There’s an old joke about the salesman and the engineer that shows why one often hates the other. Historically engineering types will design and build a product or service first, then–in the rarest of cases–market and sell it. A salesperson will invariably sell a new product and then call an engineer to build it, probably chiding the engineer at once because, hey, this project is already late!

In the second case, the movement initiates with a nudge from the sales and marketing group–some creative type looks at a gap in the current marketplace offerings, and promises a potential customer there’s a solution without questioning why there is no current one available. When reality sets in, and the salesperson learns that fulfilling the promise might take longer than the customer was led to believe. And so enter tension between sales and engineering. It’s a bit like War of the Roses, really. Neither can live with out the other, but all the same, compromise is unthinkable.

But what if it is possible to manage both sides with respect for the each parties role? In a more balanced model, creating a new product could depend less upon the advances of one faction at the expense of the other. Rather than two kids on a see-saw, where one rises and the other falls, and neither side really gets anywhere, it’s more like a tandem bike. Each party must pedal for them both to climb a hill.

Ideally, such a paradigm could manage customer expectation for an upcoming product right from the outset, while keeping everyone on the same page. Customers get something closer to what they were promised–and hopefully what they need. Engineers perform their design magic and sales types hit their numbers.Now consider a little word substitution.

Replace engineers with authors, customers with readers, and salespersons with publishers. Exclude the top three percent of novelists who make a full-time living at it, and virtually every fiction project is done on spec by a writer hoping to sell it at a later date. Branding simply comes later.

Publishers on the other hand want something as close to a sure bet as possible right now, or more of the same that sold last year, month, week, etc. Unless it’s non-fiction or a memoir, they are generally not interested in asking the magic 8-ball.

The problem any novelist faces is pretty obvious: publishers know what they want to buy and push, based on past sales and subjective tastes. Writers know what they like to write, but worry very little about what the market might want until after the fact. Readers know what they enjoy, and don’t care about the risks publishers and writers take on a project.

All in, this leaves a huge divide between the reader’s wants and the writer’s tastes, with a publisher ( whose slanted view is usually tempered with past successes and failures ) running interference between the two sides. How can the writer provide the reader with an entertaining story, and keep the publisher happy with sales? Better yet, how does the writer even know what the reader wants, since they are largely insulated from them?

Which is where the Internet comes in.

To Be Continued . . .