The Fates of Social Networks

Cory Doctorow's latest LOCUS column explores the breakdown of social networking sites, which he seems to believe is the inevitable culmination of their life cycles:

Social Quitting

He focuses on Facebook and Twitter. Are they doomed to go the way of their predecessors such as MySpace? They've had a longer run, but he thinks they, too, are in the process of changing from "permanent to ephemeral."

Personally, I don't expect Facebook to fade away anytime soon like previous services that imploded "into ghost towns, then punchlines, then forgotten ruins." I can't speak about Twitter, since I've never joined it and, given the current turmoil surrounding it, I don't plan to, even though lots of authors make productive use of it. Mainly, I can't imagine myself conjuring up cogent, entertaining tweets several times a day, which seems to be the criterion for using Twitter effectively. I had a MySpace account during the height of its popularity. The site struck me as a visually exhausting mess, dominated by flashy ads and hard to comprehend or navigate. Also, if anybody I knew used it, I never managed to connect with them. I joined Facebook because it became the only reliable way to keep track of many of our contemporary and younger relatives. (People who ignore e-mails will often answer Facebook messages.) Later, numerous organizations and businesses I wanted to keep up with established dedicated Facebook pages.

Doctorow analyzes these "network effects," summarized as, "A system has ‘network effects’ if it gets more valuable as more people use it." Facebook's attraction of more and more customers has a snowballing effect; people want to go where other people they know are. When the volume of users reaches critical mass, the "switching cost" becomes prohibitively high for most customers. Leaving the service becomes more trouble than it's worth. As long as the benefits of the service outweigh disadvantages such as becoming the object of targeted advertising, most people who've grown used to the advantages will stick around. But, as Doctorow explains the current situation, social media platforms shift more of their value—the "surplus," in economics terminology—to advertisers rather than users. Later, they tend to get greedy and make things difficult for advertisers, too. Then the "inverse network effects" kick in: The greater number of customers and advertisers that quit the network, the less value exists for those who stay, so even more leave.

Although Doctorow doesn't use the term, his explanation reminds me of the "sunk cost" principle. If we've already poured a lot of time, money, or energy into something, we're reluctant to give up on it. We continue to invest in it because otherwise our previous efforts would seem "wasted."

In my opinion, although based on my own probably limited experiences and interests, Doctorow exaggerates as far as Facebook is concerned. I have no intent of abandoning it in the foreseeable future. Our relatives and real-world friends who use the service haven't begun to disappear. (In fact, one who stopped several years ago has come back.) Local businesses still post updates there. Our church has an active page we rely on. My various writing-related groups continue to thrive. As for the advertising, it doesn't bother me. How hard is it to scroll down to the next post? Besides, some ads alert me to products such as new books that might actually interest me. The occasionally outright spooky knowledge of my habits and interests many websites display (how does the weather page know what I recently searched for on Amazon?) has a definite downside in terms of privacy concerns. However, it also offers advantages by way of customizing and streamlining the user's internet experience. And how can I legitimately complain about Facebook advertising when I use the site to promote my own books?

In short, there must be enough people and organizations among my contacts who are as change-averse as I am, to maintain the site's value for me. And I can't believe I'm alone in that position.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Targeting a Readership Part 18 Targeting a Culture

Targeting a Readership

Part 18

Targeting a Culture

Previous parts of the Targeting a Readership series are indexed here:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/10/index-to-targeting-readership-series-by.html

These posts are about marketing, where the first step is to determine who the decision makers buying your product are, where to find them, how to reach them, and thus how to craft a narrative hook that will make them remember your byline, maybe even the series title.

Marketing is heartless, mathematical, me-me-me oriented, and all about moving product at a profit (buy low, sell high).

Targeting is more about empathy, resonance, understanding.  Targeting is like entering a group conversation.  If you are not naturally a member of the group, nothing you can say will hook the attention of the group.

For a writer, that means writing swiftly, quickly, not getting trapped in endless rewriting, or in other words mastering the wordsmith's craft of vocabulary, grammar, spelling, punctuation and symbolism that evokes emotion.  The real trick to becoming prolific is to also master the template for the type of story your targeted market is willing to buy.

To the reader, the cost of a story includes not only the purchase price, but the reader's time and emotional investment.  Hence Netflix facilitated binge-watching of series that could hold up -- not so much the anthology series of yore, but today's more DALLAS type, prime-time soap story-arc series that progress at a crawl.

If you are a natural member of the group you target with your story, you will listen, follow the story of their narrative, and add to their narrative -- not insert your own narrative, not disrupt the conversation, not attract their attention, but rather further their adventures on the way to THEIR goal (which just happens also to be your own).

You won't be seen as the annoying pest, trying to butt in where they are not wanted.  You will be welcomed and your contribution to the discussion will be discussed.

So, for a writer, what exactly IS a "readership?"

One of the many useful ways to define a "readership" for marketing purposes is as a "culture."

So what's a "culture?"

The best place I know of to start molding your notion of "what" culture is happens to be a very old non-fiction book I've mentioned here many times, THE SILENT LANGUAGE by Edward T. Hall.


Note the cover blurb "targets" a readership neatly.  "THE SILENT LANGUAGE shows how cultural factors influence the individual behind his back, without his knowledge."

People who feel in charge of life, and who think they make their own independent decisions experience a frisson of alarm if they view this sentence as authoritative.  That emotional frisson rivets attention.

If this is seen on a book cover on a store's rack, the target will find his/her hand reaching for the book, turning it over, looking inside to find out more.  "Nobody can do that to me!  I won't allow it."

Readers come away from this (rather brief) book with a wide comprehension of "what" culture is, where it is inside themselves, and the writers among those readers start thinking of ways to "show don't tell" their Characters responding to Culture.

How can a writer "target" an entire CULTURE or sub-culture such as a certain generation among all residents of the USA?  Your chances of pulling off this stunt increase with your ability to define and identify a culture.  But you also have to understand what marketers mean by "targeting."

In How To Use Tarot And Astrology in Science Fiction Part 6 Confronting Change, we referenced this Time article

-------quote------
Consider this LONG PERSPECTIVE article from a Time writer.

https://time.com/5770140/millennials-change-american-politics/

That article traces the interactions between generations as Millennials sweep the reins of power from the Baby Boomer generation (as usual ignoring the Silent Generation).

---end quote------

And just after that reference, I wrote:

-----quote-------

PLUTO IN CAPRICORN is where we are now, and it is about CHANGE IN GOVERNMENT, shifting borders (we did that in Channel's Destiny, moved the Territory border to make room for Householdings).

This item on generation gap, shifting views, is related to a Blog post on writing craft I did a long while back:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/10/astrology-just-for-writers-pt-6.html

About halfway down that blog post is a list of what signs Pluto was in at various points in history and how that played out in "generation gap" thinking.

Get a good grip on this principle, and the spectacle of NEWS today will suddenly make sense.

--------end quote-------

Each generation generates a "culture" of its own, and within it many sub-cultures.  A writer can build a world to showcase a story, but that story needs a "backstory" (each Character needs ancestors, a history, a changing perspective through life).

To learn how to convey, in symbolism, with few words, how Characters from different generations communicate, understand the generations in terms of culture.

That difference in culture has been termed "The Generation Gap."

Most often parents grow up to discover their children have ditched major tenets of the parent's and grandparent's generational-culture and behave in "deplorable" ways because of it.

The parents are not aware (because they don't see it in terms of culture) that they, themselves, did exactly the same thing and considered it righteous to ditch the elements of their parent's culture that no longer pertained to modern life.

The themes your reader are struggling with in daily life are mostly derived from the elements of their parent's culture that they see as deplorable and necessary to ditch.  So study that "generation gap."

Google "Targeting definition marketing," and get this definition:

-----quote------
Targeting in marketing is a strategy that breaks a large market into smaller segments to concentrate on a specific group of customers within that audience. It defines a segment of customers based on their unique characteristics and focuses solely on serving them.
------end quote------

Note the "focuses solely on serving them" -- but you have to know "who" them is before you can determine what "serving" means.

So bring THE SILENT LANGUAGE up into the 2020's by noting this article:

http://theconversation.com/hate-cancel-culture-blame-algorithms-129402


The Twitter/Facebook social-media, Web 2.0 tool-set put into the hands of humans whose culture included elements that prevented the adaptation to living in a world where you're personal, private, small circle of friends could be multiples of 10,000.

We came from villages of a dozen families where most people never traveled more than 50 miles from home.  We knew everyone - their grandparents and great-grandchildren (because people had children in their teens).  We associate IN DEPTH, by nature and by culture.  We reject anyone not a natural member of our group, our village culture.  Anyone "different" is rejected -- watch kindergarten and first grade children playing in a school yard.

REJECTION -- pecking the unfit to death as duck flocks will do -- is built into our physical bodies (not Souls, though, hence Soul Mates are often from different cultures).

Today, we live in the 3rd generation of a cultural-change sparked by Web 2.0

I noted that in 2008 on this blog entry:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

And still delving into this phenomenon and what it means for book sales:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

In 2009 writers were collaborating via the Web

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/emigrating-to-future.html

And in 2010 I still saw vast joy in the freedom the Web was providing:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/07/emigrating-to-future.html

In 2011 writers were already exploiting the social networking tools:

https://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/05/social-networking-is-learning-tool.html

It really got started in the 1980's as computers appeared in everyday houses, and those computers got online. In the 2000's kids were raised with the necessity of having a laptop in high school.  Now kids "must" have some kind of tablet computer for grammar school -- or schools are full of desks with screens.

Children raised in a computerized environment are now having kids - that's 3rd generation.  Their great grandparents didn't know how to type, but these people "thumb type" at the speed of light.

What has speed of thumb typing to do with Targeting a Culture?

Thumb typing is a cultural symbol, and it increases the broadcasting power of the youngest, least experienced in life, people growing up without being surrounded by a closed multi-generation community.

Classmates are from families who come from all different places, often speak different languages, certainly read different books, watch different TV shows, etc.  A "class" is just a bunch of kids who happen to be the same age.  They come from different cultures and hit different stages of maturity (as we mature, we shift cultural environment) at different ages.  And they REJECT that which is "different" and peck them to death on social media.

