comments and ratings into account in choosing Manuscripts for publication, but is under no obligation to do so." (Swoon Reads Manuscript Submission Rules and Guidelines, 2015). This statement shows that the process of publishing is not so transparent and democratic as the publisher wants to represent it.

3. Affordances

The platform has several main sections – Read, Submit, Latest activity, Selected books, Blog, and Library.8 On the homepage two options are visible in the main space – submitting a manuscript and reading. The platform is designed in a way that users cannot use features without a free account. This implies that the publishing house relies on users creating profiles, hence both implicit and explicit user participation. To create a profile, users should submit their email, name, date of birth. Then they can add additional Fig. 1. Screenshot of the Badges and Tiers in Swoon Reads information and connect their account to their social media profiles. The profile page offers a field of actions for reading with badges and tiers. The user earns badges through performing tasks for the website. For example, when a

8 Swoon Reads website: www.swoonreads.com (24 June 2016) 27 user reads a whole manuscript for the first time, they earn the Cover to Cover badge. The badge system encourages the user to read in a specific manner – the whole manuscript, to comment, to rate and even to upload a profile picture. There are a lot of possible activities, but not every task has a badge. Some practices are rewarded, they are privileged. The badges facilitate a social reading experience in the Swoon Reads platform. The tiers measure how many manuscripts are read by the user. The explanation of the tiers is that increasing the number of books read (higher tier) will make the profile more visible, which is a very vague category for a platform where every activity is public by default. Both measurement systems are shared on the platform in the Latest activity section – all users can see what others are doing – how they read and play on Swoon Reads.

Fig. 2. Screenshot of Swoon Reads' homepage (30 April 2016) Reading is mediated through several features. Users can browse manuscripts through genre, popularity, newness, and Swoon Index. The genre classification focuses on specific characters (werewolves, aliens) or plotlines (time travel), a literary time (modern, 20th century, colonial) and place (school, beach). Readers can see the cover, genre, rating and the number of users rated it, number of comments, Swoon Index and length of the manuscript. In

28 the reading mode (reader feature) users can change font size and type, bookmark and comment (Fig. 3). The user is afforded a closed reading experience.

Fig. 3. Screenshot of the reading mode of Swoon Reads (1 May 2016) Bookmarks and comments are shared only with the users reading the manuscript and its author. This means that user participation in the reading experience is important both to attract other readers and to master the manuscript. Comments facilitate and encourage discussions. This process not only attracts users to comment, but the possibility for useful recommendation for the publishing house is higher. Furthermore, the bookmarking option maps interesting passages of the manuscript, which can be used later for marketing and advertising the book. Users can follow their progress through the table of contents and a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. After finishing the manuscript, users can rank and comment.

Fig. 4. Screenshot of the feedback (1 May 2016) The rating scale has five hearts, where one means that the manuscript was not interesting for the users and five means that the manuscript deserves to be published (Fig. 4). The rating affordance has a positive field of actions – the user cannot say that they dislike the manuscript or that the manuscript is worthless. After evaluating the manuscript, users can say what they like in it. Moreover, Swoon Reads advices readers on how to give feedback, suggesting to comment on several aspects of manuscripts (character, plotlines and etc). This evaluating affordance navigates how users give feedback, which means that the publishing house needs user participation, which is useful for the editorial process and the marketing and advertising campaigns. The last aspect of giving feedback is the Swoon Index, identifying the qualities of the manuscript with categories Heat, Tears, Laughs, Thrills (Fig. 5.).

Fig. 5. Screenshot of the tagging system (30 April 2016) This tagging system affords the categorization of manuscripts in a way meaningful for the publishing house. The platform exploits the user participation for organizing the website. In addition, the Index directs the manuscripts' main features – stories with strong physical attraction (indexed as Heat), with sad plot (indexed with Tears), funny (indexed with Laughs) and adventurous (indexed as Thrills). In this way the publishing house knows how to market the book and the aspiring writers know what the publishing house is looking for. This affordance influences the reality of book publishing and the writing practice. Not only the young-adult books are being created and marketed in a certain way, but aspiring authors start to write in a specific genre (for example: YA with vampire and alien characters) focusing on sex, tragedy, thriller and humor. Swoon Reads changes the practice of creative writing.

The Submit section of the platform first visualizes the requirement for the manuscripts. Writers should create a title and description and identify genres. They also have to prepare a cover. Again, the submission affordance creates a field of actions which contributes to the platform and later the editorial process. Not only users upload manuscripts, but a description which sometimes mirrors copyrighting texts like blurbs and slogans to attract readers. This affordance makes user participation meaningful for several aspects of book publishing.

The Latest activity section shows the community aspect of the platform, where every user activity is visible. Swoon Reads incorporates social media formats such as following (first on Twitter, then Facebook) to mediate user participation and engagement. This implies

31 that Macmillan wants to situate Swoon Reads as a social media for readers and books, similar to Goodreads. In the new media era reading experience is social. Furthermore, every activity is visible to the whole community and there are ratings of the most dedicated readers and most popular writers. The Blog section discloses how Swoon Reads explores and exploits the readership. In addition to interviews and sneak peeks, there are posts about asking readers to choose covers or book jackets for the chosen manuscripts. Again, this practice creates user participation, meaningful for the book publishing industry.

