Pub Res Q (2017) 33:283–296

DOI 10.1007/s12109-017-9525-4

Crowdsourcing: A Platform for Crowd Engagement

in the Publishing Industry

Siti Ezaleila Mustafa1 • Hamedi Mohd Adnan1

Published online: 17 July 2017

 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017

Abstract Publishers will usually make decisions based on their experience and
knowledge in book publishing. However, there are risks of losses as markets can be
unpredictable. Now, with the availability of various online social platforms,
‘‘crowdsourcing’’ is being used by publishers and authors to gather new ideas and
innovations. This article will analyze how the crowdsourcing platform is used by
industry players to attract active participation from the public, especially in the title
development process. Publishers or authors also need to understand which platform
is appropriate and how to use the platforms as a marketing communication tool. The
netnography approach will be used to gather and analyze the data related to the
specific subject area of the study, including literature review and online observation.
Based on our observations, platforms such Wattpad and Ilham Karangkraf are
popular among Malaysian authors and publishers, and had been used to get crowd
engagement as well as to communicate with readers. With it, sometimes a work that
has many readers or followers will be published.

Keywords Social media
Crowdsourcing
Crowdfunded
Online

collaboration
Open innovation

& Siti Ezaleila Mustafa

ezaleila@um.edu.my
Hamedi Mohd Adnan
hamedi@um.edu.my
1
Department of Media Studies, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Malaya,
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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Introduction

The adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) grows year by

year, especially with the emergence of Web 2.0, also known as social media. This
technology facilitates social online interactivity and public participation as well as
collaboration. Besides the increasing use by individuals, the uses of Web 2.0 by
organizations constantly increase as well. In businesses, Web 2.0 and its products have
been used by many companies such as blogging, microblogging, photo and video
sharing, and real-time feeds because they are effective in the creation of crowd
engagement and strengthening of the relationship between companies and consumers.
The use of social media has created a new communication landscape [37] by
utilizing public interaction and user-generated content. These media platforms allow
users to publish opinions, connect, build community, and produce as well as share
content. Besides that, they easily allow social influence marketing to be used, and
enable users to be social influencers who express their experiences and views about
an organization and its products. This has challenged the traditional way companies
communicate with their customer since now these media channels enable the former
to talk directly and freely to the latter [27]. Therefore, it has been widely used as
marketing communications tool by many businesses.
Companies or organizations are beginning to involve consumers in their
activities, seeking their support for marketing activities. Marketing managers are
interested in attaining more involvement of consumers or the public ever since new
technology, especially Internet-based technology, has been accepted as a commu-
nication tool [11, 15]. Crowdsourcing is becoming popular with the increasing use
of new technology which leads to open opportunities to the public to participate
collaboratively, including in open innovation as well as problem-solving activities.
This also can be seen as a new way of collaboration and innovation that can be used
as a new work model on the Internet [23]. The popularity of social media is one of
the important drivers to a quick-paced increase in the current existing crowd-
sourcing approach [21].
In the publishing industry, crowdsourcing can be seen as a model from the self-
publishing movement [16]. This approach can increase collaboration and learning from
others [21]. Authors can use it as an open forum to utilize readers as a filter for quality
and for market testing, while publishers are using these platforms to empower readers
and authors. This new business model has been used in creating valuable reading
experiences by fostering communities in finding and promoting the best contributed
content. For instance, Swoon Reads through its platform accepts manuscripts from
unpublished authors and allows its community of readers to vote for their favourites,
and Storybird has been used by authors to build a fan base and develop their careers.
Furthermore, authors can crowdfund their book through fundraising platforms
that help authors connect with audiences or full-service book publishers that use
crowdfunding. According to Nawotka [31], the crowdsourcing phenomenon has
evolved, from companies offering a platform for authors and illustrators to
collaborate on children’s books, to efforts to crowdfund the purchase of book rights
making specific titles available in digital perpetuity. For Kaye [24], this approach

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will bring passionate readers along for the publishing ride and create more invested
fans and stronger advocates—and (ideally) grow the overall number of books sold.
Usually, crowdfunding is used to cover the printing costs of a book.
The aim of this article is to understand the use of the crowdsourcing approach in
book publishing. Therefore, this article will analyze the crowdsourcing platforms
used by industry players to attract active participation of the public by using the
netnography approach, namely literature review to gain an overview of crowd-
sourcing, as well as web analysis or observation to gain more knowledge and
identify crowdsourcing platforms related to publishing.