This younger culture has even named this PECK TO DEATH process -- "Cancel."

The school corridor version was named "crowding."

Now whole commercial chain stores, or brands, are being "crowded" to death (often real bankruptcy), and individuals are learning the hard way that if they stick up for the REJECTED, they, too, will be CANCELLED.

This experience, and watching their parents generation doing the same, will shape the themes they love most in stories.

From the article HATE CANCEL CULTURE BLAME ALGORITHMS

---quote------

A lot of attention has been given to repercussions of cancel culture on celebrities, from JK Rowling, to Kevin Hart to Lena Dunham.

Less talked about is the way algorithms actually perpetuate cancel culture.

-----end quote--------

The article identifies the widely used algorithm that, when activated, sends minor items (even personal opinion tweets or YouTube items by non-celebrities) viral as triggered by "outrage."

That's a current cultural artifact.  Eventually it will shift to some other response, but the magnifying power will remain and even grow.  The common villager whose heritage equips him to associate with about 1,000 people suddenly is aswim among millions and they are all facing him, yelling vile epithets.

The tiny firecracker of bullying and "crowding" - ganging up on the different one - now has become an atomic bomb, capable of destroying not just one teen-school-life, but millions of adult careers.

Humans don't know (on the SILENT LANGUAGE cultural level, the part of us that functions behind our back, without our knowledge) how to manage that much power.

Internationally, countries are struggling to keep "different" countries from attaining atomic missile capability.  We know we don't know how to handle that much power -- but the internet has swamped us before we can realize we don't know.

It is knowledge that has to be infused into our being on the pre-verbal level, before we learn to walk and talk.  Culture is pretty much set in stone by age 7, and one element of culture is kindness.  Not to just act kindly - but to have no unkind emotional responses to the "different" one.  A kind person doesn't FEEL like hitting back, gathering a mob and destroying the intruder.

To our 2020's online culture, that lack of hostile response to intruders is just plain Science Fiction Alien material -- no human could relate to it.

To portray a non-human Character, study the culture of your target readership, and create such an Alien to make them empathize with, and understand on that "behind his back, without his knowledge" level how to communicate across a cultural gap.

 The more people who understand on that level, the easier it will be for your children to live in their world, beyond the generation gap.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World - Part 17 - Make Your Living At Non-Fiction

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 17
Make Your Living At Non-Fiction To Support Fiction Writing
by
 Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Last week we heard from a Guest who works as a High School teacher, clueing teens in on the secrets of analyzing novels for the moving parts we talk about on this blog.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/guest-post-star-trek-fan-fiction-writer.html

The previous parts of this series on Marketing Fiction in a Changing World are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/05/index-to-marketing-fiction-in-changing.html

Today let's look at how fiction writers actually make a living.

In "reality" the life of a writer is not like in the movies.  There is no background music except the din of the telephone as collection agencies swarm.

A living wage is something far different from the national minimum wage.  As a writer of original material, not a work-for-hire, you are not working for wages.  You are a business owner working for yourself, as a self-employed executive.  You make a contract with the publisher, licensing your product, not "selling" it.  But very often, the owner makes less than the employee whose wages he/she is paying, just as publishers make more than the writers.

As you noted, Leslye Lilker is the originator of the enchanting, famous, and utterly riveting character of Sahaj, Spock's son in an alternate universe Star Trek.  That's fan fiction, but it is professional quality writing.

Most of us who write fiction, fan fiction, or any form of genre fiction including science fiction novels, Romance stories within science fiction, or actual blended Science Fiction Romance, Paranormal Romance, or any variation, find the author's portion of the cover price just way too little to live on.

Unless you sell over 150,000 copies of every title your publisher issues, you just can't make ends meet.  Writing pays less (way less) than minimum wage if you just write stories of novels.

That is why authors are re-issuing their own books as self-published after they retrieve the rights from the original Mass Market publisher.  We all need suplemental income.

Intermittent, full-time-temporary employment is often the answer to this problem.

Here is an example of where writers get that kind of work.

NPR put this estimate up in the middle of August 2015.  Check out the amount of money being spent, and understand commercials are like little movies -- they need WRITERS.

http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/08/19/432759311/2016-campaign-tv-ad-spending

--------------QUOTE-----------
The 2016 election is already providing a lot of eye-popping statistics about the ballooning spending candidates will do in the 2016 election. Among them:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's superPAC has already raised more — in the first half of a non-election year — than Obama's main superPAC did in all of the 2012 cycle.
The latest big TV ad buy in the 2016 presidential election — on Ohio Gov. John Kasich's behalf, totaling $375,000 — is worth more than seven times the annual median U.S. household income.

There have already been seven times more political ads in the 2016 election than at this point in the 2012 election, according to Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president at Kantar's Campaign Media and Analysis Group.
Or just try to digest the aggregate numbers. For instance, political TV ad spending will top $4.4 billion for federal races this year, up from $3.8 billion in 2012, Wilner estimated.

Yet TV ads seem to have only small effects on how Americans vote. So why do campaigns spend such huge chunks of their budgets on television spots? It's the need for name recognition, at first. Later on, fear, habit and the hunger for the small sliver of votes at play also drive the huge spending.
-----------END QUOTE------------

Writing for a political campaign is intermittent full time work using and honing skills similar to fiction writing.  Moreover, moving around inside a political campaign will fill you up with story ideas -- with material that directly connects to your intended audience.

Politicians need to reach an "everybody" audience, so your personal fiction audience will be represented among those who work for candidates and those who listen to the messages.

These numbers are about the National Presidential Campaign.

You don't land one of those jobs the first time you venture into non-fiction writing, copywriting, advertising copy writing.

In fact, there are courses in advertising writing, and there's a long apprenticeship.

So consider volunteering with a local political campaign, write local driveway-throw-away newspaper articles about a candidate, get a toe in the door by writing "letter to the editor" or op-ed, write on blogs for the candidate.

Start small, local, and working for people you know personally.  If you can work up the ranks of unpaid volunteers, and become a paid writer -- next election cycle you might land an actual worthwhile job, a paying job, for a State office candidate.

Paper newspapers are dying, as we've noted in this series of posts.  But local advertisement papers still exist -- they don't pay much, but they are a resume item credential.  Learn to handle social media and keep up on all the changes -- remember to tell your political advocacy story in pictures.  Those folks on YouTube who advocate for candidates freelance are using professional video production tools and talents.  But you can start a channel and put up your own advocacy, displaying your writing skills.

More and more money is going into politics -- that won't last because Congress is going to re-do the laws (again) to get around the Supreme Court, but while the money allowed into politics is unlimited -- grab your piece of the action.

Become a VOICE -- but be sure to use a different byline than you do for novel writing.

Here's a discussion of when to use a pen-name:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/06/reviews-15-by-jacqueline-lichtenberg.html

The most successful, best-selling writers I know of began their writing careers in journalism.  It is still the training ground.  If you didn't major in journalism in college, you can attain the skills and reputation by volunteer writing.

Remember, every word you see or hear about candidates was WRITTEN.  And some of those writers got paid a lot more than you'll make on a Science Fiction Romance title.


Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Theme-Plot Integration Part 15 - Protecting a Community by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Theme-Plot Integration
Part 15
Protecting a Community
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

In Part 14 of the Theme-Plot Integration series,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/10/theme-plot-integration-part-14-ruling.html
we took a hard look at Ruling a Community -- what it takes to worldbuild a social environment for your Fantasy World, or for a Contemporary Romance, or a Historical.  Science Fiction on other worlds likewise takes a great deal of hard thinking about the social matrix your character is embedded within.

We noted:
--------quote-----------
1st House defines the Self.  7th House defines the one-to-one Relationships, but in some forms of Astrology 7th House represents also The Public.

What does it take to be a RULER of a Community?

Well, first, the only times Ruling ever works historically, you see that the Ruler was a member of the Community (not an outsider -- that always fails dramatically which makes good story fodder).

So in effect, a Ruler from a Community is subconsciously imposing his own personal values on the community, but he got those values by growing up inside the community, so though "ruling" implies "imposition" what he's imposing was there already.

Think of it as singing on key in a choir and the Ruler just steps out and does a Solo.  Has to be a solo from the same song everyone is singing behind him.  The Ruler's values have to harmonize with those of the Ruled -- or the Community fragments.

So Humanity has been on a millennia long search for the operational relationship between Self and Other.

-----------end quote-----------

You'll find a list of the posts on Theme-Plot Integration here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/05/index-to-theme-plot-integration.html

And the series on Theme-Character Integration is listed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html

And as you know, I'm a big fan of fiction based on themes "ripped from the headlines" -- as long as it's the THEME you rip, not real characters, places etc.  If you are writing non-fiction, you have to get permission to use copyrighted work, so be careful what you rip out of the headlines.

In order to transform a "headline" -- or generally spotlighted public issue -- into a story or novel, you have to bore down deep into the material and extract the theme.

That's what we're going to do in this post today. 

One of the hottest political topics in the USA, and maybe the world right now, is the issue of cyber warfare,  Identity Theft, Industrial Espionage, Patent and Copyright infringement.

All of this rather abstract warfare is going on within the context of the  transgression of national borders.

In the Middle East, Isis renamed itself the Islamic State and trampled right over national borders from Syria to Iraq to Lebanon, and shows no signs of wanting to stop.  They are trying to carve out a new nation, then expand into a replay of the Ottoman Empire.

Some of the best Romances I've read have been set in the historical venue of the Ottoman Empire.  Think about Elizabeth Peters.

In Africa, similar groups are trying to move the borders of nations.

In the Americas, people from Iran, Syria, Iraq, etc. and Central American countries have poured over the US southern border at a time when there is a cultural movement among Mexicans living in the USA asserting that Arizona, New Mexico and parts of California and Texas actually must be re-possessed by Mexico.  (I didn't make that up!)

I follow these news headlines and park stories in a flipboard "magazine" called Pluto in Capricorn
https://flipboard.com/profile/jacquelinelhmqg
because at this time Pluto is transiting Capricorn.  Pluto is about power, about transformation, and Capricorn is about government, discipline.  Capricorn is "The Power Behind The Throne" while Leo is about "The Throne" and its occupant.

