Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 5 - Ace Doubles by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 5
Ace Doubles
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

In Part 3 of this series we began looking at Making A Living as a writer.  The discussion of how to achieve that continues here in Part 5.  Part 6, next week, will bring these ideas together. 

Here are the previous parts of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World:

Part 4: Understanding The Headlines You Use For Springboards:
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

Long ago, in the mid-20th Century, Science Fiction was just getting a start.

A lot of publishing projects, writing projects, etc. were all put on hold for World War II.

That interval concluded around 1947 - a couple of years after the official end, troops had mustered out, reclaimed or acquired spouses, found jobs, started families, -- and in England, were still in the process of rebuilding buildings.

By the mid-1950's the rebuild had primed the pump of world economies and we were roaring along in publishing.

During that era, many science fiction magazines thrived, and niche imprints were created for books. 

ACE books, which still publishes some of the best stuff, especially in kick-ass heroine fantasy, launched a unique, exploratory publishing program called Ace Doubles. 

It was the biggest publishing genre innovation since maybe The Dime Novel which brought the Western genre to the densely populated East Coast -- ignited dreams and send droves of people to colonize the USA mid-West. 

The Ace Doubles ignited a furor of book-buying of science fiction.

Now these "books" were really composed of 2 novella length works -- longer than magazine stories, but shorter than Novels. 

Ace put 2 of these long-stories back to back, but upside down with respect to each other.  Each side of the volume was a "front cover" with illustration.

They packaged a well known writer on one side, and a beginner or unknown on the flip side.

Many great writers got their start this way. 

But at the same time, by using this format, ACE was able to import works from England, introducing popular English Science Fiction to the US audience. 

Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD OF ALDONES (her first novel; she had sold short work to a magazine prior to that) was an ACE Double.

It was a marketing ploy, and it worked fabulously well by making longer works cheap and accessible, and exploration of new authors painless.

E. C. Tubb was one of the British imports. 

I've recently picked up the audible.com version of the first three novels in Tubb's DUMAREST OF TERRA series, remembering it and finding it still stands up.

Here is a glimpse of the ACE marketing and decades later, the audible.com marketing via Wildside Press.  Study this.
              
If you're just starting out as a writer, this is what you aim to accomplish -- longevity.  Tubb's heirs are benefiting from this series which ran over 20 books.

Now, I have to tell you about DERAI, the second in the Dumarest saga.



Dumarest is a man from Earth, traveling the galaxy (much populated by various human cultures).  He has gotten so far from Earth that nobody's ever heard of it except as the legendary (how ridiculous!) birthplace of humankind.

 Now look at this non-fiction book from Wildside Press (available for reading on google) is an excellent history of science fiction, and the influential writers of so long ago.






Google this:
E. C. Tubb Serialization 

You should find this book at the top of the list and it will display a comment on Tubb's work in the mid-1950's.

I have this vague memory of my first encounter with Dumarest.  I used to haunt the used book stores and buy British magazines (tattered and yellowed with age) and other very hard-used paperbacks, reading Science Fiction from the 1930's and 1940's while waiting for the next new book.

Today, there's no way any one person can read everything the big publishers are churning out in Science Fiction Romance, Fantasy and PNR.  That has not always been the case!

So in my mind, E. C. Tubb and Dumarest and this style of storytelling he uses seems to me to have been one of those used magazines from the 1950's -- it was old when I got it, and is long since gone.  So I can't check this.

Everything online, and the serious scholars who have searched hard, are saying the Dumarest material dates from the mid-1970's Ace Doubles -- see the covers above. 

I could be confusing two different Tubb works. 

According to this book:
http://books.google.com/books?id=9j70AAAAQBAJ&lpg=PA138&dq=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q=E.%20C.%20Tubb%20Serialization&f=false

Tubb dominated the British SF magazines in the mid-1950's and it could be some of that material that grabbed me.

Later, ACE did Tubb works in Ace Doubles. 

In the mid-1970's, the copyright laws were changed, so many earlier works were re-copyrighted so heirs could benefit from re-sale.  Nobody knew then what e-books would do to the reprint market -- or what the advent of Science Fiction Romance would do.  But right now, those older works are re-appearing, and they reveal the origins of SFR, PNR, etc.

Read page 138 of the book on Google.  Part 4: REBIRTH AND BUSINESS PLAN (1954-55).

It claims that Tubb wrote in a melodramatic vein.

That word, used in reference to science fiction, is a perjorative. 

It was used to disparage some of my favorite works -- the Lensman Series by E. E. Smith, Ph.D. -- along with the term "Space Opera."

These are terms which simply scorn anyone who respects these works.

But the fact is these works were and still are, deep, far-ranging philosophically challenging explorations.  They could even be seen as "subversive" -- even today! 

The second Dumarest novel, DERAI, is a Romance.

It is a standard modern-day ROMANCE!  (except for the ending, plus the idea that the man who marries the heiress gets control of her fortune).  It even has a Heroic-Heroine Telepath who falls in love with the Hunk Hero non-telepath assigned as her bodyguard. 

The ending, by requisite marketing formula, requires the heroine to die, leaving Dumarest single, free, available, and able and willing to travel to the next planet in search of Earth. 

That's what the series is about - Dumarest's quests to find his way back to Earth, and all the adventures he has getting there.

But using a science fiction twist, Tubb leaves her alive and even happy! 

Meanwhile, she has informed Dumarest of who knows where Earth is.  And he is now in hot pursuit of that information, knowing the galaxy-spanning organization is his mortal enemy.

So the Dumarest saga is about how one man confronts seemingly overwhelming odds to go home to Earth.

The other thing I noted about E. C. Tubb's writing which didn't distinguish the work against the background of contemporary works, but causes it to stand out against today's novels -- vocabulary.  The choice of word is excellent, precise, jewel-like (very much as you find in Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain Vampire novels).

Tubb doesn't reach for those OED gems, though -- he uses normal, everyday vocabulary, but uses it well.

So I recommend the Dumarest saga as a way to study how to achieve inconspicuous but elloquent precision in vocabulary usage.

Just like a TV Series Hero, Dumarest has to stay footloose.  But his character is such that he does form relationships, and his personal integrity requires him to risk even his life for the sake of those relationships. 

He demonstrates Self Respect -- something you don't find a lot of on TV Series these days.  When you do find it on TV, it's watered down compared to this.

Which brings me to an article published last year, the 13 attributes of successful people.

If you are building a character to be the center-pole of a long series, a quintessential Hero, use this list and test every line of dialogue and every decision that character makes against this list.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/18/mentally-strong-people-the-13-things-they-avoid/

Check Dumarest against that list.  See what markets on both sides of the Atlantic.

Now, why would a modern Romance writer want to study dusty old adventure-action novels written for boys?

It's not the "dusty" or "old" part that you need to study -- or emulate.  (Please, no emulation of the dusty or old parts!).

To figure out what to do TODAY that will last and last and come back into print to put your grandchildren through college -- study the parts of these novels, the ingredients, that have lasted.

The parts that still work will very likely still work 50 years from now. 

To figure out how to use that information to create a galaxy you can tell a long-romance-saga against, you do need to know something about what else was going on during the early 20th century. 

What did life feel like?  Well, Hollywood isn't a reliable source of historical information, but it does show the Fantasies and Aspirations -- the wishes, dreams, spirit -- of that time.

Combine watching some really old films on Netflix with some non-fiction written at that time (not in modern times) about the world-forces shaping people's lives.  "Life" is mostly about wedging yourself a place between sweeping, storming forces.  We all try to find our place, our "Home" as Dumarest does, and make a safe place to raise children.

I should also note that board gamers look at the Dumarest of Terra Series as the origin of the extremely popular (Dungeons & Dragons level popular) TRAVELER game. 

Study the Dumarest phenomenon (how popular it was -- it is in the same category as the Sten Series, also from Wildside) against those two dimensions, Hollywood dreams and cold-hard-facts of history, and you will understand what Ace Doubles were and what they did for science fiction.

That is what has to be done for the HEA plausibility in the Romance genre.  We have the leverage now.  We have but to use it.

Here is the first of the Sten novels:
http://www.amazon.com/Sten-The-Series-Vol/dp/1434430979/

There are 8 main novels and several additional newer volumes.  They are in paper, e-book, and audiobook. 

Sten dates from the 1980's or so, and the series was written concurrently with a large number of screenplays (mostly TV) by Cole and Bunch. 

Stack up STEN next to DUMAREST, and contrast-compare what innovation they brought to their decade's audience. 

While you're at it, you might want to make a third column for the 8 original Sime~Gen volumes (there are now 12 volumes). 

Look at the strong influences and criss-crossing thematic lines.  Look at the character-formulae relative to that list of 13 things successful people avoid. 

Now look around at the current headlines.  Evaluate the current culture surrounding your target audience.  Check your Market. 

Wildside Press is today reviving the Ace Double format.  Two of the new, first publication Sime~Gen novels are part of that program. 



These two new novels are available in this paper Doubles format, and individually as e-book and audible.com editions.

Study these achievements that test out over time, adapt the principles behind these achievements to your purposes, and launch a byline that you will live with for the rest of your life.

Up until recently, Romance Genre was never considered "reprintable" -- today, Bestselling Romance writers are bringing their own backlist books out as e-books (yeah, Bestselling writers are self-publishing).  And these golden oldies are selling very well!

Yes, pre-cell-phone plots seem awkward.

