Appendices
Besides the usual stuff you find in appendices, I am also including a nerdy discussion of Lean Publishing outcomes which will probably only appeal to you if you like statistics . Since there’s a statistically-significant (!) chance that you don’t like statistics, I put it in an appendix.
Real Artists Reject the Null Hypothesis
In the philosophy of science , something is “not even wrong” if it cannot be falsified, that is, if there is no way to devise an experiment which can test the supposed theory. Writing is similar too. Some books are good; many books are bad. Some books (not necessarily the same ones!) are successful; many books are failures. However, many books even fail to become failed books. These books are not even bad–they are abandoned.
The sad thing is that it’s a mathematical certainty that some of these books would have been good, if they had only been completed. These books could have enriched the authors’ lives and that of their readers .
So, the problem can be summarized as follows: How do we help authors ensure that the books which should get written are written? And how should we help authors ensure that the books which should not get written are not written?
This problem is very similar to the concept from statistics of Type I and Type II Errors . A Type I Error is a false-positive: a true null hypothesis is incorrectly rejected. A Type II error is a false negative: a false null hypothesis is incorrectly not rejected.
What’s a null hypothesis? For books, it’s this:
Null Hypothesis (H0): The book should not be written.
The different combinations of outcomes can be expressed in the following table:
| Outcome | H0 is true | H0 is false |
|---|---|---|
| Reject the null | False Positive | True Positive |
| hypothesis (H0). | (Type I Error) | (correct) |
| Book is written. | ||
| ——————————— | ————————— | ————————— |
| Fail to reject the | True Negative | False Negative |
| null hypothesis (H0) | (correct) | (Type II Error) |
| Book is not written. |
This table contains two good outcomes and two bad outcomes.
The bad outcomes are as follows:
False Positive (Type I Error) : In this outcome, we have a book which should not be written (null hypothesis is true), but the author rejects the null hypothesis and writes the book. The author and many of the book’s readers are unhappy, or the book has hardly any readers.
False Negative (Type II Error) : In this outcome, we have a book which should be written (null hypothesis is false), but the author does not reject the null hypothesis and does not write the book. The author and many potential readers miss an opportunity.
The good outcomes are as follows:
True Positive : In this outcome, we have a book which should be written (null hypothesis is false), and the author correctly rejects the null hypothesis and writes the book. The book is good, and the author and many of the book’s readers are happy.
True Negative : In this outcome, we have a book which should not be written (null hypothesis is true), and the author correctly does not reject the null hypothesis and does not write the book. The author’s time is not wasted, and neither is that of the people who would have read the book.
Lean Publishing helps ensure that both errors above happen less often, and also improves both good outcomes.
This is how Lean Publishing helps mitigate the errors:
False Postive (Type I Error): In this outcome, we have a book which should not be written (null hypothesis is true), but the author rejects the null hypothesis and writes the book. With Lean Publishing, the author publishes and sells the in-progress book, in order to get feedback and traction. If the book should not be written since there is no market, hardly anyone will buy it, which should give the author a clue that the book may be a bad idea. If the book should not be written since the author is a terrible writer (either in general, or in the specific genre), hopefully the author will receive enough negative feedback to either improve or stop.
False Negative (Type II Error): In this outcome, we have a book which should be written (null hypothesis is false), but the author does not reject the null hypothesis and does not write the book. Sometimes, this decision is made after much of a book is written, but the book is abandoned. With Lean Publishing, the author publishes and sells the in-progress book. So, if it is an error for the author to stop writing, this helps prevent that error. Readers encourage authors, both with their feedback and by having actually purchased the book.
Here’s how Lean Publishing helps improve the positive outcomes:
True Positive : In this outcome, we have a book which should be written (null hypothesis is false), and the author correctly rejects the null hypothesis and writes the book. This is the case where a book which should be written is written. All the benefits of Lean Publishing described in this book apply. The author publishes the in-progress ebook using lightweight tools and many iterations to get reader feedback, pivot until he or she has the right book and build traction once he or she does.
True Negative : In this outcome, we have a book which should not be written (null hypothesis is true), and the author correctly does not reject the null hypothesis and does not write the book. In this outcome, a book can either get not written when it’s at the idea stage or at the partially-completed manuscript stage. Authors often toil on manuscripts for a long time before abandoning them. Lean Publishing helps expedite this process, as the book is published in-progress. If it is terrible or has no market (or both), this can be discovered while wasting as little time as possible.
Lean Publishing is not a silver bullet though.
