Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Glenn Beck. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 7 - Headlines and Titles by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 7
Headlines and Titles
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Here are previous posts in this series on Marketing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_18.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

The following tweet is from THE BLAZE (in Dec 2013):

--------quote------
‘Fake’ Mandela sign language interpreter reportedly faced murder, rape & kidnapping charges theblaze.com/stories/2013/1… pic.twitter.com/TjhPPrkosj
-------end quote----------

Here's the twitpic link:
https://twitter.com/theblaze/status/411536589697724416/photo/1

And here's the link to the full story on THE BLAZE:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/13/fake-mandela-sign-language-interpreter-who-stood-just-inches-from-obama-reportedly-faced-murder-rape-kidnapping-charges/
I know, it's March already - who needs this ancient history of no importance?


Actually, you do if you've been reading this series on Marketing Fiction.  This is an exercise in applying what we've been talking about by noticing how PR is applied by professionals.  This reveals the change in our world -- one of many.  

This news item is not about how our President's Secret Service folks messed up.

This is a post in the Marketing Fiction In A Changing World series -- and one change to note when choosing a title for your story or novel is the one buried inside this Headline.

You may want to review the posts on Theme with attention to the "Integration" ones.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/theme-plot-integration-part-13-superman.html

And Part 8 of Theme-Worldbuilding Integration
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/01/theme-worldbuilding-integration-part-8.html

I've mentioned a number of times the "formula" for creating a title for your story.

The title symbolizes and/or states the theme in such an intriguing way that it can not be forgotten once the reader gets to the end and understands what the story is about.  The book is closed, the cover appears -- your title and byline become engraved on that reader's mind.

Why does that effect always happen if the title is well chosen?

It happens because you, the writer, have articulated something buried deep within the heart of the reader you have never met, something they didn't know was there or couldn't articulate.  You've shown not told that you understand the reader.

The element that makes this trick work is that you've never met this reader -- the reader knows you don't know their heart.  Therefore what you've said in the theme of your novel is expressing something the reader has in common with you.

Fellowship, kinship, friendship, community -- that's what makes titles "work."

You are the spokesman for this reader who has been alone with this belief you've articulated.  So the reader wants to become part of the group, to join with those who recognize this crucial element of heart.

So how do you learn to DO that in a title? 

Reading News Headlines is an excellent method.

So let's read this headline from The Blaze online news outlet.

Firstly, as I would when approaching a novel to see if I want to buy it, I look at the Publisher -- then the author -- then I read the blurb to see if the blurb is professionally written -- only after evaluating the craftsmanship in the blurb do I drill down to what the blurb says.

This headline (blurb is what News writes into a Headline) is very professionally written.

But it isn't what attracted me to this story back in December. 

The most interesting thing in that tweet is the PUBLISHER. 

But most online news readers don't pay attention to the publisher and don't know anything about them -- unless maybe just that they have a TV Cable channel (CNN, Fox, whoever).

Being a writer, I pay lots of attention to publisher-identities and profiles. 

The Blaze is a spinoff (maybe not so "off" but definitely spinning) of Glenn Beck's web-broadcast operation that I've discussed previously.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/07/targeting-readership-part-9-creating.html

His bold move to leave (or get dumped by) Fox and plunge into building a web-distributed Network (very innovative) seemed idiotic.  But now his network is carried by a large number of Cable Providers and has a growing number of shows filling the round-the-clock broadcast slots.  We've discussed Cable's business model in previous entries in Marketing Fiction In A Changing World.  Watching Cable providers acquire Beck's operation has been an education in business. 

We'll see if he crashes and burns as the Oprah Winfrey network did.  It's all about business model -- delivering entertainment, whether fiction or non-fiction, to a targeted audience and doing it at a profit.  See last week's post for the confusion of Profit and Prestige motives.

Now, one thing Beck has claimed on-air is that he doesn't use metrics.  He changes his tune frequently, opens subjects then drops them seemingly at random.  But all the while his audience grows.  That's what "metrics" does. 

I don't believe he doesn't use metrics.  I see evidence that he does, and no evidence that he doesn't. 

This Mandela headline crafting indicates that not only is The Blaze using metrics, they are very carefully (and very professionally) applying those metrics.

What are "metrics?"  That's the numbers that Public Relations (PR) produces when applied to the problem of measuring an audience by demographic, and other opinion elements.  Metrics quantified audiences delivered to advertisers.

Why does a for-profit operation need to use such metrics?  Because that's what Advertisers use.

Beck started his web-network without advertising (except his own products), so didn't need metrics other than the number of paying subscribers.

Yes, you need a separate subscription to access Beck's video-shows unless your cable or satellite company carries his network (in which case they pay him and you pay them).

This mix of subscription and cable is a fascinating business model -- you must watch how this develops and what it's fate ultimately is.  Somehow, just ignore "who" the people are who subscribe because that's irrelevant to a Romance Writer studying the Changing World.

Watching The Blaze News operation develop (at this time it looks like a scandal rag) will likewise be fascinating. 

The announced intention that Beck repeats as a slogan is "The Truth Lives Here."

Likewise, one of his hobbyhorse topics he returns to repeatedly is the principles the USA Founding Fathers incorporated into the founding documents. 

One of those principles is "Innocent Until Proven Guilty."

That was, at the time, a VAST -- utterly shocking, and truly idiotic -- innovation.  Everyone knows if an Aristocrat accuses you (shades of The Inquisition) you are guilty. 

Now look at that headline from The Blaze -- which is striving to become a trustworthy news source. 

‘Fake’ Mandela Sign Language Interpreter Who Stood Just Inches From Obama Reportedly Faced Murder, Rape & Kidnapping Charges

Read the rest of the article -- and it quite fairly reports on all the reasons why this poor fellow might not be "guilty" -- but how many will read all the way down into that story?

Most people will see the tweet and (since you are also seeing the same kind of language from other news outlets) leap to the unfounded conclusion that since he was ACCUSED therefore he is GUILTY.

Why do "people" think that way?

Aha, that is one of the Changes in this World that we're examining in this series on Marketing. 

How did we go from Innocent Until Proven Guilty -- to Accused = Guilty?

Go read some items on Facebook or Google+  -- I put a lot of news items on Google Plus to illustrate ways to rip thematic material from them.  See if you can spot the headlines incorporating Accused=Guilty.  That assumption makes a hot-plot-development. 

Here is the bit of thematic material to rip out of this tangled mess of a headline.

We have an organization striving and struggling to become economically viable in this tech-morphing world -- The Blaze Network (Beck renamed his operation).

They claim not to "use metrics."

They disseminate headlines that are clearly and obviously (yes, only to a writer) crafted from pure metrics. 

One of the metrics behind this headline is the prevalence of ACCUSED MEANS GUILTY.

Otherwise, the headline would be:

‘Fake’ Mandela Sign Language Interpreter Who Stood Just Inches From Obama --acquitted of the rape charge but convicted of theft

That bit I changed is a piece of a sentence from farther down in the story.  ACQUITTED not FACED is the operative change.

Now, consider how many people would click through and read the rest of the story if it said ACQUITTED?  As compared to how many would click if it says FACED?

That's what METRICS does -- that's what PR is all about -- how many and will they click on an advertisement?  The advertisers (as I showed previously in this Marketing series) need to have an audience delivered to their ads with emotions whipped up to the point where action is guided by emotion not rational thought. 

So by writing the headline based on the NEW worldview of ACCUSED = GUILTY (where there's smoke there's fire) -- they get more clicks than if they indicate that what all the other media outlets are saying is unimportant -- that is acquitted, not faced.

Dismissing a matter doesn't get you click-throughs.  The choice of a word makes a non-story into a news story by whipping up emotion.  And this from The Blaze -- The Truth Lives Here.  Does it?

This headline illustrates an important principle in headline writing.  It is crafted in a professional PR style.

Study it carefully, study your emotional reactions, look at how complicated the issues really are (by reading the rest of the news item), and what mental gymnastics went into boiling all that complexity down into a headline.

SIMPLIFY is the watchword (PR assumes people are herds of stupid or stupified-by-emotion animals) -- take your complex, nested thematic structure and simplify it into a headline using this same process and you'll have a winner if the PR/Advertising people are correct.  At least it'll be profitable if not prestigious. 

Meanwhile, note the disparity between what Beck claims to be doing, and what those hired to succeed with advertisers have to do instead. 