The Selected books section visualizes the selected manuscripts. The progress of their publishing process is visible and users can still read some of them before professional editing starts. In the already published books there are links to select a retailer to buy it from. The first retailer in the dropdown menu is Amazon. The last two options are iTunes store and Google Play. Next to the retailer menu, there is an Add to Goodreads button. This affordance clearly showcases the platform politics. First, the platform has a commercial goal – not only crowdsourcing the next YA bestseller, but selling books to make them hits. Second, Amazon's first place in the default list of retailers indicates the platform politics. There is an agreement between Macmillan and Amazon for the e-book prices, after an antitrust lawsuit where the Big Five publishers and Apple were involved in price-fixing conspiracy to fight back Amazon reign in bookselling (Albanese, 2013 a,b; Milliot, 2014).

The Book page, instead of using literary reviews, includes a praise section, where comments and feedback of the users are published. This clearly shows the function of users' comments – to enrich the advertising campaign of a certain book. In the personal library section when signing in users receive a guide how to use Swoon Reads. Again, the guide directs how the platform should be used. Opening a manuscript automatically adds it to the user library. This by default affordance implies the recording of the user activities.

4. User participation

Swoon Reads invokes both implicit and explicit user participation. Users' activities are tracked implicitly, but readers willingly create profiles, write comments and rate and even publish manuscripts. Using Jenkins' typology, Swoon Reads operates with mostly affiliation (because of the community aspect) and collaborative problem-solving (when the readership gives feedback on manuscripts, book covers and jackets). According to Shaffer's typology

32 user participation is construction, because users submit new content to the platform. However, there is an argument to be made that when users give Swoon Index to manuscripts, they are actually organizing Swoon Reads' content, which is another type of participation in Shaffer's typology – organizing/archiving.

The outcome of Swoon Reads is interesting as well. User participation is integrated into the business model of Macmillan with publishing books, submitted to the platform and tested by the community, who gives feedback not only to the quality of the text, but on potential visuals for the release as well. However, implementing Bruns' typology is harder. Bruns' logic is based on the relationship between the community and the industry, while Shaffer works on how the participation is exploited by the industry. In the Swoon Read case the community is not detached from its contribution, so it is not hijacking the hive. Furthermore, the artifacts are targeted both at members of the community (users) and non-members. Thus, Swoon Reads both harnesses and harbors the hive.

Epic Reads – the YA social reading experience

Epic Reads is a readership community platform, launched by HarperCollins in June 2012. It connects readers, publishers and authors. Epic Reads creates additional content like quizzes, games, lists, playlists, challenges, giveaways, and online video shows. The platform has a very well-developed social media presence.

1. Critical overview

Epic Reads is not well represented in relevant media. Publishers Weekly included the platform in an article about major publishing initiatives, connected to young-adult readers (Juris, 2013). The articles mostly focus on explaining the platform. The main claim most of the articles made is that Epic Reads connects the readership and the publisher and facilitates their communication. The platform enables vertical publishing business model, a trend in digital book marketing, where publishers create spaces for readers to engage in meaningful discussions about books, which prompts higher sales (Greenfield, 2012). Another claim, which almost all of the articles mentioned, is the integrated social media (Facebook, Google, Twitter and Goodreads ) (Lacy, 2012; Publishers's Weekly 2012; Juris, 2013, Greenfield, 2012).

2. Documentation

Epic Reads is documented with Terms and Conditions and Privacy section. The Privacy section elaborates on what type of data is collected – the profile/account, social media, public information, posts, and activities. Then the section continues with reasons behind the data collection. The section is still vague using words like "may" to talk about gathering data. For example: "If you log in with or connect a social media service account with HarperCollins Services, we may share your user name, picture, and likes, as well as your activities and comments with other HarperCollins Services users and with your friends associated with your social media service" (Use and Disclosure, Privacy, 2013). An interesting clause is that even if the user cancels the account, Epic Reads still may retain information not only from their profile but from social media as well.

The Terms and Conditions section shows the proprietary nature of the site with clauses like: "The reproduction, duplication, distribution (including by way of e-mail, facsimile or other electronic means), publication, modification, copying or transmission of material from this Site is strictly prohibited unless you have obtained the prior written consent of HCP or unless it is expressly permitted by this Site." However, when it comes to responsibility, Epic Reads is not liable for user participation. Moreover, the platform can censor users and even delete their posts, messages and accounts and at the same time the platform owns the content and can make it public.

3. Affordances

Fig. 6. Screenshot of the homepage of Epic Reads (30 April 2016) The platform has 5 main sections – Books, Authors, Blog, Fun, and Video9. The social media buttons appear twice on every page in the top and at the bottom, so users can easily change channels. These social media affordances show the high interest of Epic Reads to collaborate and connect with social media companies – Google, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Spotify, Tumblr, and Pinterest. Reading a book is not possible on the platform, but Epic Reads offers an extended reading experience, similar to the idea of the reading groups, where people read alone and then discuss the book. Hence, one of the main goals of the website is to sell books. The field of actions affording social reading is ranging from rating a book and commenting to participating in giveaways, doing quizzes, sharing pictures and videos, dedicated to the publication. This variety of possible actions implies that Epic Reads values the readership activities and need user participation to make profit.