One valid criticism is that while helping with reducing Type I Errors (false positives where authors write books they should not), it can make some authors vulnerable to Type II Errors (false negatives where authors do not write books that they should write). Say a self-published author is good at writing but terrible at marketing. If she uses the Lean Publishing approach, it could be that she will not get the word out very effectively, and thus have few sales. This may cause her to abandon the book prematurely. However, if she had persisted in writing the book, she could possibly have written enough good content that authentic reader buzz could have happened, or that she could have attracted the interest of a publisher that was good at marketing. Or, even if the book was a commercial failure, the act of writing it could have enriched her life in other ways. This is a valid point. The two ways to respond to it are as follows:
If the book is being written to be a commercial success, a failure in marketing in the in-progress stage would likely also happen at the finished-book stage. So, this is not as much of a concern.
If the book is being written regardless of commercial success, then the value of publishing in-progress is for feedback, not money. This feedback can be useful even if it’s only from a handful of readers. In this sense, the Lean Publishing approach can resemble a writing support group for the author.
This criticism aside, Lean Publishing helps ensure that books which should be written are, that books which should not be written are not, and helps authors judge which is which. It then helps amplify the success of books which should be written, and help authors move on to the next book for the books which should not be written.
Acknowledgments
This is a short book, so I’ll keep the acknowledgments short too.
First, I’d like to thank my cofounder Scott Patten , for believing in me and in the Lean Publishing idea enough to create Leanpub with me. None of this would have happened otherwise. We’ve been through the wars to get everything to where it is now.
Next, I’d like to thank Len Epp , who besides doing great work on Leanpub, also gave me great feedback on this book. At one point I thought I was done, but Len read a draft and essentially pointed out that people liked to read stories, and I should try telling some. I’ve known Len for more than half my life, and I’m really happy to have the chance to work with him on Leanpub.
Ken Pratt and Steve Luscher are two of the most talented software developers I’ve ever had the privilege of working with, either in Vancouver or in Silicon Valley , and I’d like to thank both of them for helping make Leanpub what it is today.
The Masters of Publishing (MPub) community at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver has been fantastic as well. John Maxwell (no, not Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s publisher husband, a different John Maxwell!), Suzanne Norman and Rowland Lorimer have been very encouraging of my ideas, inviting me to speak at SFU about Lean Publishing on a couple of occasions, as well as to speak at the Mini TOC that we had in Vancouver in fall 2012. This talk led to my speaking at TOC 2013 in New York, and to my doing the research into Victorian serial fiction as practiced by Charles Dickens , Wilkie Collins and Mary Elizabeth Braddon that made the ideas finally come together. (I’d also like to thank Suzanne and John for many stimulating discussions about publishing, and also for recording my Mini TOC talk!)
Speaking of TOC , anyone who is involved with TOC or a Mini TOC knows that Kat Meyer from O’Reilly is absolutely amazing. I’m especially grateful to her, since it’s because she liked my Mini TOC talk that I ended up speaking at TOC 2013 in New York .
Speaking of academia, I’d also like to thank Len’s brother Mike Epp , who thought that my Lean Publishing ideas were interesting years ago, and had me talk about them to a class of his graduate students way back when I was calling them “Publishing 2.0”. It was really helpful to get early encouragement for my ideas, since at that point I was used to only talking about technical matters (Flex and Rails ) instead of just a pure idea talk. This helped get the ball rolling.
Last but not least, I’d like to thank my wife Caroline and my son Evan for putting up with me for yet another book. While this one wasn’t as much of an effort as the others, it was still distracting and disruptive. Furthermore, since this book is so intertwined with Leanpub , in that sense this story has been, and continues to be, much more effort. Thanks for supporting me through it.
References
- Braddon, Mary Elizabeth , Lady Audley’s Secret, (London: Oxford University Press, 2012). Originally published in serial from 1861 to 1862.
- Carnell, Jennifer , The Literary Lives of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, (Hastings, The Sensation Press, 2000).
- Chintz, David E. , T. S. Eliot and the Cultural Divide, (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2003).
- Collins, Wilkie , The Moonstone, (London: Oxford University Press, 1957). Originally published in serial in All the Year Round from 4 January to 8 August, 1868.
- Cox, Jessica , New Perspectives on Mary Elizabeth Braddon, (Amsterdam, Editions Rodopi B.V., 2012).
- Dickens, Charles , The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
- Law, Graham , Serializing Fiction in the Victorian Press, (New York: Palgrave Press, 2000).
- Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995: 208. ISBN 9780195096392208
- Tomaiuolo, Saverio , In Lady Audley’s Shadow, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2010).
- Tromp, Marlene et. al. , Beyond Sensation: Mary Elizabeth Braddon in Context, (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000).
- Wolff, Robert Lee , Sensational Victorian: The Life & Fiction of Mary Elizabeth Braddon, (New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1979).
- “Serialization and the Nature of Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, by Susan Belasco Smith , in Periodical Literature in Nineteenth-Century America
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