Collaboration Proclamation

Readers love to think that every author is secretly a wretched scribbler, tucked away in the garret, scrawling his masterpiece in longhand on a fresh piece of parchment. And authors love to think that all editors contemplate the phrasing of each line of every manuscript. The idea that writing might not be a sacred art makes most of us feel uncomfortable. And this is why the myth of the solitary author persists.

But the more people in publishing we talk with, the more confident we become that the era of open collaboration has arrived.

Today there exist agents who solely represent collaborative writers, author teams composed of five equally contributing partners, and publishing professionals who wheel and deal in specialized areas such as idea development, pre-launch marketing, and bestseller promotion. (Like us!)

The reality is that many of these people have played a major part in the publishing process for years. But as publishing houses streamline, bootstrap, and reorganize in response to the new realities of the industry, these partners are taking a more public role in the writing process. Publishers need them. And until the stigma of self-publishing is diminished, they still need publishers.

So we offer a vision of a future in which authors and collaborators, developers and packagers, and publishers and freelancers collectively tout the collaborative writing model.

The wretched scribbler has descended from his imagined perch and is excitedly proclaiming the benefits of collaboration. Can’t you hear him?