Epic Reads has a lot of content which non-members can access. The Books section is a repository of all young-adult books published by HarperCollins. The user can search through them with several filters (genre and topics) and sort them (alphabetically, release date and etc.). When the reader chooses a book, the specific page contains a rating for the book, cover, information about the book, a button to add it to the their Goodreads profile, a menu to choose the format of the book (the default format is the expensive one, published first – hardcover, paperback, e-book), a button to buy it from the corporate site (HarperCollins), links to

9 Epic Reads website: www.epicreads.com (24 June 2016) 35 retailers below (starting from Amazon and Barnes and Noble) and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest).

Fig. 7. Screenshot of a Book Page (2 May 2016) The main affordance of the page is buying books (commercial goal). The platform offers a field of actions – to buy from the corporate website and to buy from other retailers (Fig. 7). This is the hierarchy of actions. Hence, the publishing house encourages users to buy books from its online store. The links to retailers implies that the publisher has contracts with them. The idea is that users should buy books from specific stores. Several other possible actions (buying from Amazon and using another Amazon company – Goodreads) mean that there is an important connection between the businesses. Despite the tumultuous relationship with Amazon, HarperCollins agreed to a deal for the book prices with the retailer in 2015, as the other big publishers did already (Milliot, 2015). But the most important implication is that the platform is designed to sell books. On the Book page there are two additional taps – Pics and Vids, and Extras. The first tab is the place where readers are asked to add content to the page. The user can add an image or a video. Giving a title is mandatory to submit the content. The platform gives ideas for the type of contributions – photos with the author or the book, a fan trailer or a video review. These formats are the field of actions. Thus, this affordance is designed to require a specific type of user participation. This design decision influences the

36 readers' practices – they take selfies with the book or shelfies10, film themselves reviewing it or create a fan videos. Sometimes on the Book page there is a Download button for a book club guide, created for schools and educational environments. The book club guide is the embodiment of the Epic Reads' social reading experience offline. The platform, or at least the experience of it, exists in real life and it facilitates education.

The Authors page is similar with links to the writer's social media and their books. This feature alludes to the function of the platform to be used as more publicity for the authors and their book and as another channel for marketing and advertising. The Blog section contains a lot of categories from infographics, community posts (compiled posts from user participation), online video shows like BookShelfies and TeaTime, book trailers, contests, giveaways and Spotify playlists. The platform offers a lot of additional content (next to HarperCollins YA books) to facilitates richer social reading experience for free. Nevertheless, users pay with data (collected while they are browsing the site) and contributions (adding media content, creating accounts, participating in contests, polls and giveaways). The participatory affordances are designed to direct a meaningful contribution to the site.

Users need to type their username, password and a birth date to create their own account. The content of the platform is the same with several options now accessible. The account page contains a wall (affordance vocabulary, borrowed from Facebook) where users can type and attach video and pictures. In the About Me section users can add their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Goodreads, Tumblr), country, favorite books and movies. Users can adjust what information to be public and private. Members of the community can rate (books, posts and comments) and comment.

4. User participation

Epic Reads invokes both implicit and explicit user participation. The platform collects data from users' activities implicitly and users participate in quizzes and polls or create their own profiles to comment and rate explicitly. In Jenkins' categories Epic Reads uses both affiliation (when creating a community) and expression (when readers create artifacts, based on books). Moreover, according to Shaffer's typology reader participation is both

10 Shelfies are pictures of book shelves, constituting a new trend after the selfies craze (The Guardian, 2013). 37 accumulation (when readers create content based on a book) and construction (when users create their own content).

The outcome of user participation in Epic Reads is closer to implementation, because user participation is incorporated in the process of creating content, but the platform does not rely on readers to generate it entirely. That is why using Bruns' classification Epic Reads is harnessing the hive – the publisher creates content and allows readers to participate. Furthermore, the staff of Epic Reads compile user participation, adds value to it and offer it back to the Epic Read community (similar to the idea of harvesting the hive).

Amazon Kindle Worlds – (self)publishing fan fiction

Kindle Worlds was launched by Amazon in 2013. It empowers fans to publish their fan fiction in the Kindle Store and even earn money from royalties (35% of over 10 000 words titles and 20% from shorter works). The rightsholders also make profit out of fan works.

1. Critical overview

Amazon Kindle Worlds is reviewed in many media outlets. Moreover, from the three platforms this has the highest number of articles. This is not surprising, given Amazon's many controversies. Journalists and professionals do not agree on what type of platform Kindle Worlds is. Overall, the positive articles claim that Kindle World is a fan fiction platform, where fan authors can make profit out of their derivative works (Indvik, 2013; DBW, 2013). Other journalists see the platform as a self-publishing portal (Etherington, 2013). However, another claim, the press made, is that Kindle Worlds is a traditional publisher or an imprint which commercializes a genre, supposed to be free both as a price and without limitations to the creative process (Allen, 2013). There are three points of criticism. The first is the role of Amazon as a publisher, because by submitting fan fiction the company receives the global rights to publish the story without permission and compensation (Publishers Weekly, 2013; Scalzi, 2013; Edidin, 2014). Moreover, the fan fiction is published as an e-book in mobi11, a format which is restrictive to the type of text, devices on which is read and online bookstores where it is sold (von Veh, 2013). In addition, Kindle World is part of the big system of Amazon, so that the argument for it being an imprint is really strong. The second point of

