For his new book, a history of atheism called Without Gods, NYU journalism professor Mitchell Stephens is opening up the creative process. “By writing a blog while writing the book,” he says, “I hope to improve my understandings not only of historical matters but of such contemporary issues – by testing my own surmises, by benefiting from the comments of some interested and thoughtful residents of Internet-land.”
It’s not the first time this idea’s been tried: Greg Sandow is currently riffing on the future of classical music on ArtsJournal.com for a future book project, and Wired editor-in-chief has been musing online about the “long tail” theory as he prepares his book on the subject (an expansion of his original magazine article) for publication early next year. But, more importantly, it certainly won’t be the last. What do you editors and agents think about all this? Are authors giving away the goods too soon by working out their books in public? You tell us.