Truth and research; biased bestsellers; cocaine sharks: Newsletter 24 July 2024
Newsletter 54: Honesty is impossible but essential, why the Times bestseller list favors liberals, free books for 2 million kids, plus three people to follow, three books to read, and a sneak preview of our author ROI research.
On telling the truth
We all are certain we are honest people. We all hold truth as an ideal above all others. We tell our children that lying is the biggest sin.
But in fact, none of us actually has a total commitment to truth.
Start with your family. Would you tell a lie to get lifesaving treatment for your child? Would you conceal the truth to keep your spouse out of prison? Or to keep your mother from suffering pain, when a little dishonesty could spare her?
So sure, we make an exception for our families. But we have friends, too. If your best friend shoplifted, would you lie to protect them? If your friend was applying for a job and cited you as a reference, would you volunteer information about what they were bad at? Would you simply fail to mention it, or would you actively refute it when asked?
The truth doesn’t look so absolute now. There are lies of commission as well as lies of omission, in which we fail to note something important. We must all live in the world and with the trust of others, and all of those others have flaws, as do we. Pointing out everyone’s flaws makes you an outcast. So we say nothing. Not lying, perhaps, but not complete honesty either.
If you’ve made an uneasy peace with that, and we all have, there comes the moment of self-interest, especially at work. I’ve been asked to lie and conceal things by my employers. I’ve watched colleagues lie to customers. These things made my heart sick. And yet, I understand them. Losing a job is a big deal. Lying now and then seems small. Especially if your coworkers do it without another thought. If you haven’t lied and concealed, at least a little, at work, then you haven’t been working very long.
So as we clutch the tattered cloak of truth around our shoulders and attempt to hold out heads high, every day imposes a psychic cost. It hurts to lie. It’s risky to tell the truth. We’re caught between.
While everyone faces these challenges, it’s a particular problem for researchers, whose job is to find the truth and make it public.
When the data analysis shows the opposite of what you hoped for, do you publish it or hide it?
When the data set is too small or too biased, do you publish the results anyway?
When the result you find is uninteresting, do you post it, or put it in a desk drawer?
When I was an analyst, a junior researcher on my team analyzed some survey data we’d collected and found a surprising result, one that contradicted what we’d been publicly telling clients for a while. “What do we do about this?” she asked. “We can’t publish this, can we?”
“Not only can we publish it, we have to,” I told her. “This changes what clients understand about the world, so we can’t hide it. It’s a truth they have to know.” We published it, and we made sure our readers knew it made a difference in the decisions they made. It dented our reputation for prescience, but improved our reputation for honesty.
I am far from perfect, and I have lied. I’ve concealed information when it was in the best interest of my family or my work. I don’t feel good about that, but if you are honest with yourself, you should admit that you have, too.
But whenever possible, I try to think like a researcher. What is the truth? How sure can I be about it? Is it important for people to know about? If so, I publish it and talk about it.
That has cost me friends and relationships and money. But my soul is still intact, and that matters more.
News for writers and others who think
Taylor & Francis, parent of the academic publisher Routledge, sold Microsoft access to its authors’ research for AI training for $10 million. The authors’ rights weren’t mentioned. Authors should check publishing contracts to ensure that their content can’t be sold for these sorts of purposes without their permission.
The National Book Foundation distributed 2 million books donated by publishers to people in public housing. It’s Book Rich Environments program reaches people in “book deserts” in inner cities, rural communities, and Native American reservations.
The Economist investigated whether the New York Times‘ bestseller list was biased against conservative authors (subscriber link). The answer appears to be yes, but the reason isn’t because of compilers’ bias; instead, the cause is likely that the list overweights brick-and-mortar booksellers, which are more concentrated in liberal-leaning cities.
Amazon’s Audible audiobook subsidiary faces a class-action suit accusing it of monopolistic behavior. The suit will take years to resolve. But monopolies can lose these suits; ask the folks at the NFL that just lost a $4.7 billion judgment.
Sharks off the coast of Brazil have traces of cocaine in their blood (gift link). I’m looking forward to the next installment of Sharknado, set in Rio de Janeiro, from the producers of “Cocaine Bear.”
Three people to follow
Dan Gillmor , principled ex-journalist and outstanding media thinker.
Ian Bain , dedicated PR professional and former mayor of Redwood City, Calif. (a hell of a combination).
Donya Dickerson , book agent and former publishing exec sharing hard truths about the book business.
Three books to read
The Audience Is Listening: A Little Guide to Building a Big Podcast by Tom Webster (Page Two, 2024). The definitive book on podcast success from arguably the world’s foremost audio business analyst.
There Is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish by Anna Akbari (Grand Central, 2024). True story of the victims caught in an emotional online romantic trap.
The Future Was Now: Madmen, Mavericks, and the Epic Sci-Fi Summer of 1982 by Chris Nashawaty (Flatiron, 2024). Did “Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn,” “E.T.” “Blade Runner,” and “Poltergeist” launch the modern era of science fiction epics? A question worth pondering for SF geeks like me.
Sneak preview of our nonfiction book ROI research
Join Bill Sherman of Thought Leadership Leverage and me on LinkedIn Live at 1 Eastern, 10 Pacific today for a preview of the results of our definitive author survey (sponsored by TLL, Amplify, Gotham Ghostwriters, and Smith Publicity). Results from more than 350 authors surveyed. We’ll tell you what predicts whether an author is successful, based on actual data.
I have a few questions.
1. Why would T&F have access to their academic authors’ research? I have no firsthand knowledge of the publishing business. What I do know is from reading your posts. I don’t remember ever reading that authors must turn over their research to their publishers. Is academic publishing different from other types of publishing?
2. When you decided “Not only can we publish it, we have to,” did you have to get your management’s buy-in or did you have authority to publish it.? What was the reaction of your management to that decision?
Tom
In the case of T&F, “research” means “research publications.” Depending on the authors’ contract with the publisher, the publisher may have authorization to sell access to it to others, such as AI companies.
In the case of my surprising result, my managers always needed to know what I was working on and planning to publish, which was part of the usual workflow. But management never attempted to stop the publication of an interesting result, regardless of who it might upset. (In one case, a company tried to have me fired based on something I published, but the managers and the CEO completely backed me up.) So management approved of what I planned, and it would have been unusual for them to disapprove anything worth publishing. The whole organization was dedicated to publishing interesting, relevant, truthful findings. I think you’d find that most unbiased research organizations work this way. They are dedicated to the truth, not to pushing a particular point of view.
Thank you.
Tom