Why have freelancers been left to solve some of the industry’s biggest problems?
By Marc Herman
Illustration by Gwendal Le Bec
Late last week reporter Tony Horwitz, writing in the New York Times, told the story of publishing Boom, a long work of narrative nonfiction, in digital-only format, and getting screwed. After months of work, the two publishers backing him collapsed. The work itself, an investigation of the oil industry, disappeared briefly from amazon.com, its primary retail outlet. Even when the story mysteriously reappeared on the virtual shelves, and became an unlikely best-seller, Horwitz says he barely made any money.
Horwitz’s insider experience merited a public airing in the Times in part because it deflated one of digital media’s most hope-filled balloons. The advent of mobile technology has led many writers and readers to believe that small screens in our pockets can provide a home for a beloved form once called just nonfiction, then “literary journalism,” and more recently “longform.” Narratives can have staying power beyond the usual churn of daily news, and many writers working now, myself included, came up admiring these carefully-honed, meticulously-reported stories: Slouching Toward Bethlehem, The Soccer War, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Joe Gould’s…