Yes, women who lack adherence to those 13 principles of successful people in that article seem implausible. 

But yes, that's how life was -- and still is for a lot of women world-wide.

Consider that when you're rummaging around in your mind for a story that's marketable today and for the next 50 years.

Then ponder this article, and why it is that self-published writers don't make much money.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremygreenfield/2013/12/09/how-much-money-do-self-published-authors-make/

And in that article is this link:
http://www.digitalbookworld.com/2013/self-publishing-debate-part3/

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 3: Making A Living At Writing by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 3
Making A Living At Writing
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

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

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

So here we are in 2014 and the world of marketing fiction is morphing even faster than ever.  In fact, "marketing" in general is under a high-impact game-changer of an ad-campaign.  The targets of this campaign mostly have no idea they've been targeted -- which is the way Public Relations is supposed to work, sneaking through your critical thinking filters. 

The groundbreaking ad campaign was launched for the film Anchorman 2.  Ron Burgundy suddenly appeared all over the place, coming at you from every medium.

http://www.hypable.com/2013/12/04/ron-burgundy-quotes-anchorman-promotional-appearances/ 

I saw several items on the financial news back in December 2013 about this ad campaign for Anchorman 2, during the talk about how the only thing wrong with Obamacare is the lack of a sufficient PR thrust to cause people to sign up for Obamacare (while news items kept appearing about the lack of Security on the back end of the healthcare.gov website.)

In the Entertainment biz, (of which publishing is a part), no matter how interesting your story, if it doesn't have an appropriate ad campaign, it won't make you a profit. 

Do you know how it "happens" that something like the Burgundy promo suddenly appears on NEWS SHOWS?  And everywhere else, while ads are appearing -- most hits on the YouTube video which has been pushed viral?  That it didn't "go" viral but was pushed viral on purpose is the story.  But how did that story make it onto a news broadcast?

Publicity Release, that's how.

There are a number of online services that promise free or fee-paid distribution to news outlets for a press release you write -- and they even admit that there is a standardized technique for writing such press releases.  They show you how.  But that isn't enough.

Any reporter, editor, etc. is now bombarded with thousands of these things a day. 

It's not enough to "put out" a "press release" -- professional back-channel access to the decision makers is necessary, and before that can be effective, there has to be a "story." 

This is the NEWS GAME, behind the scenes.  It has its own language and buzz-words as well as an entire business model for attracting the attention of large numbers of people who, because of whatever they have in common, will very likely do something with the information.

The most successful novelists I know of (and sometimes know personally) have one of two starting-professions under their belts before they "make it big" in the book biz.

1) Journalism
2) Marketing

It doesn't matter what kind of Journalism and it doesn't matter marketing what.  These two professions ingrain an entire outlook on the world that trains the subconscious to think in certain ways when organizing an Idea for a Story.

So we're going to examine how the News Game has changed -- where it was decades ago, why it was that way, and what forces caused it to change.

ANCHORMAN 2 is a marvelous case in point since it is sort-of about NEWS, but is fiction, and got this groundbreaking Public Relations Campaign.

That's what's "wrong" with self-publishing -- most writers just don't understand Public Relations, or how to create an ad campaign (nor do they have a sufficient budget).  And they don't understand Journalism -- which is the interface between the writer and the audience.  If you get "reported on" you are important.  How do you get "interviewed" on a news show and have them introduce you as the author of a book which they put on screen?

How do you get a cover design on your book that an eye-blink of exposure on a TV screen would give a viewer a need to buy that book?

It's magic, right?  Sheer dumb luck?  It could happen to anyone?  All you have to do is get your book in print?

What do you need a "publisher" for? 

PR, that's what. 

PR is the most expensive part of producing a book.  Just as in film production, the writer gets the least amount of the budgeted money, the book writer gets the least amount in advance from the publishing budget, and the least of the profits. 

Self-publishers who establish a publishing budget covering all the items a big publisher puts into a budget have a very good chance of succeeding. 

One reason writers go to self-publishing is that they learn how the author's contract pays them 6% to 10% of the NET proceeds from sale of the book.  The publisher keeps the rest.

No, actually not.  The publisher SPENDS the rest on staff and tasks required to produce and market that book.  Publishing (like the News Game we're going to discuss) used to be a zero-profit business.  It used to be that big companies owned a publishing company for the prestige of it (I'm not kidding; I know first-hand), and the company policies of the publishing arm of the company were designed to lose money.

The publishing company's job was to lose money AS A TAX WRITE-OFF.

They were in the business of exciting original thought with stimulating IDEAS, of instructing, informing, investigating, and incidentally entertaining.  The business aim was to break even -- make office rent, salaries, printing fees, etc etc -- not to make a profit.  So for every big, best seller, they would deliberately publish really "important" books that just could not possibly earn what it cost to print and distribute. 

The mission statement didn't include this, but the real mission was to lose money and gain prestige for the company that owned the publishing company.

That all changed when the US tax laws that governed warehousing of product changed.

Two decades later, technology swooped in and blindsided paper publishers -- e-books are now the battleground, and self-publishing may be our Renaissance.  (we're seeing this trend in Indie film and Indie everything else.) 

Note also that most all the US operating publishers are actually owned by foreign companies.  The shift in the tax laws gutted US Publishing to the point where we had an era writers called "Pac Man Publishing" where companies ate each other (this is happening with our Airlines now, and Healthcare delivery and innovators are entering that phase.) 

Just remember this:  IT IS ALL ABOUT THE TAX LAWS. 

So let's add a third starting-profession to the list of pre-published-author professions:

1) Journalism
2) Marketing (PR is part of Marketing)
3) Business Administration

One of the items in the BA curriculum is Public Relations and the place and function of the PR Department in the corporate structure.  Accounting is supposed to cover Tax Laws, but if you self-publish, you have to learn all that, too.  Tax laws are the elephant in the room.  You stand or fall as a business on Tax Law.

A self-publisher is a corporation -- has to be!  At least an LL.C.  There's an annual fee imposed on corps by each state -- a tax.  It's all about taxes. 

If you self-publish an e-book, and get sued, they can take your house, car, any other property.  Put the book into a corporation, and all the laws are different, but they are different in each state. 

And a self-publishing writer has to be a Master of administering or managing a PR department -- even if she wears all the hats in this corp, she has to do the PR and be the PR Department manager herself.  Each of these jobs is a full time job, and each requires a 4-year University Degree or at least the knowledge acquired in that degree work, plus the real-world, hands-on, skills gained by working with people. 

So google the following query:
anchorman Burgundy promotion

Study the results from the point of view of 1) Journalism ( a news organization deciding this film's promotion is NEWS - not the film itself!), 2) Marketing (that provides the news organization with the material to make that decision a slam-dunk) and 3) The Business of monetizing an investment in a piece of fiction (watch the film).

From the outside, the results of PR look like magic.  It's not.  It's science so advanced that it looks like magic. 

So beginning writers assume they can write a great novel, self-publish it, and LUCK may strike and boost them into this pinnacle of profit that the Burgundy films enjoy simply because their writing and their story are so much better than that movie (which they probably are). 

It's true: Luck Can Do That.  And the odds tilt in your favor if you write well. 

But self-publishing for profit requires a whole lot more savvy than that. 

It requires understanding business. 

Being a successful self-publisher means understanding the business structure well enough to know exactly where "Talent" resides in the Business Model, and precisely what the value of the content produced by Talent is worth in terms of ROI. 

Remember the old Hollywood saw, "I'll make you a star."  Mostly, the producer saying that was a grifter who just wanted to "make" the girl, but sometimes they could and did "make a star."  How talented an actress was Marilyn Monroe?  How good a singer is Madonna?  Are there better actresses or singers?  Why aren't they as well known? 

Is fame proportionate to ability?

See this entry on FAME:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/12/theme-character-integration-part-5-fame.html

Making a living at writing (even if you use a publisher) also requires the writer's concept of their product's place in the business model to morph as fast as the business model itself is morphing.  (which in 2014 is fast!  Tax law changes will ensure even faster morphing, never mind Healthcare changes.)

Take the ANCHORMAN 2 promotional campaign as an example of how your PR approach must now shift.

The Business channels carried items noting how the unique aspect of this promotional campaign was because it utilized multiple media forms simultaneously - a timed barrage. 

It's on TV, Radio, YouTube, Internet ads, and I don't know about print, blogging.  The campaign itself is the news item, as much as the sequel to a popular movie.

OK, the subject of the movie has wide appeal -- but the effectiveness of the YouTube ad plus all the multi-channel hype was highlighted on the Business channel coverage when one of the anchors said his whole family wants to see that movie -- the teen from YouTube or Netflix exposure, his wife from another medium and himself from other sources. 

Each channel of communication with potential audience demographics now requires a different medium of communication of the "message."  But "messaging" is still King. 

Apparently, the producers of this film spent more on promotion than on the movie, and one of the stars is getting his cut off the back end (not up front which is usual).  In other words, he gets a percent of the box office, so he's out there beating the drum just before the film hits -- TIMING is the other biggie in advertising.  Messaging (saying it in a way that gets across) and Timing are the keystones of an ad campaign.

And it is a campaign.  It's a WAR between those who can profit from selling you the product, and your resistance to spending that money.  Also the consumer has limited time to spend on entertainment.  You are, as Heinlein said, vying for the buyer's beer money and leisure time.

There is a whole science behind getting "people" to DO SOMETHING. 