Leo is about leadership, ruling, reigning.  Capricorn is the power behind that leadership that puts it in place then keeps it in place.

Today, that means Leo is about who has won the Election, and Capricorn is about the source of power that made that happen (Money, Media, Scandals hidden).  Pluto transits tend to open hidden scandals to the light of day -- and that generally happens with explosive power.  It's not a surprise (that's Uranus) but it is a revelation, sometimes a religious one. 

Pluto is rules Scorpio, and thus is all about Secrets.  The Power Behind the throne, not on it.

So one of the objectives of those "in power" who remain behind the throne, invisible, out of the media spotlight, is simply to remain in power, to be able to predict what large "masses" of people will do under given circumstances.

Thus the primary tool today of the Power Behind the Throne is Public Relations -- the now math based analysis of how to instigate herd movement in huge numbers of people (e.g. win an election).

The current trend is away from making LAWS to enforce behavior and toward making REGULATIONS to enforce behavior.

Regulations are made by appointees, often not subject to legislative approval, (EPA, NHS, NSA, IRS, Department of Education and other alphabet soup agencies), and thus not responsive to voters. 

If there's a regulation that you don't like, you are absolutely helpless to protest.

If there's a law you don't like, you can vote against your Representative at the next election.

You can speak out against that elected representative who voted for the law you don't like.

That open discussion keeps the conversation between the Throne and the Community.

It does, however, circumvent the Power Behind The Throne.  It can derail the plans of the Powers That Be. 

Regulations are made to please the Powers That Be.  Laws are made to please the voters.  The two interests, in a well knit community, will largely coincide and become indistinguishable from one another.

The Powers That Be behind the throne strive mightily to keep all control initiatives as regulations, not law.

They need to keep them out of the headlines and away from the knowledge of those who would object and call elected legislators to do something about it.

 So I was scanning my feed on Google+ and got interested in a conversation on reading, and disallowing children to read certain things.

This is a conversation about, long ago, students reading Nancy Drew in school were "forbidden" by parents and teachers from reading such terribly bad books.  It's bad to be exposed to such bad art.  Others chimed in with lists of their most cherished kid's books that parents and teachers tried to prevent them from reading, and their strategies of defeating such restrictions.  Readers vs. non-readers.

The conversation got quite long and far-reaching, and a comment emerged:

Another person joined the conversation and noted that in High School, she had to attend a compulsory pep rally for school spirit, held during school hours.  She did, but kept her text books open and studied, intent on college and a bright future.  She was sent to the Principle for discipline, argued and won the case, didn't have to serve detention.

The incident the comment cited was some while ago.  Would that happen in today's world?  Would a teacher order a student to not-study during school hours in order to participate in whipping up an artificial emotional peak? 

I thought about that problem carefully, and realized it is a Headline Issue teased apart down to the thread of theme behind it.  But connected to that thread of theme are many other themes forming the warp and woof of 21st Century attitudes. 

These themes form the perplexing set of fallacies upon which our current, real-world decisions are being made.  Politicians are now calling each other "liars" and applying euphemisms to avoid using that incendiary world.  Soon the word liar won't be incendiary simply from being used to describe someone who is telling the truth.

All that brings us back to the series of posts on the use of Fallacy in creating fiction.

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/12/theme-plot-integration-part-3-fallacy.html

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/03/theme-plot-integration-part-7-fallacy.html

The real-world fallacy under discussion here today is the fallacy of Protection.

Protection is very sexy, and a core element in any good Romance.

It's deep in human nature.  The pregnant female must be protected by a capable male, or the offspring will not survive birth.  The child must be protected by parents. 

The world is full of predators that eat humans (including human predators who eat souls), and those who can not protect themselves must be protected for the good of the community (or family).

A community that can not protect the young does not survive.

It's that primal.

But how does a community produce capable protectors?

By what process are protectors made? 

Those are questions spearheading the explication of A Thematic Statement - the core of your reason to write this novel. 

The theme is the reason your intended readers want to read the novel.  To get a browser to buy your novel, you must state the theme in the first sentence, with an enticing hook, a concretization of that theme.

A question is one way to construct a hook. 

For a novel with the theme "How A Community Produces Protectors" might be something like, "I never let my little brother get his feet wet." 

And then a conversation between the brothers indicating that the little brother, as an adult, does not feel capable of protecting (possibly a pregnant wife, or pregnant ex-wife?).  Something about the big brother always yanking a problem out of little brother's hands and fixing it for him, then being steaming mad that he has to do everything himself. 

See?  That is a show-don't-tell explicating the theme of "how protectors are made." 

Little brother was not allowed to mature into a protector -- and by disallowing that maturation, big brother managed to wreck his own emotional maturation.  Why?  Drunken parents?  Choose something that fits your theme to explain why these brothers just didn't make it to adulthood.

Or is that a fallacy?  Are protectors born, not nurtured?  Are only males capable of protective instincts?  (well, there wouldn't be any humans if human females weren't protective of their young).  What kind of Alien would have no protective instincts?

We all know the sexy jolt of suddenly finding yourself the object of someone else's protective instinct.  Like sucking, it is a primal reflex.

We suck at the breast for LIFE.  And our lives depend on being PROTECTED.  Sex is about protection.  (rape is the opposite)

But how does the CHILD become a protective ADULT? 

Is that romance novel material? 

So I thought about the issue of censoring kids' reading, prohibiting certain material, forcing other material. 

Everyone on the Google + discussion seemed to agree that Nancy Drew and similar works should not be prohibited, especially not by school teachers who had an urge (or directive from The Powers That Be) to regulate children's reading material.   

So I thought about other current school campus regulations that have only recently been enacted. 

Just as contradictory as prohibiting Nancy Drew is the current regulation enacted ostensibly for Security (a euphemism for Protection) of policing campus visitors.

We all know the shooting incidents highlighted by the media, but few of us know that the amount of such violence and the damage it does has actually decreased over decades.  Research some statistics and see what you find.  Many studies claim an increase; many claim a decrease.  It seems the current goal is zero incidents.

There's another theme in that.  "Is perfect control of all human behavior the responsibility of the government?" 

To defend students from all potential incidents, there is a new regulation (possibly not in your community yet) of not just forcing school visitors to identify themselves with photo-ID (guilty until proven innocent), but also to surrender said ID into a non-secure location.

Campus visitors must surrender a driver's license or unique photo-ID to a secretary who doesn't have even a Snowden-level security clearance, working behind a desk that doesn't even have Bank level security screens -- and in order to gain access to meetings on the campus, one must leave that secretary without a receipt for your unique identifier.

Such a card that actually identifies you is a card which is worth a bundle on the black market what with all the illegal immigrants a small portion of whom may be criminals, but all of whom are desperate for legit ID.  There's a whole industry devoted to turning stolen ID cards into illegal ID's.

But most people don't know such an industry exists.

Until you've had your Identity stolen, you have no idea how precious it is or how easy it is to steal (or the raped feeling that comes with that theft.)

Without your ID card, you are trapped on that campus as if it were an actual prison with barbed wire atop cement walls.  If you surrender your driver's license (and are law-abiding), you are a prisoner, and you've done that to yourself "voluntarily" in exchange for the privilege of attending whatever meeting you might be there for (PTA or whatever.) 

If someone with authority doesn't like what you say at that meeting, you might want to walk out and leave, but you can't if they won't give you your ID back until the Police arrive (even if you didn't do anything illegal).  Or you then would commit the crime of driving without a driver's license (unless you can get a ride -- maybe that's why UBER is so disliked by Authority?)

Do you see plot-threads spinning out of the core theme here?  Plot is fabricated out of theme -- remember that.  Character (strong and otherwise) is fabricated out of theme.  And the themes that sell books are the ones that make headlines. 

A Strong Character is likely to be a mature adult with full blown Protective Tendencies.  Such a person is likely to attend PTA and other community meetings, often held on school campuses (a lot of Hot Guys turn up at such meetings).

A strong character with protective tendencies who loves his/her Community is very likely to upset someone in authority from time to time.  That's the nature of being a Strong Character.

THEME: Should such Powers That Be have the ability to constrain the movements of a Strong Character? 

PLOT: What if the Power That Is makes a regulation and requires a hireling to enforce that regulation -- thus avoiding being available to Strong Characters who object to the regulation?  Powers That Be types of people are spotlight averse by nature.  They put a patsy up to take the fall for them. 

Already you see a cast of characters unfolding from a simple thematic element, and plots galore abound as soon as a Strong Character steps onto the stage.

So back to Regulations Today.  So after the meeting, you must (MUST -- the powers that be decree, must!) stand in a long, slow, line to turn in your visitor's pass and get your ID back provided nobody ahead of you in line has claimed it and absconded with it. 

A theft would make a nifty plot complication, but it works also as a plot-driver (the problem that must be resolved at The End.)

What if the stolen ID belonged to your female lead character, and the Hot Guy steps in and chases down the thief, tackles the Regulation-Maker and forces the State to make a law against denuding school campus visitors of their ID. 

Identifying yourself to gain entry to a public place is a reasonable invasion of privacy because the place is public.  Surrendering your Identification, thus imprisoning yourself, is not a reasonable invasion of privacy and could make a plot-driver if the Hot Guy at the meeting turned out to be a Lawyer, or have a little brother who is a lawyer.

Theft is a good plot-driver because for hours, your ID has been available to Identify Thieves for copying.

I know a bit about what can be done with hot-ID, and it is a card you NEVER let out of your sight. 

Even in supermarkets now, clerks don't swipe your card,  you do it with your own hands. 

FALLACY:
Stripping the honest of their ID prevents the dishonest (or crazy) from performing illegal acts on school premises. 

How could attacking the law-abiding PROTECTORS (parents) benefit the PROTECTED (kids in school). 

Students in CUSTODY of a school gain no protection from adults surrendering their Identity. 

Custody.  That's a legal term for in jail. 

Kids are guilty until proven innocent.  It's more like The Inquisition than like modern courts -- you just can't prove your innocence if you're a kid, because some other kid somewhere MIGHT actually do what you're being actively prevented from doing (even if you wouldn't.)