What is ‘‘Crowdsourcing’’?

Traditionally, the innovation process, such as product development has predominantly

relied on efforts inside an organization. In the publishing industry, publishers will
make decisions based on their experience and knowledge in publishing a book.
Therefore, not all manuscripts will be accepted for publication. However, there exists
the risk for losses because the market can be unpredictable. Now, with the availability
of various online social platforms, the industry has entered a new frontier,
crowdsourced publishing [41]. ‘‘Crowdsourcing’’ is used by publishers and authors
to reach larger crowds, more competent crowds, or crowds with more extensive and
varied knowledge in order to gather new ideas and innovations.
Crowdsourcing is a term presented by Jeff Howe in Wired magazine in 2006 to
describe content creation or co-content through user activities. According to Howe [18],
‘‘crowdsourcing isn’t a single strategy. It’s an umbrella term for a highly varied group of
approaches that share one obvious attribute in common: they all depend on some
contribution from the crowd.’’ This conception is almost the same as the interpretation
made by [14] based on their studies on 40 different definitions of crowdsourcing: ‘‘a type
of participative online activity in which an individual, an institution, a non-profit
organization, or company proposes to a group of individuals of varying knowledge,
heterogeneity, and number, via a flexible open call, the voluntary undertaking of a task.’’
This term relates to several other terms such as ‘‘customer made’’, ‘‘user-
generated content’’ [15], and ‘‘open innovation’’ [9, 28]. Based on [17], to make
open innovation happen, it needs user-driven innovation, co-creation, and crowd-
sourcing. As a type of open innovation, crowdsourcing is ‘‘an effort to leverage the
expertise of a global pool of individuals and organizations, generally enabled by the
web to as quickly and cost-effectively as possible develop and implement creative
solutions to innovation challenges’’ [28].
Although sometimes user-generated content can be considered an interchange-
able contribution to crowdsourcing [1] because it reflects participative online
activities in marketing strategies and brand related content [22], both terms also
significantly differ from each other. These two terms make a difference in content
activities depending on whether they are generated voluntarily or from determining
a specific task [14]. External crowds among online communities produce content
and diversity of views which fuel crowdsourcing in products and services [6, 7].
Generally, crowdsourcing means outsourcing to the crowd.

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One can argue that successful crowdsourcing activities exist in the forms of
Wikipedia by creation of incredible resources via community action as well as
Duolingo, which improve language resources with crowdsourced translations.
However, according to [7], Wikipedia is not considered crowdsourcing but it is
more to what [5] calls ‘‘commons-based production’’. The reason for this is that no
one at Wikipedia issues specific tasks to the online community there. According to
[7], ‘‘crowdsourcing blends an open creative process with traditional, top-down
managed process.’’ Furthermore, it depends on the Internet as a platform to ‘‘elevate
the quality, quality, amount, and pace of cooperation, coordination, and idea
generation to a point that warrants its own classification’’ [7].