That science, PR, works well enough that the cost/benefit equation works better in favor of those who know and utilize that science.

Advertising used to be an Art.  During the 20th century, it became a science (Public Relations is now math based on statistical studies of how large populations respond to messaging).  You've seen TV news using "focus groups" to predict elections or graph public opinion of viewers watching a segment.

PR is founded on the assumption that "people" are a herd -- that people see a person (a leader or influencer -- such as Klout attempts to spot by analyzing your social media interactions) move in a direction and they just follow like a herd.  Therefore, the only way to "make a profit" is to control that herd's movements, and PR is the math behind that control.  We've discussed all that at considerable length on this blog.

Here are 3 previous items on this blog that discuss PR:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-1-never-let.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-2-fallacy.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/theme-plot-integration-part-4-fallacies.html

Control the Influencers - the Leaders - and you control the herd.  Any cowboy/gal can tell you how that works.

For a century, this science has been growing, becoming refined and more accurate -- so successful that the general opinion that an individual has of "people" is that they (people plural) aren't very smart. 

"Yell FIRE in a dark theater!"  It brings to mind that image of a stampede for exits.

One PR principle is to keep that herd in a panic -- or some peak emotional state, pathos, sympathy, revulsion, all do the job.  The key to controlling the herd is whipping up emotion because emotional states (fear-fight-flight) wipe out critical thinking, paralyze the ability to discern the con-game, the grifter's skills at work.

We discussed the TV Show Leverage here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/01/business-model-of-writers-in-changing.html

If you missed prior discussions involving PR, review them here:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/04/story-springboards-part-2-tv-shows.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-4.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-3.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/10/believing-in-happily-ever-after-part-2.html

If you've studied Leverage, (and the many other TV Shows that focus on con-men tricking "marks" into self-destruction) you are equipped to make yourself PR proof. 

Once you see the strings of greed and fear con-men pull to make their "marks" dance, you will never be a "mark" again.  If you can achieve that mindset, you have a serious chance of being successful at self-publishing. 

Seeing is believing. 

Until you see what PR at publishing houses does, and how they do it, and how you have been a victim of it, you have no chance at success in self-publishing. 

You don't need a college degree to do this, but you do need to know what is in those textbooks.  You don't need a teacher.  Teach yourself.  Go to the library or buy some used textbooks (much cheaper now in e-book format!) and just learn it. 

So returning to the grifter's secondary tool of "fear."  That's "Yelling Fire In A Crowded Theater."  Just get the herd moving, and human stupidity will do the rest for you.  Remember, the principle behind PR is that Aroused Emotion obliterates critical thinking.  Once you've short-circuited human critical thinking, you own that herd.

As long as you, the writer with aspirations of self-publishing, are a member of the herd that Publisher's PR Departments own, you will not succeed at self-publishing.  Your indignation and defiance are emotions aroused by the "stupidity" of publishers who refuse to publish the "better" kind of book you write, and thus your critical thinking is shunted offline, and they own you.

As long as you are in rebellion against traditional publishing, you will fail because they own you.

You will not fail because your book is not marketable (though that does cause failure).  You will fail because of your emotional state.

You can master your emotional state easily by coming to understand how the Confidence Operator is jerking you around.  Find where your handles are sticking out, and don't let them get hold of you by your handle.

For writers, that handle is generally, "I write better than that."  And very often, that's true.  What the writer must learn to go professional, especially as a self-publisher, is that there is a low, but clearly defined threshold that a story must meet, and any quality above that just doesn't matter in marketing.

How well you write just doesn't matter.  How important your story is used to matter -- in today's publishing world that publishes FOR PROFIT ONLY -- "importance" of what you have to say doesn't matter.

Once you get that fixed in your mind, you can research why lesser works than your own sell so much better.

But you won't understand the data you're gathering until you understand PR.

Many times great disasters with horrendous death tolls have occurred in public places (such as bars or theaters) with insufficient exits.

"Messaging" is the science of figuring out what to yell in that darkened theater to raise the emotional state to the point where critical thinking evaporates and the mindless herd is created (in politics, it's call a Bandwagon).

"Timing" is the science of picking when to Yell.

Targeting a Market is the science of "getting all those people packed into that theater" -- "finding your audience."

"What Is The Lowest Common Denominator that all those people share?"

That's what "audience" means to PR folks -- not the definition of the word audience, which is about "those who hear" but how to gather those people all together to yell your emotion-raising message causing the herd to lunge all together in one direction.

If you think about what that means, you may see why Science Fiction is not so popular.

Science Fiction has been defined as "The Literature of Ideas."  That is, it is about THINKING.

Only in ROMANCE is it possible to have truly peak emotional experiences while at the same time still thinking critically.  (I said Romance, not sex.) 

Science Fiction is always about the story (fiction) of some revelation about the structure of the universe (science) that organizes (science) the knowledge gained into a pattern than can be used to invent new things.

In the typical, old fashioned, science fiction a young boy (always a boy) who has a brilliant mind discovers some new fact that his elders could never have found.  Using this new fact, the boy invents, fixes, adds-on, or otherwise morphs what tools his elders were using and thus solves a problem older people could not.

The driving force in old style Science Fiction is the boy's emotional need to "prove himself" -- or one of the other emotional issues of teen boys, but never the sexuality inherent in the teen years.  SF was usually set in the time of life of the Rite of Passage into adulthood, and thus defined what it means to be an adult, as opposed to being a child.

That type of Science Fiction has almost disappeared from the shelves (or Amazon). 

Stories about the process of becoming The Adult In The Room via the application of critical thinking and bold exploration of new ideas have not been given the PR push (that Anchorman 2 has gotten) for at least 10 years.

It is as if those selecting books to put PR muscle behind do not want young people to admire and emulate those whose behavior is controlled more by critical thinking than by emotional-herd-behavior. 

People who default to critical thinking when someone yells FIRE, are generally the sort who simply will not respond to advertising for shaving cream, perfume, tooth paste, or a muscle car.  They simply can not be fooled by advertisements, not even for political candidates. 

People who default to critical thinking are immune to advertising, and every other grifter's trick. 

Science Fiction, from the publishers whose mission-statement included losing money, or break-even at best, taught readers not only to admire critical thinking, but also how to do it when the whole mob around you is screaming, "FIRE!"  The science fiction fan was always the one who grabbed the fire extinguisher before the blaze got out of hand -- or set himself to become that person as an adult.

The measure of adulthood was the ability to default to critical thinking, no matter what others were doing.

That's not the same as being "emotionless" (as Spock was portrayed).  It's not lack of emotion.  It's that one trains one's emotions to be subordinate to critical thinking in the decision-making process.  Once that training is complete, one is an adult. 

From another view, Science Fiction is the fiction about people who defy the rules (because that's how science advances -- by people finding the mistakes in previously accepted Laws of Science). 

These individuals have the characteristic that Klout.com is looking for -- the clearly delineated difference from everyone else.

The lowest common denominator of the Science Fiction reader is high intelligence and unique critical thinking in the midst of peak emotion.

That's what makes the Science Fiction hero/heroine a prime candidate for Romance Genre.

For the astrology buffs reading this -- Romance is usually signaled by a Neptune transit.  Critical thinking is generally associated with an easy Mercury/Saturn connection, and/or Saturn transit to the 3rd/9th axis.  When the two are combined, you get prophetic brilliance, or Love At First Sight.  The true Happily Ever After generally results from that combination, whereas the hard Neptune transit "Romance" generally results in a really rough "The Honeymoon Is Over," moment. 

So now I'll give you a week to review Marketing, PR, the history of publishing, and other points I've skimmed through here.

Next week we'll discuss more about why it is that Journalism is a great way to start a fiction writing career aimed at making a living from writing.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

How To Change Perception Of Romance

OK, the November election is long over and everyone has simmered down.

But nobody, even the winners, are really satisfied, and the people who voted for the winners aren't even satisfied.  Those who voted for the losers are gearing up to "fight again."

Most of us look at "politics" as a toxic swamp that functions more like a field of World War I muddy foxholes than like a managerial team.

But just as I pointed you toward studying the phenomenon of Glenn Beck -- NOT Beck himself, mind you, but the generating mechanism that caused the phenomenon which impacts so many in such a strange way -- I now have to point you to the study of politics.

This is an exercise in what screenwriters call SUBTEXT.

Philosophers, linguists and semanticists have other names for it.  But we're fiction writers here, and we're trying to solve the problem of how and why the HEA, Romance and particularly Paranormal and Science Fiction Romance got such a horrid reputation among those who never (ever) even read it.

I mean, if you don't read Romance, how can you have an opinion about it?

See where I'm going with this?

People don't know politicians, but have opinions about them.

People don't understand economics, but have opinions about it.

Even professors don't understand economics -- they're making it up as they go along and winning Nobel Prizes for it, but they're all clueless about how economies actually work.  If that were not the case, we wouldn't have a problem with the economy would we?

Does that sound like the field of professional fiction writing?  Everyone has an opinion, but nobody understands it. 

Yes, "economics" and "politics" and "government" and getting elected are an "artform" and actually close to writing because working as a politician is being a performing artist.

As I've told you, Alma Hill clued me in to the actual category of the writing craft -- writing is a performing art.

Well, so is politics.

And "selling" a politician or even just a political idea or stance (not even the whole philosophical package behind those ideas -- the whole "theme" of the created piece the politician is performing) works just exactly like selling books.

