April 9, 2005
Levitt on togetherness
From one new blog to another: In an article on his Freakonomics blog, economist Steven Levitt wonders why so few of the books on Amazon’s top 50 are co-authored—just three by his count. Levitt has good reason to ask—his new book, written with journalist Stephen Dubner, is one of them.
Levitt notes that writing a book is a large and complex task, and throwing more people at such projects makes sense in terms of both quality and productivity—specialization and all that. This, he says, is why so many of the articles published in academic journals are co-authored—yet they are less labor-intensive than writing a book. Levitt also thinks co-authoring is more fun than writing alone—at least it gives you someone to discuss spiteful reviews with.
So why are so few books co-authored? Levitt concludes that either most writers haven’t yet figured out the advantages of divided labor—or they have ghostwriters but aren’t willing to admit it.
Perhaps, but there are more rational explanations. When most authors come up with the concept for a new book, the last thing they want to do is share it, fearing that their ideas will either be co-opted or diluted. For works of non-fiction, that secrecy is often economically self-defeating—witness how frequently several books on the same topic are published at the same time. Great for readers, not so hot for authors hoping to blow past their advance.
Which brings us to another problem. The typical advance isn’t large enough to support more than a single writer—and for many authors it will be their sole source of income while writing. So sharing the spoils doesn’t make short-term sense—even if doing so might produce a better book, higher sales, and greater long-term profits.
Finally, many of the books in Amazon’s top 50 are novels, the product of a specialization—storytelling—that almost never benefits from more than a single author… and in practice rarely pays off even for one.
Posted by Stephen at 10:46 PM in Economics | Permalink | TrackBack (0)
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