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Brave Old World: A Book and a Business Proposal
Update: When I told the Yeti that I’d posted this but hadn’t set up a GoFundMe page, he basically said I was an idiot.
“But I haven’t worked out every detail of how this will work yet,” I said.
“Just ask for the money,” he said.
Fair enough. I’ve now set up a GoFundMe page. Please contribute here, at Brave Old World. I don’t know how every detail of this will work, but your support is definitely going to get you some good, old-fashioned journalism.
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Ladies and Gentlemen of Ricochet, I have a business proposal for you. I’m about to ask you for money, so be prepared. But I think — maybe — this idea could work, and if it does, you’d get a good return on it. So grab yourself a cup of coffee, put on your capitalist-caps, and let me explain.
Ten years ago, I wrote Menace in Europe: Why the Continent’s Crisis is America’s, Too. I’d been living for a while in Europe, and found many Americans’ fantasies about European life delusional. Those who were sure the Continent was on a glide path to peaceful, prosperous, and permanent integration seemed to me suffused with dangerously excessive optimism.
I argued that Europe was haunted by ghosts from the past while confronting entirely new problems it was ill-prepared to face. Americans, I suggested, would be well-advised to pay attention to what was really happening.
When I wrote that book, my views were unusual and considered extreme. Now, obviously, they’re not.
It received excellent reviews in some quarters:
“Serious, well researched—and riveting. More than a piercing alarm over Muslim radicalism in Europe, this thoughtful book takes us on a tour of the continent’s spiritual crisis. Berlinski weaves sociological insight and helpful historical analysis into accounts of everything from the sexual underside of immigration to the dynamics of assassination to Europe’s cities without children to its self-extinguishing tolerance.” —Stanley Kurtz, contributing editor at National Review Online
And of course, it was panned by those who thought me a Cassandra and a hysteric. Still, some of the critics who thought I was seeing ghosts now admit that maybe I had a point. For example, Philip Jenkins, a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State, described me in 2007 as the “author of a highly controversial book on the subject of religion in Europe.” As you can see in this piece, The Age of Permanent Jihad, he’s now more pessimistic than I was a decade ago.
But surprisingly, I’m less sure of my pessimism than I once was.
What changed? I changed, for one. Living for nearly a decade in Turkey changed my perspective on many things. So, perhaps, did growing older. But most importantly, I came back to a continent that had changed, sometimes in ways I didn’t predict. So some of my predictions about Europe’s future proved correct. But others were wrong. Why?
I hated the title Menace in Europe, by the way. I wanted to call it Blackmailed by History. But the sales force thought books with the word “history” in the title didn’t sell. They wanted a title with a terrifying word, one that said to readers, explicitly, why this book mattered to them. I thought it was perfectly obvious that what happens in Europe affects the United States — two World Wars seemed like sufficient evidence of that — but my editor thought that if the sales force hated the title, they wouldn’t try to sell it. So I caved.
I wish I’d stood my ground, because many readers understood my book to be chiefly about Europe’s difficulty integrating its Muslim immigrants. That was an issue that concerned me, but it was only part of a larger story. My other concerns — the rebirth in black-market form of European nationalism, the excessively idealistic foundation upon which the European integration project was built, Russian revanchism — were just as important, and these problems are still overlooked.
There were many things I failed to anticipate. The main thing I didn’t see coming was the crisis of confidence that was soon to befall the United States, one every bit as severe as Europe’s, and more consequential in its implications. Nor did I anticipate the convulsions that were about to take place in the Middle East. But I certainly did see some things coming. I concluded the book this way:
I do not prophesy the imminent demise of European democratic institutions, nor do I predict imminent catastrophe on European soil. But I don’t rule out these possibilities either. Europe’s entitlement economy will collapse. Its demography will change. The European Union may unravel. We have no idea what these events would herald, but it is possible and reasonable to imagine a very ugly outcome. The only people to whom this will come as a surprise are those who have not been paying attention.
Indulge me in a brief moment of personal frustration. Last week I was asked by The New York Times to write an essay about the attack in Brussels and the mood in Europe. I sent what I thought was a serious, grown-up response, but they didn’t run it. Instead, they ran one that began this way:
When I moved to Europe 12 years ago, my biggest concern was whether I’d ever speak decent French. Practically every American I knew came to visit, many saying they dreamed of living here, too. I didn’t worry much about far-right political parties, or the European Union. I certainly didn’t fret about terrorism. …
You can imagine how I felt when I read that. Our newspaper of record, folks.
But on the good-news front, I recently learned that my book has nearly sold out the advance I received for writing it, meaning that from now on, I’ll receive royalty payments. (I’m not expecting to retire on them, alas. But perhaps these checks will one day be sufficient to buy a nice meal every now and again.) It took ten years, but the book is finally making a profit.
Some of you have asked when I’ll be writing a sequel. I agree it’s time to do that, especially in light of the economic and refugee crises and the invasion of Ukraine. I’d like to return to some of the places I wrote about ten years ago to see what I got wrong, what I got right, and why. I’ve watched the changes of the past decade up close, in Turkey and France. I’d like now to report from other places: The Balkan route of the migrant trail, Greece, Germany, Belgium, Britain as it debates its future in Europe, Eastern Europe as it decides whether liberal democracy is truly an idea for which it has much use.