It's all about popularity.

And as any screenwriter will tell you up front, to get a film over the hump and into "popularity" one must be a virtuoso at subtext.

If your dialog is "on the nose" (putting the subconscious assumptions into delineated, direct, conscious expression) it won't work.

Men (or the masculine tendencies in everyone) are especially put off by this.  Emotions must not be articulated.  Emotional content has to be sub-subtext or they will run away before you can make your point.

Subtext carries the message, the theme, the point of the whole thing.

And that can be just tone of voice, or choice of vocabulary.

Actors master this early.  You can say one thing, but convey another, and the audience will pick up on and believe the other.

Now if you've been studying commercials as I suggested long ago in these writing craft pieces, you already see this point.

The key to selling product in a commercial is tone of voice, music, -- the images and articulated message are there just to distract the audience so that the real message can be rammed into the subconscious where it will control behavior against the audience's will.

That's how it works, and it is now a practice reduced to a mathematical formula.

The Overton Window that I talked about is derived from that mathematical study of the behavior of large groups of people.

Individuals can't be controlled.  But large groups can.  The more uniform the individuals in the group, the more easily the larger group can be controlled -- like cowboys herding cattle.  That's why they're called "cowpokes."  They poke here and there, and five of them can control a thousand head of cattle.

Now what's happened on the political scene in 2010 was the result of a court decision regarding how money spent supporting candidates can be collected, spent and accounted for.  In effect, the laws instituted to try to "clean up" elections turned out to be unconstitutional.  So that opened the spigot for all kinds of funding to flow in all kinds of ways that the general public is not to be allowed to know about.

It's raining on the field of World War I muddy foxholes and the battlefield just got a whole lot more toxic.

As any writer knows, to generate a really great mystery plot, just re-analyze the events in terms of "follow the money" -- that's where murder motivations seethe.

Publishing likewise is all about making money.

Winning high political office sets people up to become wealthy themselves -- and I'm sure most of the deals they swing are perfectly legal which is what lures them into swinging shadier deals and eventually getting caught.

Lots of plot ideas in that, but let's stand way back and watch the publishing field as the color Nook and Barnes & Noble rule the roost for a while before they get shot down (maybe by Amazon?)  It's warfare, trench warfare in publishing now.

And it's all about advertising.

Advertising is the war against readers.

The point of advertising is to get a reader to buy a book they don't want, just as advertising lures people into buying all sorts of other things they don't want or need.  We are now an admittedly consumer driven economy (which I don't think is the best thing to be, but that's another discussion.)

Remember we're writers, and we write stories.  The essence of story is conflict -- conflict generates both plot and story, and how that conflict plays out to a resolution states the theme.  In other words, conflict is theme-driven.

Think back over this election and all the particolored junk that came in your snailmail and the flashing advertisements on TV, the posters and bill boards, handbills given out at grocery stores, and so forth.

Advertising is the war against voters.

Advertising is done by someone who wants to change someone else's behavior to be in accord with the benefit of the advertiser -- REGARDLESS of whether that benefits the recipient of the advertising or not.

And sometimes it does benefit the recipient.  Here's a better cold remedy.  Here's a way to get spots out of your carpet.  Here's a more delicious coffee.  Here's a really cheap shampoo that works better.

Sometimes ads tell the truth.

Sometimes they don't.

Regardless of the truth contained, advertising is more efficient at herding humans than cowpokes are at herding cows.

Cowpokes use bovine instinct to get results.  Advertisers use subtext.

To become a popular writer, you must master the use of subtext.

To "sell" (by advertising) the theme "Love Conquers All" to those who disbelieve it, you must bury it deep in subtext and use it in your advertising (i.e. what screenwriters call a pitch).

That means you must study successful use of subtext in advertising.

The most efficient way to learn something is to watch someone else use it.

They still teach the Medical Arts by the "See One, Do One, Teach One" method, and there's a reason for that buried in the human brain's learning process.

But in writing, the best way to learn a technique is to see it, do it, and teach it in an artistic context different from the one where you intend to apply it.

That's why I did the long series of 20 posts on the Tarot which I hope you've finished reading and absorbing by now.  Instead of focusing directly on writing techniques, you learn by focusing attention elsewhere and absorbing the essential lesson on writing from the subtext.

That's the drill that's most effective in absorbing any writing technique I've discussed "on the nose" in previous posts here.

So now look closely at the field of political advertising and the effectiveness of it, and think in terms of the "message" we are trying to get across about the HEA.

Here below is a brief excerpt from an email begging for contribution money for a "cause" rather than a "candidate" - just substitute HEA for the cause.

Note I chose this one, but the exact same language and subtext are in every one of these fund-raising emails -- I subscribe to one or two from every flavor of the political spectrum and study them for techniques.  (one day you might need to write one as part of a plot, so study carefully.)

--------FROM DICK MORRIS--------

From the desk of Dick Morris

Dear Reader:

Let me tell you about the devastating ad we’re running right now to defeat THREE Pelosi Democrats from Arizona. It’s called “Stop the Arizona Three!”

You can be proud of this ad because donations from friends like you made this ad possible.

The ad is simple. It exposes the three Democratic politicians for voters to see. It says that Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, and Gabrielle Giffords:

Voted for Obama’s massive healthcare takeover
Voted for a $500 billion Medicare cut
Voted for $1 trillion in wasted stimulus funds
Supported Nancy Pelosi
The ad ends with an appeal to “stop Obama’s tax hikes, his amnesty for illegals, and his job-killing policies.” And it closes with these words: “Vote for the candidates who share your values.”

The beauty of this ad is that we hit three birds with just one stone! For the cost of one ad, we can defeat three Pelosi Democrats!

And, thanks to your donations, we’re also running similar ads against Pelosi Democrats in Florida, West Virginia, Minnesota, Tennessee, Wisconsin and elsewhere. The ads all follow the same successful formula.

 --------END QUOTE---------

Did you detect the subtext?

It's the same subtext you see in every single political fundraiser.

"I can get people to do what you want, not what they want, and all you have to do is give me money."

Now if you're any kind of writer, you've also studied carefully all the techniques used by grifters, confidence artists, to finesse you out of your money.

This is the same subtext used to victimize the retired folks who don't have enough money.  "give me your money and I'll double it."

This is the same subtext used to hoodwink anyone into doing anything that is against that person's best interests.

MONEY CAN BUY ANYTHING.

And it's a subtext that's believed by a lot of people, but it's especially believed by the pragmatic people who pay attention to politics.  The winner is always the one who has raised the most money.  That's how we got George Bush as President. That's how we got Barak Obama as President.

And all the lesser offices work the same way.

It is so rare that the under-funded politician wins that when it does happen it's a national news story even if the office is local.  It's the "man bites dog" story -- when "dog bites man" is not a news story.

I can make things the way you want them to be if you pay me money.  Well, that wasn't enough money, give me more.  Confidence men (women) can get people to give them entire fortunes a little at a time -- it wasn't enough, give me more.  It's working, see?  Every ponzi scheme works that way.

The pragmatic truth is that as politics is run today, political offices are for sale to the highest bidder. (this isn't new)

That happens not because of campaign funding laws, but because of the mathematicians behind The Overton Window.

Here's where I wrote about that:

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

These people are changing the behavior (NOT THE MINDS) of vast herds of people by snapping a whip over their heads.  (whip-snapping can be described mathematically).

Parents know the subtext technique because it's taught by all the parenting books and coaches and advisers about how to defuse the fights with teenagers.

This behavior control via subtext is built into human beings.  (what if an alien species comes along that doesn't respond?)

So one of the elements we must master in order to change the perception of the romance genre in the eyes of the larger, general public (especially men) is subtext.

Dick Morris's (and the other fund-raisers) message is "give me money and I'll make the world the way you want it to be."

As I read it, that is the exact opposite of the message the Romance Genre carries.  I've rarely encountered an HEA ending that carries the theme "money can buy happiness."

Nevertheless, the vast majority in America does behave as if money can buy happiness.  Look at all the hundreds of millions of dollars given to political campaigns.  Lots of it is given by businesses, and they know they will make a profit on that investment as will the politicians.  (Look at those who give money to their own campaign chests!)

Look at the very rich who give away all their wealth to a "Foundation" -- well, even though other names may appear on the letterhead the person who gives the funds to the foundation controls the way that wealth is used.  Giving it away doesn't lessen their "power" -- it increases it.  And the maneuver keeps the control of that wealth from the government.

Control of money, "power" can buy happiness, satisfaction, or an HEA.  But "Love" can't.

That's the behavior.

That behavior is at odds with the professed, "on the nose" statements articulated by these same people.

Everyone says they accept the scientific studies that show health, long life, satisfaction and a sense of being "successful" come from binding family relationships. But faced with an email like Dick Morris's - they readily give money.  (by the millions of dollars, too)

Is the problem with the Romance HEA that it's "on the nose?"

How do we get HEA and Love Conquers All into subtext, then bullet point it into an advertisement modeled on Dick Morris's successful fundraising campaign?  Controlling all those millions of dollars gave Morris's organization (a non-profit) the kind of "power" that comes from controlling money.

Why does controlling money bestow power?

That question brings us to the philosophical core of the essence of all fiction, but it's especially relevant to Romance because the flip-side of "Romance" is sex, and sex is power personified (for humans; maybe aliens function differently?)

When a person harbors a belief that is at odds with their behavior, you have the main ingredient for a main point of view character for a novel.