Types of Crowdsourcing

Papadopoulou and Giaoutzi [32] see crowdsourcing as a process that evolved

through the following steps: the online release of a problem, the generation of
alternative solutions by a crowd (participants), the evaluation of the proposed
solutions, the selection of the best provided solution, and the exploitation of the
selected solution by the company or institution that initially posted the problem
online. Waze and Facebook are examples of applications that had been developed
with the support of crowdsourced information. Based on online collaboration via the
crowdsourcing approach, several types of web platforms have emerged such as the
research and development platform, marketing, idea and design platform, collective
intelligence and prediction platform, open innovation software platform, creative
co-creation platform, corporate platform, and public crowdsourcing platform.
Based on literature, there are different classifications of crowdsourcing based on
various activities such as, according to [7], knowledge discovery and management,
broadcast search, distributed human intelligence tasking, and peer-vetted creative
production while [18] stated the primary type of crowdsourcing as crowd wisdom,
crowd creation, crowd voting, and crowdfunding. In addition, based on Schenk and
Guittard [36], it can be classified based on the type of tasks sourced (simple, complex,
or creative) and the nature of crowdsourcing process (selective or integrative) while
Vukovic [41] categorized crowdsourcing by its function (spanning the different parts
of product life cycle) and mode (the request is a tender or a competition). On top of
these classifications, Jussila, Karkkainen, and Multasuo [21] divide crowdsourcing
into two, based on the nature of compensation: monetary or material compensation
and non-monetary or non-material compensation.
To redefine the crowdsourcing industry taxonomy, Crowdsourcing.org has
gathered a team of industry practitioners and experts and proposes seven categories
that represent the different functional applications of crowdsourcing, namely open
innovation, community building, collective creativity, civic engagement, collective
knowledge, crowdfunding, and cloud labour [13]. Research by Dowson and
Bynghal [11] suggests 22 categories of crowdsourcing services and eight business
model that differ in value creation and monetization aspects, but all of them utilize
crowdsourcing as a mechanism for ensuring value creation: media and data,
marketplaces, platforms, crowd services, crowd ventures, crowd processes, content

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and product market, and non-profit. Based on those types, generally Howe’s types of
crowdsourcing are acceptable and widely used.

The Uses of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing principles can be applied in marketing activities, including marketing

research, product development, and promotion in many fields including education,
manufacturing, design, advertising, and others to predict the success of products and
ideas based on consumer’s thoughts. For Gatautis and Vitkauskaite [15], this activity
can be done internally at company level or outsourced to external partners.
According to Alberts, Campbell, and Louw [2: 29], ‘‘Marketing research agencies
are going to need to reassess the value that they bring to clients, in an age where
brand managers can easily go directly to consumers themselves.’’ Companies can
utilize ICT as well as social media to reach a large group of audiences in getting
input regarding their products or brands from potential or existing users. They can
crowdsource their brand’s promotion to brand supporters, outsource content creation
to the crowd, and outsource innovation ideas and solutions to the public [29].
Many companies have understandably given considerable attention to crowd-
sourcing due to its potential business value. For instance, Intel has developed
crowdsourced campaigns that ask customers for their input [3] while Threadless.-
com not only seeks out product design ideas for new T-shirts but also uses online
participants to vote for the best ones for manufacturing [18]. Many creative
activities, including advertising, are impacted by crowdsourcing. In addition, many
non-profit organizations have used crowdsourcing for problem-solving. Through
Planet Hunter, people help astronomers locate potential planets by examining data
from the Kepler space mission, and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency) has created a program called Fang, which aims to use
crowdsourcing to design a new infantry fighting vehicle [37].
In the academic field, crowdsourcing has been used to attract a crowd [42] and in
creating educational content [39]. Due to the infancy of online education technology,
Weld et al. [42] believe that there are vast chances to engage ‘‘the crowd’’ to personalize
education and scale high-quality tutoring through online commitment. For example,
CrowdLearn works by applying the collaborative authoring and crowdsourcing
technique to create semi-structured e-learning content. By using this approach, the
content and learning process has the possibility to be personalized [39]. In addition, all
parties in education institutions, including students, researchers, lecturers, and others
can used crowdsourcing to gain opinions and judgements on a certain topics from a
group of people as well as for creation of crowdsourced content on almost any topic or
domain, which include the creation of textbooks, and other class materials [38].
This shows that crowdsourcing for innovation initiatives or creative crowdsourcing
has been used as a business model which allows companies to leverage the crowd’s
skills and know-how through online platforms where individuals voluntarily give
ideas and solutions [30] from a large pool of people from different experiences and
points of view [4]. Feedback from the crowd can provide valuable insights for
organizations to pick the best idea and not rely on one person or agency. Therefore, to