Immaturity is a sin.  The punishment is custody.

But the sentence is only 18 years, and you might live to 100, so shrug.

You've heard the term "over-protective parent." 

Good parenting consists of total protection of the new-born, gradually (ever so gradually and not in a steady progressing way) lifting that protection.  Protection of children is like training wheels on a bike -- left on too long it creates dependence.

If, all through High School, we are kept in a vacuum sealed campus and protected from ourselves, as humans we remain children even after sexual maturity. 

The Powers That Be behind all Political Parties, find an adult population expecting life to be "safe" (without risk -- because such over-protected humans never learn risk-management by getting hurt and paying a price for bad judgement) much easier to manage, to control, to sell things to, to get votes from. 

Such adults, oddly enough, become much more amenable to launching into a war just because someone in authority points at a threat and tells them the only way to deal with that threat is war.

A child who hasn't learned risk-management the hard way becomes an adult who lets "someone else" manage risk for them.  Such an adult is not a "Strong Character."

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/06/theme-character-integration-part-6-hero.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/theme-character-integration-part-7.html

So that's what happens to a child who goes all the way through college on campuses that are "protected" as if they are playpens, not the real world.

But what of the parent who goes to meetings at such campuses all the years of raising their children?

Parents required to do such things as surrender their Identification for the privilege of exercising a right lose all sense of requiring of themselves self-discipline and honorable behavior. 

Keep in mind, schools are funded by the taxes that the parents pay.  Schools work FOR the parents attending meetings.  Yet they treat the parents as if the parents were still children, imposing regulations, requiring this and that.  The thematic message is that no matter what you do, how old you are, how many children you have, or who you vote for, you are never -- ever -- going to be a decision-maker.  You are a school kid when you come back as a parent.

So throughout life, to survive (at work, play, and while parenting) one must be absolutely submissive, and set aside one's Identity.

OK, a card is just a symbolic identity, but we're talking fiction-writing and in fiction symbolism is a key ingredient.  It is key in fiction because in real life it is very powerful.  Read up on the math behind Public Relations and see how they use symbolism to sell cars and perfume.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_public_relations

Practice makes perfect. 

By surrendering a driver's license to a non-secure location run by a non-Security Clearance secretary, we are practicing submission to authority instead of practicing being the authority that we must be to execute Parenting well. 

So how can we teach children to manage the power of authority when they are adults if they do as we do rather than as we say, and we do not take responsibility for our own actions? 

Identity is Responsibility (Saturn, Capricorn).  Identity is defined by boundaries, borders, just as countries have borders.

You can't develop a Strong Character without a strong Identity (an identity with borders.)  It's the invasion of your borders that wreaks destruction in the aftermath of rape.  Rebuilding those borders is a process that gives your Main Character a colorful history and a clear reason to Be A Strong Character.

Strength doesn't come upon one without effort, without pain to create the gain.  That is called GROWING PAINS -- growing up hurts. 

Good parenting is about gauging how much pain it takes for your child to grow, and where exactly the border is beyond which pain leads to destruction not growth.  One gains that judgement by having been well-parented.  It's not inherited.  It's learned.   

Here is a news item related to the "don't read that book" decrees of teachers long ago via the Privacy Borders themes.

http://www.slashgear.com/facebook-also-uses-photodna-to-prowl-for-illicit-images-07340312/

And here's the counter-argument on "privacy" -- at what AGE do you gain the right to privacy?  An infant has none, a teen some, but when do you get all the privacy a human is going to get?

http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2014/08/08/facebook-messenger-privacy-fears-heres-what-you-need-to-know/

Privacy is about being able to read under the desk in class, choose what books to read, (or not-read), read all night on a school night then perform well the next day despite that expenditure, try out something your associates disapprove of, and pay too much for an item. 

Privacy is about doing your own risk-assessment, then making your own decisions accordingly, acting on your own judgment and reading the book anyway, or studying during a pep rally anyway. 

Getting the right answers in your risk-assessment process takes much practice, and without that practice, no matter how old you live to be, you will never be able to make reliable judgement calls for yourself, or your children.

If privacy is violated at the age when judgement is developing, then the individual will never mature into an adult, no matter how many years are lived. To find plot-threads from that set of Protection-From-Privacy or Protection-Of-Privacy themes look carefully at who benefits from either set of regulations and/or laws.

WHO BENEFITS gives you the Cast of Characters.

WHO PREVAILS gives you the Main Character.

WHO HOLDS THE KEY TO PREVAILING gives you the B-story character, or the Secondary Character, the Main Character's lover, or second point of view character.

When you use two points of view, you need two themes, but the themes have to both be derived from the same Master Theme.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/plot-vs-story.html

Privacy is about the right to secret ballot, and personal Identity. 

That decree to exclude Nancy Drew (a series designed for a pre-privacy age-group) is offensive because it violates privacy and therefore thwarts the development of a personal Identity capable of  relying on a personal risk-assessment, and then acting.

All of this reminds me suddenly that I did tackle many of these issues in a novel, PERSONAL RECOGNIZANCE though many in this theme bundle were not addressed.



Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Social Networking Is Not A Promotional Tool - Part 2 Comparing Services by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Social Networking Is Not A Promotional Tool
Part 2
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Comparing Services  

Here is Part One on Social Networking

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/social-networking-is-not-advertising.html

A few months ago, someone on a Facebook Group of Screenwriters (serious beginning professionals with accomplishments to their names) asked what use TWITTER might be, and how to work with Twitter. 

A whole lot of people on the group had experiences with Twitter to relate and opinions about how effective the time spent on Twitter might be, plus hints and clues about how to get the most screenwriting info out of Twitter.

I tossed in a couple of answers, and someone tossed a question to me: "What is Google Plus?" 

Oh, boy, how this world of social networking is exploding so fast! 

Even those working hard to sell screenplays don't know what's happening in social media, even though it is reported on TV often and in depth!

I've been on Google+ since it was by Google's invitation only. 

So I put a link to my G+ page
https://plus.google.com/u/0/+JacquelineLichtenberg/posts

And my twitter:
https://twitter.com/JLichtenberg

And the questioner went and looked at it and noted some differences from the way Facebook presents information about people. And I answered that.

So the person who asked me looked up the stats and commented: the stats reveal Gplus has 300MM users compared to FB 1.2 BB   AND FB users spend 6 hrs a week or month vs Gplus 7 minutes...

That's about true.  G+ is much FASTER to use, somehow.  You get more done in 7 minutes than in an hour on Facebook.

My opinion, as you all know, is pro-Twitter.  I follow many video producers, actors, writers, directors, and production companies, Indie film promoters, just a lot of people in The Industry and the Indie segment of the film industry. 

But the Sime~Gen fans have created a Group on Facebook, so I also spend a lot of time with Facebook as well as Google Plus.

Here's the explanation of the comparison I wrote for the Screenwriter's Group on Facebook.

-----------QUOTE-----
I don't think it's worth while to compare Google+ to FB.  Both are just tools.  Your reward will come from your need for that tool and your ability to employ that tool to accomplish your purposes. 

One neat thing about G+ is that it can be set to use the same login as you use for your blogger.com blogs, for your gmail and other google tools.  And as with FB you can use that google login on other sites.  That neat thing is it's main drawback.  Lots of exposure to things you'd rather not be exposed to.  But for a professional, it can be worth the risk.

Many people I know are on both G+ and FB and cruise through those and several other social sites at whim.  Both are just TOOLS -- how rewarding the experience is depends on who you know not what you know. 

As a professional writer, I go where the people who want to talk to me are -- it is my responsibility to make the effort to accommodate the habits and preferences of my customers, without regard for my own. 

There are more people on FB, but G+ lets you connect easier with people you don't know but who want to know you. 

In socializing, it's more about quality than quantity, so the fact that FB is bigger is why I'm here and why my fans are gathering on the SimeGen Group here.  The fact that there are large numbers of writers on G+ is why I'm there.  Also there are lots more image-oriented people on G+ and writers are always evaluating images for cover potential.

G+ has been handling images better, but FB has caught up during their launch of more advertising in your stream.  FB interfaces with lots of other social media products so you can aggregate posts by making those connections.  Post an item on your tumblr blog and set tumblr to post that item on FB, Twitter, etc -- but G+ won't allow that cross-posting (yet.) so posting to G+ is a separate operation.  That's a huge drawback.  Also my blogger blog auto-posts itself on FB. 

My point here is that you don't choose ONE or THE OTHER -- you establish a core presence where it's convenient for you, then connect to all the other networks where your own customers tend to hang out with their friends.  Your objective is to do the most connecting with the least time/effort on your part as possible.  Efficiency is the watchword in social-media.

FB limits the number of friends you can have (outside of your "Page" as a celebrity one-way communication).  G+ has no such tiny limit, which makes it valuable to me.  On FB I have just over 1K connections, but on G+ in half the time I have acquired 7K followers.  I have about 2200 followers on Twitter.  But as with FB only a few dozen actually TALK BACK when I say something.  I treasure those commentators because they really think!  

Both G+ and FB allow for Groups and Communities where you can meet and talk to people who aren't connected to your stream and don't see your general posts.  Each community on G+ has its own rules (just like FB) and a focused interest.  The NaNoWriMo folks are huge on G+ and they are a kick and a half! 

I suspect my problem is that I just love PEOPLE -- lots of them all talking to each other.  I sit back and marvel at the rich harvest of story-ideas! 
------END QUOTE---

So my advice to people who want to use social media to promote their work is don't do that.

Use social media as a source of your work, not a destination.

Then people who want to talk to you will appear.  You will get to say what's dear to your heart, and they will run off and repeat that while pointing their friends at your work.

Draw your story ideas from the subjects, ideas and attitudes bandied about among your primary audience, then tell them you have this new novel or whatever available in such a way that it's clear you understood what they meant. 

Don't tell them you took their ideas (which you didn't, but that's hard to explain).  Tell them their ideas.  They will recognize their own ideas, and run around espousing this ultra-clear statement of their own ideas by someone they barely know -- "I couldn't have said it better myself."