11 Mobi is Amazon's e-book format. 38 contention is the restrictions to the submitted and later published books (Hoffelder, 2014; Hoffelder, 2013; Roberts 2014; von Veh, 2013 ). Every licensed publisher (not only of books, but comics and TV series) can create its own requirements for the fan fiction, which is limited and entirely inadequate to the genre. Moreover, the editorial process is not transparent, because there is no public record of how many works are submitted and what happens with them (Hoffelder, 2014). The third criticism is the clause which enables the rightsholders to use elements like situations and characters from the submitted fan fiction works without consent and financial compensation (Allen, 2013; Scalzi 2013; Hoffelder, 2014; Hoffelder, 2015). The press claimed that the model is a way to devalue the profession of tie-in writers, who create stories to expand different licensed fictional worlds (Allen, 2013; Scalzi, 2013, Hoffelder 2014). This argument is valid, because as reported the first partner of the platform is Alloy Entertainment, a branch of Warner, specialized in packaging, or in other words, creating ideas in-house and then outsourcing the writing to media tie-in professionals (Edidin, 2013). This shows a trend to use free fan labor as an outsourcing technique in the media industry. In addition, Hoffelder reports on an author – JA Konrath, who responded to this negative characteristic with signing a different contract with Kindle Worlds, where the writer declares that he will not use fan fiction elements in his own work (2015).

2. Documentation

The documentation ranges from the How it works videos and articles to Terms and Conditions, Privacy and Publishing Agreements. On the website there is a video about what Kindle Worlds is. The platform is presented to be a place of meaningful collaboration between licensors, creators of fiction worlds, and their fans. Kindle Worlds does not have exclusive Terms and Conditions and Privacy policies, so they are standard for the all of Amazon's services. Users can generate content and they are liable for it (Terms of Use, 2016). However: "Amazon reserves the right (but not the obligation) to remove or edit such content, but does not regularly review posted content." and simultaneously users "grant Amazon a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, perform, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media.". In the Privacy section it is explained what type of information is gathered and then how the data is used (Amazon.com Privacy Notice, 2014). Interesting clause is that Amazon participates in Safe

Harbor, an agreement between the United States of America and the European Union about privacy12. It is the only platform from the chosen with this agreement.

The documentation on Kindle Worlds is mainly in the How it works section of the website where there is information on the process of submitting a fan work and its publishing by/on the platform. The forth section of Kindle Worlds Publishing Agreement (2015) elaborates on what rights the platform has over the submitted manuscript. Kindle Worlds has exclusive and unrestricted license to the fan fiction work and its original elements and right of publicity (to publicize the fan author's personal information). Furthermore, the platform sets the pricing as well (Kindle Worlds Publishing Agreement, 5g, 2015). Kindle Worlds can remove e-books without informing the fan author (Kindle Worlds Publishing Agreement, 7c, 2015). There is an argument to be made that although fan authors self-published on the platform, Kindle Worlds and even the rightsholders have more control over their fan fiction, making the platform a publisher.

The reviewing process is not transparent. It is elaborated in the FAQ in the Content Guidelines and Review Process. The reviewing includes looking into licensing, guidelines for the specific fictional world and reasons for poor reading experience. The overall restrictions for a fan fiction manuscript are at least 5 000 words in English, based on one specific fictional world in classic text file formats like DOC/DOCX (.doc/.docx), RTF, or TXT (FAQ, Publishing your story). Popular fan fiction genres like slash13 and crossovers14 are prohibited (Content Guidelines and Review Process, 2016). The fan author has to upload a cover using their own visuals or some free offerings on the platform (FAQ, Creating Your Cover, How does the cover process work?). These guidelines change the practice of fan fiction writing. From a free grassroots collaborative activity of the fandom, it becomes commercialized and restricted. Even more troubling for participatory culture is that even the rightsholders have control over the creative process of fan fiction.

3. Affordances

12 Safe Harbor is a data privacy agreement between US, EU and Switzerland, which enables big American companies to comply with the European legislation on data privacy and storage. 13 Slash is a fan fiction genre where two male characters, originally heterosexual, become lovers. 14 Crossover is a fan fiction genre where characters from different fictional worlds meet. 40

Fig. 8. Main page of Kindle Worlds On the top of the homepage of the website there is a menu15. The platform has 5 sections – See all worlds, How it works, Shop, Blog, Help. Below there is an advertising video about the platform with a text to explore the platform by shopping. The Featured Worlds have a main placement on the homepage (Fig. 8). From the homepage the main affordance of the platform is not to publish fan fiction but to shop for it. The first section See All Worlds contains all of the licensed fictional universes. Users can browse through them and then read the specific guidelines with introduction to the fictional worlds and the canon media. This feature implies that the rules of the licensors are at the core of the platform. At the bottom of the page users can buy the cannon media from the Amazon shop. This affordance shows the retailer nature of Amazon again. The second section contains links to important documentation about how the platform works – first how to get started on the platform, then how to create an account and submit a story with a focus on royalty payments, after that how the stories are reviewed and lastly the options for authors to create their author page in the Amazon shop, to track their earnings and to interact with people. This section of the website clearly shows that fan authors are privileged and readers do not have an important role on the platform. On the one hand, the creative fans are empowered to be authors. They publish their fan fiction, facilitated by the platform. However, fan authors create their own author's page and build their relationship with readers on their own. Thus, they are responsible

15 Kindle Worlds website: www.kindleworlds.amazon.com (24 June 2016) 41 for the marketing, advertising, and ultimately sales – characteristics of the self-publishing model. Kindle Worlds exploits simultaneously fan authors' stories and their marketing, PR and advertising efforts. On the other hand, the readers on this platform are only consumers. In addition, they are invited to become fan authors. It is implied that only then they have significance for Kindle Worlds. Here, the platform politics are clear and consumers and fan authors are the privileged roles on the website.