Will his commercial success-curve bend proportionately to the hypocrisy embedded underneath it all? 

Does success require that sort of hypocrisy? 

Is the lack of Hypocrisy the reason the Romance Genre hasn't been able to "sell" the HEA? 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, July 02, 2013

Targeting a Readership Part 9: Creating a Market by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Below is Targeting a Readership Part 9, BUT FIRST!!!!!

-------------ANNOUNCEMENT----------
It's official. The Sime~Gen RPG has been announced and you can SIGN UP for a Newsletter, and watch all the fun and excitement as the word spreads about the upcoming KICKSTARTER.

This announcement is from Loreful about AMBROV X:


Kickstarter on Sept. 3, 2013. We are launching AmbrovX.com as well as all of our social media channels. From today until the Sept 3rd, we will be slowly growing our social media presence and awareness of Ambrov X, our Kickstarter and our presence at the Cincy Comicon on Sept. 6-8. To do that we need your help!

If you would be so kind as to follow, like and/or share our channels we would be eternally grateful to you.

Our Social Media Channels are as follows:

Website:



-------------END ANNOUNCEMENT-------------------
==============
Targeting a Readership Part 9: Creating a Market by Jacqueline Lichtenberg


The previous 8 parts of this Targeting a Readership Series can be found here:

Targeting Readership Part 1 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/targeting-readership-part-one.html

Part 2 is inside this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

Part 3 is inside and woven into the following post in my Astrology Just For Writers series which by mistake has the same number as the previous part but is really Part 7:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/11/astrology-just-for-writers-part-6.html

Targeting a Readership Part 4 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/06/targeting-readership-part-4.html

Targeting a Readership Part 5 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html

Targeting a Readership Part 6 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/targeting-readership-part-6.html

Targeting a Readership Part 7 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/04/targeting-readership-part-7-guest-post.html  A guest post by Valerie Valdes on use of setting

Targeting a Readership Part 8 is:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/06/targeting-readership-part-8-anne-pinzow.html  A guest post by Anne Phyllis Pinzow, a journalist who has created a readership for a newspaper after its readership evaporated.

Note at the end of her guest post, Anne sums up the difference between 1955 and 2013 in terms of the themes exemplified in film:

Fifty's movie glorifies honor.

2013 TV series glorifies, well, Machiavelli and the uselessness of honor.

This and other value-shifts have been noted by many people -- some with approval and some with disapproval.  Which attitudes are good and which are bad is not what WRITERS must figure out.  We must be able to portray all sides of any issue, speak from the mouth of any character espousing any attitude and do it convincingly. 

As Gene Roddenberry taught me, fiction is about asking questions not answering them.  Frame it, pose it, exemplify it in the CHARACTER, SETTING, THEME,  CONFLICT AND PLOT, keep it out of the words and in the visual symbolism, then tell the story.

That's what Robert Heinlein taught other SF writers, just TELL A WHOPPING GOOD STORY because you're competing for beer money.  Or maybe today, white wine -- whatever Romance readers want to drink.  A paperback costs about what a drink in a bar might cost - a little less some places. 

Today you are also competing for your reader's time because the proliferation of media forces people to decide which media to consume in their shrinking spare-time-moments.

Knowing what you're competing against (other media, other relaxing pass-times, not other writers), allows you a chance to build an audience, a market that will prefer your product over others.

So here is Part 9 developing these notions into the study of creating an audience to target -- from scratch. 

So on the SimeGen Group on Facebook, Donna Michele Fernstrom posted this link to an article about the dropping price of self-published e-books:

http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/self-published-ebooks-are-nos-1-and-2-best-sellers-average-price-drops-to-all-time-low/

I commented on the Group:

Jacqueline Lichtenberg: There is always the factor of "supply and demand" reflected in "price." And there is the principle that the lower the price, the higher the demand. But there are a lot of other variables in any market situation. Each story is a "unique" product.

And Donna answered:

Donna Michele Fernstrom: Absolutely true. Also true is that we haven't figured out what the threshold is for something to 'go viral' and become so wildly popular.

Which raised a whole lot of thoughts about the "go viral" phenomenon.

Perhaps we haven't found the threshold because there isn't one?

Perhaps it's not a certain number of people reposting something that causes the notion to "go viral" -- perhaps going viral is more about WHO the item reaches, not about how many of them there are?

I also remember, from several years ago, an item by a social media expert marketer who pointed out you don't have to amass a gigantic following to leverage your social media followers into a living-wage.  You really (as a self-publisher) only need to reach 1,000 people who become hooked on your stuff and will buy anything you write/publish. 

I think there's some serious truth in that.  You don't need the whole world at your doorstep to make a living from writing.  But publishing is hard, which is why it's expensive and publishers pay writers a pittance compared to the prices they charge, because the rest is overhead and their salaries.

Publishing involves content-editing, copy-editing, creation of the product, distribution of the product, advertising of the product -- it's a full time job for a lot of people to transport a story from a writer's computer to a reader's eyes.

So a product, to be viable in the marketplace has to reach more than 1,000 people who will grab it.

Creating product is one thing; creating the business to transport that product is quite another.

So with the massive shift in publishing due to the explosion of electronic media, I've been watching for success stories among the abundance of failures I've been seeing.

Anne Pinzow has had some success finding stories the newspaper readers want to read (non-fiction, mind you!).  It took years for the readers of the newspaper to discover that suddenly THIS paper contains the exact information they want to know, that no other paper even mentioned.  But the paper, as a business, isn't quite making the dollars it must to survive even as its fame increases.  It's exploring options to go online.

I know another local paper printed newspaper that I read is promising not to stop printing on paper, but is building their online presence as fast as they can right after that paper got sold to new owners.  I don't think the print edition will survive. 

And I worked for a print publication that went down over the same print/costs issues. 

I'm sure you all saw this in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-miles/koch-brothers-la-times_b_3180391.html

That's about the Koch Brothers bidding for failing newspapers, such as the LA Times.

When wielders of such massive fortunes as the Koch Brothers command make a move, you have to ask yourself what do they know that we don't know?

PAPER IS DEAD, right?  I mean iPad and Kindle have become the subscription media for reading magazines and newspapers.  Online (especially mobile) advertising just isn't paying the way yet, but people are starting to pay to get past the online pay-wall and get deeper articles. 

There's a market for "news" and "commentary/analysis" -- and that requires a staff of hundreds to tromp over to the scene of an event and poke around, collecting the information you would collect if you were at the event.  This saves you the time and travel - you can't be everywhere, but reporters can be.

So the process of gathering, editing, and distributing NEWS is still a viable part of a business model.  There's a market for well digested, well presented, succinct and accurate information.

The way to make a profit on finding, digesting, and delivering that information is still changing -- businessmen are searching for the method that will leverage the electronic age into serious profit.

The Koch Brothers -- famous or maybe infamous for their Right Wing stance -- are looking at buying out the remnants of famous old newspapers as a framework for rebuilding their readerships just as Anne Pinzow found a method of writing news articles that readers of a printed paper wanted to read (and talk about -- her articles get coverage on local radio).

The only newspapers really left standing specialize in local news.  National and international are on TV, Radio, and online.

That's the very lucrative non-fiction market impacted by the electronic revolution. 

But what about fiction?  What about Romance? 

Romance novels represent a niche market, a specific and very exactly defined market.  We, here, add in all kinds of other spice -- Paranormal, Interstellar wars, aliens, and any and every manner of Fantasy creature, but it's still all about Romance.  Romance is what we DO -- if there's a human around anywhere, love is what drives the plot, any plot and every plot. 

What we want in our fiction is a specific, defined and specialized as the Koch Brothers "Right Wing" niche activities. 

The Koch Brothers item on their interest in buying the LA Times newspaper (did you know that decades ago the LA Times was right wing?) "went viral" when it hit the blogosphere and was carried by the various news services (which still exist but don't function as well as they once did).

Follow the Koch Brothers story as a lesson in "going viral."

The Koch Brothers story even turned up on The Blaze, the TV network created (from absolute scratch) by Glenn Beck.

I've discussed Glenn Beck at far more length than he deserves in previous posts here,

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/glenn-beck-didnt-invent-overton-window.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/10/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-i.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-ii.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/11/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/02/how-to-change-perception-of-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/finding-good-paranormal-romance.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-7.html

...but we must revisit his progress now in order to get a grasp on the possibilities for Romance to create its market in online streaming video, talk, author interviews, old movies, NEW MOVIES, and series. 

