In his post reacting to Jason Weaver’s piece on post-punk publishing last week, Mike Cane pointed out that books, along with being inherently more difficult to sample than music, don’t have any true equivalent to the DJ.

“What’s the equivalent of a DJ for a writer or book? A reviewer? Which reviewer and where?”

The growth of electronic publishing will mean that an ever increasing number of people, liberated from the authority of the traditional gatekeepers, will be able to publish their work.  That’s a good thing.  Probably the biggest negative of this phenomenon, however, is that it will become increasingly difficult for readers to discover the good stuff among all the “sludge.”

Book reviewers don’t really do this job.  They write about the book itself but typically offer only small samples.  They usually only look at newly published work and, with some exceptions, only touch books published by established publishing houses.  Plus, I don’t see our current conception of a “book” staying the same for too much longer.  In an e-dominant world, written content will come in a variety of shapes and sizes.

I’ve previously spoken of the possibility of “super readers,” but here I’ve included a bit more detail.  I’m not sure whether any of this would actually work, but it would be interesting if some people tried a little somethin’ like this:

• Just as with traditional music DJ’s, a “word DJ” would have a fairly consistent taste (though not necessarily a niche or genre) and people with a similar taste would follow the word DJ’s who share their own taste and who do the best job of turning them on to new stuff.
• Rather than simply making recommendations, the word DJ gives significantly sized samples of whatever kind of work fits in with the DJ’s specialty.  Fiction or non-fiction.  Samples from books, samples from short stories or articles that might be published only online and even samples from poems (or entire poems).
• The word DJ would most certainly not limit herself to newly published work.  Any work from any period could potentially be included.
• As with music DJ’s, some word DJ’s would have a narrow focus and some would be more ecclectic.
• Also as with music DJ’s, some word DJ’s would focus upon one written work at a time, while others might do “remixes” that cut up and mix together work from various writers and works.
• The true purpose of the word DJ is to take their readers on a journey, not to evaluate written works critically.
• The word DJ does not to tell his readers “Go buy and read this ENTIRE book.”  In many cases, readers will go and buy and read the entire book, but they will often be content to read only the sample.
• Everything that is sampled would have a convenient link to purchase the entire work.  The word DJ’s could even get an affiliate-type commission.
• Word DJ’s would need to sample much larger segments of a work than would normally be permissible under “fair use.”  Wise writers and their publishers (if they have them) would happily go along with this.

There are bookish bloggers doing some of these kinds of things already.  But I wonder if consciously thinking about this person as a “DJ” would change how the DJ works and how others would read the DJ’s aggregations.

I’m sure there is a better term than “word DJ,” too.  Suggestions?

Update: In the Comments, Blissfool correctly points out “If a DJ is a disk jockey, and a VJ is a video jockey then surely a Book DJ would be a BJ?”  Oh, yes!  How could I have missed that?!  This idea may well catch on…