Over the past year, HarperCollins and Random House have introduced their own custom developed “sharing” feature for many of their books so that people have the ability to share an excerpt of a book on their blog or website. Unfortunately for many Canadian publishers, there has been no sign of a solution that would provide them with the same competitive edge — at least not without additional funding that would allow for them to compete with the larger publishing houses (who are often also subsidiaries of multinational corporations).
People knock Google a lot for what they do against the publishing community, but from my perspective Google has done more for smaller presses in a smaller amount of time than any additional funding could have done for Canadian publishers. Google and numerous other Internet revolutionaries have levelled the playing field for any company, small or big, to be successful. Why is this ultimately the way things should be? Because it helps the customer. What use is a great product if a customer can’t find it? What use is a great product if a crappy product is overshadowing it with its million dollar marketing campaign? The bigger picture and vision is out there for Canadian book publishers to grasp, we just have to get around this whole hurdle that we keep trying to get our heads around, and that is absolute control. No one, no organization and no company can have absolute control any longer, it is just not viable — not even for Google.
Google has introduced an excerpt sharing function that allows for people to share excerpts from books in the public domain. I think this is a great beginning and I hope they will build upon this idea to allow publishers to do the same. By doing so, the edge that larger companies have had will diminish and at least Canadian book publishers regardless of size will have a voice that is somewhat equal in volume.