A lot of what is labeled "Romance" is actually erotica or smut that's had the Romance part stripped out.  Purified of the Romance parts, raw sexuality has a major market appeal, and makes lots of money.  But the overall subject of my blog entries here is elevating the respect for the Romance genre, for the Romance story, and the Romance novel -- fiction with a core driving force toward a Happily Ever After ending. 

As a writer, to let your characters plausibly achieve "happily ever after" or the HEA, you have to do a lot of clinically distant, unemotional, analysis of what "happiness" is, where it comes from, why some people have it and others don't, and how to change those who don't into those who do.

Fiction is all about CONFLICT, you know, and the resolution of a conflict requires the main character to CHANGE.  In a Romance the change is from a person who does not have happiness into a person who does have happiness, and not only that but into a person who has crossed a one-way threshold into a realm of living where the happiness quotient will never subside below a certain level.  That requires an internal change in the character, a spiritual enlightenment, a serious personality reset.  "Life" is always the same; your view of it can change. 

Yes, after The End, the level of happiness a character feels does go down, and life gets to be "life" again -- but the "ever after" part puts a floor under the down.

Maybe the floor is at the level of simple contentment, or maybe it's a bit above mere contentment, but from that floor the person's happiness quotient goes UP again, then down a little, and UP again, down a little, then UP again etc in an up-trend -- something special and very significant changes inside that Main Character in a Romance that achieves a new level of HAPPINESS that is permanent and ever-after increases from there.   

That's what a Romance is all about. 

I seriously doubt you'll easily find a single outlet in streaming or cable that specializes in that kind of story. 

The level of rejection among the general population of the HEA as realistic is so high that this HEA kind of fiction is regarded as wish-fulfillment-fantasy and thus childishly self-indulgent fare of a loser. 

That is exactly the way science fiction fans were regarded before Star Trek. 

Glenn Beck has created, in The Blaze online newspaper and his streaming subscription network, ( http://theblaze.com ) a vehicle for a "message" that is as horrendously scorned as "starships" were before Star Trek, and Romance with an HEA ending is now scorned.

His message has nothing (at all) to do with our message, but his business success has everything to do with our goals because he has started from the same place we are in right now -- a large, lucrative, steady, hungry market with no real vehicle serving that market.  And he's built something that is -- almost -- showing signs of actual success. 

Glenn has done what we want to do but with non-fiction. 

My point here is that when it comes to Targeting a Readership, to finding or creating or gathering an audience, a market, when it comes to the business end of story-telling, there's no difference between fiction and non-fiction. 

Actually, watch a little Glenn Beck and that distinction between fiction and non-fiction blurs completely! 

He got his start in show business as a clown, did talk radio (and still does), and basically spins a narrative web out of current events and into a fictional reality all his own.

But many are absorbed by his reality.  I think that's because, several times an hour, he actually says something that's true, but that nobody else is saying, often something you wouldn't likely know because you don't have the army of researchers he has.  What makes his audience stick with him is that scattering of obscure facts that fill their hunger for information.  I suspect few of his audience use that information to derive the scenarios Beck specializes in.  But facts are hard to come by these days, so I suspect a lot of his viewers and readers are doing their own thinking with his facts -- thinking he probably couldn't replicate. 

He has some very smart people working for him, and that shows in the research behind what he presents.  His people dig up real, solid information, stuff you want to know even if you never suspected it was going on.  What he does with that solid information is --- well, that's another matter.

The important point to learn from studying The Blaze is the business model.

As a businessman, Beck is superb, insightful, fast moving, and in full command of the basic process of building a business.  He's had successes and failures, and he's learned from all of them, even though as he emphasizes, he has very little formal education.  In fact, his lack of formal education is part of the reason for his success.  With The Blaze, he's done something NEW and it seems to be proving to be profitable. 

The specific audience you and I are after is very different from Beck's primary audience, but the business model that seems to be working for him could work for Romance. 

Search on Google for
romance channel online 

...and you'll find a number of attempts to do something with "Romance" that are similar to what Beck has done and is doing.  There's a lot of research someone planning to launch such a project with Alien Romance would have to do.  But there's room for a replica of The Blaze focused on the Romance Genre instead of religion and politics. 

I suspect Romance Readers/Viewers out-number Beck's audience.  So take a look at what's going on with him in 2013.

After the resounding loss of the 2012 election, Beck moped in public for a while, then "doubled down." 

He had a business plan that spanned 5 years, a plan to build his newspaper (The Blaze) and his streaming subscription TV online thing called GBTV and his publishing business Mercury Arts which also owns his radio show, into a single operation.  He was adding TV streaming shows one at a time and producing a few "specials" covering topics in depth, building methodically.  With the loss of the election, he decided to execute that 5 year plan in 2 years to build a platform before the 2014 elections.

He's worried about the direction of the country on a person-by-person level, about the values preferred by the general public today.  Anne Pinzow pointed out one clear observation about this in Targeting a Readership Part 8, as I quoted above, and you really should read what she wrote about how she came by this observation:
---------
Fifty's movie glorifies honor.

2013 TV series glorifies, well, Machiavelli and the uselessness of honor.
------------

Substitute the word "Romance" for the word "Honor" and you have a perfect description of our problem.  Now juxtapose that with an analysis of Beck's approach to exactly the same problem -- the general public does not share our sense of the plausibility (in real life) of the HEA.

Beck cites a peck or two of various Values he feels have been "lost."  But he's found a large enough audience ( over 300,000 paying subscribers which is more than that 1,000 cited by the social media marketing expert) to support a delivery channel for that exact set of values.

Early in 2013, Beck started a campaign to rename his fledgling network from GBTV.com to theblaze.com -- combining the video delivery and newspaper style delivery.  And he launched a bid to get his streaming-only TV channel (which had several shows, but not 24 hours of programming) onto cable systems.  The audience response was tremendous, and several small cable systems came onboard immediately, then I lost count. 

How many cable systems carry The Blaze now?  The thing is, I don't know.  It changes constantly. 

In April 2013, Beck announced a Pennsylvania cable system acquired The Blaze TV channel, after I think it was 5 small local cable systems had signed on.  In May a big cable system, Optimum, acquired The Blaze for it's upper tier subscribers in the North East.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/01/theblaze-extends-its-reach-announces-tv-deal-with-tri-state-cable-provider/

------quote from Optimum----------
“TheBlaze is the rare independent network that has a built in passionate audience, and therefore adds value to Optimum TV’s channel line-up,” TheBlaze President of Business Development Lynne Costantini said in a statement. “TheBlaze serves a growing conservative and libertarian audience, and we are pleased to work with Cablevision on bringing our network to Optimum TV customers.”

TheBlaze TV will be available in May to Optimum’s residential customers with the Optimum Preferred, Silver and Gold Packages.
---------end quote----------

"Optimum" is by Cablevision. 

------------quote-------
Cablevision Systems Corporation is one of the nation’s leading media and telecommunications companies. In addition to delivering its Optimum-branded cable, Internet, and voice offerings throughout the New York area, the company owns and operates cable systems serving homes in four Western states. Cablevision’s local media properties include News 12 Networks, MSG Varsity and Newsday Media Group. Cablevision also owns and operates Clearview Cinemas. Additional information about Cablevision is available on the Web at www.cablevision.com.
----------end quote-------

Here's another announcement Beck's newsletter carried the same day:
----------quote----------
TheBlaze TV adds another major cable provider  
Today is a big day not only for TheBlaze TV but for you. It was YOU who let your voice be heard when you demanded (and continue to demand) TheBlaze TV be carried by your TV provider. Cablevision, one of the largest providers in the country and one of the most influential, has now announced it will carry TheBlaze.
--------end quote---------

"...that has a built in passionate audience..."  does that sound familiar?

At about the same time Optimum Cablevision announced The Blaze, The Blaze announced acquiring a programming addition to their children's program.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/02/glenn-beck-announces-theblaze-tv-partnership-with-mega-hollywood-filmmaker/

------quote------
Glenn Beck on Thursday announced a new partnership for TheBlaze TV with major Hollywood producer Gerald Molen, whose credits include “Jurassic Park,” “Schindler’s List” and last year’s “2016: Obama’s America.”

