Targeting a Readership - PART ONE

Readers often watch TV or go to the movies. Today, movie-goers and TV/DVD watchers are less inclined to read books, unless they're spinnoffs.

Now, many TV shows have fan games and actor-blogs on their websites along with recent episodes to watch on your computer or handheld.

On the other hand, Amazon's Kindle seems to be attracting readers who shunned other e-book readers, even though the Kindle version can't do animation, full color, 3-D (which is growing big time now), and sound.

Still, a single title in text does not reach nearly as many as a TV show, and if you want to change the general attitude toward a genre such as Romance, you need to reach a very wide audience.

There is a new movie being advertised as a Romance, LOVE HAPPENS, which on imdb.com has (at this writing) garnered only 5.5 stars out of 10 -- half the audience doesn't like it. And the people who do, think it's mediocre, possibly because the trailers I've seen on TV sizzle with ROMANCE, but I'll bet the movie itself doesn't. But it is getting some big buck advertising.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0899106/

That's a theater release, and it will eventually be on DVD and TV, reaching even more people. But will it change their minds about Romance? Chances are good, the film is actually a "love story" more than it is a Romance.

Maybe Theater to broadcast TV is not the venue for a writer to aim at to get the largest possible audience?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090921/media_nm/us_emmys_demise_4

Is a report on the Emmy's broadcast drawing about 12.3 million viewers, and the presenters joking about the paltry numbers.

The population of the USA has gone up and up -- new census this year may turn up 330 million in the USA. I think it was about 9 or 8 years ago that the population hit 300 million, right after the last census.

For a broadcast TV show to draw a comparable audience to what TV shows of the 1960's drew, they would have to pull in about 100 million people to sit and watch the box for an hour.

Yeah, people used to sit through the commercials and not move for one whole hour. They wouldn't answer the phone, and that was before recorders and voice mail.

Can you imagine anyone doing that today? Not even answering their cell phone because the TV was on?

Today DVR's let you answer the phone, then roll back the show and catch what you missed even if you're not recording it, and fast-forward through commercials (though Congress wants to prevent the FF through commercials part).

People used to pay attention.

Imagine 100 million Americans (nevermind the rest of the world which might also see a show by satellite) all paying close attention to the same thing for one hour once a week. 100 million is about half all adults in the USA. It's not a lot of people, actually.

Then the next day they'd discuss it at work, in elevators, on twitter.

What if you hadn't seen it? Imagine the discussions you would be shut out of. Do you think you'd watch it next week?

Who cares what 12 million people are watching? That's 4% of the USA not 33% or 50% of adults.

The gist of the article on the Emmy's broadcast is that broadcast TV is losing to cable and the internet. The audience has become dispersed, so that today we have NOTHING to discuss in elevators.

Twitter and other social networks though are gathering the paltry few million with something in common to talk about, almost like fandom once was.  Today it's not called "fandom."  It's called a "niche." 

Jay Leno was pulling a whopping 7.7 million viewers in the 18-49 age group last week.

The Guiding Light has been canceled. That soap was on longer than I've been alive!

The 2009-10 season is expected to decline another 10%. (this is from Nielsen Ratings online at
http://tvbythenumbers.com/
It's a handy site for finding the numbers)

What are people doing? And why are they doing it? How can we capture their attention and hold it for an hour a week? If we could do that, would we have the ability to change an attitude?

OK, with DVR, DVD, and Web distribution too, it may not be the SAME hour that everyone pays attention to one thing.

Mystically, that simultaneity counts big time in creating change in what people think, or what they spend time thinking about.

Right now, however, we've lost simultaneity (which started to go away when they deployed kinescope to record shows broadcast in New York then rebroadcast them 3 hours later in California).
http://www.kinescope.tv/kinehistory.html gives a quick history and this picture of a kinescope recorder -- something I've never seen in person even though it revolutionized my life because I grew up in California!  Go to the website for a larger image where you can see the mechanism.  Wow.    

So we as writers have to go for subject matter.