Even more, when you do it this way -- your readers will see confirmation and maybe even vindication in your restatement of their ideas because you can utilize SHOW DON'T TELL as the mechanism for explaining these very abstract matters.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Amber Benson and Kathryn Leigh Scott Actresses and Writers

You may remember I discussed Amber Benson's first Calliope Reaper-Jones novel, Death's Daughter in August 2009.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/amber-benson-tara-on-buffy-vampire.html

Amber Benson played Tara on Buffy, a character who stole the show as layers of her background were peeled away to reveal startling and unexpected truths.

I met her on Twitter -- @Amber_Benson  -- check her out!

Since then she has had a second novel in her series published titled Cat's Claw-- and they're GOOD.

There are few writers whose novels pass all my technical craft tests (even Mass Market published writers), the attributes I talk about here in my posts about craft.  Amber Benson does. 

She has some prior books she's contributed to, which I haven't read yet, so take a look here:

Amber Benson

Amber Benson has a very distinctive writer's "voice" that is pleasant even when speaking (in the first person) for a tough-as-nails woman, or a woman who is soon to become as tough as nails.

See next week's entry here "Source of the Expository Lump Part 2" for more on Voice and how to find yours.

Benson handles the ugly truth of the world straight, with no compromises, but reading these stories doesn't make you feel ugly.  She makes her readers feel good about themselves.  It's an odd and very valuable talent, and to me that effect creates a dimension of realism indispensable in a Fantasy novel.

But it's also a rare talent.  Now I've found someone else who writes with that kind of a pleasant "voice" that is very easy to read even when confronting the ugliest aspects of the world.

She is, like Benson, also an actress with a TV series that has to be a favorite among readers of this blog, Dark Shadows.

Kathryn Leigh Scott played Barnabus Collins' bride on Dark Shadows.

Now Kathryn has done something unique that you should take note of if you are at all interested in PNR.

Kathryn created a new, original Urban Fantasy universe, a parallel world perhaps, where a young would-be actress (very different from herself) goes to New York to seek her fame and glory.

And she does two things Kathryn actually did.  She works as a Playboy Bunny serving drinks (giving us a glimpse of a real world as it was decades ago), and she lands a minor part in a startup afternoon soap opera TV show to be broadcast live.

This is both urban fantasy and historical novel, as the detail depicted of that era of live-TV afternoon soaps distributed by kinescope is extremely accurate but written without any expository lumps.

I will talk a bit about expository lumps again next week because it has a lot to do with Voice.

For now I want to point you to Dark Passages, this treasure of a novel about a parallel universe "Dark Shadows" TV show, and a young woman with Vampiric type supernatural powers she is determined not to use to 'get ahead' in The Industry.

Here is a link to a group of books by Kathryn Leigh Scott.  One is titled DARK SHADOWS.

Dark Passages leads to a list of some of her books.


But the one I'd like you to pay attention to is Dark Passages:

Dark Passages  this link leads to a single novel. 

Dark Passages is billed as a Romance, but it's not strictly speaking, PNR.  The plot is driven by personal Relationship, and it's definitely what I call Intimate Adventure Genre, but I think the real Romance part will develop in what I hope will be a number of sequels.

I found @Dark_Passages on twitter -- I think when they followed me ( @jlichtenberg ) and I looked at the little bio and followed back.  Or I may have gotten an email from the publicist.  I did get a two-page promo for the novel done as a pdf file which I read on my iPod Touch and wrote back and asked for the full novel.

You will note I've been blogging here about the place of social networking in a writer's modern life.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/04/social-networking-is-not-advertising.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/strange-benefit-of-social-networking.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-cb-radio-come-on-back.html
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

 Before I wrote this blog entry, I asked @Amber_Benson (whose byline is Amber Benson ) via public twitter post  if she knew Kathryn Leigh Scott personally.  Amber answered publicly that she knew someone who does know Kathryn and has a very high opinion of her work.  I hope this post will introduce these two extraordinary women.  They really should collaborate! 
 
You might also want to follow the twitter account @Dark_Passages which is how I encountered Kathryn Leigh Scott and ended up with her publisher sending me a review copy of this novel -- which I couldn't wait to read.  They sent me an ARC, I devoured it, and this post is only a few weeks after the publication date.

Dark Passages is written in that very pleasant "voice" that makes you feel good about yourself.  The characters are totally absorbing, the historical background sketched with elegantly chosen detail.

There are no boring sections to this novel.  But it's not an action novel.  It's a story about a very realistic supernatural person, young Meg, on a relentlessly logical karmic path to stardom.  It has one tiny gliche at the end which I won't discuss here because it would be a "spoiler."  But here's a clue -- one scene should have been moved to occur after another scene which should have been much longer and more complex.  Read this book and find that tiny glitch if you can.

Study Dark Passages, find the scenes that should have been in reverse order, and contrast/compare it to the Calliope Reaper-Jones novels which don't have a glitch like that.

Read my series on What's An Editor, and you will see that asking a writer to reverse two scenes is what Editors do for a living.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/09/what-exactly-is-editing-part-vii-how-do.html


is the final post in that sequence on Editing and has links to the prior ones in the series.

Here's what an editor would see comparing the Calliope Reaper-Jones novels to Dark Passages.

The Reaper-Jones novels have a stronger "action" structure and the action itself provides the plot-driving energy.

Dark Passages has a plot driven by the Relationships, the suspense provided by an enemy stalking the main character because of a generations long vendetta against her family, and by the main character's ability to evoke caring from those she meets.

The flinty, hardened, actors and seasoned Playboy Bunnies, care about Meg, even though they don't know she drinks blood from animals in the park and would suck them dry in a moment were her self-control to fail.

And it seemed to me Meg had no clue how much the people she meets care about her.

She comes from a small-town, growing up on an isolated farm with a warm, caring family.  In fact, her background profile is pretty much like Clark Kent's!

Dark Passages is a heart-melting historical Vampire novel.  You don't want to miss this one.

And if you've missed the Reaper-Jones novels, pick up a copy.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Social Networking Is Not An Advertising Tool

Well, social networking is not an advertising tool, but it's a writer's best friend!

As you have noticed recently, I've been talking about two writers I met on twitter, Carol Buchanan who Guest posted here last week, and whose novel, Gold Under Ice, I discussed the previous week.

And Gene Doucette who sparked a lively discussion here with his novel Immortal.


Recently, with the release of the new Sime~Gen Series novels written by Jean Lorrah and me, the fans started a Group on facebook, SimeGen, where suddenly 50 people were chattering on and on about the Sime~Gen Universe, flooding my mailbox with fascinating observations.  I don't know where all these people came from, but I love them!

Here's some previous posts on social networking that I did to explain the place of social networking in a writer's life now that "marketing" has become part of our responsibility. 

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/strange-benefit-of-social-networking.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/conversation-on-twitter.html

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

An item passed by me quickly on facebook, about an article citing a very old study that I'd heard of years ago about the upper limit to the number of "friends" (acquaintances, associates) a person can maintain.  What's the upper limit to the size of a clan, villiage, or Yahoo or Facebook Group? 

I believe the number they're currently entertaining is between 400 and 500.  And you spend over 60% (I'm just vaguely remembering these figures) of your time "maintaining" such a social network.  It's a huge investment of output energy, and the only payoff or profit is that it makes you feel good to have friends. (that's huge by itself, especially for a writer who works alone in a boring chamber wishing the phone wouldn't ring for another two paragraphs or so!)

In such a large network though, the people you interact with won't be "friends who help you move" or "friends who babysit your kids" or "friends who loan you money."  Not friends who are there when you're sick and mop up after you -- not friends who get a bailbondsman when you get thrown in jail.  Not REAL friends - the kind we choose to make a Hero in our novels.

I saw a Twitter tutorial that pointed out that 1,000 people is the most a person can follow and have any hope of interacting with regularly. If someone who follows more than 1,000 people follows you, don't follow them back because they'll never see what you're saying. There's a way around that, though.  The messes technology makes in your life, technology can cure.  

I know writers who've spent a lot of time on twitter and facebook, and feel it has no value, and drop it.
 
Recently a professonal posted on twitter that he was dropping LinkedIn because it gains him nothing.  I pointed out some valuable connections I made on LinkedIn, and he decided to hold on for a while.

And I dropped into a twitter chat #bookmarket where someone said a writer should write not for those who buy and read her books, but for that buyer's friends, so that the chatter about the book would "go viral" -- that is, aim to be talked about!  Give readers something to say about the book that their friends or social-networkers will grab and repeat to their friends, who will etc.

Another writer answered that was impossible, it just boggles the mind, it's all a writer can do to write for a specific readership! 

The thing with social networking is that each person may know 450 people, but most of them know 200 people that the first person doesn't.  Social circles interlink like a chain.

On another twitter chat, writers were talking about how to break out of obscurity, and I said something that made someone say I couldn't claim to be obscure.

That stopped me in my keyboarding tracks.

Interlinked social circles, make chainmail, armor that protects the psyche and nurtures shared values, thus creating community. (great plot ideas in that concept.)

On Backlist E-books Yahoo Group List (a Group of famous writers who have retrieved rights to their mass market novels and posted them as e-books),

http://astore.amazon.com/backlebook-20

Jerry Weinberg ( Gerald M. Weinberg
http://geraldmweinberg.com )

asked me,
-------
Would you be willing to give me a couple of tips? Such as:

- How do you find out about these chats before they're finished?

- How does one start a chat?

- How do you find out about what #abc markers are available?

Thanks in advance,

Jerry
---------

and I answered:

The chats I've enjoyed most seem to stick in my mind, and if I'm free I check out the stream.  I memorized #scifichat right away because it's my area.

I run 3 or 4 programs at once during a chat - http://tweetchat.com/ and twitter itself, hootsuite, and sometimes tweetdeck -- which you get at tweetdeck.com -- I use the free versions.  I open a lot of firefox tabs.

So I noticed a tweet in my main feed hashmarked #bookchat, looked at the clock and realized it was the time it was on last week, and went to the chat.  That's how I "stumble on" chats -- people I'm subscribed to mention them and I go look and goshwow, I love these folks!

