In terms of printing Seforim I once believed that we need a Vaad HaRabbonim for publishing – a coordinating committee that would approve and recommend who should publish his Sefer and who not. However I quickly rejected this idea as totally undo-able and ill advised. Then I dreamed of a grandiose project which would coordinate authors and tell each Mehaber on what topic to write. Sadly the age of grandiose projects like the Encyclopedia Talmudit has passed and even the Encyclopedia Talmudit which has a good start will need at least another 36 volumes or 75-100 years to reach the end of the aleph-bet!

However it recently dawned on me that there is another approach, an organic approach which is even happening on its own. There is a new Rav Moshe on the horizon,a new star has risen, a new Super Talmid Hachami, and he isn’t even Jewish – his name is Rabbi Google! Before you exclaim
“Rachmane Letzlan” and go on to the next screen let me tell you a story. At a wedding 12 years ago I once asked Hagaon HaRav Shlomo Fisher Shlita if computers are not a “Maase Satan”. His answer shocked me to the core. In his quiet way he dropped a bomb. “There is no such thing as a Maase Satan”. Computers and cell phones and Internet and all of the technology that is driving the world towards distraction are only a Golem. If  we choose to use it for good – Hashem Yaazor, and if we choose to use it for bad -Hashem Yaazor. Let’s step back and look at Limud Torah and the Mesora of Torah from generation to generation and lay down certain premises. 1. No word of Torah that has been thought, spoken, written, or printed, from Har Sinai until today, was in vain. Every single Torah Hiddush, idea, expression or word is intrinsically significant. Of course there are levels and levels and levels of Torah thoughts. There are Torah essays that are fully formed, succinct and encompassing and there are those that are far less – but every Torah thought is significant. No Torah thought should be left to wither. Each thought should be explored and examined and if found true recorded somewhere in the Torah of Klal Yisrael. As the Haffetz Haim wrote technology which records past events is only a Mashal (metaphor) how every deed (or for our purposes word of Torah) is remembered in heaven.

3. Shlomo HaMelech writes that there is no end to books and we all know the adage that not every thing you think should be expressed and not every thing you speak should be written and not everything you write should be printed etc. However I have noticed that almost every Sefer has at least one reader. Among the thousands of Seforim I have handled over the past 40 years invariably someone has become excited and asked me to find that specific Sefer. Even the most unremarkable Sefer in my eyes seems to somehow attract a kindred Jewish spirit somewhere in the world who wants to learn from it. That is not to say that there are no Seforim out there which the groaning bookshelves of the world would prefer not to bear – there are thousands. But nevertheless, at least from the point of view of the author, it was a learning experience – he didn’t waste his time.

So if we posit that the main benefit of publishing Seforim today is for the author and not the reader – how do we restructure Jewish publishing so
that it reflects this new function? The immediate answers are simple:

No matter what we can be sure that printing a “best seller” today on a Torani topic is a major illusion. Today in Jerusalem one only has to pass by one of the Shteiblach to witness the death of  uncontrolled Seforim printing. There out in the elements, in winter’s rain and summer’s heat, hundreds of Seforim sit on tables offered for only 5 shekels each and sadly no one is buying them! However the world of joint publishing is coming into its own. The Torani databases: The use of: Otzar HaHachma and Hebrewbooks.com, Otzrot HaTorah and The Judaica Archival Project are growing by leaps and bounds. I have been told that new authors can now send unprinted works in digital format directly to these databases. Electronic books and electronic readers are not at all suitable for commercial Torani publishing but as learning tools and a place to mine information the electronic media have no comparison. Let’s be frank with ourselves sometimes despite the stigma we may feel the best person to ask is “Rabbi Google”.

A Response
to Yaakov Rosenes

by  Menachem Lazar

Menachem Lazar is a postdoctoral researcher at the
University of Pennsylvania, studying applied mathematics and materials science.
 He has previously served as editor of Beit Yitzchak, an annual Talmud
publication of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary.