The Shop section redirects users to the directory with all of the published Kindle Worlds fan fiction in the main Amazon shop page. This means that the main function of the platform is to market Amazon World's e-books and sell them. The Blog section redirects to a Tumblr page with blog posts. Having been logged in, users have a dashboard. The dashboard simply gives information on the submitted manuscripts.

4. User participation

User participation is both explicit and implicit. The explicit participation includes the fan fiction stories and the covers for it. The implicit participation consists of data from the browsing history, shopping, and accounts. Kindle Worlds is clearly an affiliation participation type, because of the fan fiction nature of the Kindle Worlds' content. In Shaffer's typology the initiative should be classified as accumulation since fan authors contribute with content to the platform.

The outcome of Kindle Worlds is integration, because Amazon publishes and sells user- created content. Interestingly enough, part of Shaffer's typology is confrontation between the cultural industries and fandom. Kindle Worlds is presented as a possible solution where media companies have control over fan works. In Bruns' typology the platform is harnessing the hive. Here, the interesting thing is that the platform does not add value to the user-generated content, but the model is targeted both at several communities (the writing community, fandom, and the customers) and to the rightsholders, who can easily exploit ideas of fan fiction texts in their canon without the consent of fan authors and compensation (hijacking the hive).

Influence of online participatory culture on the book publishing industry

Situating the platforms

The three case studies exemplify different aspects of the developing new media landscape. Swoon Reads exploits crowdsourcing, a technique used by other new media businesses. Epic Reads goes one step further into social networking, facilitating collaborative reading and an online readership community. Kindle Worlds makes profit out of fan fiction, a very popular and persistent form of participation. In addition, the platform is articulated as a solution to the confrontation between rightsholders and fandom. All three platforms take advantage of the trope platform. They are places for users to publish their own content, but the websites are not responsible for it. However, they own all of it and monetize it. The platforms can censor, but the decision-making process is not transparent, but based on politics and financial interest. The case studies are advertised as communities, but their main function is to sell books.

Transforming culture with affordances

The chosen three platforms have different fields of actions. However, there is one activity which is not allowed by all three platforms – writing longer forms. In both Swoon Reads and Kindle Worlds users upload text files. Even in Epic Reads users upload rather than create something on the platform. Thus, none of the platforms are interested in facilitating the creative process of writing. The three platforms are designed to facilitate the business of the publishing houses. On the one hand, since Macmillan and HarperCollins are publishing houses, part of the Big Five of the publishing world, their platforms Swoon Reads and Epic Reads create readership communities. On the other hand, Kindle Worlds facilitates buying and creating a product to sell (by submitting a fan work and then creating an author's page). These affordances are a result of Amazon's business, which has started from an online bookstore and now is one of the biggest retailers in the world.

The fields of actions of platforms define the communities of users – their practices, social roles and place in the production of culture. Swoon Reads' main affordances are

43 connected to submitting manuscripts, targeted at young-adults, and social reading. Thus, the users are part of a community of writers and readers. They are empowered to make a decision for publishing deals and what ultimately is "swoonworthy". The rating system, featured in the website, defines the way manuscripts are rated and commented on, ultimately how the texts are read and written. Users think about all of these aspects while reading and rating manuscripts. Furthermore, while exploring the platform aspiring writers figure out what the platform (the publisher) is looking for in a manuscript. The platform is dedicated to young- adult romance novels, so Swoon Reads validates and facilitates this genre of culture production. The platform privileges some plots, characters and genres over others, which creates a publishing catalogue of specific books. These titles define a book market and its trends, influencing other editorial decision all over the world for the target audience of young adults. It is not surprising that Epic Reads is dedicated to the young-adult literature as well. Thus, many publishing houses choose to publish similar books and media companies produce series and movies with similar plots. This process results in specific literature, culture, discourse, and agenda, which identify a generation of young readers, their tastes, and media literacy. Furthermore, Epic Reads changes the way users read (here maybe a more appropriate word is experience) books through advanced social reading, which appropriates social media trends like YouTube videos, selfies and vines. This process implies that reading-related practices outside the platform are altered as well. Reading becomes a more visible cultural practice online. For example, video reviews, fan trailers and book shows are very popular genres on YouTube, while shelfies are popular on photo-sharing platforms (Daspin, 2016). Hence, forms of participation, foreign for book publishing before, are adopted by readers to engage with culture. Kindle Worlds' restrictions are altering the fan fiction writing, threatening its authenticity as a traditional participatory practice. The rules ostracize the fan genre out of important types such as slash and crossover. That is how affordances such as tagging, rating, and uploading alter not only a practice, but creative industries and production of culture.