Here's a tweet from a tweeter I follow (who also follows me) that came up on #scifichat when I opened tweetchat.com this morning -- I see her at many writerly chats:  (#FF means #FollowFriday and you can search on that hashmark to find people who attend chats and will talk to you).
----------
@PennyAsh #FF these great chats #scifichat #scriptchat #steampunkchat and all the folks therein :)
----------
People recommend chats and they go viral.  I love #scriptchat -- it has 2 sections, one for European time and one US, both on Sunday.  #litchat is also good, and runs weekday afternoons, one topic a week in short bursts.

You find out about them by following the moderator.  @scifichat or @bookmarketchat

And since I haven't started a chat, I don't know all the ins-and-outs, but I'd ask a moderator how they did it.

Ask @DavidRozansky who runs #scifichat

The moderator has another twitter account with the chat name in it, and stacks up a series of delayed posts timed to appear during the chat period, with questions to prompt comments on a pre-announced subject.  The moderator participates under their own name -- in this case @scifichat posts Questions, and @DavidRozansky tosses incendiary answers to spark discussion.

Chatting is just a busman's holiday for writers!  Have fun with your skills in 140 characters or less.

Another way I stumble into chats while they're going is that I have hootsuite (free download at hootsuite.com ) set up with a "tab" (a section across the top like a tab in a webpage), and I made columns with searches for each of the hashmarks for chats I'm interested in.  When I have a few minutes, I go look to see if anyone's posting, and see what they're talking about.

I also have a hootsuite tab set up with Lists I made on twitter or hootsuite - putting people I follow, and even people I don't follow into a List.  Then I make a column under that tab with the List as the search criterion, and see what those folks are tweeting about.

So when I have time, I go look to see what Backlist eBooks members are tweeting, and try to find something to RT.

The only chat I make time for is #scifichat because it's my field.

Since I'm cultivating a following composed of writers, editors, agents, publishers, producers, screenwriters, image folks, sound folks, everyone in "the biz" from end to end, but focused on professionals more than fans, (though they're fans too!), I select what I tweet as you would if editing a magazine, leaving out politics, what you ate for breakfast, news items (though I do an occasional emergency alert) and focus on say, TV programs tonight, developments with actors and directors, and other news of interest to those trying to sell words to make money.  And of course, there's all my tweets hammered out during chats that get Retweeted and turn up in front of many noses -- sometimes I gain followers that way, usually writers etc.

It's all very haphazzard. Once you have software set up, you can troll across your interests and drop in from time to time and meet the most incredibly interesting people, learn things of real value, find links to discuss on facebook and fodder for blogging.  Probably 99% of the stuff on twitter is real garbage.  These tools allow you to focus tightly on that remaining 1% -- which is huge!

If you make a chat, let me know time and hashmark.

If you'd like to follow me, I'm @jlichtenberg and http://facebook.com/jacqueline.lichtenberg
So you see, social networking isn't something you do for monetary profit because it's not cost-effective. 

The "profit" is intangible.  It's what we all get from those 450 people we know who know us, a sense of being, a mental orientation, a feeling of being in touch with the world and understanding that world.

You can't monetize that feeling.  And no amount of money can buy that feeling.  You can't get that feeling by associating with people who are interested in you only because they want to sell you something. 

But without that feeling, nothing you do to make money will ever mean anything.

Worse, because we work in "The Arts" -- if we go about doing our social networking "with gritted teeth because I have to in order to make money" -- the words that flow from our fingers will be toxic and unwelcome by those we inflict those words on.

Social networking is what we do for FUN, and "fun" is our stock in trade.  Fun is what we have to sell.  If we don't have fun writing, nobody will have fun reading what we've written.

Ballet dancers warm up by doing exercises; writers warm up by socializing.

Your job, as a writer is to entertain people.  If you don't know anyone, how can you entertain anyone? 

And really, is "buy my book" an entertaining message?  Surely you, as a writer, have more to offer than that?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

The Strange Benefit Of Social Networking

First I have to thank the renowned editor, Victoria A. Mixon, for mentioning my blog entry of last week (*blush*) in her own blog where she wrote:

-------Quote--------
Author Jacqueline Lichtenberg has written a  long and eye-opening post contradicting the standard publishing wisdom, “You determine your own success or failure by just how compelling your story is.” Lichtenberg is looking at TV shows as fiction, as well as books, for which I think she builds a good case. Pay attention to what she’s saying, folks! This is the keystone.

Her post, in turn, refers to an article by Andrew R. Malkin describing his career in publishing promotions.

And Malkin refers to Seth Godin. I mean, these days who doesn’t?
--------End Quote-------

Victoria's blog is one you should subscribe to!  Here's the link to that particular entry, but just look at her others!

http://victoriamixon.com/2010/02/12/reading-up-on-the-business-of-fiction/

-----------
So to this week's topic is about the mistake people are making when trying to understand online social networking, a mistake so huge it's invisible to the naked eye.

Victoria A. Mixon's reference to my blog post is a case in point on social networking that is more pertinent because I have no clue how she found my blog entry.  She might have picked it up on twitter or via the Agent Rachel Gardner's blog (which is rated #4 on Technorati's list of 100 top book blogs) or might have found mentioned on Galaxy Express here:

http://www.thegalaxyexpress.net/2010/02/10-steps-to-making-science-fiction.html where the full title is
10 Steps To Making Science Fiction Romance A Contender

You see?  Social networking creates these nebulous networks where the networkers don't know where the information came from -- it's on the network!

So I was thinking about that "network" concept and how the e-world differs from the ancient world (pre-WWW) and I suddenly saw a pattern while trolling twitter.

I will attempt to connect three improbable dots and show you this pattern:

A) Puberty
B) Publishing
C) Commercial exploiting of social networking

As far as I know (which isn't very far) nobody else has discerned this pattern from these particular dots.

If you stick it out through this huge post, I may make you crazy.

Here's how it all came together. 

I had just filed my September review column for The Monthly Aspectarian, which is published on paper in the magazine, then posted to their website (lightworks.com) then finally archived at
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/

The books reviewed this year are posted on that 2010 index page and you could look them over and see what the ones you've read from that list have in common.

The September column is about books where the main hero is fully engaged in defending a particular USA city from some form of paranormal attack, and I noted some things cities have in common.  If you read those books carefully in close sequence you will see how the authors exploit the mechanics of social networks within cities that propel the plot dynamics.  But that wasn't the exact focus of my column.

Right after that I ran across another tweet on Twitter:

@michaelpinto: #kidscreen it's not until kids hit age 12 do they use social online services

Michael Pinto is Creative Director of Very Memorable Design, Publisher of Anime.com and Editor of Fanboy.com -- has over 2,000 followers on twitter, and his website is http://www.fanboy.com/

And I offhandedly shot back at him:

@jlichtenberg @michaelpinto #kidscreen "socialization" awareness of "other" may be primarily part of the reproductive urge?

To which he answered:

@michaelpinto @JLichtenberg actually most of the social media at that age is your immediate peers, so it's more of a tool thing

And the head-wheels start spinning! (I do love twitter!)

The image that flashed into my mind was the typical Middle School school yard during recess and the behaviors of various age-groups of children.

It's something I had noticed when I was a child and continued to notice throughout the years, and to puzzle over.

Watch the 4th Grade girls -- they gather in groups, sometimes larger, and they PLAY, they do things, they engage in activities, and the only things they say to each other are in regard to the activity (Dodgeball, jacks, races, games).

Watch the 5th Grade girls.  Some play, some gather in small groups and talk.

Watch the 6th Grade girls.  They ALL gather in small groups and TALK-TALK-TALK.

Something happens at puberty that shifts interest from the activity to the people.

Most of the focus of that talk is "I-I-I" -- it's all about Self.  But watch the 7th and 8th graders.  The talk is 'you' and 'look at that cute boy'.

There is a major shift of awareness we call socialization, and it is a shift from I-self to You-other.  There is a dawning (before puberty) of awareness that others exist, have feelings, and an inner emotional life separate from all activities.

There is a dawning of awareness of the inner emotional life of the Self -- and then a seeking of the mirror of the Self in Other.

The yen for BONDING starts, and it first manifests in those cliques gathered to talk-talk-talk.  I've seen groups of 4 or 5 girls walking home from school stop in the middle of an intersection, totally lose awareness of any approaching cars, and just focus tightly on talk-talk-talk and the talk is all about FEELINGS and interactions with others.

The search is for those who have similar feelings, and the process brings the individual's emotional responses into conformity with the majority or dominant individuals until a group is formed that has very similar emotional responses.

Last night I saw a feature on PBS about the psychology of investing, about neuroscience and other really detailed scientific studies of fear and risk and herd behavior among humans.  And one item struck me relevant to social networking.  The science behind human herd behavior has revealed how neurologically a human being will subordinate the individuality in order to be accepted by the group -- out of fear, out of risk aversion - out of the very sort of "Primal" responses Blake Snyder talks about in his SAVE THE CAT! books.

And that TV feature brought to mind that school yard full of little knots of girls chattering at each other, seeking emotional conformity and emotional bonding with each other (and talking about cute boys, of course, what else is there to talk about?)

Today's cliques of pubescent girls use texting and social networking, but as Michael Pinto observes, it's a tool to carry on the exact same transaction I had observed so many years in schoolyards.  Now they'll text each other across the yard.  But the transaction is the same - bonding self-to-other.  First in small groups.  But today's world is much bigger.

A couple days before that, I ran into the following news article on Yahoo that says YouTube is 5 years old (only 5 years!) and details the changes its advent on the scene has made.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20100214/tc_pcworld/theyoutuberevolutionturns5

5 years!  Today's pre-adolescents don't remember the world without Youtube and video-via-cell-phone.  It's just a tool they use to assuage their bonding urge.

Remember, some time ago I did several entries here about social networking especially as used by marketers:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/09/marketing-via-social-networking.html

The point of that post was essentially that advertisers who tried to use social networking to force a message to "go viral" in order to make a profit were shooting themselves in the foot by following the oldest adage of Marketing.

Mastering this oldest adage of Marketing is a hurdle as difficult to surmount for budding marketers as "show don't tell" is for budding writers.