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use crowdsourcing, they need to consider some aspects such as connection to the
crowd, listening to them, acknowledgement, transparency, and empathy [15].
Crowdsourcing has been used to connect company or brands with customers. The
engagement or participation in crowdsourcing involves intrinsic and extrinsic reasons.
Recognition among peers is one motivation. Based on Weld et al. [42], there are three
main ways of assembling a crowd to accomplish a task, namely pay them (such as
done by Mechanical Turk), entertain them (FoldIt), or create a community (Wikipedia
and Stack Overflow). The motivation to participate in this kind of activities is driven
by trust [25, 34], technology-based support by community organizers and knowledge-
based support within the online community [33]. The rewards in the crowdsourcing
model are not just financial, there are also benefits in reputation and ideologies [28].

Method

This exploratory study uses the netnography approach to achieve its goal.
Netnography ‘‘is a new qualitative research methodology that adapts ethnographic
research techniques to the study of cultures and communities emerging through
computer-mediated communications’’ [26]. This Internet-based research uses
sources of data from Internet-mediated communications. There are three netnog-
raphy phases involved in this study: the first consisted of a literature review to
provide an overview of the use of crowdsourcing, especially in the marketing and
content creation field. For information search, two main databases were used,
namely EBSCOhost and SciendDirect, with ‘‘crowdsourcing’’ as main keyword.
Searching and observation was applied to identify the crowdsourcing platforms that
have been specialized for book publishing projects to know their services or
crowdsourcing activities. Online observation and analysis of e-conversation also has
been done by looking at the comments in online forum or discussion platforms such
as Slate.com, the Wattpad Forum, and the Kickstarter Forum. Since Internet
consider a public space, the conversion through the online forum can be used
without required informed consent [10].

Findings and Discussion

Based on searches, we found more than 20 of crowdsourcing sites that can be used
by authors and as a platform for publishers to find new potential titles to publish
(Table 1). There are crowdsourcing sites that can be used to gain support that is not
money-driven such as a like or comment, such as Flattr, Wattpad and Inkspand.
Besides that, there are several sites that have been developed to conduct writing
contests and give cash prizes, as well as publishing the winner’s works as is the case
in Poets & Writers, Creative Writing Now, and Be a Better Writer.
Several platforms offer crowdsourced funding, the practice of funding a project
by raising money from the Internet community, while other platforms such as
Unbound, Inkshares, Pentian, and Publishizer publish books as well. These
platforms usually perform all the usual publishing functions when the pledged

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Table 1 List of crowdsourcing sites

No Sites Type Focus

1. Kickstarter Paid Crowdfunding

2. Pubslush/PubLaunch Paid Crowdfunding, publishing services
3. Authr Paid Crowdfunding, pre-sell
4. Pentian Paid Crowdfunding, profit sharing
5. Unglue-it Paid Crowdfunding
6. Inkspand Paid Crowd wisdom (Book review)
7. Indiegogo Paid Crowdfunding/fundraising
8. Wattpad Free Crowd wisdom
9. Authonomy n/a Crowd wisdom (Closed)
10. Unbound Paid Crowdfunding
11. Patreon Paid Crowd wisdom (Built-in fanbase)
12. Flattr Paid Social shares (Pay money with the likes)
13. Book Country Free Crowdsourcing
14. Be a Better Writer Free Crowd voting (Contest)
15. Creative Writing Now Free Crowd voting (Contest)
16. Poets & Writers Paid Crowd voting (Contest)
17. Publishizer Paid Crowdsourcing
18. Inkshares Paid Crowd wisdom, crowdfunding
19. Widbook Free Crowd creation
20. WEBook Free Crowd wisdom, crowd creation
21. Booksie Free Crowd wisdom (Read and review)
22. Fiction Press Free Crowd wisdom
23. Figment Free Crowd wisdom
24. Bibliophilia.org Free Crowd wisdom
25. KindleScout Free Crowd voting

projects reach their funding target. Furthermore, there are several sites that do not
employ straight-up crowdsourcing. Here, works get read and reviewed, but not with
the purpose of getting a book deal, agent representation, and the like. This can be
seen in Booksie, Fiction Press, Figment, and WritersCafe.org. These sites can be
used by authors to generate some interest from the public.
As mentioned above, crowdsourcing is an alternative that can be used to publish
a book. It also involves a much easier process. By using this approach, authors will
not need advances from publishers, while publishers will know what the market
tastes and wants are.

