Marketing Fiction In A Changing World Part 8 -- Guest Post by Flying Pen Press on Headlines and Titles

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
Part 8
Guest Post by Flying Pen Press
Headlines and Titles

To round off our discussion of Marketing Fiction, we have this Guest Post from the publisher at Flying Pen Press, David Rozansky. 

Last week we examined Headlines and Titles, -- and there is much more to be said about choosing a title (which is what a Headline is).  This week we hear from a publishing company that has a marketing perspective on Titles with a focus on query letters.  Read carefully. 

Flying Pen Press does not specialize in Romance but is widely knowledgeable in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Gaming markets, and understands mixed genre, though is not publishing Science Fiction Romance right now.  Publishing is a business -- learn to think like a publisher from this post, and apply that knowledge as you shape your query letter to a Science Fiction Romance publisher. 


Here are previous posts in this series on Marketing:

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/03/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_11.html

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

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

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

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

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

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

This guest post gives you an insight into how Marketers think, and how a publishing company shifts and changes with the marketing winds often indicated by the most recent Headlines.

You can meet David on Twitter.  See the end of this post for his contact information.

I sent the following questions and got the following responses. 

Absorb this information fully.  It could save your writing career. 

----------QUESTIONS-----------

1.  As a publisher, what genres do you look for especially, and how do you determine when to change the genre-mix of your output?

>>
Our focus is mostly on marketing print, with the practice of making ebook editions a collateral product of importance.

In that regard, we have a "platform-centric" regard for the books we publish. This has three paths to pursue:

1. We seek authors who have a fan base or a viable platform like a popular blog or a bit of fame, at least within their own niches.

2. We try to create a niche platform and find books that feed that readership. Right now, we are building a tile list for readers of Colorado-focus books and another tile list aimed at writers, such as writing guides and workbooks.

3. There are natural platforms that we wish to exploit. These develop in the news or just with popular culture. Our title The Official Rules of Poker is an example of this. When poker was the hottest thing, there was no modern book of poker rules, and so I asked Kelli Mix to write one. Without much marketing at all, it has done well, simply because it fills a demand from a natural platform.

Things are always changing. We published a bit of science fiction because early in the company's life, we knew we needed a "full" catalog, and we arranged to be publicly visible at DenCon, the World Science Fiction Convention that would be in Denver--our home town--that summer. We had a good initial launch with science fiction.

Now, we are not able to sell science fiction much at all. I believe it's due to the explosion of competing publishers and self-publishing authors, which has dramatically increased the marketing costs of the genre.

The way we choose genre mix is mostly related to "return on investment." I have a really nice proprietary list of writers, and reaching Colorado readers is as easy as stepping outside with poster board and a marker. At the same time, we see holes in these two markets where books are now needed.

And as to when we make that decision, the market tends to force our hand. This summer was just terrible for us in all genres of novels. To survive, we have to do something different. The market is always in flux, and those publishers that adapt best to change are the ones that succeed over time.

<<<

2. In the Marketing end of publishing, have you run into reader-resistance at
a) certain price-points,
b) certain title keywords,
c) certain kinds of cover-images (e.g. the old fashioned brass-bras female fighter image).

>>>

The resistance the market holds is not so much related to price-points as it is to price in general. Higher-priced titles generate fewer buyers. It's also related to value, especially with non-fiction and buzzworthy novels. Competition in a subject or fiction concept is also a factor in the impact of high-pricing, so niche books often sell better despite higher prices.

As to titles, I've seen taboo words, such as Fuck and Bitch, become acceptable in humor or edgy genres. My current writing project, Fishnets and Platforms: The Writers Guide to Whoring Your Book, has drawn positive buzz because I use the word whore in the subtitle.

However, in most all cases, Carlin's Seven Words and other expletives should be avoided, especially pejorative terms. Don't toss such words into a title unless you have good reason and good market research.

As to cover graphics, each culture and generation has its own sensitivities. In addition to images, quality is important. Consumers always judge books by their covers. Art that seems amateurish or cartoony will not sell books.

<<<

3. What sells best into your market -- and would you define your target
market?

>>>

What sells best are books by authors who have a good platform. We are acutely aware that readers follow authors, not publishers.

The target market is different for every book, and there is no way to know what submissions will appear in our inbox, so we can't say that there is a specific target market in general.

I've often said that a publishing house finds its path in the marketplace blazed by serendipity. Once we had a few successes with science fiction, we built our marketing plans around that genre and took on more science fiction.

Now we're having success with Terry Grosz's memoirs of his life as wildlife law enforcement agent, which has a strong regional interest. Are changed to regional titles.

The stiffest competition we now see comes from the self-published authors. Self-publication is now a real a game changer. It affects our business to the point that we just cannot compete.

To survive, we need our own platform reader. I come from the world of magazines, I'm used to building a leadership and then finding authors to fit content to those readers. I am now using the magazine publishing model for books via direct-response catalogs and a new title list tightly focused along niche-genre lines.

In 2014, we plan to produce catalogs for Colorado titles and catalogs for writers' guides and reference books.

Meanwhile, if we should find a manuscript with great market potential, we will certainly publish it on it's own under the Flying Pen Press imprint.

<<<

4.  Looking back at the Headlines of 2013, which issues and affairs would
seem to you to be ripe for dramatization in a novel format?  Which would translate best into a galactic-setting, which would fare better in Fantasy, and which do you think would sell better as comedy?  Please give a basis for each judgement call.

>>>

Is a little hard to say because 2013 was "The Year We shoulda seen Coming."

For example the entire NSA surveillance story was foretold in Dan Brown's Digital Fortress. Fracking could make a good plot device, but it would just be another corporate malfeasance/man-made ecological disaster story.

