Silicon Valley wrote about an emerging trend: book authors inviting strangers to collectively edit their manuscripts online before they are published.

Dan Gillmor posted chapters of his upcoming book on his blog and invited reader feedback. Writer J.D. Lasica went a step further and created a Web site where anyone can edit the chapters of his book, `”Darknet: Remixing the Future of Movies, Music & Television.”

“We’re entering an era where creative people are sort of losing control of their work, and it’s not all bad,” Lasica declared. `”I wanted to experience that. I didn’t want that experience of a big media conglomerate where you say `Take it or leave it.’ ”

Besides, Lasica’s book covers a variety of industries, and he needed industry experts to review his work and offer corrections or insights before the paper and ink copy hits the stores next spring.

For his Darknet Web site, Lasica is using a Wiki. The experiment taught him about the pros and cons of wikis. While some readers have enhanced his writings by pointing out facts he missed or fixing grammatical errors, others inserted Web links to important Web sites throughout his manuscript — links that will not work in the printed edition of the book.

Now his editor is exploring whether to set up a Wiki where authors can help edit each other’s work.

Christian Crumlish, another East Bay writer, has been using both a blog and a Wiki for his next book, “The Power of Many: How the Living Web Is Transforming Politics, Business, and Everyday Life.”

He compares the process to “building a cathedral. You need a thousand people to help you.”