In a recent essay at the Seforim blog,
Yaakov Rosenes provides a fascinating window into some unfortunate trends in
the world of Jewish publishing.  In particular, Rosenes highlights how
technology has impacted not only how seforim are printed today, but also what seforim
are printed — today, every Tom, Dick, and Harry can print a sefer, and
increasingly many of them choose to do so.  While much of what he writes
comes as no surprise to those who have even casually followed the printed
literature in recent years, the concrete numbers and anecdotes he provides are
certainly illuminating.  

On one of his points I
would like to suggest a “correction”.  In comparing the secular
and Torani worlds, Yaakov Rosenes focuses more on popular printing than on a
more relevant one: academic.  Like talmidei chachamim, scholars of various
fields attempt to promote their work, and to convince others of its importance;
to appropriate his words, “to open up a dialogue with a readership”.
 Likewise, “we have to concentrate more to understand what we
read” appears similarly true of much academic scholarship as it is of
Torah, much moreso than, say, of the Wall Street Journal or Time magazine.
 It might pay then to contrast that world of publication with that in the
Torah world.

I believe that two major
factors — both largely lacking in the world of Torah publishing — enable the
academic world to succeed in promoting quality of publication far beyond what
we can say for Torah printing.  First, there is a wide-spread appreciation
for the distinction between “old” and “new” material.
 Responsible journals typically aim to print new results and ideas.
 Old material is by no means unimportant, but no research journal will
print a routine review of Lagrange multipliers or differential curves, in the
way that many Torah journals might print your chavrusa’s summary of hilchose
chol hamo’ed or of the sugya of kinyan meshicha.  Of course there is a
wide range in quality in what is printed in both worlds, but the goal, at
least, of high-quality journals in the academic world is to mostly print new
ideas.  This can hardly be said for Torah journals, and by extension Torah
books.  Open a typical Torah journal and merely peruse the table of
contents: b’inyan ptur tamun b’esh, b’din get meuseh, etc.  Very general titles,
which often indicate articles that can be summarized: “Moshe learned this
sugya and here are some of his ha’arose”.  There is a reason why we
can find 90% of the same material in 90% of the printed literature.  Of
course, most readers do not have time or interest to read through hundreds of
pages to find the genuinely original pieces, and so the diamonds get lost in
the rough.  And there’s lots of rough.

This, of course, is
related to a second difference between the academic and Torah world — quality
control through peer review.  Aside from weak journals, that oftentimes
solicit and even guarantee publication (sometimes for a fee!), academic
journals typically enlist the aid of a network of people in the field to
referee submissions before they are accepted for publication.  Other
researchers, from graduate students and postdocs to Fields medalists and Nobel
laureates, will read a submission and advise the editors of the journals
regarding its suitability for publication: Is it well written?  Does it
appear to be well-researched?  Does it make a valuable contribution to the
field?  Is it readable to a non-specialist?  At the same time, the
referees also provide important feedback to the authors: “The paper’s
central point might be stated more clearly”, “The paper does not
explain the meaning of term x”, “The paper would benefit from
additional discussion of an additional related point”.  The effect of
this review process is thus two-fold.  First, low-quality articles —
those that are poorly written or otherwise bring little to the table — are
filtered out before the printing stage.  Indeed, the acceptance rate at
PRL, a representative first-tier journal from the physics community, is under
35% [1]; in contrast, during my years of editing and printing the Beit
Yitzchok, the rate was closer to 98%.  Second, the articles that are
printed are often made substantially stronger.  The net result is that
readers are not burdened with the significant challenge of extensive searches
through piles of low-quality work, and instead are treated to work befitting of
their time.  It is unfortunate that at this point, no similar
infrastructure exists in the world of Torah publishing.  True, there are
good Torah journals with talented editors, but as far as I can tell, the
editors of a given journal are typically a tiny group of people doing the job
of what can only effectively be done by one much larger.  

