It’s a Fact: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry

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From The New York Times:

In an era plagued by deep fakes and online disinformation campaigns, we still tend to trust what we read in books. But should we?

In the past year alone, errors in books by several high-profile authors — including Naomi Wolf, the former New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson, the historian Jared Diamond, the behavioral scientist and “happiness expert” Paul Dolan and the journalist Michael Wolff — have ignited a debate over whether publishers should take more responsibility for the accuracy of their books.

Some authors are hiring independent fact checkers to review their books. A few nonfiction editors at major publishing companies have started including rigorous professional fact-checking in their suite of editorial services.

While in the fallout of each accuracy scandal everyone asks where the fact checkers are, there isn’t broad agreement on who should be paying for what is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process in the low-margin publishing industry.

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“The standard line from publishers is, ‘We rely on our authors,’ and, well, that’s not good enough,” said Gabriel Sherman, a journalist who paid two fact checkers $100,000 from his advance for his 2014 book, “The Loudest Voice in the Room,” about Roger E. Ailes and Fox News. “I wish publishers did see the importance of fact-checking as essentially an insurance policy.”

. . . .

Publishers have long maintained that fact-checking every book would be prohibitively expensive, and that the responsibility falls on authors, who hold the copyrights. But in today’s polarized media landscape, that stance appears to be shifting as some publishers privately agree that they should be doing more, particularly when the subject matter is controversial.

“If you’re writing a remotely controversial book, there’s going to be an active audience that’s invested in discrediting it,” said Kyle Pope, the editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review. “This notion that books are above the fray, I don’t think it’s going to last.”

Accusations of sloppiness and journalistic malpractice now quickly explode on social media.

. . . .

In May, The New York Times Book Review published a blistering review of Mr. Diamond’s book “Upheaval.” The reviewer, the author Anand Giridharadas, cited mangled facts and what he described as misleading generalizations, and argued that the flaws were emblematic of a systemic lack of fact-checking in publishing.

“Fact checkers are as important as cover designers, as editors,” Mr. Giridharadas said in an interview. “It’s not treated as mandatory, and I think it should be.”

. . . .

In his new book, “Talking to Strangers,” Malcolm Gladwell writes that poets have “far and away the highest suicide rates,” as much as five times the rate for the general population. The statistic struck Andrew Ferguson, a writer for The Atlantic, as odd, so he tracked down its source: a paper that cited a 1993 book by Kay Redfield Jamison, a psychologist who based the finding on suicides among 36 “major British and Irish poets born between 1705 and 1805.” Somehow, a narrow analysis of a few dozen 18th- and 19th-century poets was mistakenly applied to all poets, then amplified in a best-selling book.

When publishers do conduct a factual review, it’s often in response to a crisis.

Link to the rest at The New York Times

PG suggests that the ultimate owners of major US publishers pay very close attention to the bottom lines of their subsidiaries. Fact-checking is seldom necessary for increased profits. Indeed, as the OP indicates, it may be a major cost, something that prevents a book from showing a profit. Anyone in New York trying to justify such an expenditure has a steep hill to climb unless there is a positive short-term financial return that can be reliably anticipated to cover those costs.

It is far less expensive to blame the author for being careless and inattentive to his/her art. There is always another author.

Besides, anyone who may need to be fired for appearances’ sake is a long way down the corporate ladder from the owners.

11 thoughts on “It’s a Fact: Mistakes Are Embarrassing the Publishing Industry”

  1. Factual errors are inexcusable, but I find them easy to make. When I am writing non-fiction books on computing, in the heat of getting down a first draft, I often write based on memory, not going back to notes or original sources. If I did check, I would never get anything done.

    When I am revising, I try to be meticulous, checking and double checking everything, and I am often surprised by my faulty memory. Even points that are so obvious, I think I am wasting time checking, have proven me wrong. My publisher supplies a technical editor, who is supposed be a sort of fact checker. He has raised questions several times and I am very grateful for his help.

    However, I count my blessings that I have not slipped up so far. And I have sympathy for authors who have been caught in the trap. There is no excuse for factual errors, but they are easy to make.

    IMHO, publishing should be a partnership between the author and the publisher, each sharing liability for errors. Authors should not blame publishers for authorial mistakes, but publishers are also responsible for the content that comes out under their label. In other words, authors should choose their publishers carefully and publishers should consider the integrity of their authors. This is a rather old-fashioned view that asks both to be good citizens rather than profit hounds, but life would be a lot better if folks could live up to it.

    • What exactly are publishers bringing to tbe table if they refuse to be involved with the content?