Implications of social reading integration in platforms launched by publishers

The historical overview in the theoretical framework showed that social reading is an old and persistent practice of participatory culture and culture production. Furthermore, the

44 main affordance of the cases studies, discussed in the previous section, are connected to collaborative reading. Thus, social reading has a prominent role in book publishing in the digital era. Moreover, through its affordances, social reading cultivates readers and writers. As seen in the previous section, readers are influenced by the rating and tagging systems of Swoon Reads. In addition, they adopt participatory forms like selfies, fan trailers and playlists to engage with books, prompted by Epic Reads affordances. Writers are influenced as well. Kindle Worlds restrictions and Swoon Reads guideline direct the creation of literature. What is more, both platforms, which are publishing imprints, crowdsource free labor to outsource professional writing and even design, marketing, and advertising. Both Swoon Read and Kindle Worlds monetize user participation. The grassroots creativity becomes cultivated power to facilitate mainstream culture production.

Social reading is being valorized by the book publishing industry in a second way. As Helmond and Gerlitz argue in their paper "The like economy", the like is the currency of social web. That is why it is not surprising that the social buttons are so visible both on Swoon Reads and Epic Reads. Furthermore, another striking similarity is the visibility of the Add to Goodreads button. This not only implies specific platform politics and common financial interest with Amazon as discussed in the analysis, but also defines an economy of the Goodreads library, where the currency is adding a book to a personal reading list. So both Macmillan and HarperCollins want to valorize their readers in the Amazon business model. However, the documentation of both platforms do not mention relationship with the retailer. Thus, Epic Reads' and Swoon Reads' platform politics are not clear and transparent. The new way of valorizing social reading metrics poses another threat for intellectual privacy and labor.

Participatory practices in book publishing

The publishing industry employs several participatory practices in their new media business. The first is social reading. Two of the case studies (Swoon Reads and Epic Reads) used it as their main practice and they even manage to influence the reading experience. The practice includes social bookmarking and frictionless sharing on social media. In addition, Epic Reads enriches the forms of participation with selfies, shelfies and video reviews. The publishing industry facilitates social reading for their publications, so that readers engage more with their books. Thus, they create their readership, where ultimately readers have the

45 potential to be consumers. In addition, the publishing industry changes the functions of social reading and even alters its goal to facilitate higher monetization. The business enriches the experience with additional content (Epic Reads) to make profit. The second participatory practice, adopted by the publishing industry, is crowdsourcing. It is incorporated in the business models of all three platforms on a different level. Swoon Reads crowdsources manuscripts, reviews, designs and marketing suggestions. Epic Reads crowdsources mainly design and marketing ideas, photos and fan works (fan art and videos). Kindle Worlds is a platform, where fans publish their manuscripts, so in a way the fan fiction content is crowdsourced. Thus, the explicit user participation consists of crowdsourcing content for platforms. Furthermore, the traditional publishing business allows for variety of user contributions to enrich its own content and ultimately value. Recalling the produsage concept of Bruns, the publishing industry cultivates its future manuscripts and authors by influencing how users read, engage with media, and write. By giving privilege to explicit contributions, all of the chosen platforms transform readers and amateur authors into writers who know what to create in terms of genre, style, plot and characters and how to market and advertise it and themselves. As Shaffer argues, the participatory culture production is an almost professional extension of mainstream culture. The third participatory practice is creating fan works such as fan fiction, fan art and fan videos. This activity is incorporated in both Kindle Worlds and Epic Reads. It is afforded on the platform with a field of actions, so that there are limitations to the derivative artifacts, which are comfortable for the cultural industry.

Trends in book publishing

The selected case studies articulate several trends in book publishing. The first is incorporating (self)publishing in the traditional business model of book publishing. All three platforms (Swoon Reads, Epic Reads and Kindle Worlds) facilitate self-publishing acts. Swoon Reads' content is self-published and then opted for traditional publishing. On Epic Reads the content consist mainly of fan art, photos and fan videos. Kindle Worlds' business model relies on fan fiction, which the platform facilitates to be self-published. One of the first business ventures of Amazon was a self-publishing platform, so with Kindle Worlds the company has enriched its content portfolio, facilitating fan authors to showcase their talent. However, the self-publishing process is not entirely independent on either platform. The publishing industry capitalizes on the self-publishing and fan fiction trends by facilitating a space for people to publish their creative works, while designing affordances to restrict user creativity. Aspiring authors do not pay for the storage, but they share the profits with the

46 platform or even perform tasks for the website. They have to campaign for their books – engage with readers on social media, design, market and advertise their work. These aspects are part of the traditional publishing process, but in the cases of the platforms the tasks are performed by the users. Thus, many aspects of the book publishing process are outsourced by amateurs.

The second trend is creating commercial platforms with a community aspect. The marketing strategy of publishing houses goes online not only with a corporate website, but with a platform for the readership. Mostly, the platform offers a community and social reading. The three case studies are not the only platforms the publishers have. There are platforms such as Riveted, launched by Simon & Schuster, also part of the Big Five of book publishing (Juris, 2013).