It is "You Are Not Your Customer."

And I pointed out why Marketers can never succeed at using social networking to promote a product on purpose by citing successful social networking examples such as Linnea Sinclair.  (one of the contributors to this blog http://linneasinclair.com )

In social networking, YOU ARE YOUR CUSTOMER or you fail because the society will reject you violently and with extreme prejudice.

This rejection phenomenon is not new any more than puberty is new.

Way back when Science Fiction fandom (before Star Trek) was a tiny, closed community of people social networking via snailmail, it consisted of several circles of people who knew each other and knew different circles of professional writers personally.

Science Fiction fandom was so closed that people who took a new interest in the fandom without coming from an encyclopedic knowledge of the fiction admired by the groups were viewed as unwelcome intruders.

But of course, "science fiction fandom" was so tiny that even publishers of science fiction paid no attention to it.

Even if a book sold to all the social-network connected science fiction fans, that alone couldn't make it commercially viable.

A book's publishing overhead required that it sell to 100's of times as many people as ever connected to SF fandom's little in-group.  Sales volumes of books that sold to most of fandom and those that sold to no fans were statistically indistinguishable.  The "Hugo Winner" didn't sell enough additional copies to make a difference. Neither did "Nebula Winner" though when BOTH appeared on a book it meant something commercially.  (that changed gradually, year by year, and then SUDDENLY in the 1960's into a "Golden Age." You can look up dates if you like.)

Then came Star Trek in the late 1960's and with the conventions in the early 1970's and the explosion of "trekkies" as opposed to people like me known as Trekkers, started to change book sales patterns. (but Trekkies would buy spinoff novels but not follow an author into their own non-Trek works!)

"Trekkies" is a derogatory term used to designate people whose motives are similar to those of "roadies" -- starstruck fanatics who follow rock stars around the country screaming at concerts.

Trekkies is an odious term because it's a static psychological state.  It's like an addiction.  Instead of making progress in life because of the interest, learning skills, gaining expertise, widening horizons, acquiring stabilizing associations and contacts with people above you on the ladder of success, the "trekkie" just sits at the feet and goes gaagaa.

"Trekkers" are active and growing people -- people on a Trek, a JOURNEY.  They are going somewhere.  All their efforts are toward an attainable goal and they do attain that goal.

Trekkers wrote amazing fan fiction, and many of those fanfic writers became professional writers (after a few were shut firmly out of mainstream publishing because they were known fanfic writers).

Fanfic generated social networks within networks, all connected, knowing each other or knowing of each other.  And those generated whole conventions where thousands of dollars changed hands just with the buying and selling of fanzines (on paper no less.)

More than that, the efforts of Trekkers produced the fan-run Star Trek Conventions (not the "shows" where the Stars posture on a stage, sign autographs for money, and disappear -- the CONVENTIONS where the Stars might drop in and speak on a stage, then go buy stuff in the Dealer's Room and converse with trekkers but ignore the trekkies).

The Trekkers got sucked into Science Fiction and invaded Science Fiction conventions causing an immense backlash of rejection because a lot of Trekkies got mixed in, and Trekkies didn't read the "right" books to be accepted.

This invasion changed the face of SF fandom and actually changed its prestige among publishers because of the large numbers of people and the among of money that changed hands. But individual authors didn't see TV show fans grabbing SF novels off the shelves unless they were TV show spinoffs.

Don't forget that YouTube effect. It's a 3rd generation video-entertainment-only development.

My own Star Trek fanfiction (text-only), the Kraith Series (which attracted 50 creative fan contributors who wrote and drew in my alternate Trek Universe) was nominated for the Fan Writer Hugo (SF Fandom's top award) (and lost because of that backlash of text readers against TV-fan invaders - resentment continues for that, too).

Kraith can be read for free online at
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/

Here's an image of the Hugo runner-up certificate :

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/awards-jl/hugo/cert4a.gif

 

It's a good thing I didn't win the trophy because the Trekkie-invasion issue in SF fandom was incendiary, and the person who won really REALLY deserved it.

However, that was an inflection point, and today Science Fiction conventions and even Worldcon have "media" track programming (which was so resoundingly rejected at first).  If the resistance hadn't gone on so long, Worldcon would have been the Event that Dragoncon is now - media and gaming.

These are now two immiscible social networks in fandom, media and books.

Here are a couple of websites listing conventions:

http://www.scificonventions.com/
 
Here is the Locus list of cons: http://www.locusmag.com/Conventions.html

On #scifichat on twitter (Friday afternoon Eastern Time - Follow @scifichat for info ) David Rozansky (a publisher who runs the chat) advised writers aiming at text-publishing:

@DavidRozansky Attend literary-focused #scifi cons, like WorldCon or MileHiCon. Media-focus cons are fun, but won't help you. #scifichat

Of course he was talking about launching a career in book publishing, not media.

He also said that writers today need to develop their own following (of fans of their writing) before they can become well published, and the way to do that is social networking.

So far, nobody I've run across has pointed out what I have pointed out -- that for social networking to become a vehicle for your message, you must first and foremost be a part of that society. You Are Your Customer - or you are nobody -- in writing novels.

Any writer of heroic fiction has learned the principle of what makes a leader in real life.  A "leader" must emerge from the group he/she leads.

If you don't put that into your fiction, nobody will believe it.

In fact, implicit in the concept "leader" is "emerging from the Group to Lead."

But in our real everyday world, "leaders" are often chosen from outside a company.

Everyone who's gotten a job where they come in to manage people who were expecting promotion into that spot knows they have to weed their group of those ambitious ones before they can lead that group.  The first job of a leader is to bond with the group.  THEN they have to "separate" from that group (as Captain Kirk illustrated with his "loneliness of command" theme.)

In the real world, the CEO search goes OUT - rarely do top people get promoted from within.

In fact in order to get to such a pinnacle, a candidate may have to climb the ladder inside a company, then switch to another company and climb there a while, then get head-hunted as CEO of the original company that employed them.  (I've seen that career track happen several times lately in the real world).

Mystically, and practically, a "Leader" has to be or have been a member of the society he/she is to lead.  (think King Arthur)

But Marketers learn bone deep, "you are not your customer" -- it is their mantra.

Alienation on the one hand, and membership bonding.  A dichotomy and a tension line.

Marketers come into social networking determined not to "be the customer" but to "sell to the customer" - retaining the clinical distance, the emotional disconnection of an outsider but attempting to lead the herd into a behavior (buying this brand of product).

Yet playground training in early life, the very first pre-pubescent bonding experience, is not to follow someone who is not organically, emotionally bonded to the group.  And that dynamic turns up in individual investing habits, too.

Physicians learn to be "objective" and Healers learn Empathic Bonding (I explored that dichotomy in depth in my first Award Winner, Unto Zeor, Forever which is about the medical career tracks of physicians vs. healers).

The key element here is the Group Mind vs. Individual Mind and the relationship between them, as in the several novels about Cities.

I discuss that in my September Review column
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/  

(You should be able to access the actual column there sometime after October 1, 1010)

To be a leader, you must first be a member.

If you're not a member, when you behave like a leader you become a tyrant.

That's the playground principle the marketers who are trying to use social networking to move product are ignoring and they will regret it. It is a "Primal" principle that every writer knows in their bones, and it's rooted in (oh, yeah, you knew this was coming) ROMANCE! And it's all about reproduction, successful reproduction which involves rearing the young, which requires bonding.

Yes, successful commercial marketing is all about sexuality, all about the fundamental psychological components of which love is built.  

I discussed a possible solution to the marketer's problem in this post:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/02/fix-for-publishing-business-model.html

Now let's look at the world from a fiction writer's perspective again.

If we're worldbuilding and we get down to building the society Our Hero is embedded within, then we have to ask ourselves, who's connected to whom and how?

In other words, to create the drama that we wish to display, we must embed Our Hero in a society -- a social network.

Why is that? Why must worldbuilding include social networks we make up out of thin air?  And why is it so easy to make them up?

Because all heroes (even the villain is the hero of his own story) are "connected" -- like The Mob.  The Mob is a "family" or a network of families, some of which are connected by being adversaries, opponents, or rivals if not actual enemies.

Look at the "flip-outs" we hear about in the news.  A person gets fired, broods over it a while, grabs a gun and sprays bullets at the group which rejected him/her, or deliberately shoots at people who are members of a social network which has rejected the shooter.

A bit into the news cycle and we learn this person was a "loner" -- a nice person, quiet, kept to him/herself, had become distant from family (or had none) -- was not active in groups, volunteering, or any of the things you and I always do. But went out of the way to be "nice" while holding forth with opinions that separated them from the group.  

Watching such a news story unfold, it's so hard to understand why this person flipped out and sprayed destruction upon those who "rejected" -- because we get rejected all the time (sometimes 3 times a week for months on end) and don't grab guns and spray bullets.

Why does REJECTION hit some people in the VICIOUS BUTTON triggering a killing spree?

Or suicide.

Life rains blows upon us from all sides.  Mostly, we spend a lot of time feeling like punching bags and emotional garbage cans, recipients of other people's eruptions. We endure the flame wars on Lists and try to be very quiet until it dies down, or sooth things over off-list.  We engage actively with other people's emotions, but we don't kill them. 

What's the difference?

You and I are connected seven-thousand-ways-from-Sunday into dozens of social networks. Many dozens.  From that early playground experience to today, we keep adding networks.

Even standing in line we exercise networking skills.  The worse the situation at airports gets, the more we chat up the folks behind us in line, play canasta with the person next to us on the stuck plane, or entertain their kids.  Every point at which you find yourself in casual touch with someone becomes a conversation just like those play yard conversations - emotional interchanges that form social networked bonds. 

The people who dump on us are either members of one of our own networks and are dumping because they need a friend -- or they're NOT on our network but on some other that regards all members of our network as the source of all the problems in the world. Or source of best friends.

Either way, the emotional blows that rain down on us push us off center emotionally, and we push a little on our supporters, who push a little on theirs, and the blow gets absorbed by a huge number of people, soaked up and dissipated.

People on line now are almost all also on their cell phones!  That can annoy us, but probably because nobody's calling us right now.