Some people will respond
that indeed our most serious talmidei chachamim are too busy with other
responsibilities to contribute to such a task.  To those people I will ask
the following.  Consider a typical academic employed by a typical research
institution.  Aside from their own research, teaching, administrative and
myriads of other responsibilities, he or she also makes time to referee several
articles a year.  Why do they do that?  I don’t believe that the
answer is prestige or academic promotion, as refereeing occurs by and large
anonymously, and is generally of little value to academic advancement.  Instead,
I believe that academics feel a responsibility to their field to ensure that it
is being done “right”, and that random idiots aren’t getting up there
and passing off their bunk as quality scholarship.  In a word, they feel a
responsibility to preserve the “integrity of the mesorah”.  It
seems to me that talmidei chachamim do not, generally speaking, practice this
same level of shmira when it comes to Torah.  Instead, there is a polite
gentility that goes around, under the guise of which any person’s Torah is ok
— anyone can give a shiur, any person can write a Torah article, any person
can write a sefer.  It is the same politeness that leads to haskamose that
read: “I haven’t read this sefer, but I see that this person is a very
qualified talmid chacham, and chazaka ein chaver motzi mtachas yado davar
sh’eino metukan, and yehi ratzon that he should continue to be marbitz
Torah.”  This passive approval is a polite way of avoiding serious
engagement with the Torah of others.  It is certainly not an effective
shmira even if it temporarily avoids some hurt feelings.  

Publishing a quality
journal — the kind that people are genuinely excited to receive and read — is
an admirable and feasible task, and one that would be a very worthwhile
contribution to the world of lomdei and ohavei Torah.  But I believe that
this cannot happen in the current intellectual climate, one that does not seem
to appreciate the distinction between old and new, and in which tacit wholesale
approval of scholarship is interpreted as genuine respect.  When the
climate changes, the publication of high-quality journals — and books — can
become a warmly welcomed reality.

[1]  https://journals.aps.org/prl/authors/editorial-policies-practices.

By: Yaakov Rosenes

Since the advent of the Internet, the nature of reading and publishing has changed radically in the secular world. Also today Jewish publishing is something entirely new. Now that it is acceptable to bring a lap-top computer into Kollelim we find literally thousands of Avrechim working on original (and frequently worthwhile) Seforim. Today over 75% of the 4000 new Torani titles appearing annually are privately printed by the author. At least half of these books are sold from homes. Many authors are experimenting with print-on-demand technologies and printing smaller editions to lower their costs. Other authors are posting their Seforim online as PDF files or as e-books. In short Jewish publishing which used to be dominated by 10 major publishers and distributors has become a market with thousands of players. Store owners have no shelf-space for new titles. Readers are jaded from too much material. Authors are frustrated because they can’t sell or even give-away their Sefer. Fortunately and unfortunately every Rabbi, Scholar, Admor, Mashpia, Maran and Baba has created his own literature and is trying to attract own readership. In short today’s Torani publishing has become a free-for-all.

In Israel alone 50 every week are recorded by the book depository department at JNUL. I terms of cost at an average of $2000 per book means that Klal Yisrael invests over $5,000,000 per year in printing new Seforim! This number has doubled every 5 years for the last 30 years but the readership is growing at a much slower rate than the “printer ship”.

From 1K to 10K. It depends on the size of the book, the size of the edition and how it is bound. A Soft cover edition of 500 copies can cost as little as $1000. A hardcover edition of 500 pages of 1000 copies can cost over $10,000 to print in Israel.

Self-explanatory, when your brother-in-law gets a copy of your new Sefer and puts it straight on the top back shelf of his bookcase it means even your closest audience has no time for your creation. The point of printing a Sefer is to open up a dialogue with a readership. Unfortunately today most new Seforim are what is called “vanity publishing” which sadly turns into a monologue between the author and himself.