TheBlaze TV’s children’s education program “Liberty Treehouse” will start showcasing student work from “Sneak on the Lot,” an experiential curriculum for aspiring young filmmakers developed by Molen and partners Darrin Fletcher and Chet Thomas.
---------end quote-------

Previously, in April came this announcement:

http://www.gettheblaze.com/updates/2013/3/28/theblaze-launches-247-network-on-blue-ridge-communications-a.html
------quote--------
New York – March 28, 2013 – TheBlaze announced today that it has entered into a carriage agreement with Blue Ridge Communications, the nation’s 21st largest cable operator. TheBlaze will launch on Blue Ridge Communications in April.

After a tremendous start on DISH Network, the TheBlaze has also entered into agreements with BEK Communications, Sweetwater Cable Television and Atwood Cable.
-------end quote---------

Beck's vision includes a hard-news gathering network spread internationally but as far as I know that hasn't launched yet.  The news items on The Blaze website are becoming better written and more diverse with skyrocketing hit-rates. 

In April 2013 I think April 30, Beck's publishing arm released a non-fiction book about the gun control issue, and as of May 2 that book was #1 Amazon paper best seller, and had been in the top 100 for 18 days (pre-publication counts, I suppose).

http://www.amazon.com/Control-Exposing-Truth-About-Guns/dp/1476739870/

--------blurb quote--------
When our founding fathers secured the Constitutional “right of the people to keep and bear arms,” they also added the admonition that this right SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED.

It is the only time this phrase appears in the Bill of Rights. So why aren’t more people listening?

History has proven that guns are essential to self-defense and liberty—but tragedy is a powerful force and has led many to believe that guns are the enemy, that the Second Amendment is outdated, and that more restrictions or outright bans on firearms will somehow solve everything.

They are wrong.

In CONTROL, Glenn Beck presents a passionate, fact-based case for guns that reveals why gun control isn’t really about controlling guns at all; it’s about controlling us. In doing so, he takes on and debunks the common myths and outright lies that are often used to vilify guns and demean their owners:

The Second Amendment is ABOUT MUSKETS . . . GUN CONTROL WORKS in other countries . . . 40 percent of all guns are sold without BACKGROUND CHECKS . . . More GUNS MEAN more MURDER . . . Mass shootings are becoming more common . . . These awful MASSACRES ARE UNIQUE TO AMERICA . . . No CIVILIAN needs a “weapon of war” like the AR-15 . . . ARMED GUARDS in schools do nothing, just look at Columbine . . . Stop FEARMONGERING, no one is talking about TAKING YOUR GUNS AWAY.

Backed by hundreds of sources, this handbook gives everyone who cares about the Second Amendment the indisputable facts they need to reclaim the debate, defeat the fear, and take back their natural rights.
--------end quote----------

Reread that and substitute "HEA" for "gun."    

You all know how Romance often hinges on the twin issues of Control and Safety.  Have you been watching the 2013 TV episodes of Beauty and the Beast? The whole romance between the genetically altered guy (yeah, a hunk) and the Beauty of a police detective is based on "I want to keep you safe."  Safety is the sexiest issue out there! 

The constitution does guarantee the right to the pursuit of happiness (not the catching of it, just the pursuit, not the HEA), so there's an equivalence between the Gun Control issue and the HEA issue that's eerie.  Our topic is just as unpopular as Beck's topic -- and the comparison of Romance and Gun Control is even more appropriate if you consider the sex/violence paradigm. 

Beck has amassed major marketing power with a subject-niche market that's smaller than ours.  Color us embarrassed?  What could we do with the tools he's using?

Keep in mind that Oprah Winfrey was likewise a popular talk-show host who went off and created her own network, OWN I think it was called, and starting it on Cable, she didn't succeed.  Beck started streaming online subscriber-only, and is now inching onto Cable with a proven product way ahead of his own schedule, and his network is adding shows.  His children's show adding young student producers education is important because he's decided the problem with America lies in how kids are being educated. 

We have to follow in these business-model footsteps and infect the hearts and minds of our estranged audience with Love, and perhaps Beck is right that the place to start is with children's programming.

by Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Worldbuilding With Fire And Ice Part 7: Paranormal Romance

This blog entry is a direct sequel to last week's entry FINDING A GOOD PARANORMAL ROMANCE which was sparked by a twitter exchange.

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/finding-good-paranormal-romance.html

This is Part 7 of a series of posts on Worldbuilding.  The previous parts are here:

http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/worldbuilding-with-fire-and-ice-part-6.html

And that Part 6 has a list of the links to the previous 5 parts of this discussion scattered over the last few years -- and there have been other series of posts on the art, science and craft of "worldbuilding" that is the single most major element behind writing in general -- but is far more difficult when done to cradle an Alien Romance, or any science fiction or fantasy story. 

This Part 7 is a worldbuilding entry sparked by a series of comments made on Twitter by Noah Murphy ‏@K23Detectives  -- someone to follow and pay attention to.

These tweets came to my attention as I was finishing last week's blog entry and thinking how Paranormal Romance stories and novels are one of the most natural, easy, and obvious blends of 2 genres.

The "Paranormal" usually infers "horror" -- stories about the creepy-awful menace that lurks just out of sight and awareness, the non-rational world of nightmare rather than dream.

Romance, on the other hand infers "pleasant satisfaction" - the uplifting, delightful, fulfilling promise of all that lurks just out of sight, the Happily Ever After, the non-rational world of dream rather than nightmare.

These two genres depict the exact same thing, but from different points of view, with different interpretations.  Ghost Hunters vs. The Ghost And Mrs. Muir.

So Paranormal and Romance fit together at the level of theme.

Last week I pointed out the parallel between what Glenn Beck has done and what Paranormal Romance has not done, but needs to do if we are to be able to find the good Paranormal Romance novels. 

And I ended off last week asking:
What topic lies within PNR that has the same relationship to PNR that the Mexican Border does to American History?  And where can we find someone to set on fire with that topic?

My thesis was that the PNRomance field needs an Oprah Winfrey or Glenn Beck to aggregate the audience so that audience can rely on the source to find the "good PNR" and not waste time and money on unsatisfying reads. 

And lo! like magic Noah Murphy's tweets pointed at a topic PNR probably hasn't delved deeply into, but which would form a solid foundation for Paranormal worldbuilding.

As I pointed out in previous posts, the biggest "weakness" I see in highly professional Romance writers who try their hand at mixing genres is in the worldbuilding. 

When you don't use the real world, contemporary or historical, as background for your story, you must invent the details of your background, (worldbuild) not look them up! 

But you must invent a set of details that go together, each arising from the other in a pattern that resembles the reader's perception of their real world (not the actuality, but the perception which is why Glenn Beck and Oprah Winfrey are folks to study, not because of their topics but because of the radically different worldviews of their respective audiences.)

So here's an example of a "topic" within Paranormal Romance which might be the igniting topic that could set the right spokesman on fire and create us a Glenn Beck of our own.

SEEING IS BELIEVING

If you've read my blog entries on the use of THEME, you recognize that statement as a THEME.  And it is a natural theme for a Paranormal Romance. 

Here are the tweets that stopped my eye and ignited my brain:

Noah Murphy ‏@K23Detectives
There's also a very major full on Chasidic black-hat Jewish hero in the book. But since his job requires him to deal with immodest women

Noah Murphy ‏@K23Detectives
He puts his personal feeling aside and just does his job but he believes god cares more about him helping then seeing immodest women.

And there were more tweets on this topic, an exchange on nudity and clothing styles, as well as porn and religion.  You meet some fascinating people on twitter!!! 

Noah Murphy is a writer working on a story that includes this Chasidic detective.

I know nothing else about that story, but the exchange about clothing styles came to me right after seeing an entire Chasidic lecture on the various warnings in the Torah about "following your eyes."

Naturally, I sought ways of arguing various sides of this thesis on SEEING being the root of temptation.

The thesis was that the admonition not to follow your eyes was based on an inherent feature of the human being -- that when you SEE an image or a thing, you want it, you grab for it.

It's true infants will grab at colored shapes -- it's how we learn eye-hand-coordination.

It's possible this attribute persists into adulthood, morphed by the rise of sexual awareness.

And we're all familiar with how the sight of something that looks delicious makes our mouths water, makes us WANT that delicious thing regardless of whether we were wanting it before we saw it.

SEEING is powerful.

We know that the structure of the human eye gives us a survival advantage - we see in color and in three dimensions.  Some other species have other kinds of advantages -- eagles have sharp far-sight, insects have segmented eyes that see in many directions at once, etc.

But the human eye linked to the human brain works marvels.