Issues of book publishing and methodological insight

The case studies articulate several issues as well. The first one is how to study platforms in terms of participatory culture. The logic is to explore affordances, which connect technology and user practices. However, studying user participation is a complex task. As discussed in the theoretical framework, many scholars work on classifying participatory practices. However, Shaffer, Jenkins and Bruns have different backgrounds and goals for investigating participatory culture. Bruns' typology of participation exploitation was published in 2007. He focuses on culture production without theorizing participatory culture. Jenkins worked on his categories of participatory practices and published the results in 2006 and 2009. He emphasizes fandom and fan activities of participation. Shaffer offers a typology for participatory practices and a classification of the outcomes, focusing on technologies. Using all of the categories in this research helped to form a better understanding of different aspects of participatory culture. However, classifying these platforms with the established taxonomies does not give a clear insight into their influence on production of culture and society. That is the reason why I suggest a simplified categorization to describe participatory platforms, relevant to the culture production and the publishing industry in particular. The main distinctive practices of participation are publishing/publicizing, collaboration and building a community. The first type of participation is explicit in Shaffer's terms – users can (self)publish and publicize their work. They share their artifacts with the public. This type of

47 participation is common for both Swoon Reads and Kindle Worlds, but it is more prominent on Kindle Worlds. These types of platforms not only utilize user participation to enrich their content, but they monetize it (free labor). This category encompasses the duality of (self)publishing on a commercial platform, launched by a publisher. When the user does not pay for the service (hosting the content), this means that their contribution is being monetized by the platform one way or another, transforming the service into a publisher. The second type of participation is collaboration. This umbrella term encompasses social reading, writing, bookmarking, voting on issues, other types of crowdsourcing and etc. Here the participation is again explicit. The notion is similar to Jenkins' collaborative problem-solving. Both Epic Read and Swoon Reads explore this type of participation. Here, the issue with digital labor is visible as well. The third type of participation is facilitating (building) a community. Here, the participation could be implicit. The platform creates a community through closing the content for non-members, so users should create accounts – paying with their data. The members have access to content and features (such as polls, quizzes and articles) created exclusively for them, where they could engage in collaboration and sharing. Epic Reads exploits that kind of participation.

The second major issue, which I already mentioned, is user participation as a source of profit for platforms (free labor). The Kindle Worlds case study exemplified in the clearest way the struggles of balancing professional and amateur culture production. This tendency is not common only for publishing but in other creative industries. For example, there are professional shows on YouTube, a platform originally created for grassroots creativity. Furthermore, YouTube Red works with YouTubers (vloggers on YouTube) to monetize content. The points of criticism from the press for Kindle Worlds are similar to the disadvantages of adopting crowdsourcing for commercial industries. Firstly, the user participation is mostly unpaid and sometimes they do not realize that they are working. Secondly, crowdsourcing tasks in publishing or any other industry may result in unemployment (outsourcing), lower quality and decrease in wages. The third criticism is ethical – why should users pay for artifacts, made by the community? This is a strong argument in fandom, where one of the rules is that fans do not monetize their work. In the era of online participatory culture incorporated in business, participatory practices become simultaneously education (informal as Jenkins sees it) for users and free labor for companies.

The third issue, showcased by the chosen platforms, is intellectual privacy. As elaborated earlier, every platform, where users get to perform tasks and use social media (or to

48 participate in social reading and frictionless sharing), is a threat to the users' intellectual privacy. The main problem is that the business model of these platforms such as Facebook and the other social networking sites is dependent on the collected data. Not only user participation is used to personalize the experience on the platform, but it is used for profit as well. In addition, in many cases the terms of use and privacy are not very comprehensive and in reality users do not know what portion of their intellectual privacy is monitored, recorded and even sold.

Conclusion

The topic of the thesis was the influence of participatory culture on creative industries and the implications for book publishing. The main research question was: How does participatory culture influence book publishing? I designed four subquestions to help directing the study:

1. How does participatory culture challenge the cultural industries?

2. What participatory practices are incorporated in the book publishing business?

3. What are the trends in book publishing?

4. How do the case studies articulate issues of the new media environment?

The objective of this research was to explore the place of the book publishing industry in participatory culture online, its challenges for culture productions, trends and issues. The thesis investigated participatory practices, incorporated in book publishing, and how these activities were affected by their use in the cultural industries.

The theoretical framework drew on works by Jenkins, Shaffer and Bruns. Participatory culture defines the shift from media industries, which make profit from ownership and consumerism, to a culture where everyone is actively participating in culture production (Jenkins, 2003). Participatory culture organizes a community of people, who share their contributions and value each other. Bruns names this role produser – people who consume culture, but produce meaning as well. Even before the Internet, participatory culture has been an old phenomenon with practices like fan fiction and social reading. However, after the introduction of Web 2.0, user participation became a corner stone for innovation and personalization in technologies and developing successful businesses. Shaffer argues that participatory culture is an extension of creative industries and that the community aspect is not mandatory. Moreover, cultural businesses provide platforms for participatory practices to take advantage of the contributions of users.

