7 Comments

Derek, that tells me the publisher believes the book has a short shelf life. Everybody knows URLs lapse after a few years. I’ve got a nonfiction book coming out with original research findings and want the sources inside. Most readers won’t care but if they see the sources, they’ll know the findings and opinions are backed up, not conjured out of thin air.

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I don’t know how to feel about this. I see the upsides, but I also think the concerns are completely valid.

Next innovation: a QR code for augmented reality notes on sources! See them next to you like that shark from Google!

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Oct 13Liked by Derek Krissoff

As a copyeditor, I find this unfortunate. As a smart reader who wants other people to read smart books, I find the notion of removing the author's notes on the facts behind their books to the internet intellectually appalling. It doesn't matter whether we're talking about a seriously controversial book like this or a piece of research-based fiction (think anything by Barbara Kingsolver, or historical fiction, for example), making it more difficult for readers to follow up on where the author got their information is deplorable.

The question is one of how. How do we make this practice unacceptable/unthinkable to publishers? (I hope authors will decide not to publish with presses who who remove their notes from the book, but I can't find a way to get scholars to not publish with university presses who won't give them editorial support' this seems an even more impossible undertaking)

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Oct 13Liked by Derek Krissoff

As both a reader and a writer, I think that is an absolutely terrible choice. It is essentially saying the footnotes don’t matter. I guess to some people they don’t, but they do to me and they should to every author. If this is how publishers are looking at it, though, I imagine it will become another item that gets negotiated in contracts, an option the same way indexes are an option.

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Has he said anything about the decision? I understand the publishers' incentives, but this isn't just any author: this is someone powerful enough to insist on any format for notes he wants. And I see that they're on his own site, not on the publisher's site, which is the norm when there are supplementary online materials.

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author

Good point—not that I've seen. I guess my thinking is that regardless of any possible backstory involving the author, publishers are likely to take away messages about what's permissible in the way these things are handled . . .

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Oh, totally, that will be the takeaway. And I couldn't agree more with all of your other points. But it would be great if one of the many, many interviews with him would bring this up, because I do wonder if he had some (misguided) idea about the strategy.

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