When it comes to the Paranormal Romance, we usually have to write something about those who are aware of the Paranormal dimension as contrasted with those who have no awareness.  And the interesting hook into a Paranormal adventure is that moment when someone unaware SEES and believes for the first time that the world is different than they had ever thought.

All religions have something in them that requires belief in something you can't SEE.

That's why so many use statues or other symbols, so that which is believed-in can become tangible, real because it's seen.

The practitioners of a religion (any religion) are often the ones who know the least about that religion.  So the topic that could ignite interest in the Paranormal Romance could be something as simple as "What really goes on when you SEE something?"

That's like "What's really going on at the Mexican/USA border?"  Innocent little question with a million topics connected to it.  It opens like a rose.

Mystical practitioners often call those who can see the future Seers -- not prophets who are shown by God, but people who just look and See.

Seeing is believing.  See a ghost, and your concept of reality adjusts. (show-don't-tell, remember?)

In a near-death experience, seeing your own body from the outside adjusts your view of reality.

Seeing something you've never seen before, never believed existed, makes you sensitive in a certain way.  You are more likely to See it again.

So why do practitioners of many religions want to conceal the human form (mostly the female, but in many cases also the male)? 

Most people have a completely eroneous assumption about why religions rule to conceal the human form or flesh.  In the era of "Enlightenment" (or the era of science as our god), when a religion says "don't expose your (whatever part of the anatomy)" we hear that the physical eye must not see the physical flesh.

What if that's not the true origin of the decree? 

What if it isn't the physical eyeball that is the problem? 

What if it is some other part of the human that must be concealed, a part the Enlightened are so certain does not exist?

What if the signal from the human eyeball reaches the human brain and ignites something above and beyond the human physical body? 

What if repeated stimulation of that part of you causes you to be unable to sense the presence of  God? 

Think about how constant exposure to a certain smell makes you unable to smell it anymore.  Smokers, for example, have no idea how much they stink! 

There's a principle in Magic quoted as, "As Above; So Below" (and it works vice-versa -- when you understand what's Below (in our real world) you can more easily understand what's Above, (in the astral plane and higher).

The theory of Magic holds that the world is created in congruent layers, that there is a single underlying pattern that repeats and repeats.  Maybe that's not true, but some part of the basic human being operates as if it were true, so writers who worldbuild with those congruent layers make readers believe every (silly) word they write.

So it's not farfetched to postulate that the Soul or the immortal part of you, the part that reincarnates, or that "Goes To Heaven" after you die, (or gets trapped as a ghost?) has "senses" that work like our real-world senses do.

You know how you can lose something in a familiar room -- your car keys for example.  The keys are sitting there in plain sight where you always put them, but you search four or five times before you SEE them.  They become invisible against the familiar, just as the smell of nicotine is un-smellable against the miasma that surrounds a smoker. 

The constant din in a noisy room, even a workplace, can be filtered out to the point where you aren't aware of it until a newcomer winces! 

So if our material-body senses work like that, perhaps the Soul's senses work the same way? 

A Paranormal Romance (Soul Mates; Happily Ever After ending Romance) writer could easily postulate that the real reason (unknown even to the Authorities currently running a religion) for the necessity of "modest" dress (defined differently by each religion), is based on the responses of the Soul, not the eyeball or the body.

Here's one from Kabbalah.  There is a concept in the mystical studies that indicates the spirit of God envelopes a couple during copulation and orchestrates conception.  That this whole process is a process of Souls much more sensitive than the process involving the body is.

Done one way, the child that results turns out a certain way.  Done differently, the resulting child is different.  Acting to prevent conception can have far-reaching consequences that has little to do with what we think of as "my life." 

In other words, sexuality has a Paranormal dimension.  It's a fabulous Fantasy premise that hasn't been explored -- just as Glenn Beck's Mexican Border Situation hadn't been explored.

So, it's possible to worldbuild a Paranormal Romance around the SEEING IS BELIEVING theme element that the best way to sensitize the Soul so it can percieve the presence of the Divine in the material world (and thus get Life to work more smoothly around you, e.g. finding your Soul-Mate and Living Happily Ever After), is to avoid certain SIGHTS.

That is one grand paradox fraught with ripe conflict!  Paranormal conflict!  Ghosts, Warlocks, Witches, Spells, Incantations, Goblins, Trolls, Vampires -- it all takes on a totally different twist when seen through the eyes that avoid certain sights in order to see other sights.  It might be like avoiding looking at oncoming headlights at night in order to be able to see the road. 

If you could pull that off, you could be writing a very sexy Paranormal Romance targeted at Glenn Beck's 30-million-strong audience.  Somewhere among them (probably the most skeptical ones trained best in critical thinking) might be the Oprah Winfrey of the Paranormal Romance field.

BTW: the "fire and ice" of the series title here might be thought of as Religion and Science, or maybe it's Science and Religion?  Either way, to worldbuild a cradle for a convincing story, you must have both in your world because they are pillars of our world.   

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

Finding a Good Paranormal Romance



And once more twitter friends spark a subject we need to cover in Alien Romance:

I Retweeted this tweet from @dearauthor:
JLichtenberg: RT @dearauthor: I feel like my reading mojo is back. I've actually liked a few books in a row. 2 of them PNRs.

@freyasbower answered @dearauthor and tagged me in the answer thusly:

freyasbower: @dearauthor @JLichtenberg Perhaps it's not your mojo so much as the books. (g) 2:48pm, Jun 14 from Twitter for Mac

So I answered but forgot to tag @dearauthor

JLichtenberg: @freyasbower That's my thesis. I believe the creative torch has passed to the PNR field. Even non-PNR readers will find mojo there 3:00pm, Jun 14 from HootSuite

freyasbower: @JLichtenberg I have always been a fan of well-written PNR. It's finding it that can be challenging. 3:06pm, Jun 14 from Twitter for Mac

JLichtenberg: @freyasbower I need to blog about HOW TO FIND well-written PNR, why it's necessary, and why it's hard to find 8:07am, Jun 15 from HootSuite

freyasbower: @JLichtenberg you do. I am sure there are more authors out there who write it, but it gets buried .... 8:08am, Jun 15 from Twitter for iPhone

So let's tackle the issue of FINDING the "good" books among the undifferentiated flood of novels coming from a multitude of new small publishers, from the giant presses of mass market machines, and even more titles than both put together coming from self-publishing authors.

All these writers are trying to "stand out" or to get the readers' attention, to get "reviews" on Amazon or any blog that has traffic.

Even writers publishing via the mass market machines have to do their own "Me! LOOK AT ME! BUY MY BOOK!!!" publicity.

In most genre fiction, but especially Romance and Science Fiction/Fantasy it's always been that way, though in science fiction and Romance to a certain extent, a writer who said "buy my book" in any form lost credibility. With self-publishing, that's once more becoming a problem. 

Mass Market writers were supposed to step aside, fold hands, put their eyes down, and meekly let the professionals market their books. 

A mass market publisher generally does 4 to 10 titles a month, some of them reprints (though not in Romance usually).  The publisher has a monthly budget to promote the books, and decisions are made in committee which books to promote.  Usually the whole budget goes on the Lead title, with a little left for the second title, and the rest of the books fall where they may without promotion.

The most effective "promotion" done by publishers is not seen by readers.  These are not TV ads, magazine ads, newspaper ads that readers might see.  The magazine and newspapers that these ads go into are subscribed to book wholesalers and retailers, not consumers -- though some specialty magazines like LOCUS may be included and reach some readers of a genre.

Here's a typical list of targets for a heavily promoted major release:


National review and feature attention
Print advertising campaign to (whatever) interest groups
Advertising campaign at major general-interest sites like the New York Times book blast or NewYorker.com
Pre-publication buzz campaign through Shelf Awareness, Goodreads, Library Thing, and Read it Forward
Major blogger outreach to literary, historical fiction, and (whatever special)interest blogs
Included in all launch promotions of that publisher's imprint
Extensive bookseller, library, and academic mailing
Outreach to (whatever special interest) organizations
Major book group outreach
Author tours and Events

Where it says New York Times, it mostly means getting them to review or discuss it, sometimes website ads.  A few titles get actual ads to readers printed on review pages. 

