A Hybrid Of Crowd-Sourced And Traditional Publishing
Let’s first discuss the difference between the crowd-sourced publication, and the traditional publication approach to submitting manuscripts. In crowd-sourced publication ( not to be confused with crowd-funding ), the user uploads their manuscript, and has it available as an ebook for web readers. With the traditional route, you generally seek an agent or submit directly to the publisher. More and more traditional publishers are starting to make themselves a hybrid of crowd-sourced and still accept unsolicited submissions for those that don’t want to wait for approval. Shounen Jump is one example, and I mention that place only because it doesn’t really matter what I say, they will still never publish me anyway, simply because I’m not born and raised in Japan.
But this model, as promising as it sounds, can have serious issues: the American comics industry is already having severe issues with gate keeping through the phenomenon of whisper networks. But lets us propose a scenario where Image comics ( en lue of a creative-owned press startup, it doesn’t have to be Image ) uses this approach that Shounen Jump is currently using. They would then using an approval stamp to arbitrarily sort whether something is published through their crowd-sourced website ( sort of like a mainstream Tapas ), and their website you submit directly to Todd for approval.
A reasonable concern would be whether this would become a form of abuse, and then anyone who runs Image comics in the future, could fire anyone who works for that company, but still permit them to upload to their crowd-sourced website. This could be easily used to mark authors who were to impatient to submit to the publisher, even if the intent is to let the readers themselves decide what is good enough to publish. This is why we should be suspicion when foreign magazines take this crowd-sourced approach, because there could be unforseen abuses of power, subtly implemented, that determine whether something is an official brand-label book, or just uploaded to the site.
Note that I trust Shounen Jump completely with determining what decision is best for their website. I’ve had issues in the past with the way Japan refuses to publish foreigners don’t know Japanese, although I think the solution could be helping foreigners more easily learn Japanese so they can submit manuscripts through the traditional routes, and weighed on the same merits as any other Japanese. However this user-uploaded approach could be an excellent in between solution, where the Golden Gates in the US burns itself down, and their is a gradual build up of anger and resentment among creatives.
Especially among creators who grew up reading Manga, and generally tend to prefer this format, both in visual style, and in reading direction. Tokyopop following this user-uploaded approach ( admittingly before Shounen Jump ) was one the more intelligent things they done in the past. Although issues with Tokyopop has its own issues I may mention in another blog post.