Crowdsourcing Platforms

In terms of traffic and popularity, Kickstarter is the largest crowdsourcing funding

sites which can be used to attract a big crowd to fund a campaign. With more than
13 million visitors per month, Kickstarter hosts various campaigns for products as
well as events and are not limited to publishing products such as comics and books.

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It is a paid crowdsourcing site that collects a 5% fee for every successful funded
project. An alternative site, Indiegogo charges a 9% fee on funds raised and if the
users reach their goal, they get 5% back from the fee. Kickstarter has funded more
than 17,000 projects under ‘‘Publishing’’ label [35] with its strong backers
‘community. The biggest drawback for Kickstarter is that it only offers the all-or-
nothing funding model. This means that if the users do not reach the funding target,
they get none of the funds pledged. Furthermore, it is harder for Malaysians to use
this platform because the platform requires creators to be associated with the United
States or the United Kingdom.
Unbound is another example of a crowdsourced publishing start-up that harnesses
the online crowd to support the publication of new authors. This platform combined
crowdfunding and traditional publishing services and works in tandem with Penguin
Random House. Similar to other crowdsourcing platforms, this can be seen as a new
financing model for authors [43] and a platform to connect authors and readers,
allowing the public to fund and influence an author’s work at the point of development.
It gives the deciding power to the public to determine which idea they want to proceed
with, while lesser-known authors get their book noticed alongside the services offered.
The platform gives authors a chance to pitch their book ideas on the site in a bid to get
financial support from readers. Unbound offers several levels of support and each level
has a different reward such as to have lunch with the author. Editors in Unbound will
choose a goal for each book idea to hit. When the books or ideas meet their goals, as a
funding platform and publishers, Unbound will fulfill all the publishing process from
editorial to design, printing, and distribution. As business entities, the net profit for
each title in Unbound will be split 50/50 with the author.
Kindle Scout and Wattpad can be seen as a social reading or online writing
platform, namely a place for new authors to upload their work and connect directly
with readers. Kindle Scout, owned by Amazon Kindle, is a bit different from
Autonomy, a platform run by HarperCollins. Touted as a reader-powered publishing
channel for new or never-before published books for romance, mystery, thriller,
fantasy or science fiction, Kindle Scout is a platform which offers the possibility of
a publishing contract. Authors can submit an English manuscript of 50,000 words or
more and the story that receives the best reviews and number of votes will be
published and sold; the readers who read and evaluated the story will receive a
digital version for free as an incentive.
Founded in 2006, Wattpad stories are serialized and the community participates
in the storytelling process through comments, messages, and multimedia. Wattpad
offers stories in over 50 languages, and works on mobile and the web. Similar to
some online writing communities, authors and readers collaborate on a work in
Wattpad where authors will upload a story, chapter by chapter, and readers will
view, vote as well as comment on that chapter. They can provide encouragement to
the author and actually indicate where they want the story to go. This creates a type
of engagement that would have been impossible in an offline context. Based on a
report by Ingram [20], young authors who get many views from their work in
Wattpad have being contacted by traditional publishers and content companies.
With more than three million registered users, Wattpad features 200 million
original stories uploaded in 25 languages. This platform has an average 45 million

