If you have a collaborative book idea, an open platform is already in place to publish it at the Wikiklesia Project (www.wikiklesia.org) – ISBN, web presence, etc.. all free to any viable project. The Wikiklesia Project won the 2007 SNCR Award of Merit and was started with four core objectives:

* CREATE a self-sustaining, para-ecclesial organization without solidified leadership - a franchise that changes hands as each new project begins.
* GATHER a diverse cross-section of the virtually connected church into a common forum to discuss the most important issues facing contemporary Christianity.
* GIVE voice to emerging writers along side accomplished authors.
* RAISE money for benevolent organizations.

Wikiklesia may be the world’s first self-perpetuating nomadic business model: raising money for charities – giving voice to emerging writers and artists – generating a continuous stream of new anthologies covering all manner of relevant topics.

Nobody remains in control. There is no board of directors. The franchise changes hands as quickly as new projects are created.

The questions Wikiklesia is attempting to answer: Can a publishing organization thrive without centralized leadership? Is perpetual, self-organizing book publishing possible? Can literary quality be maintained in a distributed publishing paradigm?

Personally, I would like to see other kinds of open-platform publishing efforts emerge en masse. The key is attracting quality, which is why I think there needs to be a clear objective / topic, and a shared editorial review panel for each project. Otherwise, it remains little more than a group-blog-cum-Lulu.

Someone pointed out to me that the old media is crumbling away at the seams, but the one sub-category that is solidly on the rise is the “Christian” bookshelf. So Emergent is unwilling to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. Sad.

Here’s where I think the em-church went back to old media (and Aaron’s spot on). When it became important to have conferences and gatherings to talk together. When that happened, the emchurch needed Voices and Leaders. The way we knew them was by the old ways: the books that were popular (e.g. McLaren).

I know a couple of folks who were part of the movement, and were known within it, but didn’t publish a book, so they never got stage time. They considered writing books to get there, but I think they finally thought better of it (or the books are sitll on the way).