The promotion that costs the most money is done to get the books into stores, before readers eyes, into the front window of the store, into a "dump" (a box set up in the aisle), or splashed at you on amazon etc, and to get it sold at a discount at certain huge outlets (like Sam's Club, B&N, and Amazon).  Promotion money is also spent on getting super-spiffy art for the cover, and sending out review copies.  As mentioned on #scifichat in June, the cover is the foundation of the marketing campaign.  If there's no campaign, they don't spend much on the cover.  Big money these days is spent on YouTube book-trailers, but many of those are paid for by the author. 

Promotion money is spent and campaigns announced like that to force reviewers for major publication such as big city newspapers to review the book, interview the author, etc.  If you are major newspaper or magazine reviewer, you don't dare not-cover what everyone is talking about or pretty soon you aren't "major" anymore!  So shouting about the publicity budget for a book gets books into bookstores.  Note that item Pre-publication buzz -- that's for real, and it is what actually does the trick to sell lots of copies.  They put that list on the back cover of ADVANCE READING COPIES (the ARCs reviewers get before all the typos are fixed) to shame reviewers into reviewing the book that "everyone" is buzzing about.   

A title that is not #1 or #2 on the publisher's monthly List has NO REVIEW COPIES sent out to newspapers, magazines, and these days, bloggers.  None of the things on that list are financed by the publisher for books that aren't at the top of their monthly release list.  Publishers shout like that to try to "find the readership" for that particular book. 

They "shout" like that about books they think will sell enough copies to more than pay for the "shouting" budget.  It's all about perceptions and economics.  If they promote an author's book like that and it does not sell big enough, the author's next book is not bought or not promoted at all.  Sometimes shouting works and gathers the audience.  Sometimes, even with a worthy book, it doesn't gather enough of an audience to be worth the expense of the shout.  Paying for an author to tour some big cities and sign autographs is another item in the budget for an author whose previous promotions have more than paid off.   

If the publisher shouts about the book, or if the writer does (and finances) the shouting, it amounts to the same thing -- advertising.  It's a way of saying "I want you to pay me money."  Or "I want you to pay attention to me." 

The publisher lacks credibility because the publisher has an investment in the book they want to make back and then some.

The writer lacks credibility for that reason and the inherent lack of judgement the creator of a work has about their own work. 

Publicity is the publisher or the writer, the one who invests in creating the work, looking for an audience.  It's not working well these days, so maybe the process needs scrutiny and re-evaluation. 

Paper publishing is dying because of the economics of printing, warehousing, trucking, and returning unsold copies.  Amazon's marketing innovation helps a lot, but they don't warehouse a lot of books all at once.  You see that "only 2 copies left" sign on pages "more coming" and you know they don't stock what they sell.  That's killing paper publishing.

But now that there's a good reading screen technology, e-books are taking off.  Paper is moving to print on demand except for those books with a pre-assembled mass market.   Check out Glenn Beck's best-seller statistics -- every book he releases is a category killer on Amazon.  He is reaching an audience of about 30,000,000  per month, (yeah, thirty million) and most of them are voracious readers, just not in Paranormal Romance! 

That's the number Beck himself gives for his "reach" and it includes all his media outlets - radio, print books, email newsletters, the online newspaper The Blaze (drawing about 7,000 hits per day he says), and about 300,000 paying subscribers to his web-only TV network gbtv.com (which is viewable in full HD and has state-of-the-art color).  He's in the midst of combining The Blaze and gbtv.com putting more news shows on his network and building it to a 24-hour operation.  

By studying what Glenn Beck has done for books about his (hobbyhorse) topics, we can discover how to find PNR novels that please us as keenly as Beck pleases his audience.  Nevermind what his books are about, they please his specific readership so perfectly his readership is growing by leaps and bounds and you see his books in Sam's Club!  Want to see our books in Sam's Club?  Costco?  Study what he's done. 

Since he was a teen, Beck has been a radio broadcaster -- talk show host.  His original training is in humor, comedy, standup I think, and maybe clowning.  He reverts to that schtick often, and sounds a discordant note that destroys his credibility where he actually has a bit of fact that needs thinking about buried under his behavior.  It's almost as if talking about a real fact embarrasses him. 

But his target audience eats up the clowning about facts and begs for more. 

It seems that Glenn Beck has FOUND HIS AUDIENCE, just as publishers try to "find an audience" for a book they believe they can make money by selling. 

I am not at all sure (I don't study Beck closely enough to tell) if he understands what has happened to him, and what he has done that's resulted in having this audience, but studying the phenomenon can tell us how to winnow out the great PNR novels that we need to read from the background noise of millions of novels that should have gone through another 10 drafts before being published. 

Years ago, when Radio talk-show hosts began "breaking into" TV, Beck got jobs with Cable TV channels.

I'm not sure of his resume before he worked at CNN where I first saw him (or heard of him).  I think he had been at a broadcast network before that.  CNN was a trial and a half for him because they keep commentators on a short-leash as do the broadcast networks ABC, NBC and CBS. CNN is has hit its lowest ratings in Spring 2012 and subsequently changed a number of their anchor personalities, bringing onboard at least one "Conservative" commentator.  Watch how that works out -- it is just like publishing, searching for what the audience wants. 

A viewer of these commentators thinks she's looking at a person and hearing what that person thinks.  Nope, not what's happening, any more than when you pick up a book from a mass market publisher's imprint, you are reading the book the writer wanted to write! Those 10 drafts mentioned above that self-publishing writers tend to skip, and that "short leash" mentioned above that networks use on commentators are similar marketing/publicity mechanisms.  The catch-all term for the whole process is "packaging" -- news segments have to be "shot" and then "packaged."  It's a complex process aimed at "finding an audience." 

See my series on EDITING to get this into your head.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html  has links to previous 6 entries.

Writers who aren't able or willing to conform their output to the specifications of mass market publishers don't sell to mass market publishers.  It is very possible that those non-conformists are the writers who are writing what you want most to read - what you would enjoy most!  The content of Mass Market books has been "watered down" to reach a broader audience via mass market "packaging."  Even small publishers have to do "packaging" or go out of business.  Self publishers will give up after a while, if it's just not worth the effort, or they'll learn packaging. 

It's about effort/return ratio -- you've got to have a ratio that's considerably less than 1.00 or you'll quit. 

You can't write and self-publish on smashwords a 100,000 word novel and sell 1 copy and then do it again.  Very soon, you'll just stop publishing unless 1 becomes 2 becomes 4, 8, 16, etc. - positive feedback works. 

EDITING - (and with books, agenting) - all goes in between the reader, and the writer's imagination.

Being a "good writer" means being able to write what the editors and the publishers editors work for THINK will sell.  Agents are in the business of slush-pile-reading to find the exact books editors have been instructed by their publishers to package and send to the bookstores.  "Bookstores" are in the business of finding and presenting what their customers want.  Agents are the people who find or train the authors who consistently perform those novel styles that are selling best at bookstores at this moment.

Writing is a performing art, remember?  You don't write a book, you PERFORM a TROPE of a GENRE, just as a pianist performs Chopin.  We've covered that in many previous posts.  I learned it in 7th Grade from a professional writer, Alma Hill, who mentored me then!  And it's still true today. Writing is a performing art, just like standup comedy. 

So what Glenn Beck has done that's given him an audience of 30 million about 1 million of whom buy each book with his name on it (even if he didn't write it all by himself) is exactly what PNR writers need to do -- FIND THEIR AUDIENCE.

Publishers who invest in marketing as noted above are expecting to "target an audience" -- to find a pre-made, pre-assembled audience, a social-network, that's going to want to buy that book the instant they hear of it.  Successful self-publishing writers already have made an audience like that, just one too small or too scattered to be worth the kind of money big publishers spend promoting big titles. 

Authors running around looking for an audience for something they wrote rather than performed, have no more success than Glenn Beck did when he was just a radio broadcaster!  And they have even less credibility than Beck has now when they say "buy my book."   

Beck's stint at CNN let him shoot off a few arrows of his own opinions in various directions, and they struck home with a small segment of the CNN audience (which was much bigger then than it is now). 

I recall seeing Beck do a whole segment on the Mexican border and drug running issues, cartel wars, and the terrorist infiltration of the action at the border when he was on CNN.  The segment promised a lot more on that topic -- but every time I cruised through (I comparison shop news and don't believe ANY of it) he wasn't on that topic again.

Then he moved to Fox, and I caught most of his opening show there (totally by accident because I was cooking at the hour he was on, my hands too greasy to flip the channel) -- and he promised to do a whole, in depth, never let it drop expose of the Mexican border issues on successive shows.  He ranted on about being so happy to have moved to a network that would let him cover the Mexican border issues. 