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monthly visitors over the past year (wattpad.com). With such engagement, it
presents an opportunity for advertising content on the platform. Previously, brands
such as Target, hosted a writing contest #OnceUponNow on the platform whereby
participants need to write a story about modern life and readers can vote up to 25
favourite stories. The editors of Gallery Book will select a top ten list as an
anthology to be sold in Target stores [8]. Malaysian authors use Wattpad to share
their work and attract audiences or followers to their works. Publishers such as
Karyaseni, Fixi and Lejen also have accounts in Wattpad with the aim to find new
stories for them to publish.
The same concept has been used by Karangkraf Media Group, one of the biggest
publishers in Malaysia (in Malay language publications) with the launch of the Ilham
portal in 2013. It allowed authors to upload their works while online readers can read
these works for free then vote for their favourite works. Karangkraf used the
crowdsourcing concept by showing a series of stories for free on the portal then
observed the reaction of the readers. Popular, high-quality works deemed best by the
majority will be published in printed form such as Adam dan Hawa, Rakus, Di manakah
Penanda Kubur Anira, and Bayangan Gurauan. So far, this platform has received
submissions from more than 4000 authors. This approach gives access to any author to
change and improve their works based on opinions and discussions with their readers.

Participants Opinion

The use of crowdsourcing will attract a crowd because people enjoy the feeling of
knowing they helped a creative person complete their work. Therefore, they need to
be completely open and honest about the project. Since this approach involves
crowd engagement, the element of trust plays a vital role in determining its success
[25]. This element will lead to collaborative activities among online communities,
including the reader community, which involves online exchange and knowledge-
sharing intentions.
According to Seth Godin, an author who used Kickstarter to attract attention from
the publisher of Icarus Deception to launch a major retail campaign, ‘‘it is easier
than ever to spread a book … and let publishers know loud and clear that it is a book
that is going to get talked about’’ through this platform (www.kicstarters.com). To
use these crowdsourcing platforms, authors need to listen to their backers and
‘‘respond in a timely manner, with real information’’ (LeatherDiceBags). Therefore,
engagement with the crowd, namely the online community who supports the project
is important. This needs hard work and some participants or users acknowledged it
in the Kickstarter Forum as follows:
Kickstarter is marketing, sales, promotion and branding all wrapped in one.
And that’s just one of the reasons why it’s hard. It’s also an investment, worth
making.
- inflexionUSA
Get your social media straight and start building momentum! Start contacting
possible backers. Let them review your website, telling them to leave a
feedback on it. Telling them your story and how you plan to overcome it! We

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are going by these principles, since our campaign is launching soon. As a

matter fact, if you can please leave us your feedback! This would mean a lot to
us, to see where we can get better. We would love to hear from you.
- doublesapphires
I’ve learnt that preparation is key. Interacting with influencers and potential
backers is a must too.
-hyperstarter
With this kind of approach, it cannot be denied that not all books are good
because not all works will be handled by professionals. Therefore, there are some
negative comments such as:
I agree… is filled with horribly written garbage that should never see the light of
publication. It’s a public slush pile, and some of this slush is particularly rank.
- Keith Deininger (www.slate.com)
Chosen manuscripts hit the digital shelves as-is, sans editing, proofing, or
guidance on artwork.
- Katy Waldman (www.slate.com)
But it all depends on the crowd as social influencers to let their voice be heard by
others. They have the power to influence others to support a work that they like and
want to get published. This can be seen from their comments in Slate.com.
The public is not as stupid as some writers believe.
- new_reader
… if people think they are bad, they won’t get published. And if people want
to read them - despite some literary-minded people thinking they are bad -
then what’s wrong with publishing them?
- BAS
What matters is whether your readers enjoy it. Everyone’s tastes are different.
- akabins
And if these titles are not your cup of tea - wait a month or so and there will be
a new batch coming from the program.
- worldbeat99
This meant, the author who used these platforms encourage the building of a
community and audience around each project along with the support that goes with
it [13]. Authors will use any way to promote their work and gain crowd engagement.
And trust becomes an important element to promote or share any ideas.
I welcome any of you to read a few chapters and if you like the book,
nominate it. If you hate it, thanks for checking it out anyway. You can vote on
my book till April 30, 2015 – about two more weeks. I have managed to get
into the ‘‘Hot & Trending’’ category for a while, but it’s hard to stay there.
- worldbeat99