When you can define the exact conflict between the belief and the behavior in such a way that it mirrors a conflict resident and active in a large demographic, you have a best seller that can be made into a blockbuster, opens-everywhere film such as Blake Snyder analyzes in his Save The Cat! series.

Ultimately, the resolution of that conflict between belief and behavior bestows upon an individual power over their lives.

That is the essence of the HEA -- power over your own life.

People may be futilely pouring money into poltical campaigns responding to the subtext promise that this act will gain them power over their own life.

Since it never happens, how can those same people buy a Romance novel and expect to read how to resolve their conflict in such a way that they will gain power over their own life and thus achieve the HEA depicted in the novel?

We need to move the Overton Window (I do hope you've read my post on that and the links in it or you won't understand what I'm talking about here) -- we need to alter the perception of what is possible and how to achieve it.

Look closely at the Soul Mate concept and you will see that the philosophy behind it, (the Soul exists), implies individuality and a unique individuality at that.

Each of us is half of some whole.  The other half is our Soul Mate.

Read the Tarot posts, or remember them. Here are 2 posts listing the 20 Tarot posts.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_23.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me.html

The writer learns to parse people into characters to write about by distinguishing between what we all share in common and that carefully defined uniqueness of individuality.  Lots of philosophies do this, but I've round Tarot the fastest way to learn to use it in writing.  (not fortune telling or telling the future -- understanding the present nature of human experience)

That Soul Mate concept makes no sense to people whose individuality has been worn away.  It makes no sense to the nail that stuck up and got hammered down - to those taught "conform or die" and "different is dead."

If you believe that individuality is wrong, and that the individuality of others is a danger to you and must be controlled by "the government" or whatever instrumentality you fund, the whole HEA concept will just not seem plausible, realistic or desireable.  It certainly won't be entertaining.

Love is a phenomenon of the uniqueness of an individual.  Love happens when you percieve that uniqueness in another.

See my post "What Does She See In Him" for more on that.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

The terrible urgency of Romance derives from the uniqueness of the experience of this ONE INDIVIDUAL PERSON in your life.  There will never be another.

That's the love that generates Romance leading to an HEA where the couple mutually and individually exercise power over their own life.

The ambience of "Romance" blurs the very existence of "the real world" around one so the individuality of That One Unique Other is the total focus.  You don't see how we are all the same when you are focused on that uniqueness. 

That "blurring" is the result of a Neptune Transit which represents a very spiritual state that not everyone can handle well.  Either you see reality with utter clarity for a time, or you become completely befuddled and confused.

Here is a list of some of my posts on Astrology Just For Writers that discuss how a writer can use Astrology as a plotting tool by understanding how it describes the elements in us all that bind us, that make our life experiences identical.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

We are a herd of identical people.  Exploiting that attribute of humanity makes these political fundraiser efforts successful.

We are unique individuals.

Exploiting that attribute of humanity makes the Romance Genre, the HEA and the Love Conquers All theme profitable for publishers.

Study the political fundraising techniques and the results.  Study the popularity of Glenn Beck and whatever new phenomenon personality appears on the scene. Don't study the text Beck presents, study the subtext and more important than the content of his subtext study how his promoters use that subtext.

Apply your discoveries to your writing.

The younger your target readership, the bigger the effect you will have on the future of humanity, so be very careful what you encode into subtext.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Astrology Just For Writers Pt 6 - Targeting A Readership Pt 2

The topic here overlaps and synthesizes two threads I've been developing in the search for means to change the image of SF/Paranormal/Futuristic Romance

Heather did a fabulous summary post of where we are now and how to get where we're going with Romance at
http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2009/10/does-science-fiction-romance-need-gene.html?showComment=1255723748380#c6797085517666242508

And I do agree that the prevailing market wisdom indicates we need a new label or BRAND logo for SFR. I think it will be derived from the seminal work that changes the landscape, what she calls the ground zero. (Rock-n-Roll; Punk Rock; Steam Punk, Urban Fantasy, New Wave, etc) That seminal work must have a visual element with an evocative label.

But in whom must it evoke what? Let's step back and take a longer perspective look at our market.

This look is founded in two of my previous posts here (plus all the others -- this is the phase of INSIDE THE WRITER'S MIND where bits and pieces get synthesized.)

Look again at:

1) Astrology Just For Writers Part 5
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/12/astrology-just-for-writers-part-5-high.html

2) Targeting a Readership Part One
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/targeting-readership-part-one.html

Now let's explore the use of Astrology over long, sweeping generations to look at what becomes popular among a given age group and why. Remember this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-age-of-your-protagonist-to-win.html

To synthesize all this into something a writer can use, we have to consider the Essence of Amusement, which is actually a separate topic -- what clicks your pleasure button and why. This is very mystical stuff with a practical application.

Rowena Cherry tickled the edges of "Essence of Amusement" in her musings about what a heroic-devil could and could not do in a novel and retain reader sympathy.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/for-gods-sake-im-kitchen-witch-i-cant.html

There are several discussions going on in the Amazon Communities boards for Romance about which hugely popular authors you just mysteriously don't like, and another about which authors you've stopped reading lately -- very illuminating.

Those Amazon Community Boards readers (you have to have an amazon account I think to get there, but here's the link)
http://www.amazon.com/communities/directory/ref=sv__1
are not reviewing so much as recommending books to each other. For example, there's a thread about "If I loved TWILIGHT, what should I read next?"

Lots of action in the Romance communities there, but I think there's more in the Romance community at Goodreads.com where there are a lot of authors involved.

The Amazon discussions are mostly by readers for readers, which being a reader, I find fascinating and useful.

But they're discussing their personal reaction to this or that novel series (and series are actually as hot right now as publishers seem to think. Readers don't want "the end" -- they want "ongoing adventures of," which makes the HEA ending concept worth re-thinking.)
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

If they like some characters or a fictional world, readers want more and more of the same, but they drop the series once it becomes more and more of the same. Just like TV viewers!

Being readers they don't know or care WHY they like or dislike, or gobble or drop, a story or even a writer's entire output. They just want their money's worth of amusement. That seems fair to me. And wise.

Harking back to Rowena's post on dialog snippets:

"Give me a good read!"
"What do you want?"
"How should I know? You're the writer. That's your job."

OK, roll up your sleeves and let's get to the dirty work.

The Essence of Amusement

Why are we amused?

What is amusement?

Why does a writer have to know?

Caution here -- some writers shouldn't know consciously what amuses their readers.

Other writers can't produce good amusement without knowing consciously.

Yet others need a little of this and a little of that to get it right.

Neurolinguistic programming is a scientific discipline trying to find the interface between brain cells and responses. Scientists long ago found a "pleasure center" which can be directly stimulated, even with addictive consequences.

Reading (fiction or non-fiction) either stimulates that pleasure center in some peripheral, possibly intellectual way -- or it turns off some pain center responses. It may do both on occasion to produce the books we "love."

That effect on engaging the imagination to stimulate or overcome some brain circuit signal would likely have remained the same since caveman days. Or maybe before that. 4.4 million years ago, at least, twice as long ago as previously assumed. I need to find out how long ago Pluto was "captured" by our sun, if that's in fact what Pluto is - a Capture.

THIS FROM THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC ON HUMAN FOSSIL DISCOVERY - Oct 1, 2009
-------------
The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link—resembling something between humans and today's apes—would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree. Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior—long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors—is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.
....
The Ardipithecus ramidus fossils were discovered in Ethiopia's harsh Afar desert at a site called Aramis in the Middle Awash region, just 46 miles (74 kilometers) from where Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, was found in 1974. Radiometric dating of two layers of volcanic ash that tightly sandwiched the fossil deposits revealed that Ardi lived 4.4 million years ago.
------------
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/10/091001-oldest-human-skeleton-ardi-missing-link-chimps-ardipithecus-ramidus.html

We are now learning how species shift and evolve abruptly and why -- two reasons: supervolcanos and magnetic polar reversals.

There's a lot of research on evolution of humans that traces a huge genetic shift to the eruption of a supervolcano 70,000 years ago from now. It's a genetic process called a genetic bottleneck, and I did a really short blog post on that at
http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/10/toba-supervolcano-caused-genetic.html

This stuff about evolution and our ability to be amused is seriously primal, as Blake Snyder says (Save The Cat!)all screenplays that "open everywhere" just have to be PRIMAL.

PRIMAL is the key, and nothing is more PRIMAL than sex or violence (or both). Rowena Cherry just dropped a note on her own post
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/for-gods-sake-im-kitchen-witch-i-cant.html

Saying:
----------
Recently (as I mentioned on Heather's blog) a study was published that suggested more than 50% of romance readers want more sex in the novels they read.

Also, from my own observations and email exchanges with my Dorchester editor, marketability standards are changing. Some of the traditional "No-nos" are now acceptable.
-----------

If it's PRIMAL it sells -- provided it doesn't totally shatter a taboo. If you don't know about taboos and human culture, study some anthropology.

"Politically Incorrect" is another term for taboo.

In the film world, the term "edgy" means getting up close to the edge of a taboo but just not quite crossing that edge, so the almost-pain of anticipation is titillating, exciting, subconsciously disturbing, but not "run for the exits" pain. Laughter is the response to almost-pain. And laughter is a pleasure in itself. It's the ultimate goal of "amusement." Who doesn't LAUGH at unexpectedly terrific sex?

