Sparks, Sharks, and Shirky

--The Indianapolis Star interviews Nicholas Sparks about his upcoming appearance. And because I can't say anything nice about Mr. Sparks or his . . . (hard swallow) . . . work, I won't say anything else at all.

--I just discovered Query Shark, this great site where an agent critiques query letters. If you want a peek inside an agent's head, check it out. Expect enlightenment and cringing in equal portions.

--From the Paper Cuts blog:

"Clay Shirky — the charismatic, articulate N.Y.U. Internet guru who explores the current communications revolution the way Margaret Mead explored Samoa, or Thorsten Veblen explored the leisure class — knows how to get your attention. “The Gutenberg revolution is over,” he likes to say. “It’s going from a world of ‘filter, then publish’ … to ‘publish, then filter.’ “

I'm not going to lie: 'publish, then filter' scares the tar out of me. What interests me, however, is thinking about the new filters.

In the past, it's been agents, editors, marketing departments (deciding how much money to invest in publicity and deals for table-space with the chain stores), reviewers, and prize committees. Probably I'm missing a filter or two, but you get the idea.

If the roles of the gatekeepers are minimized in Publishing 2.0, and book reviews continue to go the way of the polar ice caps, who will be the filters? It's possible, I guess, that there won't be any. Or, rather, millions of individual filters, like you see with YouTube. Look at "The Shack" – this rose on a groundswell of readers, without the help of any prizes, serious reviews, or even blurbs (to my knowledge). But I think this will be an anomaly. We've always needed filters, and I think the need will only increase if there's a tsunami of crap.

Will prize committees assume an even larger role? Librarians? Bloggers like Maud Newton and Jessa Crispin? Will Oprah's role as the literary finger of God be even greater?

But let's say the book supply increases ten-fold with the rise of e-books: how will even these people sort out what to read?