The idea is to rivet your audience in place, hold them spellbound and deliver entertainment that fertilizes the subconscious, and makes people talk to each other (relationships is our business, remember) and think about what they've seen.

Have you watched any eps of DARK BLUE? It's about undercover cops, with lots of shooting and and ugly emotions, but it has a very high percentage of people-story woven into it. The undercover cops are emerging as real people with real angst and family ambitions -- and some of the perps they're trying to nail are deep enough as people to have recognizable life ambitions even if they are criminals and worse. It's an action series with complex heart.

Remember, we learned from Blake Snyder, May He Rest In Peace, that you put the real story you want to tell, your real theme, your heart, into the B story while the A story is the High Concept. DARK BLUE is a good example.

But any Romance in Dark Blue will turn up in the B story. We, however, are trying to figure out how to get the Romance into the A story, hitting a wide enough audience to convince the commercial interests that Romance is a respectable vehicle.

The only place (so far) that the writer can make that choice herself is text narrative. Webisodes, web-strips of still graphic novels, animations like machinima, are usually beyond the content creator such as a writer. And they cost too much, so far.

Google's project of putting POD machines into bookstores so you can print on demand some ancient public domain book you really want was discussed in Wired Magazine recently

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/google-books-publish-on-demand/

And the article has a NICE picture of a POD machine that costs about $100,000 (half the price of a house) and makes a 300 page book for about $3 in about 4 minutes, (the bookstore and google get paid on top of that expense so it costs you about $10.)

The article said:
---------------
Dane Neller, On Demand Books CEO, says the announcement flips book distribution on its head.

“We believe this is a revolution,” Neller said. “Content retrieval is now centralized and production is decentralized.”
--------------

And Dane Neller is correct that this absolutely inverts the fiction business model, just as Kinescope decentralized broadcast.  Change like this shifts whole civilizations, slowly but inexorably. 

Publishers, warehousers, distributors, all had to centralize to produce physical objects economically (huge printing presses doing print-run after print-run of books), organize them and put them before the eyes of potential (only potential) customers. Hit or miss, you never know if you'll sell what you make.

Writers all learn early the term "sell-through" and what that means for a career.

Now publishers only have to organize the information in a central place, and potential customers will browse through and find what they want, instead of going to see what's on the shelves and available.

Then the customer, no matter where she is, only has to wave her credit card and CLUNK a book falls out of the slot at her feet, or downloads onto her e-reader.

Just imagine all those old-old Romance novels that every author and publisher thought were read-and-toss, never to be reprinted trash will now be available in every bookstore. How will they find the writers to pay us? Will they even bother to try? The Google project issue is still in litigation and settlement status. Who knows what they'll do next.

"Home Entertainment" is undergoing the same kind of decentralizing revolution with "On Demand" programming that Google is bringing to publishing.

That revolution is basically the adoption of the internet model -- index it and let people pick what they want when they want.

As a society, we no longer march in lockstep, captive to the schedule devised by commercial interests. (that lockstep started with Radio and early moving-pictures)

Broadcast TV, Cable, Satellite, Internet, reality shows, "news" and "news commentary" shows, documentaries, travel, the food channel, scripted stuff like HEROS or HOUSE, M.D., drama or comedy, dramedy, and talk shows that let the audience have a podium, or talk shows with celebrities posturing, has fragmented "the audience."

Not even a third of the country watched the Presidential campaign, and that was home entertainment too. I think I remember the ratings indicated maybe 60 million or so at the peak, out of more than 200 million adults.

Home entertainment delivery is a huge industry becoming more diverse by the day. It includes video games you buy on disc, and access via the Web, play alone or against living opponents in real-time. Home entertainment includes anything people do for fun at home (with or without viagra).

Fiction, our kind of Alien Romance and oddball futuristic romance, or paranormal romance, is only a tiny fraction of a percent of that Home Entertainment industry.

But consider. "Novels" (not books; they may be gone for good already) may Novels, however, may not be HOME ENTERTAINMENT at all, because they're portable.