Done right, an "edgy" film about some social issue or political commentary can titilate the same nerve that gets a tweak from sexuality. "Playing" an audience with symbolism is just like "playing" a sexual partner to a maximized experience.

Well written fiction is configured just like good sex, which is why the ending of a story is called a CLIMAX.

Since films have to have the largest audiences because they are the most expensive to produce and distribute, "primal" has to be the watchword -- so essential an amusement even a caveman could understand.

And with the increasing emphasis on for-profit fiction, writers face a situation where the "edges" of "edgy" are shifting.

What is publicly acceptable has changed for whatever reason: possibly the audience is jaded; possibly a generation drilled in political correctness and sexual openness of the 1960's; possibly other factors such as Astrology may be involved; possibly all of the above.

So as Rowena correctly points out, editors are very aware (via twitter, facebook, myspace, goodreads.com amazon communities boards etc) that half the readers find the amount of raw sexuality in novels does not satisfy their need for amusement. They want more. But half the readers want the same or less!

If you look at the current political polls on approval for some government initiatives, we're right back where we were before 2008; the USA is about equally divided pro and con any issue, with about 15% in the middle apt to lean either way.

That political divide oddly mirrors the "acceptability" for sex in novels. I don't know if it correlates at all -- if the same people who want this political policy want more sex and the people who are against this political policy want less sex, while 15% in the middle are basically satisfied. I doubt anyone has done a study on that question. (who knows what may turn up on the web tomorrow!)

People with a taste for cerebral fiction (like SF or Mystery) don't necessarily also have a distaste for sexuality in fiction.

Cerebral thrills are only going to be sought out by the top 10 percentile rank of human beings, maybe 15 percentile ranks. Movies have to get 100 times cheaper to make in order to turn a profit off the top 15% of humans. The current tech innovations are bringing that target within range but it's not there yet.

Meanwhile, you'll always make more money off a bigger audience, so a writer should ponder how to frame their artistic output to reach the largest possible number of people with whatever the writer has to give.

Remember my post here on Winning a big film prize by choosing the age of your protagonist which I cited above?

Choosing protag's age to win an Oscar
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/06/choosing-age-of-your-protagonist-to-win.html

Audiences are grabbed by a protag they can understand and identify with.

Young people don't understand or identify with old people, and don't want to but old people were once young and understand, identify with, and yearn to BE young people. Old people have their own unique life-issues (remember the film COCOON? And it's precious sequel?) but the life issues of the young are not alien or irrelevant to the older consumer.

At the same time, YOUNG consumers can be swayed by advertising and peer pressure. Older people can not (waste of advertising dollars to target over 40 consumers.)

And that could be a problem we're having with SFR and author-advertising. SFR really targets OLDER people -- a ship's captain, for example, should be over 30 to be plausible, over 40 to be believable however sexy. The age of the protag determines the age of the core readership. You waste your money advertising to the over-40 crowd, but that's the target audience for most SFR. Now what do you do?

Alas, older people are not as easily swayed by peer pressure, either. The older reader doesn't read books because "everybody" is reading them - they read what they like. (odd factoid derived from reading Amazon Community).

In a post inside LINKEDIN I saw a publishing professional explaining to a beginning writer pondering self-publishing that publishing is not a "meritocracy" -- and books that deserve to be published don't necessarily get chosen to be published by the big houses.

That's a very good way to think about it because many working writers today were children reading voraciously when publishing WAS INDEED A MERITOCRACY!!! That's the model we've internalized - if my book OUGHT to be published, it will be. What a shock when it's not.

We've all read older books that became true lifetime favorites, cherished and re-read. Those books were published back when publishing was a meritocracy -- and publishing houses were the tax write-off wing of a larger enterprise. (really, that was the business model; publishing was supposed to lose money and if it didn't, the publishing house would get sold at a loss.)

Owning a publishing house was fashionable and an entre into the literati and higher social circles than mere CEO's could aspire to.

Yeah, snob appeal.

Editors were hired not for their commercial sense but for choosing books that "ought" to be published.

That was a different world. Today publishing has become a "for profit" business, cut-throat and thrashing in what seem to be death-throes (at least in paper publishing).

E-publishing and self-publishing have lowered the standards of the finished e-product so that you don't get that prestige factor just for "being an author."

"Authors" used to be in the top 1st percentile rank of the top 15 percentile ranks of all human beings.

Really, that's true. Way back in the early days of the Web, I took a "poll" thing about where I stand in the prestige ranks. As a writer, I hit the top. Professors weren't top. CEO's were top, writers just under.

Today it's different. With self-publishing, authors are maybe somewhere in the top 15 percentile ranks. Since that basically includes most all readers, readers don't flock to "authors" as they once did. Everyone knows a published author. It's not special or inaccessible. (working producers are still inaccessible but that's changing too)

Meeting an author is not the opportunity of a lifetime today.

The world has changed so we have a big opportunity to establish something new that could shape the world of the future.

But to achieve that, we have to get a grip on what is really going on as opposed to what all the financial decision makers assume is going on. That's the real work of a writer, a futurologist, an amusement vendor, knowing what nobody else suspects and using it to advantage.

There's a puzzle of the marketplace that has never been solved, and I can't say I have "the" solution. But by using a futurologist's thinking tools and worldbuilder's imagination, we might stumble upon a real clue specifically useful to Romance sub-genre writers, with this problem about spending personal advertising dollars to sway over-40 year old readerships.

The puzzle that bewilders editors and producers is simple.

"Why is this a hit, while that better thing isn't?"

Maybe it's not all entirely marketing?

The people who get rich are the ones who notice the first of the trend-setting leaders and flood in behind with imitations before the general public has heard of the trend.

Those trend-setting leaders are usually "accidents" -- mistakes editors made trying to pick a big winner, or little indie films that make it big at a festival.

Sometimes the trend setting author is a visionary, but sometimes the author is as bewildered by commercial success as the editor (Rowling comes to mind).

So successful editors and producers watch the fringes for something that has tweaked the pleasure-centers, clicked the Amusement Button and produced Amusement in a DEMOGRAPHIC SWATCH of the population -- a demographic with disposable income and the immaturity to be swayed by advertising.

In 2008, I did a series of columns (the first 6 columns of 2008) on Blake Snyder's approach to film structure using primal issues structured in a primal way.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2008/

And I followed that with a series of columns on the astrological effect of PLUTO being dramatic and "larger than life."

Pluto: Melodrama Unleashed is the series title of those columns.

Under Pluto, I discussed Noel Tyl's Signature of Fame, an astrological meta-pattern you can find in natal charts of the absurdly rich and famous.

That Signature of Fame pattern pivots on Pluto in the natal chart and requires a fairly experienced astrologer to sift out of the background noise. But Tyl's Signature hypothesis explains graphically why it is so many who are rocketed to stardom crash and burn on drugs, sexual dissipation, bad judgment, trusting the wrong people, or dying of some dramatic disease.

Pluto is a magnifier of drama (among many other things). Pluto is just power, raw power, sexual power, financial power, political power, power over OTHERS (as in the power to sell snow to the Eskimos).

Pluto is not the drama itself. Pluto mixes in to an ordinary life event and magnifies it, blows it up, exaggerates, makes melodrama. You don't just drive your car into a ditch, you rocket off the Golden Gate Bridge leaving shattered traffic barriers behind.

Some handy current examples of Pluto in action.

When the economy crashed and burned at the end of 2008, it was after a long, slow shuddering buildup showing symptom after symptom that the "experts" ignored, which is typical of Pluto.

"I knew that would happen! Why didn't I pay attention?" And the answer is that Pluto represents what is underground, hidden, what is infrastructure. Plumbing, bridges, highways, electrical grid. You never notice it until it collapses.

So finally (it wasn't the beginning; it was FINALLY) Lehman Brothers melted down.

That coincided with the contact of Pluto to the 8th House cusp of (one of) the USA natal chart guesses. (astrologers argue about which chart is the real birthchart of the USA and all the candidates have different degrees for the 8th House cusp).

Pluto rules the Natural 8th House which is Scorpio, so when Pluto in current real-time comes to a degree that is a natal 8th House, Pluto's normally exaggerated effect is exaggerated more than 100%.

So we didn't just have a recession, we had a financial foundation infrastructure melt-down which magnified the recession we were due for.

8th House and Pluto and Scorpio symbolize the resources of others, (for a country, that's taxes and borrowing from foreign governments)

Obama was elected President with Pluto transiting opposition his Natal Venus, which is just about conjunct the USA Venus. (Venus rules Taurus-finances and Libra-Relationships).

Obama also had Neptune transiting his Ascendant casting a huge, magnified (Pluto) glamor (Neptune) over all his relationships (Venus).

His ability to speak was also at a lifetime best (Venus rules the voice box) etc. The whole country resonated to his way of handling relationships, and will for a while yet.

Pluto magnifies. It's about POWER.

Put a raw electric feed from the grid directly into your house circuitry and your house will just about EXPLODE with sparks and gouts of flame. No step-down transformers between you and the power plant, and E-GAD! The rest of your natal chart is the step-down transformer network through which POWER from Pluto (yes and your Sun) gets configured to be usable for daily living.