      Financial services? Printer contacts? A rolodex of freelancers? With Amazon + Ingram covering some 70% of distribution, there’s very little left the author can’t do on their own.

      • My non-fiction publisher is large, but has a somewhat different business model than most traditional publishers. They brought much to the table that I wanted.

        After they accepted my proposal, my acquisition/development editor made some suggestions on content to broaden the audience, mostly how to appeal internationally. He also suggested a title. A project manager was assigned who kept track of all the threads so that I could concentrate on writing the ms and hit the projected pub date. The publisher found and paid a qualified technical reviewer, paid a copy editor and a proofreader. They also designed the book and a cover. Not great, but better than anything I would come up with.

        For marketing, they submitted ARCs to a number of review sources, put the book in their catalog, displayed it at relevant conferences, put it on Amazon, pushed it to libraries with a package ebook plan, and periodically feature it promotions. Could they do more? Sure. But it’s more than I feel like doing.

        I could do this on my own, but I grew up cleaning barns on the farm and built and marketed software for years. Given a choice, I would still rather shovel manure than do most of the scut work my publisher did for me. I’m not making a ton, but I’m satisfied with the deal.

        Self-publishing is fine, but only if you like the work it entails. Everyone’s taste varies. Much of what they do for me is like all I disliked about the software business. I’m not defending traditional publishing– there is a lot wrong with it– but I think there is room for publishers that are willing to treat authors reasonably.

        I’m gearing up for another non-fiction, but only if a publisher accepts my proposal with a reasonable contract. If I have to self-publish, I’ll probably drop the project.

        • Sounds like they actually earn tbeir keep.
          There’s still a few that do, generally in inverse proportion to their size.
          The trick is finding them and getting in

          • I admit I had help with my first books from the company I worked for, but since then, I’ve talked to quite a few tech authors who entered on their own.

            I think any tech author who can write clearly, has a sense of what folks in their field are interested in, and has even a hint of a sense of humor can get published by a tech publisher if they want to do the work. Hint: hang around at publisher’s tables at tech conferences. Sometime acquisitions editors are there, sometimes the sales people will give you an acq editor’s email, or pass yours on to an acq editor. You’ll have to write a proposal, but they might help you with it if they like your idea.

            I was once told by my aq/dev editor that quite a few of the books he signed were never finished, implying that many tech authors underestimate the effort. A track record of finishing close to on time is a golden ticket, although you can probably get more gold writing code than prose.

            I should add. If they offer a contract, read it like you would a consulting contract.

  2. I’m a big fan of Diamond’s GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL. It is a must read for anybody interested in history, cultures, and world building.
    Not perfect but definitely thought-provoking.

    His COLLAPSE is also interesting and useful but not quite as thought-provoking. Useful for some worldbuilding of decadent societies, anyway.

    This last one, though…
    Reviews aren’t being kind and it seems to be a wee bit too topical. For that material I prefer THE FOURTH TURNING. And now his accuracy and detachment are coming into question? I’ll wait…

    • Diamond has had a peculiar career path. We see the word “polymath” bandied about, and that is fair enough. But “poly-” means many, not all. This served him well with Guns, Germs, and Steel. “Big history” is by its nature a generalists’ subject. It is when he gets more specific that he runs into trouble. If he writes a chapter about some specific time and place, there are going to be specialists in that time and place standing on the sidelines pointing out any factual errors. I haven’t read his latest, but I suspect the criticisms are valid.

  3. I’m just curious about the financial effects of finding out your author missed something major.

    It must be covered in the contract, somewhere – does Wolf have to return her advance because the publisher had to recall and pulp (!) the books? Who gets paid for what on a revised version?

  4. According to books I’ve read about publishing contracts, most, if not all, publishers include a clause in nonfiction that the author is legally and financially responsible for any errors. So, they are covering their rears, and they tend to be sued along with the author, despite that clause. That’s one reason smart publishers have fact checkers and lawyers go over certain types of books.

    Since this is about fact checking, here’s one resource I mention. KIRSCH’S HANDBOOK OF PUBLISHING LAW, Jonathan Kirsch. 1995. Page 117. Yes, that’s an early edition, but it’s the only one on my shelf right now.

  5. Paying for fact checkers: The article cites an author who paid $100,000 for fact checkers. This presumably was justified by the amount of money involved, and the potential for litigation. So be it. But what about, say, a book on clothing fashions in ancien regime Versailles? The economics of paying for fact checkers, regardless of who writes the checks, simply aren’t there. Saying that there must be fact checkers is an indirect way of saying that the only books that can be published are those with projected sales high enough to pay fact checkers. Is this really the goal here?

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