That is the reason why this research used platforms to study participatory practices in book publishing. Platforms are the dominant form of infrastructure and economy on the social web. They have their own norms, politics, and roles (Langlois, McKelvey & Elmer, 2009;

Monfort and Bogost, 2007). To study them, the medium-specific approach, exploring affordances is put forward (Helmond, 2015; Weltevrede, 2016). Technologies produce fields of action, including unexpected and impossible activities, and these are their affordances. The affordances privilege some practices, cultures and actors, instead of others (Weltevrede, 12). Studies of affordances elaborate on how platforms are designed, what the possible actions and the privileged practices are, as well as their purpose in the interface (Stanfill 2015; Van Dijck and Poell 2013; Weltevrede 2016). Because of the platform politics, the affordances influence both the social activities happening on the web and in real life. The thesis made use of several participation taxonomies by Shaffer, Jenkins and Bruns. The research chose to study three platforms, launched by major publishing companies. The first case study is Macmillan's Swoon Reads, a crowdsourcing platform for young-adult novelists, where readers can choose what the company will publish. The second case study, HarperCollins' Epic Reads, is a platform which facilitates innovative reading experience for users by creating a community around a brand. The last case study is Amazon's Kindle Worlds, a platform for publishing fan fiction. The thesis built a methodological apparatus to explore the platforms. First, the relevant press claims were used to situate the platform in the publishing industry. Then its documentation was explored to disclose how the platform situates itself. The affordances were analyzed next and in the end the user participation was explored through the different taxonomies.

In the analysis the selected platforms were situated as business branches of their respective companies. The three case studies exemplified different aspects of the developing publishing industry in participatory culture online. However, there were certain similarities. Both Swoon Reads and Kindle Worlds implemented a (self)publishing model. Both platforms had copyrights over the manuscripts, making them publishers, rather than a hosting/storage space. Moreover, the platforms were not paid, but the aspiring writers were giving up their free labor. The publishing model was even more intriguing – in Kindle Worlds where the content was fan fiction, a participatory practice, related to a strong community (fandom) with strict rules against monetization. Epic Reads and Swoon Reads incorporated social reading. All three case studies used outsourcing/crowdsourcing – Swoon Reads for manuscript, editing, marketing, design and advertising; Epic Reads – for additional fan content, marketing and advertising; Kindle Worlds – for e-book and marketing. In addition, a common aspect of the platforms was their commercial function.

In the last section I contributed to the academic field of participatory culture and the contemporary study of book publishing. I started the final part of the thesis with speculation about the power of social reading and its affordances. Facilitating rating, tagging, and submitting a specific content, publishing houses cultivate their readers and educate their amateur writers through their platforms' collaborative reading affordances. Furthermore, the readership works for free outsourcing writing, reviewing, design, marketing and advertising – main aspects of the book publishing business. This process expands the social reading influence on production of culture (not only literature, but film and music), readers' tastes, media literacy and ultimately cultural heritage. Furthermore, social reading becomes more visible with new media trends such as book trailers and shelfies. Its currency is the Add to Goodreads button.

I summed up the study by answering the research question through its four aspects: challenges, practices, trends and issues. There are several challenges for the cultural industries. The first one is the battle for control over content between fandom and rightsholders. This issue exists since the invention of copyright and the rise of the author during the Romanticism. The second challenge is reconciliation between the original culture artifact and its participatory extensions. This issue is a continuation of the first. The third challenge is how to produce meaningful media for Web 2.0 users. Culture production online is a very difficult and complex topic. As Web 2.0 specifications dictate, the meaning creation should be open not only for interpretation, but for remixing and user participation. To respond to these challenges the publishing industry incorporated several participatory practices – crowdsourcing, writing fan fiction and social reading. Using the wisdom of the crowds the publishers choose the manuscripts to be published, the book covers and jackets, how to market and advertise them. The publishing process is changed by platform affordances. The corporate websites facilitate rich user experience through social reading. Publishers encourage fans to create their own works and as a result, they influence people's creativity. The incorporated practices are reflected in the book publishing trends – (self)publishing fan fiction and monetizing it, creating community platforms affording rich social reading experience. A major tendency is implementing self-publishing services in the traditional business model of book publishing. However, the self-publishing aspect is a bit blurry, because in the end the platform has copyrights over the submitted work. The other popular trend is creating a commercial platform and building a community around it. Publishers realized that their online presence should be stronger and influential. Moreover, their brand should not only sell books

52 but engage with readers and offer them a variety of experiences. That is why community platforms are so popular. The publishing houses facilitate collaborative reading and frictionless sharing to create space for their readership and try to cultivate consumers. The issues of book publishing in the era of participatory culture online are connected to the tendencies of the book publishing industry. The first one is how to study publishing platforms and participatory practices. Here, my contribution is a simple taxonomy of user participation practices – publishing/publicizing, collaboration, and building a community. Hopefully, these categories can help the complex tasks of exploring platform affordances and reading online. The second issue is exploitation of user participation (or free labor). Users not only enrich the content of platforms, but perform tasks for them without even operationalizing it consciously. The last issue is intellectual privacy. In a broader context, the data industry is a threat to personal identity only. The intellectual privacy is not only limited to Google searches, but also includes practices such as reading and shopping habits, interests, and even personal issues. The future of book publishing will be haunted by issues of free labor and intellectual privacy, because traditional publishers do not know how to address them adequately. However, there is a simple solution. Book publishing should offer readers richer experience, but they have to be upfront about the way social reading online works. The privacy clauses and terms of use should be easily comprehensive. There should always be an option for readers to unsubscribe and their identity online to be protected. A similar strategy should be adopted for digital labor. In the book publishing case, my opinion is that readers will still want to participate and contribute, but they will be aware of their role and can make an informed decision about their online presence and activities. Furthermore, giving the readership more control over the books they want will increase the profits and will make the industry more inclusive of discourses, agendas, stories and characters. Thus, it will create richer culture where everyone participates in meaning production.

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