In "The Celebrity" that step-down-transformer network does not bring the voltage down to usability all the time -- and the result is extreme fame followed by a melodramatic personal meltdown (marriages-divorces; drugs; drinking; diving a plane into the ocean; spectacular rare diseases that make headlines)

8th House is Scorpio, one of the water signs, and thus participates in psychic attributes. People with a lot of water sign points in their natal chart are psychically open on some level, often without knowing it. That can help a Celebrity read an audience.

The first 6 columns I've done for 2010 which will be posted starting in January 2010 are all about The Group Mind (the psychic bond among us all at the Scorpio/Pluto/8th House level). In those columns I examine the interactive effects of the Group Mind and the Media -- analyzing popularity at its source.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/ shows you the novels analyzed to reveal connections.

Hidden connections are Scorpio, Pluto, 8th House.

Pluto power can also manifest as a ruthlessness, obsessiveness devoid of conscience -- the perfect raw material for any arch-villain a writer might need. Secretive is a keynote of Pluto. 8th House, other's resources, plus secretiveness equals conspiracy. Wow, dynamite material for any writer.

Pluto is the upper octave of Mars that rules War (Aries, the First House, the supremacy of Ego). Mars is a cat fight, a squabble, a grab for some country's fertile fields. Mars is not violence but ego-energy, and if thwarted can use FORCE to impose the personal Will.

Pluto is war to total annihilation -- war exaggerated, with nothing personal in it. This is not war to possess the resources of another, but war to obliterate the other.

Pluto is capable of VIOLENCE with an iron clad will, an implacable purpose. But Pluto is not the violence itself, it's the magnifier that takes the violence erupting elsewhere in the chart and makes it implacable.

Pluto is the sexual "fun" derived from violence, especially the kind of violence perpetrated to control another (S&M) - games of sexual dominance played out on an international stage. (think THE GODFATHER). 8th House is also inheritance, the resources that are rightfully yours by inherent worth. Thwart that "rightful" possession and you get the explosive manifestation of Pluto. Pluto doesn't take what belongs to others. Pluto takes back what belongs to him. And everything belongs to him, by right of inheritance. Even if he has to kill to inherit. (fabulous villain material)

So why are we talking about Pluto while analyzing amusement?

We need a new theory of what amuses people for our New Electronic Age, and here's one I would like to explore.

Pluto is now making its last station on 0 degrees of Capricorn, just a bit past the USA 8th House cusp, and headed for a series of oppositions to the USA natal chart's most sensitive points.

We're in for a roller coaster ride, but if we can understand what makes Drama as Blake Snyder formulated it (2008 columns), and how the Group Mind interacts with Media (2010 columns), we can see what Pluto is magnifying.

If we then put all that together with the various other posts linked above, connect the dots and figure out what the NEXT most popular thing will be, we may trump Rowena's Dorchester editor (a great publishing imprint, BTW) and produce that Ground Zero work Heather's post on Galaxy Express talks about.

How can a writer come to understand their audience's "amusement" buttons?

The natural 5th House, Leo, ruled by the Sun, is usually considered the home of AMUSEMENT, the keynote of FUN. 5th House is where we play and recreate, procreate, speculate and gamble . 5th House is siblings and children and grandchildren, and all our love given to others. (it's opposite, 11th House is the love and appreciation we get back in return, the groups that accept us and appreciate our fun loving sense of humor.)

You'd think that to find out how to amuse people, to find out what amuses people in general, you should examine the 5th House.

But if you look at the explosive popularity of video games (based almost exclusively on violence, on KILLING opponents as a way of WINNING, of prevailing, of asserting dominance) and correlate with the demographic of the consumers of video games (teens at the threshold of sexual maturity) and then look at where Pluto was transiting during the years those teens were born, you might learn something startling about the nature of Amusement that can be sold in packages (8th House; other people's money).

In assessing any astrology problem, the hierarchy of planets is OUTER to INNER. First you look at the eclipse points, then PLUTO -- and everything else is commentary.

Most astrologers are taught to start with the Sun ruler of the Natural 5th. For our purposes, that won't work because it won't yield generational profiles.

What do generations have in common? The signs in which the outer planets Pluto, Neptune, and Uranus, are placed. The Sun goes around once a year. Those outer planets keynote generations by their slow movement. The Sun position binds generations together (each generation has an equal number of Leos, Aries, etc.). The Outer Planets separate generations.

Since advertising dollar effectiveness depends on generational age-groups, we need to look beyond the Sun for the key to the puzzle, "What Amusement Can Be Packaged And Sold For Money?"

Individual natal charts have the planets and signs in different houses, all aspected differently by faster moving points such as the Sun, Moon, Mercury and Venus. Really, when it comes down to it, astrology almost shows us why we seem to have nothing at all in common! No two of us are alike!

But as marketers have discovered, generations do have something in common with regard to taste.

What each generation wants (thank you Rowena for the "What do you want?" line) is a mystery until one of those obscure products (like hula hoops) suddenly explodes onto the scene.

There is a theme to each generation born, something that will amuse them all their lives long, in various different forms and formats.

How long Pluto stays in a given sign changes because Pluto's orbit is very elliptical, and it even cuts inside Neptune's orbit. That odd orbit, out of the plane of the ecliptic and slanting across another planet's orbit is what got Pluto demoted from planet status -- it's considered to be a captive from outer space rather than a planet formed from the plasma of our star. (BTW that is an old story, done to death in SF -- that Pluto is really a generation-ship, maybe with only dead or stasis passengers; the remains of a dead civilization out there somewhere).

So Pluto is an obsessively fascinating planet, but empirically you can see that as it changes signs, the world changes usually explosively or abruptly -- social mores change; civilizations rise and fall to the beat of Pluto (and maybe super-volcanoes and magnetic pole flips).

But on a very subconscious level, (and Pluto rules the subconscious values while the 2nd House ruler Venus rules conscious values) the Amusement Button for each generation may actually be best described by Pluto's sign in their natal charts.

What fascinates, obsesses, causes unbridled aggression -- what is it that marketers can use to get a handle on each generation?

It isn't what makes people laugh. It's what people of that generation simply can NOT take their attention away from. People will pay big bucks for what they obsess over subconsciously, bucks they won't pay for a quick laugh gone in an instant.

People would not pay $9/pack for cigarettes without nicotine (or a substitute that works as well.)

Consider these blocks of years and what topped the charts in music subjects, favorite actors, great political trends, shifting taboo lines, great-huge-magnified tsunamis of trends during these blocks of years.

Pluto takes 250 years to circle the sun, but it's in each sign (or 30 degree swatch of the zodiac) for different lengths of time.

Remember to add say 15-20 years to see when these folks would have an impact on amusement markets because they have disposable income.

PLUTO IN LEO 1939 - 1957 (Became The Flower Children of 1960's and '70's)

PLUTO IN VIRGO generation 1958 - 1972 (Gen X)

PLUTO IN LIBRA generation (assimilating out of justice?) Late 1971 - 1984 (Gen Y? sort of)

PLUTO IN SCORPIO generation 1985-1995 or so (video game generation?)

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS generation 1995-2008

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN (now - 2023)

Neptune Takes 165 years to circle the sun.

NEPTUNE IN LIBRA Oct 1942 - 1957

NEPTUNE IN SCORPIO 1957 - 1970

NEPTUNE IN SAGITTARIUS 1970 - 1984

NEPTUNE IN CAPRICORN 1984 - 1998

NEPTUNE IN AQUARIUS 1998 - 2011

NEPTUNE IN PISCES 2011 - 2026


Uranus 84.3 years, a lifetime.

The popular press uses the 20 year swatch for a "generation" usually, or a demographic bulge of kids all born within 10 years to define a "generation." But think about the list above and see if it doesn't make better sense than the popular press definitions.

LEO is the natural 5th House of Amusement, but also of sovereignty --

Pluto in Leo produced the Flower Children, fun on drugs, altered consciousness and "doing my own thing."

Pluto in Virgo produced Generation X, craving White Wine and monied elegance. The detail oriented upwardly mobile fashionistes. There weren't many of them because the Baby Boomers (1947-1960) and Flower Children didn't have their kids until later in life.

Pluto in Libra produced Gen Y.

Wikipedia says there's no set borders for Gen Y but they're the Boomer Echo generation, the Boomer's kids. You see The Boomers fit inside Pluto in Leo but don't take up all of it.

Gen Y was coming of age in a "liberated" world where political correctness is everything, intermarriage is the norm, and women have their children only in the last minute panic of the biological clock. Many Gen Y kids have older parents.

The last of Gen Y turned 20 in 2004, coming out of school into a crashed economy, desperately in search of social justice (Libra is Justice) in a world they believed they didn't owe anything to (unlike the Boomers who flocked to President Kennedy's Peace Corps). Gen Y is the first generation to have computers in HIGH SCHOOL classrooms, and pioneered video games.

The following is from Brookhaven History
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/history/higinbotham.asp

----------QUOTE---------
In 1982, Creative Computing magazine picked up on the idea that Tennis for Two might be the first video game ever and it published a story on the game ...
----------END QUOTE------

Gen Y came of age just as the possibility of video games emerged, and the home computer became financially feasible.

PLUTO IN SCORPIO kids -- only 10 years worth of kids -- grew up with computers in GRAMMAR SCHOOL classrooms and at home and became the market for the most violent video games. Pluto rules Scorpio, the Natural 8th House - when Pluto was in Scorpio it was its most POWERFUL. For the 1/12th of those kids born with Pluto in Scorpio in their own 8th House, Pluto issues are likely to rule the whole life.

