Welcome to textCrunch

Let's talk

Let’s Talk

About ten years ago, I started a conversation that I’ve been having ever since.

It was 2016, and I was a graduate student in the early stages of a dissertation about book publishing. The idea, at the time, was to follow a book from inception through publication, from writers to readers. Writing chapter 1 (on authors), I was piecing together an intricate argument about an author’s public persona, comparing the timing of articles published in the mainstream press to the release of his novel. I burst into my advisor’s office, brandishing a sheet of butcher paper that resembled nothing short of a conspiracy theorist’s map—a jumble of scribbles and circles and arrows— expecting him to applaud my genius. He was unimpressed. “You could just email his agent and ask,” he suggested offhandedly. His words simply didn’t compute. Talk to the people I’m studying? Just, email them, out of the blue? I couldn’t imagine that agents, editors, publishers, scouts, publicists, or designers would talk to me. But then a strange thing happened—they did. In fact, they were flattered to be asked.

The most important lesson I’ve learned over the past ten years is that academics don’t have a corner on the good idea market. The differences between the people who make books and the people who study them are not so great. Academics and publishing folks are, very often, on the same side: we all care deeply about books, about reading, and about the future of literary culture, and we fight like hell for it, every day. We’re all book people.

But for all our similarities, we don’t talk to each other very often. Whether because of stereotypes of publishers’ villainy or because of professorial cluelessness, there is a gulf between academia and publishing, between theory and practice. It’s high time we fix that: welcome to TextCrunch.

What is TextCrunch?

TextCrunch is a free monthly digest of cutting-edge research on publishing, written for the people who are in a position to do something about it. Each month, I’ll highlight the most exciting work in book history, publishing studies, sociology of culture, and literature, cutting through academic jargon and technical methods to bring you actionable insights. I will, as this newsletter’s title suggests, crunch the numbers, but we won’t lose sight of the people, art, or cultural contributions behind them. And I will, at times, share some of my original research, too.

TextCrunch bridges theory and practice, putting academics and publishers—book lovers, all—into conversation with one another, at long last. Expect enthusiasm, criticism, and general literary nerdery in equal measure.

Why should you listen to me?

About a year ago, I was discussing my career with some writer friends over dinner. “You’re like that Liam Neeson movie,” one of them said. I knew immediately what she was talking about, even before she imitated Neeson’s gravelly voice in Taken: “I have a very particular set of skills.”

Very Particular Skill No. 1. I am an English professor at Temple University and an NEH Fellow. I routinely publish peer-reviewed and public-facing work; some of it has won awards, some of it has gone viral. My work spans the prestigious and the popular: I have written about American modernism and book history, as well as essays on GoodReads, Twitter Pitch Parties, and comp titles. In my classes, I teach Flannery O’Connor and Fifty Shades of Grey, Thomas Pynchon and Tom Clancy.

Very Particular Skill No. 2. I study literary data, and use data to study literature— a somewhat unlikely combination, I know. I specialize in computational approaches to literature, and formerly directed the Stanford University Literary Lab.

Very Particular Skill No. 3. I research publishing. I work in a university, but I spend my days immersed in the publishing industry. I’ve spent my career conducting extensive qualitative research on publishing (talking with practitioners and professionals), and rigorous quantitative research on contemporary book culture (studying the big data of literature), on the other. I understand and share the priorities of publishing folk, but I’m enough of an outsider that I see things from a different perspective.

Here's what I mean:

- I used comp title data to determine which books (by which authors) have the most influence over book acquisition, behind the scenes.

- I examined the effect of a literary prize on the likelihood that a book might be assigned in a university classroom.

- I determined the value of a film option on a book’s futures.

- I talked about the historic context of racial inequality in publishing to better understand the post-Trump “push to diversify,” and what ignoring this history has to do with recent publishing satires.

I spent the past ten years developing these skills to answer my most pressing question: how can we change literary culture, for the better? And I’m starting this newsletter with the conviction that we can best accomplish this work if we do it together. I hope you’ll join me.