He didn't go on to cover that topic, and because I know what "editing" means, I knew someone had shut him up.  They (networks) pay thousands of dollars for pollster tracking of audience not only after a show, but the pulse of tune-ins/tune-outs during a show.  Very complicated, very expensive stuff -- Beck's border presentation probably pulled really low interest.  Or it may have just discomforted someone high in the organization -- I'm guessing, here I don't know and I don't really care much.  They squashed him. 

My objective here is to solve the problem of getting GOOD PNR to the RIGHT readers who will actually glean something important from reading the novel.  Paranormal Romance Novels are where the fire is in our field right now, just as the border war and terrorism is where the "fire" of interest was in one segment of CNN's audience when Beck mentioned it. 

If PNR writers lose credibility (and audience share like Beck apparently did at CNN) when they go searching for an audience, then writers can't do what all editors and agents insist the writer must do herself, and FIND HER AUDIENCE.

I'm beginning to wonder about the standard interpretation of how publicity works. 

Maybe the writer can't find the audience.

Maybe the audience must find the writer.

BUT HOW???? 

What did Glenn Beck do?  By the end of his stint at Fox he was reaching maybe 35 million a month, through all his media -- website, email newsletters, books from his Mercury division, blogs, and while at Fox he founded the news organization that publishes the online newspaper THE BLAZE.

When he left Fox and began his own network, gbtv.com  he lost a lot of those people because gbtv.com is a network you can get only via the web, not on cable or broadcast.

But as his organization has produced some truly high-polish, slick, and informative (and serious, not comedy schtick ridden) SPECIALS on various news subjects, the web-tv-subscription audience has grown.  The one Special he said brought a substantial increase in his viewers was the third in a series, and it's topic is the Mexican border/drug cartel/terrorist wars issue he got squashed for talking about on cable news, twice. 

That one subject has let his audience FIND HIM AGAIN -- and he's up to 300,000 subscribers (which is more than watch some shows on CNN or Fox).  It's been less than 1 year since he left Fox and launched his web-network.  Audiences of Beck's size are not coalescing around broadcast network TV -- see my blog entry on TARGETING AN AUDIENCE part 5 on this blog, July 31, 2012. 
http://www.aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/07/targeting-readership-part-5-where-is.html
Note Beck doesn't have just one show.  He's been adding shows fast, and has I think maybe 5 different shows and his daily radio show done with cameras and up in video on his gbtv.com website. And he's gaining advertisers, many who advertise on regular networks. 

Likewise note this news item that appeared Aug. 3, 2012:
http://news.yahoo.com/forget-cord-cutters-cable-companies-worry-cord-nevers-161055968.html

---------QUOTE----------
Cord-never numbers are particularly hard to measure. A cable company, of course, can't report the amount of people who never subscribed to them in the first place, but we can do some piecing together to get an idea of the changing trends. U.S. census data found that 1.8 million new households were formed, but that only 16.9 percent of those signed up for pay-TV services, according to Ad Age's Dan Hirschorn. The TV industry has been flat for years; U.S. households continue to rise. Meanwhile, as cable subscription rates have stayed flat, Internet subscriptions are on the rise. Comcast added 156,000 net broadband subscribers, an 8.4% increase; Time Warner added 59,000 residential high-speed Internet subscribers. While something like 100 million U.S. households subscribe to TV services, the U.S. 2010 census data had 120 million households with Internet -- those numbers have only risen since then, with these companies reporting increased subscriptions. And what do people do on the Internet? Watch things. Though the most popular Internet activity, as of 2010, was social networking, video saw a 12 percent increase, according to a Neilsen report. Though, those numbers include people with cable.
-----------END QUOTE-----------


But also consider this item from June 2008, just 4 years ago:
http://dealnews.com/features/Unplugged-Trading-Cable-TV-for-Internet-TV/231073.html
-----------QUOTE from end of that article----
One Month Later
It's been over a month since I gave up cable TV and a lot has happened since my first week of Internet TV. Content-wise, Hulu continues to refine its service introducing full episodes of Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. In addition, the site is running a Hulu Days of Summer promotion where new content is introduced every weekday. A nice way to bring people back to the site each day. Meanwhile, Univision.com has launched a new portal and streamed its first, full-length, online concert by Latin Grammy winner, Fonseca. The micro site, which is called En Directo, is sponsored by Toyota (the ads are very aggressive) and will feature additional concerts, downloadable songs, backstage footage, and more. I'm not a fan of the artist, but I am impressed with the amount of online video you can find on Univision.com. It appears the site has even struck a deal with CNET.com and is translating many of its tech reviews into Spanish (it'll be interesting to see how this relationship plays out once CNET.com is owned by CBS.com). Although I speak Spanish fluently, I was never a heavy Univision watcher, but having more video options online never hurt.
On a more personal note, I'm back to my old TV-viewing habits, watching TV in the morning and in the evening when I get home from work. When I miss an episode I want to watch, I now turn to Hulu (when appropriate) instead of recording shows onto my DVR. I'm also more comfortable bringing my laptop into the kitchen and watching Internet TV from my kitchen counter — something I felt awkward doing before. Ironically, I also turn to the Internet for new shows (shows that I've never seen like "Dexter" or shows that are no longer shown on TV like "Arrested Development") and if I like them, I look for them on TV. Unfortunately, I didn't lose any weight during my cable-free month, and I have once again associated eating with watching TV.
But perhaps the biggest change in my everyday routine is the amount of time I spend online. Whereas before I would go online just to check e-mail, I'm now online the minute I get home. Most of the time I'm reading new blogs I discovered during my cable-free month, but the amount of time I spend online has spiked dramatically since the month of May.

----------END QUOTE---------

So compare 2008 to 2012 (Beck's web network started in 2011 and is about to expand again).  In fact, in 2008, Beck hadn't even moved to Fox and rocked the world with his ideas.  That's how fast this world is changing - the world of connectivity, of fiction at your fingertips, and thousands of other ways to spend/waste your time.

The potential and possibilities for living without cable or broadcast TV are expanding just that fast.

Glenn Beck's audience wanted his product and searched him out.  They found him; he didn't find them.

No matter what you think of Glenn Beck's message, study the process by which he's come to have the means to deliver that message to the target audience.   

Many of his audience are older people who owned old TV sets that couldn't connect to the internet.  Many don't have computers, though most do.  I haven't seen smartphone distribution figures among seniors either, but according to the Verizonwireless website's offer of a $20/month discount to seniors for a low-call, charge per text, very low data amount plan, Seniors can be relied on to NOT use the features of their smartphones.

So Verizon is offering seniors that discount on all the phones they sell.  And their stock is up over the last four years. 

That tech-reluctance of seniors may change quickly as a new generation becomes senior.  Apparently many older seniors have upgraded their technology this year to get at the one product they wanted, Glenn Beck's opinions. 

Nevermind that you don't want Beck's opinions.  The PNR novels you write are your opinions, and they are of as marginal an appeal as Beck's opinions on the Mexican border were when he was at Fox. 

Speaking of the Mexican border, here's another article from Aug. 2, 2012 on that subject, asserting that what Beck predicted several years ago, actually is happening now.  The Mexican border topic is one of Beck's hobby horses that has gotten him a lot of attention because nobody wanted his opinion on it. 

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2012/08/economics-mexican-drug-tunnels/55387/

Nobody wants your opinions right now either.  And as a reader or writer of PNR, you are searching for the opinions of someone as marginalized as Beck is!  Your problem is really the same problem that he had, and he's solved it.  Figure out how he did it! 

Analyzing his audience, I have found it isn't ALL older people.  There's a wave of 20-somethings, and even teens, who are absolutely caught up in what he's doing.  Those 20-somethings are not likely to be readers of PNR either, but they found what they want in Beck's program. 

Again, forget what he's doing and focus on how he's doing it.

People will say HE FOUND HIS AUDIENCE -- but as I noted above his audience found him.

Beck says George Soros spent millions "discrediting" him -- some Soros funded organizations funded other organizations that funded organizations that hired bloggers to use filthy language emphatically lying about what Beck said on the air, thus discrediting Beck. 

I don't know about the hiring part, but I've seen the blog comments -- the exact same blog comments word for misspelled word turning up on news commentary threads  on various articles having nothing to do with the filthy-language comment on Beck.  I've seen copy/paste clones of those comments on Beck turn up day after day - the same comments, on different news item blogs, on different days, posted under different poster-handles. 