But since I wrote that book, another thing happened that I didn’t expect: The traditional models for book publishing and journalism collapsed. As I’ve noted many times here, the old model for selling journalism, particularly journalism from abroad, is kaput. I’ve written a lot about the consequences of this, particularly here. I wrote a longer piece about the phenomenon here:
… at least eighteen American newspapers and two chains have closed every last one of their overseas bureaus since 1998. Other papers and chains have dramatically reduced their overseas presence. Television networks, meanwhile, have slashed the time they devote to foreign news. They concentrate almost exclusively on war coverage—and then, only on wars where US troops are fighting. That leaves the big four national newspapers—the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times—with independent foreign news coverage. But they too have closed foreign bureaus in recent years. In 2003, the Los Angeles Times shut down 43 percent of its foreign bureaus. …
Lately, my feeling that I wish I could go back to doing that kind of reporting, and my belief that it’s important to do that kind of reporting, have grown. At the same time, my enthusiasm for following the day-to-day minutiae of the American presidential campaign has dwindled. Like many of you, I’ve been so dismayed by the Trump campaign and by what it’s revealed about the real state of the conservative movement that frankly, I’m happier not hearing about it. I’m not enjoying being in the fray of our debates about Trump. I have a terrible feeling about where this campaign is going. I’m not sure I want to invest more emotional and intellectual capital in trying to figure it out. I’m not sure I could, even if I wanted to.
So I’ve been wishing I could go back to old-fashioned journalism — by which I mean, looking at things, asking questions, listening to the answers, reporting what I hear and see. I want to write essays and books again.
But how, in this new publishing world?
The other day, seeing the success of Ricochet’s good-natured campaign to bring Titus Techera to America, I had an idea. It’s not to ask Ricochet to donate money to a book-writing and journalism project. It’s to ask whether members of Ricochet would invest in such a project, in the realistic hope of a return on the investment — although I don’t know what the return would be.
Before I explain the details of this, though, let me ask: Would you be interested in reading, listening, and watching reporting about the transformations in Europe? My idea is to spend, perhaps, a year doing this kind of reporting, with the ultimate goal of writing a book for a larger audience. In the interim, I’d report what I’m doing and learning both on Ricochet and a dedicated site, in a multimedia format: articles, video, audio, podcasts. I’d ask Ricochet members to shape the journalism: to suggest what I should investigate, where I should go, and why; to submit questions for the people I interview, perhaps even to speak to them yourselves on Skype; to guide the project as I go along by helping me better to understand what my audience wants to know. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone try to do journalism this way. It could be an interesting and maybe a useful new approach: interactive, investigative journalism for a specific audience of reader-investors who can help me connect their questions and curiosity better to the stories I discover.
The end product would be a number of things. It would be a multimedia website in which I document the project, post articles, photographs, and video interviews — a bit like the way as I did when I explored the Mavi Marmara fiasco in Turkey. (Here’s a sample of one of my interviews.) It would also be a book, which I’d self-publish through Amazon (as I did my interviews with Margaret Thatcher’s intimates).
What would your role in this be? Well, you’d pay for it. You’d replace Random House or Crown Forum or another conventional publisher as the source of the advance on the book. And then, if I make this into a commercial success — I don’t know yet if I can, but I’d sure try — you’d receive a return on your investment proportional to what you invested. Any earnings beyond my advance and a percentage of the royalties would be returned to you, the investors. And you’d replace The New York Times as the news gatekeeper: Your judgment about what’s important and interesting would guide my reporting agenda. (Bonus: for those of you tired of hearing my views about Trump, this is a guaranteed way to distract me from him.)
Ricochet’s Powers that Be loved this idea. They encouraged me to ask you. And — excitingly — we already have one member-investor who’s willing to get the ball rolling by putting up the first 25 percent of the funds, provided I can raise the other 75 percent from you.
I haven’t yet worked out the budget: I wanted to get your reaction, first. But I suspect the project, including travel expenses, technical expenses (for example, hosting the website, editing the material) and covering my living costs would probably be — rough guess — about $60,000. If you like the idea and think I should pursue it, I’ll work out the details.
What do you think? Would it work? Would you be willing to invest? Do you have any thoughts about how to make an idea like this work?
Help me think this through. I know there’s a story to tell here. It’s obviously important to Americans. It’s a complicated story, and I don’t know, in advance, what I’ll discover. But new media technology shouldn’t be contracting our horizons — it should be making it possible to approach journalism is ways it’s never been approached before. It should be broadening the ways Americans can learn about the world, not shrinking it.
Could it work?
Published in General
Thank you. I don’t know if my views conflict with many people here — I haven’t really done a poll. What I’m excited about is the chance to take a break from having strong views for a while and doing real reporting again: finding out what other people think, and trying to see what I can see with as open a mind as I can. I don’t know what I’m going to find out — and that’s a good frame of mind to be in.