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My Kindle Scout book, ‘‘Royal Date,’’ is doing just fine on Amazon, thank
you very much. And I decided to make the best business decision I could for
myself and my book, and trust me, this was it. I’ve got Amazon’s marketing
power behind me, and just two weeks after debuting (where I did, indeed, have
professional editing provided by Amazon), I’m currently sitting in the Top
500. Me, an unknown author who has never published anything with an NY
publisher.
- Sariah Salisbury Wilson
However, there are mixed opinions when it comes to crowd creation that involve fully
crowdsourced novels or fiction such as ‘‘Crowd Control: Heaven Makes a Killing’’ by
CNET readers, ‘‘Signals: Profiting from signs from the future’’ by John Sutherland
Books, and Malaysia’s crowdsourced novel ‘‘Eqlee’’ via Poskad.my. Among partic-
ipants, some of them have pessimistic thoughts such as those stated below:
I’m a huge fan of crowdsourcing in concept but it frequently comes down to
the execution as to whether it’s effective or not. I’d be curious to know if you
think you got a BETTER product than you would have gotten had you written
it on your own or if it was simply DIFFERENT. There are some things
crowdsourcing does extremely well and others it can’t do at all. Compiling
knowledge and conducting analysis is something that lends itself well to
crowdsourcing, but I’m not sure that novel writing does (though editing
might). I’ll have to read the final product.
- JeffMaxinDC (www.cnet.com/news/)
free-for-all writing just results in higgledy-piggledy patchworked stories with
no coherent content or consistent voice… nothing that’s in any way
marketable… so why waste time on it, other than ‘just for fun’?
- mammamaia (www.writerdigest.com/forum/)
On the other side, there is a good comment regarding this concept that involves
multiple authors with multiple possible threads of the book.
I do think, though, that having all those people involved probably created a
work that is, in the end, more accessible to a broader audience than what I
would have done on my own.
- ericcmack (www.cnet.com/news)
Generally, this approach is a good option for unknown authors to start—
compared to traditional publishing process where the decision is made by publishing
houses based on many considerations. Many new authors gain benefits from the use
of crowdsourcing platforms because it can also be used as a platform for sharing
idea and discussion.
It’s a pretty good option for writers who have something that readers might
love but wouldn’t get through the slush-piles of publishing houses looking for
something they can make big money on.
- akabins (www.slate.com)

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For most of us, we realised that the ‘Editor’s Desk’ was not the point of the
site - the peer to peer real reviews and criticism was what we were there for….
- Will Maxmillan Jones (www.theguardian.com)
This is what has been done by many authors, especially new budding ones.
Although many of them did not get many views, diligently writing and posting a
chapter regularly as well as promoting the work through social media can build up a
loyal following of readers such as what has been done by Malaysian author, Bella
Zamri. She keeps writing on Wattpad and had 1 million views for her third novel,
‘‘The Boy Who Lost His Sights’’ which is soon to be published by a local publishing
company. This shows that feedback from crowds can provide valuable insights to
publishers regarding the market’s demand.

Conclusion

The emergence of crowdsourcing can be used to strengthen the traditional

publishing industry. The innovation and efficiency offered by crowdsourcing and
other digital tools have the power to better connect authors with the audience with
their work. Furthermore, with this approach, there are many potential solutions
between the traditional book and fully self-published works [19]. The platforms can
be used by publishers to find new books or new authors that have the potential to be
marketed.
Although crowdsourcing is a relatively new concept, the idea of using a crowd to
produce value has been around for centuries. However, with the advent of Web 2.0
technologies, individuals became active contributors, not passive browsers. This has
increased the possibilities used for crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing can be seen as an
alternative approach for authors who sometimes feel under-served by their
traditional publisher. For self-publishing authors that face painful experiences in
the process to publish and promote their own work, this is a solution for them.

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