Think how snow shoes work.

 Image From Here

Snow is not strong.  All those little crystals tend to come apart when you press on them.  Step on it with your boot, and you'll sink in.  Strap on a snowshoe and spread your weight over a larger area, and the snow will support you.

Social networking works just like that.

By being socially connected to many, MANY people, we become more stable.  We become able to soak up and dissipate blows that are way beyond our personal capacity.

(And I'm not even including any connection to the Divine in this -- this works even without any sort of religious connectivity!  Just plain humans supply enough support for most of life's vicissitudes.  Add the Divine and boost the effect to a whole new level.)

The sign of a mentally healthy person is that membership in many social networks.

Is the social network the source of sanity or the result of it?

Does it matter?

Wherever you find humans, you find social networks no matter how inconvenient or difficult the connections are.  (Even before snailmail social networks existed and functioned).

Who benefits from the existence of social networks?

The individual (as anyone who's on Twitter and Facebook knows) expends a lot of time and energy networking socially.

Marketers have poured lots of brainpower into trying to figure out how to get the effect that individuals get from networks without spending that much time or energy because it's just not cost-effective.

For every single shortcut they invent, they lose more respect from networkers who observe them.

Why is that?  What's really going on with social networks?

We, as Romance Writers, need to know because

a) all Relationship stories, nevermind actual Romances, depend entirely on the answer to that question. and

b) how in the world could we build an alien, non-human society without social networks and have it believed by our readers or accessible to our characters?  Where's the drama without social networks?

Why can't marketers duplicate our results?

Take a single company - advertising via social networking.

What do they expect as a result?

Emotional support in times of stress?

No.

They expect PROFIT and expect to measure that profit in INCOME.

Why do you social network?

What is the real motive in your heart of hearts when you click into twitter?

You might want to repeat a pleasure you've had - finding out what's going on, who's interested in what.  Some bit of random mental stimulation such as I've pointed out I find in twitter all the time.

That's what you get.  What company would want that?  What SEC form could they file for that?

But what's your real motive in networking (and blogging, even just reading blogs, is networking), not the conscious one?

The real source of PLEASURE, the payoff from social networking is the GIVING.

There's a whole mystical dimension to Giving and Receiving that I've discussed in my Tarot posts.  I don't recall exactly which of the 20 posts it's in, but you wouldn't understand it without reading them all.  Start with the most recent one of the 20 and follow the links back, then read them in order of posting date:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html  

There's a spiritual charge we get out of just giving.

But to "give" there must be a recipient -- an element on the other side of the transaction that accepts what was given.  (for a blog, that's a reader who drops a comment).

With social networking, who's the recipient of the huge amount of energy out pour out?

Think hard.  It's not just the bloggers who drop a comment or link to the blog as I pointed out with the Editor and Agent and fellow Romance blog that linked to this blog.
  If it were JUST that first level commenter, it would be private communication such as on the pay ground.

It's all the people those people reach! And all they reach beyond that.

The real recipient of what you GIVE (that corporations are trying to avoid giving because it's too expensive in terms of the profit in money that comes back) the real recipient is SOCIETY.  The real recipient of what you pour out into your social networking is the network itself.  The social fabric of society.

That's why it's called social networking.

You as an individual participating in social networking are pouring your personal energies into a huge, open, black hole.  AND NOTHING COMES BACK.

But you experience pleasure for having poured yourself out.

The whole point is that NOTHING COMES BACK.

That network must be energized, constantly maintained by those who pour themselves out into it, "fruitlessly."

The existence of those social networks is the very foundation of our civilization and more, even of our personal SANITY!!!  And sexuality.  And successful reproduction, transmitting social values to the next generation.

The beneficiary of your social networking skills and contributions is society itself.

If you're not a member of that society, if you're not your customer, you really do drain yourself dry and get nothing for it.

If you are a member, you benefit by membership, but it costs you more than you will ever be able to get out of it, just like rearing children costs more than you get.  You pay it forward!

The benefit or profit that you, personally as an individual, derive from your non-cost-effective investment is really huge, though.

What you get from the existence of the society you belong to is emotional support, ethical support, moral support, even perhaps spiritual support, and ultimately the stability to absorb huge blows.  Ultimately, what you get is immortality in the form of posterity.

As long as that social network lives, part of you survives even if you have no progeny of your body.

I wrote about this a little in my two novels HERO and BORDER DISPUTE, which can be found on Kindle as a single volume:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002WYJG0W/rereadablebooksr/  

Free chapters at http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Because of your outrageous expenditures on social networking, you can rely on being sane and stable enough to absorb the blows that life flings at you because the energy of those outrageous events will dissipate into your social networks harming none, least of all you.

That is not a benefit a corporation can return to shareholders as a dividend, so they have no business doing business via social networking.

But let's look again at the history of publishing.

I've discussed this in prior posts here. A change in the US tax law regarding books kept in warehouses changed the whole business of publishing.

The essence of the change was that books became treated as if they were bolts or hammers -- just stock produced in advance and warehoused until sold.  Each year you keep books in a warehouse, you pay a tax on those books even though you haven't sold them and they've reduced in value.

It used to be that publishers would print thousands more copies than they could sell in a year, hold them in warehouse and sell through a trickle until it sold out - maybe remainder the last couple thousands.

Under that new law, about thirty years ago I think, the business of publishing was nearly destroyed and then shifted into modern publishing which is entirely for profit, choosing titles on a totally different basis than before that tax law.

Print runs were reduced, and titles were chosen only if they could sell out before the tax deadline -- shelf-life cycles were reduced by weeks and months.

Under the pressure of that, publishing grabbed at the Print On Demand concept, but even today that hasn't entirely caught on.

Under the old tax law which didn't penalize publishers who published books that "ought" to be published for literary or social merit, pricing was all about what people could afford to pay, or would be willing to pay.

Today, pricing is about how soon the e-book edition will come out.  And publishing in general is much more sensitive to price-points than ever because of numerous other shifts in tax laws that treat books as commodities not social treasures.
This image is from
http://blog.kobobooks.com/2010/02/04/when-publishers-set-prices-with-pictures/#
And you should read and ponder that whole article:

And today publishers and distributors and warehousers and all connected enterprises (printers, shippers) are in dire financial straits.  People blame that on the economic woes of the housing bubble collapse, or cyclical recession, or the impact of the internet.

But think about it more carefully.  Step back and connect all these dots in your mind.

Who benefits from PUBLISHING?

Well, publishing, as I pointed out with the story of SF fandom, Star Trek fandom, and the explosive blending of the two, generating fanzines, and from Star Trek fanzines, a plethora of fanzines devoted to other TV shows, spawning a generation of writers who transformed the face of Romance with SF-Romance, Paranormal Romance, Futuristic Romance, etc etc.  Other genres have experienced the same.

Why?

Social networking.

Remember the story of how I got into Science Fiction fandom?  I wrote a letter to the editor of a Science Fiction magazine and they published it - my first published words; instant addiction!  But they published my address, and I was instantly invited to join the N3F, the National Fantasy Fan Federation - a network of networked SF fan organizations, founded by the same man damon knight (small letters deliberate) who founded SFWA, the Science Fiction Writers of America, which I'm also a member of.

Networked networks -- social networks that take more out of you than they ever can give back.

Book publishing is just a larger version of fanzine publishing, and in fact grew out of it before fanzines ever existed!  The Gothic Novel - check the history of that back to the early 1800's.  Go back to the 1600's and the printing press revolution.  The American Revolution and the "Broadside."

Think about it.  That new technology was first adopted by amateurs doing nothing but social networking with a tiny, closed group of people who liked to read.

PUBLISHING is nothing but a giant social network of networks, just like the N3F.

They've tried to make it into a business, just as the marketers are trying to make social networking into a business.

It's a doomed effort.

Why?

Because of the nature of the social network.

If I'm right, and publishing is nothing but a social network (so large we can't see it as one), then the beneficiary of all the effort poured into publishing by writers, editors, publishers, marketers, publicists - the whole apparatus - only benefits SOCIETY.

The beneficiary of the effort expended is the network itself, which out-lives the individuals and carries their immortality forward.

The end result of all these social networks?  We call it "Civilization."

People think the definition of "Civilization" is from the root of the word and means CITY-DWELLERS.  (remember we started this with my September 2010 review column on books about cities being defended from paranormal threats).

Under the old tax law, publishing was treated like a social network that existed solely for the benefit of society.

Under the new tax law, publishing can survive only as a profitable business.

If I'm right, publishing is doomed until the tax law is changed back.  But I don't think even that will restore things because we now have the whole rebellion against the concept of copyright which is the foundation of publishing.

So the 3 things to connect:

A) Puberty
B) Publishing
C) Commercial exploiting of social networking

Publishing and Puberty - the connection is the way sexuality and the reproductive urge toward immortality creates social networks.

If I'm right, Publishing is a social network, or it used to be and needs to be by its nature.

That's why the concept of copyright has become an odious one.  Publishing practiced as a for-loss industry under the old tax law was justified in using copyright because it contributed more to the social fabric than it took.

Publishing was a member of society, a member of the network.

The tax law changed that viciously and I think forever.

So that now Publishing is the stranger, the intruder, the alien, the tyrant attempting to "lead" the social network without being part of it.  Publishing is no longer the customer but the marketer.  So morally it does not deserve the protection of copyright.

Marketing attempting the commercial exploitation of social networks is just an extension of what the bean counters are trying to do with publishing, make it

Marketing, advertising on TV, on the net, everywhere it intrudes, is attempting to lead without ever having been part of what it is leading.

The resistance is gathering.  It is the same force that a play yard clique generates to repel the outsider, the rejected kid.

And that force is the very force that powers sexuality.

Who will win?  Marketers or sexuality?

Lay your bets, pour yourself whole heartedly into your social networks, build your immortality, then watch to see what happens.

Perhaps the nature of publishing will change so much that it no longer is, at core, a social networking phenomenon.

If that happens, will you still read books?

Or will you just hang out on YouTube and watch videos and movies (yes, they're doing streaming of feature films now). 

Or wait!  YouTube is a social network, isn't it?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com