Being curious, I started watching the actual broadcasts and listened to what Beck said exactly, then looked for what the blog commentators said he said.  The claim that someone hired people to paste filthy-language comments all over the blogosphere is a logical way to interpret what I've seen.  But I have no knowledge of how these things happened, only that Beck never said most of what's attributed to him, but as the furor increased so did Beck's audience share.

Maybe we need George Soros to fund an anti-PNR campaign complete with filthy language?  Naw, that wold never work.

But just like Beck, PNR doesn't say what most people say it says.  Same campaign was waged against Dungeons & Dragons years ago and it got more popular the more it was opposed. 

I'm not nearly as interested in Glenn Beck (and his hobbyhorses) as I am in the audience response to him -- his audience found him.  HOW DID THEY DO THAT???? (other than the discrediting campaign blog comments)

If I can figure out how they did that, I can figure out how to FIND the PNR novels that need finding and develop a readership of millions (30 million readers -- think about that!  It's not unreasonable for an audience size: there are 330 million people in the USA alone!).

Note my most current novel, THE FARRIS CHANNEL is Paranormal but not Romance (has an offstage love story or two, but love/romance does not drive the plot).  I'm not telling you "buy my book" or "be my audience" or "find me!"  -- though that might be nice -- I'm trying to figure out how PNR readers can find their "Glenn Beck."

If we can't gain respect in one-step, maybe we can attain it by becoming vilified first?  I just don't like that idea.  No.  There has to be another way. 

You, as reader don't need to find the writer of PNR novels you want to read, but you need to find a "Glenn Beck" a spokesman that gathers a book-buying public.  That spokesman has to be someone we can rely on to bring to our attention  'the best PNR novels.' 

We have some great Romance blogs like Galaxy Express but they don't have 30 million readers!  (Million; think about that 30 million.)

Here's a web-radio talk-show that interviews authors and loves SF, Fantasy, Romance and PNR.  If you're a writer, contact them.  It's not 30 million (yet) but it's a start.

-------QUOTE FROM THE PROMOTION-----------
EDUCATES -- ENLIGHTENS -- ENTERTAINS

PWRTALK is the network with the best experts and programming that provides a conduit for voices not otherwise heard in this noisy techno and digitalized world. In the first 6 months of 2012, PWRTALK received 1 million new listeners. In the first 2 weeks of July, PWRTALK received another 1/4 million new listeners. For WebTV and audio interviews, please contact Lillian Cauldwell at 734-827-9407 or email
 ----------END QUOTE-------------------

Oprah Winfrey has lost and not regained her audience as she moved to create her own Cable network, but she was this kind of spokesman for her kind of "personal expose" book. 

When Beck has a guest on his show who's written a book, that book shoots to the top tiers on Amazon just as Oprah Winfrey's guests' books did.  Beck's audience listens to radio (and web-radio), watches TV, and behold -- READS BOOKS. 

When he left Fox, by contract he couldn't take the research he'd done there on their dime.  He can't use clips from his own Fox show.  And he can't afford to re-do that research from scratch (it was hugely expensive, though his show overall was cheap-cheap).  So he's been gathering sponsors, and subscribers (you have to have internet access (Roku but not Amazon will get the show for you) plus a gbtv.com subscription which is I think $100/year) to get his shows.  I absolutely must figure out how his audience has found him.  He didn't find them, though he tried for decades.  Suddenly, they found him! 

Once he got feedback for his passionate presentation of the Mexican border situation (being squashed indicates there's something there), he began researching, asking questions, looking for answers, searching out the roots of movements under the surface of US culture.  That quest became the core of his Fox show, and when he did a months long presentation on American History, his ratings soared.  His audience found him. 

The audience's responses and interest guided his research, his efforts, and touched something in him that ignited his personal curiosity, a need-to-know just like any writer's fascination with a story idea.  He's half journalist, and he had grabbed hold of a journalistic subject.  His audience touched off his explosion of interest in American History that led to the series of "revelations" he's presented that keep attracting more viewers.  He's a showman by nature -- anything that ignites an audience to enthusiasm will ignite him to out-perform himself, but he's also a shrewd business man (I have a sketch of his natal chart).  Once he mentioned a topic that got a ratings spike, his own interest in it spiked -- maybe it was dollar signs, or maybe it was his need for applause (he's a comedian by training). 

All writers are like that, PNR writers most especially are on the lookout for feedback, for applause, for understanding.  What gets audience response, gets more attention from the writer in the next book. 

Beck's audience found him sitting there on CNN like an unlit candle, and they touched fire to his wick.  He took that fire to Fox and found a bigger audience and became a much bigger candle. 

Beck's audience used him to get what it wanted.  The audience milked him, not the other way around as observers always think!  As a writer, I know what that feels like.  When an editor wants more, I find more!

The PNR audience needs to find a Glenn Beck of PNR.  Who?  How?  Where? 

I don't have the entire answer yet, but I do have an "app" on my iPod and Kindle that gets "radio" and can get internet radio shows.  Apple has subscriptions to podcasts. This is a growing business while paper publishing is shrinking.

You can dock your iPhone or iPod in your car's dashboard and make internet radio come out of your car's speakers while you commute.  Or subscribe to sat radio. 

Other than commuting, I don't know where people find time to "listen to radio" -- but they do!  See TARGETING AN AUDIENCE PART 5 again and that link above to unplugging from cable TV -- people are abandoning cable TV, broadcast TV, to the point where there are fewer and fewer TV Series, and the ones that exist do fewer shows per year.  People are doing something with their time.  Ebook sales are UP.  People watch movies streaming on Amazon on their TV screens and smartphones!  You can watch movies on Kindle Fire wherever you can get a fast wi-fi connection. 

There's a huge audience, a veritable tsunami of an audience, sloshing around looking for the Glenn Beck of their field, whatever that field may be.  PNR is only one of many fields that needs a Glenn Beck. 

Glenn Beck just about invented his field -- this whole schtick he's done on American History, and his examination of the cultural shifts we've been living through is put together from scratch.  He's going into the music business and the feature film business next.  He's holding huge "Events" people go to just to have a good time bringing the whole family exploring American history and cultural roots.  Imagine filling a football stadium with lovers of PNR! He filled Cowboy Stadium with 65,000 people July 28, 2012 and there's a video of that program on his website (or maybe on gbtv.com ). 

How can we do that?  There are podcasters and web radio talk shows interviewing authors, pulling in audiences numbering in the thousands.  But not 30 million.  65,000 yeah, probably, but not 30 million.

Why should we bother trying to ignite a Glenn Beck or Oprah Winfrey of our own?  What has PNR got in it that our lives "need" the way Beck's audience thirsts for whatever it is they get out of watching him?  (I haven't figured that out, yet, either.)

Until he started talking about the Mexican border and got squashed by his employers for it, he didn't have this kind of mojo. 

What topic lies within PNR that has the same relationship to PNR that the Mexican Border does to American History?  And where can we find someone to set on fire with that topic? 

On twitter, they now show you this notice if you click on the CHANGE link on TRENDING NOW on their page: Trends offer a unique way to get closer to what you care about. Trends are tailored for you based on your location and who you follow. 

Maybe that 'trending now' feature will help us find our very own Glenn Beck to aggregate the PNR audience, our Oprah Winfrey. 

Here's a QUOTE from a recent item on what Oprah is doing from a Financial News item in June 2012:

http://news.yahoo.com/whos-landing-big-interviews-oprah-072652495--finance.html

--------------QUOTE-----------
Faced with the potential failure of her money-pit cable network OWN, Winfrey is working the phones hard to secure big-name interviews for her show, "Oprah's Next Chapter." Back-to-back episodes last Sunday featured the Kardashian family and rapper 50 Cent, and the Kardashians will be back this weekend. Michael Jackson's daughter Paris and the late Whitney Houston's family made news with their interviews in recent weeks.
The open question is whether she can have the same cultural impact on a smaller stage. Winfrey's daytime talk show was generally seen by around 6 million people in her final years; "Oprah's Next Chapter" with the Kardashians was seen by 1.1 million viewers, according to the Nielsen company.
------------END QUOTE-------------

Beck's viewership isn't in Oprah's ballpark there, but his "reach" including all his media is bigger.

I'll get back to this topic when I do figure it out.  Meanwhile, don't get blindsided by the video gaming industry.  Study that, too.  

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com