We already have a category of novel called a "Beach Read" -- and you all know what that is. It's not home entertainment. It's a mood for getting away from home. (of course, nobody will sue you for reading it in your backyard.)

A whole publisher's imprint called 'POCKET BOOKS' was founded in 1939 (and has passed through several owner's hands), with the concept of a book that would fit in your pocket. Bantam likewise aimed to make SMALL books to carry around with you.

Here's some history of publishing gathered neatly on the web.
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pocket_Books#encyclopedia

Can anyone figure out why a site called absoluteastronomy.com would host a topic on publishing? I only found that through google.

To succeed at this strategy both Pocket and Bantam aimed for the MASS MARKET -- to publish nothing but best sellers. They wanted every book they published to be something everyone would want to read. The mid-list came later, but genres started as mass market (the Dime Novel western).

Nearly a hundred years ago there were still so few books being published that almost everyone could read almost every book, so people had something in common to discuss. In 1935 not everyone even had RADIO -- nevermind TV which was more a laboratory toy than a practical device.

The e-book was on the way to fitting in your pocket when suddenly Amazon and Sony and others made readers that not only don't fit in your pocket (or even in my purse), but they don't bend so you can force them in.

People carry DVD players around, too, to watch movies on the commuter train for example, and that's not even touching on ipods.

I think the entire field labeled by marketers as HOME ENTERTAINMENT needs to be re-labeld PERSONAL ENTERTAINMENT.

When you start thinking about it as PERSONAL entertainment, you can begin to solve the problem of where everyone went.

And the answer is simple. Everywhere. Everywhere but home.

Why don't these broadcast TV shows, cable shows, shows on the web etc, pull in at least a third of the adults (or a third of the kids, for that matter). Why are audiences so small?

Why do ebooks sell a few HUNDRED copies (unless they have huge advertising behind them) instead of at least 10's of thousands?

And given this fragmentation trend, how do you as a writer find an audience to target?

What do we all have in common?

If we don't have commonality, can we be a community? And if we're not a community, where does Romance fit into things?

Rowena Cherry has been talking about dominance games in galactic politics, the clashing of civilizations or at least societies on a giant scale, and how the resulting fragmentation is giving rise to individuals who are drawn to conquer in order to re-create order. We've seen that scenario playing out in the Balkans and now in what had once been Persia, was conquered by Constantine, and sub-divided with a ruler by Britain, leaving the resulting tribal feuds for you and me to sort out.

We've seen civilizations crumble in History, and on CNN. Rowena and a host of others are writing about interstellar civilizations crumbling. Is that because our own civilization is crumbling about us?

My theory is that love and romance are what hold civilizations together. How do we tell a story that will hold this civilization together?

There are some big questions to think about here, so do some thinking and eventually I'll take up this topic of audience cohesiveness and Readership identification again.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

Desperately Seeking A Stopper

A few weeks ago Linnea Sinclair shared a fabulous post about mentoring. Well, I don't claim to mentor, but I will pinch hit on occasion.

This last week, Lillian Cauldwell and I have been fighting a dragonish problem… but we are not well matched as temporary critique partners.

I fly under false colours, writing scatological social and political satire disguised as futuristic romance aka alien romance (which is not set in the future). Lillian writes well researched psychic mystery stories for young adults, and her heroes and heroines are African-American and Hispanic teens who see ghosts and are transported back into history through time and space.

Lillian's work reminds me of Indiana Jones in junior high.

Our dragon's name is "The Stopper" and we can't crack it.

For those not familiar with "The Stopper" it's an escalated version of a hook or grabber, intended to stop an agent or editor from answering the phone while your pages are in their hands. Ideally, one would like to come up with a "stopper" that not only leads to a contract, but that goes viral when the book is released.

Emily Bryan achieved something of the sort for "Distracting The Duchess" (a historical romance) with "I'm going to have to shorten his willy." People who had no intention of buying the book were happy to tweet about the line.