There was a huge baby boom in the 1990's. Though it's only a 10 year span, 1985-1995 saw an unusual increase in the demographic significance of that generation who are now entering college and the lesser educated workforce.

That Pluto in Scorpio generation turned out the most young voters ever in this previous Presidential election, and you've all seen their vehemence (power) in political rallies (both sides of the issues!)

The generation reared on the most violent video games is determined to assert their right to their inheritance, their rightful possession by dint of the fact that they exist.

Employers have already noted that the current 18-20 year olds they hire are mortally offended by any workplace rule that prohibits texting during work hours. Employers have no right to restrict behavior or communication during work hours. (I saw a study about that posted online, and saw several interviews about it on TV, but didn't save any references, sorry. I may have referred to it in a previous post here.)

The Pluto in Scorpio generation (only 10 years long) has passed on their taste for video games to the Pluto in Sagittarius generation.

PLUTO IN SAGITTARIUS, 1995 - 2008, are still just babies, and their buying power is still mostly controlled by Gen Y parents.

But for us, it's interesting to note the success of TWILIGHT with the Pluto in Sagittarius teens.

Gen X acquired a real taste for the teen-vampire novel. The sex appeal of Vampires with the edgy connotations of risking death is soooo PLUTO!

YA shelves filled with vampires in the 1980's, which naturally gave rise to BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER a little later, and all sorts of vampire spinoffs for older people.

TWILIGHT and the urban-fantasy vision of reality as a thin film over a seething cauldron of evil is intensely popular with Pluto in Scorpio AND Pluto in Sagittarius.

Noel Tyl, an astrologer's astrologer, has identified the axis in the natal chart that describes one's deepest anxieties, fears, nightmares, repressed fears -- the kind of deep, inarticulate fears that rule our behavior and which we rationalize.

That axis is the 3rd House/ 9th House axis.

The Natural 3rd House is Gemini, ruled by Mercury (thought, communication, short trips, fast moves, and also indecisiveness and restlessness).

The Natural 9th House is Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter, and all about Philosophy, Courts, Social Justice, the generous and magnanimous King, the kindness of the world, success by expansion, growth. Sagittarius is all about open-honesty as the adjacent sign of Scorpio is all about hidden realities. Sag is long trips, foreign countries, PUBLISHING!!!

Kids with Pluto in Sagittarius are the teens who gobbled up Harry Potter (foreignly published) when they were 9 years old, TWILIGHT etc, in their teens. TWILIGHT treats the darker (Pluto is "dark") aspects of the vampire as "out there" and mostly ignorable, while the vampires that are "in here" are trustworthy and above all that dark stuff - probably. In TWILIGHT the nasty part is "hidden" (Pluto).

Marketers have noted a leveling off of the growth of computer games sales (not shrinking, just not growing as fast as there are no more Pluto in Scorpio kids coming to buying age)

The trend in films toward ever more exaggerated violence and destruction, spectacle for its own sake, (TRANSFORMERS?) pleasures and amuses Pluto in Scorpio folks in some way that mystifies the Pluto in Leo folks. And I don't think it's just because the Pluto in Leo folks are older. I think it's because the Pluto in Leo folks have an Amusement Button that's configured differently.

When the Pluto in Sagittarius kids are 18-25, what films will they be taking their girlfriends to? What games will they spend their money on? What will amuse them life-long? What songs will they popularize? (already, I see lyrics changing)

The dark, ugly subject matter of the first wave of popularized rap is giving way to something else, but it's gradual.

If the Pluto in Scorpio generation pushed the violence in video games beyond all previous taboos, what taboo will the Pluto in Sagittarius generation (the obese kid generation -- Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius is famous for obesity, the JOLLY FAT WOMAN image is usually Jupiter on the Ascendant) what taboo will this new generation expand out of all sense and reason? What will obsess them as violence and destruction obsesses Pluto in Scorpio?

I also noted in the above list of transits how the position of Neptune correlates to the position of Pluto in the generational charts.

Neptune is all about illusion; Neptune, ruler of the Natural 12th House, Self Undoing, rules all things having to do with imagination, with glamor (Hollywood), charisma and also Religion and Idealism, and oddly today with technology and engineering (Pisces folks make marvelous Engineers. Engineers blend science and mechanics into technology using IMAGINATION.)

Neptune dissolves and blends.

Neptune is very hard to get ahold of conceptually.

Neptune, as I've discussed in various blog posts, is the key influence in any Romance situation. Your very personality dissolves during that key Neptune transit where you fall in love. Your bullshit filters dissolve. Your critical faculties shimmer away.

Neptune transits put you (whoever and whatever you are) into your own most receptive (Scorpio is a water sign) state such as you've never experienced before. Neptune transits allow that soul-mate bond to form.

What forms and solidifies under Neptune can never be destroyed -- that's the odd paradox of Neptune. It dissolves everything concrete but solidifies the vision. Neptune is all about hope.

It's about Magic and fantasy, hopes, dreams and imagination and everything you wish were real but isn't -- and everything you hope to God isn't real.

The generation born with Pluto in Sagittarius mostly have Neptune in Aquarius. Aquarius is the natural 11th House, as we noted above, Love Received, appreciation lavished upon you. The Pluto in Sagittarius (Justice; different from Libra's brand of Justice) generation must, as a Group Mind, be dreaming of being loved, adored, appreciated, elevated.

Tom Baker, the actor who played The Doctor in Doctor Who for about 20 years, was himself a multiple Aquarius (yeah, I found his chart).

The way he portrayed The Doctor exemplified the footloose, fancy free innovator who formed only temporary but intense ties with people who passed through his life. He cared about humanity -- not actually so much about individual humans except as they represented humanity. It's a tough distinction to make without making the character seem like a villain. But it's there if you look..

Aquarius males have a very easy time getting married, and a very very hard time staying married. They exemplify the utmost in loyalty but can't see why that should tie them down. Freedom. It's all about personal freedom.

So synthesize Pluto in Sagittarius with Neptune in Aquarius and see if you can determine the configuration of Amusement Button for the whole generation now just beginning to turn 14.

There are a lot of them and they will have buying power.

Marketers know that teens have more discretionary spending money than their parents.

When they're in college, what habit will they have become addicted to? (Pluto is that sort of energy; addiction, habit, subconscious).

Here are a couple of addendum notes to mull over while trying to nail the Amusement Button for the current teens.

-----------------------
Article on why it is that Science Fiction authors just can't win in this world (not sure I agree with definition of "win" but this is good advice in the making.

http://editingcircle.blogspot.com/2009/10/why-science-fiction-authors-just-cant.html

Is a very short post with the following link
http://sffmedia.com/books/science-fiction-books/417-why-science-fiction-authors-just-cant-win.html

So the core of the advice is that if you want a "genre" to gain respect, you have to drop the genre label and invent a new one.

Sylvia Louise Engdahl gives us a really explicit example of how this is being done today with her FLAME novels,
Stewards of the Flame and
Promise of the Flame,
stories of all-human societies but not on Earth, on Earth-derived colonies out there somewhere.

The setting demands the genre label SF, but the characters demand the label futuristic romance, and the plot (and huge, long, lazy expository lumps with the flavor of mainstream literary novels) demands the label philosophical fiction. Reading the FLAME novels is like reading early Heinlein but for modern readers.

So Engdahl has dropped both the YA label in which she became famous and the SF label.

------------------------------
Article on Women Horror Fans and film makers
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/movies/06oran.html?_r=2&hpw

“Jennifer’s Body” was designed with both feminists and 15-year-old boys in mind, a seemingly eccentric blueprint that, as Ms. Kusama points out, is in line with the best movies of the slasher tradition. “It may be one of the best ways for a young male audience to experience a female story without feeling like they have been limited by a female perspective,” she said.

"It was an effort that often bedeviled Ms. Cody and Ms. Kusama, who tried to balance brute violence and lesbian kisses with the film’s more substantial metaphors. “The tricky thing is if you’re going to subvert those tropes, they have to be there,” said Ms. Cody, whose script is a self-described “crazy, chaotic homage” to the horror films of her youth. “We were constantly bobbing and weaving. Karyn and I talk about the film as a kind of Trojan horse. We wanted to package our beliefs in a way that’s appealing to a mainstream audience.”"

"Horror films have adapted with Darwinian fortitude over the years, allegorizing everything from cold war paranoia and eco-anxiety to the breakdown of families. And yet the success of slasher movies, which exploded with films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” in 1974 and came to dominate what we now think of as scary movies, might have stalled cinema’s most resilient genre. "

The director Rob Zombie, whose recent release, “Halloween II,” revamps another 1970s proto-slasher (and one of the original “final girls,” the character Laurie Strode), says the genre’s indulgence has been its undoing.

“The ’80s are the decade that ruined everything for everybody,” he said. “The soul went away, and it became gore for the sake of gore, and kids were cheering at killings and yelling and screaming. It became a roller coaster ride. And of course once something becomes a roller coaster, all you can do is build a bigger, more extreme roller coaster. That’s where I think horror movies really got perverted.”

----------------------

There's a lot more to say on this topic of generational taste in amusement.

TAKE AWAY:
The important point is that people will pay more than they can afford for amusement that obsesses them, but not for amusement that merely entertains.

Those over 40 can't be enticed or attracted by advertising that costs money. Those currently over 40 were born with Pluto in Libra, Neptune in Sagitarrius. Go for it!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Romantic Times Award Winning Dushau Trilogy
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