Everybody who is sitting in a Bet Midrash with a lap-top or tablet computer is probably working on a Sefer. On any typical morning in my Kolel there are at least 10 Avrechim with computers on the desk. Some of them even wear their Tefillen while they edit their Sefer. Any first time author should think many times before he starts to work on a Sefer. Is it original? Who will read it? Don’t I need an editor? Why is my Rav encouraging me ?  Maybe he thinks it will be therapeutic? What does my wife or my father-in-law or my brother-in-law really think? If the answer is not clear to any of the above questions please do not print more than 50 copies, soft cover.

When I came to Israel in the 1970’s we still used a monotype press attached to a mechanical keyboard which set letters in molten lead. Today offset printing presses are prevalent where pages are prepared in a phototypesetting machine copied by a huge negative camera and then taped into paper frames to expose on to printing plates. This method works for a press-run of thousands. Since the invention of the laser printer in the 1980’s virtually anyone can print his own primitive book. So today when a new author can expect to sell or give away only 200
copies at the most it pays to skip the typesetting and the plates and to print the pages via a quality commercial digital printer or online printing service.

At least one major chain of brick and mortar bookstores has gone bankrupt and several others are faltering. Amazon.com is selling more e-books than printed books ! Many magazine, newspaper and paperback publishers are putting their major resources into digital editions. However only a few have actually shut down their print editions. In the Torani world we have Shabbos and we have to concentrate more to understand what we read. Therefore the market for the new editions of: Humashim, Mishnayot, Shasim, Turim and Shulkan Aruch etc. is healthy and growing. However the self publishing authors (many of whom are not only very sincere but also very talented) is the where the market is crashing. One bookstore owner told me when he sees an author coming in his front door with a pile of Seforim he runs out the backdoor in order not to embarrass him since he doesn’t have any shelf space for yet another Avrech with yet another new Sefer.

The web is not a place to read anything serious. Most people read the opening line of the opening page and then surf ahead. The media is simply too full of distractions to make a pleasant reading experience. Most people if they want to concentrate on a text will print it and take it with them to really absorb what it says. Only a small percentage of today’s readers really read books – most of us skim the first few pages and head for the newspaper.

Light reading perhaps. Giving away a chapter is a good way to promote a Sefer. For serious reading or learning – It’s suicide. Many people will download the file but very few will print it and even fewer will actually read it. As Yannai HaMelech noted after he wiped out Hachmei Yisrael.”The Sefer Torah is there in the corner – If anybody wants to learn it he can come and use it. RH”L

Yes and No, if the publishers will make some adjustments they have a good chance to survive. First of all the role of the publishers is to select the best talents and to prints the best Seforim. Most of our Jewish publishers became vanity publishers in the 70’s and 80’s. A particular publisher I once worked for used to dig up unpublished manuscripts of questionable value and then look for rich and naive descendants who would pay a pretty penny to see their grandfather’s Sefer in print and then try to convince the Velt that this was a major work from a Gadol
of the last generation. Other publishers specialized in finding new and wealthy authors who would subvent (plus some healthy profit) an entire edition of their new work and then market it as a major masterpiece and 2 years later quietly dump the entire stock for a song on a naive distributor. The publishers who we see today are still in business and going strong are the ones who didn’t use these tricks but simply read carefully what they publish.

In my opinion the future of Jewish publishing eerily echoes the past. Before the printing press every reader hired a Sofer to copy his Rav’s Sefer, specifically for his own personal study. Copying books wasn’t a business, only the Sofer was paid for his time. Recently I have met several Talmidei Hachamim who are making use of scanned books to print out exactly what they want to learn and then they bind their print-outs into folders. Others bring them to a professional book-binder.

Are we returning to the époque where books are copied one at a time for personal study only? I believe so. Maybe this is a good thing? Shouldn’t Jewish study be freed from the false paradigm of “the best seller” which is a very non-Jewish commercial concept? Shouldn’t we free ourselves from our own enslavement of having to see every book on the market and consciously tune ourselves into what we really can focus on. Living in an age of so much noise shouldn’t one train himself to concentrate on the music?

Additional related links about this topic: See here, here, here & here.