From a GoodReads.com discussion of first lines, come some more examples of great stoppers:

“I don’t know how other guys feel about their wives leaving them but I helped mine pack.”

“I’ve been sleeping with your husband for the last two years."

“When the phone rang, Parker was in the garage, killing a man.” That's from Firebreak, by Donald Westlake.

If those examples represent the gold standard for stoppers, dross might be this year's Bulwer Lytton winners:
http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm

For those who have never heard of it, the Bulwer-Lytton is an international literary parody contest, which honors the memory of Victorian novelist Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873).

Entrants are challenged to submit bad opening sentences to imaginary novels. … Bulwer-Lytton opened his novel Paul Clifford (1830) with the immortal words …."It was a dark and stormy night."

Winner
Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped "Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J."

Garrison Spik
Washington, D.C.

Dishonorable Mention (Children's Literature)
Joanne watched her fellow passengers - a wizened man reading about alchemy; an oversized bearded man-child; a haunted, bespectacled young man with a scar; and a gaggle of private school children who chatted ceaselessly about Latin and flying around the hockey pitch and the two-faced teacher who they thought was a witch - there was a story here, she decided.

Tim Ellis
Haslemere, U.K.

Runner Up (Children's Literature)
Dorothy had reasons to be nervous: a young girl alone in a strange land, traveling with three weird, insecure males badly in need of psychiatric help; she tucked her feet under her skirt to keep the night's chill (and lewd stares) away and made sure one more time that the gun was secured in her yet-to-develop bosom.

Domingo Pestano
Alto Prado, Caracas, Venezuela

Find more here: http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/scott.rice/blfc2008.htm


Lillian Cauldwell is trying to find a stopper for her second novel in the Anna Mae mystery series, which is targeted at young readers from eight to eighteen. Anna Mae is a youngster with psychic powers which she has inherited from her grandmother, and ghosts from the past guide her to find ancient, buried treasures.

She would very much appreciate any reader's opinions on which of her drafted first lines comes closest to grabbing their interest. (I've deliberately not presented the five examples in any kind of order.)

1.
Make love, not war Anna Mae Botts remembered from her dream-vision, but the AK 47 automatic rifle slung over Jonathan Selassie's shoulders said something entirely different. She awoke with a start.


2.
Carried by six teenagers, three girls dressed in white shorts, yellow tee shirts and flip flops; three boys dressed in the Atlanta Braves tee shirt, jeans, and cowboy boots, the Holy Relic gleamed in the mid day sun. Ahead of the procession a sixteen-year-old boy dressed in combat fatigues and slung over his left shoulder an AK47 rifle led the way. Behind them, a dust storm whirled and wiped out all traces of their prints.

3.
Twelve year old Anna Mae Botts awoke with a jerk. She tried grasping the sides of her mattress only to find herself bound with rope and her mouth stuffed with a cotton rag, Anna Mae wailed inside her mind. “Granma!”

4.
Twelve-year-old Anna Mae Botts struggled awake. Heaviness trapped at her limbs.
She willed her mind to break free of the oppressive smell of cinnamon and frankincense. The obnoxious odor blocked her mind and sent her spirit spinning into an opened black pit where a wooden rod became a snake rope and seven metal circular keys opened a rectangular gold box with angel wings outstretched on top and meeting in the middle.


5.
“I’m cold.”
We’d just stepped out from the Lowry Dollar Cinema. The sun bathed me with its heat. My tee shirt clung to my back. Yet, I shivered in the hot sun. Raul looked at me. A slight grin tugged at the corners of his mouth. “It’s hottah than blazes out here. Yar always cold. Here!” He gave me a quick tight hug. “Bettah?”

6.
Missing: Black teenager, last seen asleep in bed, Anna Mae Botts is five foot three inches, weighs one hundred pounds, brown eyes, and a butterfly birthmark on back of left calf. If you have any information, please call the Lowry sheriff’s department at 604-983-8867.

7.
Anna Mae Botts struggled. Her heart thumped. She gripped the sheets. A boy opened a golden box and dissolved into ashes.