Having a strong opinion every day of the week gets tiring. I’m looking forward to listening to other people’s opinions for while.
I already allow Stratfor to loot me annually for their mediocre efforts at deciphering foreign events. So I’m willing to take a gamble on Berlinski.
Yes, I like this part of the idea, too. For me, it would be less like putting a message in a bottle and throwing it in the sea — and more like writing a letter to people who’ve already said, “I want to read it.”
Are they worth it? I’m always tempted, because I like the stuff they give away for free — and I liked it even more when they were hacked, because the hacked stuff was excellent on Turkey. But the price is just a bit too high for me to feel like it’s something I can casually put on my reading list. I might change my mind if you think it’s worth it.
Thank you so much. Both for the money and the confidence. Thank you.
Definitely. Helping me find perfect cat-sitters, for example.
I’ve actually also thought about writing that. Let’s see if this idea works for this book — if it does, it opens up tons of possibilities.
One could always fall back and rely upon the efforts of the NYT or perhaps RT in forming an opinion. Hmph we have come to this, such choices. Stratfor is indeed expensive and their efforts are indeed mediocre.
If there was a superior option I would be considering that option, I haven’t found it yet. Perhaps you can create something better, your work on Turkey has been very interesting.
I go back and forth on them — sometimes they are indeed such putzes. But have you been following Rukmini Callimachi’s reporting on ISIS? It’s astonishingly good. It takes NYT-level funding to do that kind of reporting. They’re a big institution, and they do both great stuff and lousy stuff. So I pay to subscribe. And no matter how often I want to cancel my subscription in outrage, I just as often want to read things their better reporters write.
I hope every bit I pay them goes toward Rukmini’s salary.
Yep. I wish I knew someone — anyone — who’d put together something relevantly similar on which I could model this. But if everyone were doing it, I guess it wouldn’t be a new idea.
These are all good points, but I think it’s important to have some kind of firm and plausible goal, too. I wouldn’t give someone money to “just see what works as time goes on.” Investors would be replacing conventional publishers, and publishers (reasonably) expect to earn money on book sales. So there has to be, at least, a book to sell — and some worked-out thought about how to market it.
Probably more to the Balkans than the Baltics, just because money goes further in the Balkans. But you never know what kinds of travel deals you can find if you’re looking for them.
This is simple and elegant, and worth considering. But it doesn’t allow investors to do better if the book sells more copies.
I want to see if we can figure out a way to replace the old publishing and journalism models — and actually make money by doing it. For it to really be a success in my mind, the book has to sell. Like a normal book, not like a bespoke, specialty item. People have to read it, in other words. And I need to succeed in convincing them that it’s worth reading. (That of course starts by writing something worth reading.)
I don’t mind if you do. If my writing sells like a good hamburger, I’ll be a happy woman.
I didn’t realize these are things I should be charging people for. Charging people to watch my cats has a nice Tom-Sawyer whitewashing-the-fence ring to it, doesn’t it?
As if I had a choice. It’s the only country I’ve got! I can’t give up on it.
(But I can probably be a lot happier by not thinking about Donald Trump all day long.)
Absolutely. My sister-in-law’s a UN Peacekeeper. Same kind of profession.
Interesting! I think books are closer to being a consumer product like specialty food than they are to social networks, don’t you? If this works for 18 Rabbits, why wouldn’t it work for a book? I’ve written books before, so it’s not as if I’m a completely untestable commodity …
It’s all in the marketing….
Like this dude?
I wrote about the project and linked this post at Chicago Boyz
Claire, I meant what I said about being willing to pitch in, but for some complicated reasons it may be a month or two before I do much. Would you rather have a token amount now–getting a sense of larger numbers of supporters but driving down the average contribution–or rather I wait until I can do a bit more?
I’m sitting here like a crack addict watching that counter go up. It’s the most addictive thing the Internet has ever thrown at me, and I include in that list the early years of Tetris and checking my ex’s new relationship status. I’m absolutely incapable of being rational about this question, Lucy. My lizard brain has taken over. I just want … More! More! More! Make the number go up! Make the number go up!
I think I need to go take a cold shower.
LOL, but what do you want me to do?
Whatever feels right to you. I just feel grateful and blessed that you’d like to support this, either way.
Hey, this is a family publication.
For me, it was my first trip into the InterWebs. Sitting in front of my 8088 PC in Las Cruces and downloading a file from the University of Krakow.
I get withdrawal when the link goes down, now.
Hope that money stream keeps flowing. I’m looking forward to your journalism, a refreshing shift from what too often seems like toddlers drooling unsupervised on Mumsy’s or Pop-pop’s keyboards.
Eric Hines
I thought their publicly available stuff was shallow. My wife subscribed for a year, and she decided it wasn’t worth the cost.
Behind the paywall they do a solid, reasonably unbiased analysis of events, but nothing any reader couldn’t do for himself. The value add is from the existence of that analysis and the reading of the underlying events; not everyone has the time to do either.
Eric Hines
Well, what they lack in depth, they make up for in certainty.
OK, I just added something. This is a cat raffle, right?