If something works, Lillian would like to know why. If readers can put their fingers on why one or more drafts veer off course, that, too, would be instructive.

Thank you, and Happy Mothers' Day.

Rowena Cherry

Knight's Fork

Problem-Solving Sundays .... the future of Chain Bookstores

Who better than speculative fiction authors and a few romantics with their heads in the stars (and the warp drive) to set the world to rights?

So, I thought I'd float a trial balloon here.

Have you ever seen a problem, and had an idea for a fix, but no one to tell? Moreover, your idea wouldn't fit into any science fiction or fantasy work you have in progress? If so, please comment. I'm looking for some guest blogs to put up over December/January.


Bricks and Mortar Chain Bookstores

I'd like to sort out the bricks and mortar book chain stores, such as Barnes and Noble, Borders. They've become glorified warehouses with a few comfy chairs, a coffeeshop, and soft toys and confectionery. While it isn't impossible to find any book that ought to be in stock, many books might as well not be there. They're at ankle level, or you get a crick in your neck looking up; they're spine out and jammed together. If they're autographed, no one can tell.

Honestly, my local Borders Books is like a really bad website. A booklover has to know what he or she wants before he or she goes there, and the chances of being distracted or frustrated and leaving without buying are quite high.

My local library is much more welcoming. At least, I'm allowed to use the computers to help me find what I'm looking for.

Computers!

Barnes and Noble, Chapters.Indigo.ca, Amazon (not that Amazon counts), Borders. Books-A-Million all have websites and online stores. Some offer book clubs. Some offer discussions and forums and book-related social networking. Some are well done, and some are not very easy to navigate.

The only problem with buying a book on the internet is that you have to wait until and while it ships, and you may have to pay postage (and even tax). The advantage of your local chain bookstore is that you don't pay postage, you get your book immediately as long as it is in stock, and you can read as much of it as you wish to make sure you've a good chance of enjoying it.

So here is what I envisage as the future of chain bookstores:

Barnes and Noble (et alia) as a book-related internet cafe! (Warehouse attached).

I foresee lots of chained-down, but free-to-use computers all around the perimeter, and in a central reservation, too. I mean LOTS!

Booklovers would go to a comfy captain's chair, log in with their Barnes and Noble card number (or not), check their own emails (because we all do, don't we?), then migrate to the B&N bookclub and bookstore online...

Or, they'd simply type in the name of their favorite author, or the title of the book they want, and call up covers, back cover blurb, first chapter, last page, author's blog, author's website, author's booklist, book-trailers, reviews... all that useful stuff.

Of course, this could be done from home, too, in the same way that we can buy a flash drive at a compelling price online from Circuit City, then drive fifteen miles to the nearest participating store to pick it up.

Books could be sorted by subgenre. Award-winning, humorous futuristic Romances with plus-size psychic heroines (such as Insufficient Mating Material) could be virtually "shelved" in all six categories.

Book store patrons would choose, click, discover where the book was shelved (or else, they'd order it from the comfort of where they were sitting and a bookseller would fetch it from the stacks and have it waiting at checkout), pay online, then maybe finish their beverage, check their email again; pick up their purchase, and leave.

Local authors might take advantage of the facilities and actually write in the bookstores. (And be available to autograph books on site). Virtual signings could be a snap.

Anyone with a power outage or ISP downtime (or unpaid cable bill) could use the bookstore computers. What a service!

It could take book related social networking to a new level. Hey, the bookstore might replace the bar, though nothing could ever replace Linnea Sinclair's Intergalactic Bar and Grille.


What do you think?
What's your beef? And what's your solution?

Rowena Cherry

Happy New Year and Solar Heat Video

Hi Everyone,
I hope you had a great holiday. I did, visiting with family and eating too much. But I've also been working on my new book video for SOLAR HEAT. In this book--coming to stores around Feb 5th, I go back into space. It was fun imagining what the spaceship would look like and you can watch the video right here.