Still, these are both issues that can drive thrillers and spy novels.

One news item in recent years is that of the tsunami. Nobody yet has written a novel about a California tsunami and how it would impact the city of Los Angeles.

We often see New York City hit by tsunamis in disaster films, usually as a result of an asteroid strike in the Atlantic Ocean. However, despite the news of Hurricane Sandy, we don't see a tsunami novel aimed at New York City on the East Coast.

The future of galactic-setting science-fiction is wide open. The field of astronomy has exploded with ever-increasing discoveries of exoplanets. This makes science-fiction ready for complete reinvention. There is a whole lot of new science just waiting to be developed as novels. Just recently China became the third superpower to reach the moon. It may be time to reopen plots about the three superpowers engaging in a new space race, especially regarding the Moon and the exploitable Solar System.

Fantasy, we need to pay attention to business stories, especially in the field of entertainment. Hasbro, with its Hub channel, and Disney's new success with the Disney Junior channel, have developed many new franchises that are beginning to influence fantasy novels.

Watch for structuring of rights to the Dungeons & Dragons franchise for television and film. Hasbro, through the Wizards of the Coast subsidiary, is about to publish the next edition of Dungeons & Dragons, with a big product launch. If a Dungeons & Dragons show appears on the Hub network as well as a film at the same time a new edition is published, I predict a resurgence in sword and sorcery novels, led by R.A. Salvatore.

As far as humor, I think Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert-style political satire will be the way to go in the face the next election's initial rumblings.

<<<

5. As an acquisitions editor,  would you think it's too soon for writers to
use Headlines such as the 9/11 attacks as novel sources?  That was 12 years ago, but is still active headline material with continued Terrorism attacks.  Can Terrorism per se sell well yet?

>>>

Terrorism has always been good fodder for thriller novels. I don't think it was ever too early to use 9/11 is a setting for a story of courage.

However, the sensitivities of people directly affected and of people who watched it on television must be considered, at least until that generation passes into history. The same can be said for such horrible events as Pearl Harbor, Columbine, and the recent tsunamis.

<<<

6. Given the current media focus on individuals -- whether terrorist
connected or just crazy -- shooting or bombing crowded places, do you think there is any way for a publisher to market an entertainment vehicle such as a novel (or film, or webisodes) depicting either the shooter or a victim as Hero?

>>>

Any story where Good triumphs over Evil, even when Good resorts to violence, can be a good story.

Consider the film Inglorious Bastards. The good guys lock Hitler and top Nazi officers in a movie theater and blow it up.

Now, I live near the Century Theater that was the scene of the Aurora Theater Massacre. I know people who were caught in the crossfire and I often attend that theater myself. Nonetheless, I find Inglorious Bastards to be an enjoyable, albeit violent, story.

My stomach has completely turned against Batman, however. The day after the massacre, the Hot Topic retail chain displayed Batman-franchise clothing, including all the stores in the area. This lack of sensitivity will keep me out of Hot Topic forever, only because I feel a sense of dread just seeing the Hot Topic logo (or even just writing about it now).

That's how devastating bad taste can be to a business.

A novel of Jewish insurrectionists rising up against the Nazi incursion can also be a great novel of heroism.

Nazis make great villains upon which to unleash fictional terrorism.

When good-guy terrorists are "freedom fighters" and victims are purely evil tyrants or wartime enemies, it works. But if innocent lives are taken by the freedom fighters as collateral damage, there will be a public outcry--proximity to current events notwithstanding.

In storytelling, Good may resort to evil means against Evil so that good may prevail. Good may never harm innocents, nor allow harm to come to innocents. It's not unlike Asimov's Laws of Robotics.

<<<

7.  If a writer is looking to rip a story from Headlines, how long ago
should they look to find dramatic material?  When does material become "Historical" and when is it still too raw on the nerves of readers?

>>>

Have you ever noticed that schools don't teach recent history? Basically, if there are witnesses around who may dispute the history book, it's generally not taught.

Novels are marketable on current events for about the life of the news cycle. For some events, this can be one afternoon, and for others it could be a century or more.

When the news is sensitive, stories pulled from that headline must exercise great care and avoid jumping to conclusions. Many aspiring writers will likely jump on the news cycle, often in bad taste, so it's probably best to avoid the story altogether.

When the news cycle is completed, there is a period where the story is "stale." The duration of this period seems to be related to how many writers jumped on the news story in the first place. For example, we are  in a period where Desert Storm stories are too stale to be marketable.

Then there comes a period where the event is "historical." The bigger the event, the sooner and longer this period. World War Two is still a marketable setting, the Vietnam War has waned (although the '60s Antiwar Movement is still a healthy setting for novels).

There are events that keep returning as popular settings for novels. Each generation has a need to relive Pearl Harbor, it seems. Nine-Eleven will likely fall into this category, I suspect.

Writing a story pulled from the news cycle usually results in an also-told story trying to sell during the stale period. The historical period does not pre-announce itself and often occurs in the wake of a bestseller that completely saturates the topic.

Thus, writers are often warned against pulling stories from headlines.

However, there is a type of news that serves well as plot devices during or shortly after the news cycle. These events spur public debate and controversy. Even when the news is ghastly or macabre, if it becomes a political issue, it loses the "raw nerve" factor. The original Law & Order TV series successfully told such stories.

An example of this would be the Terry Schiavo story, which prompted a debate of compassionate euthanasia versus the absolute value of human life. Stories based on this news item flooded the cultural panorama, apparently unable to saturate the market.

Essentially, any fiction pulled from controversial news seems to be accepted by the public as part of the debate.

<<<

8. If a writer wants to deal with a very current, raw topic, is there an
approach to marketing that would sell such a Work?  What "slant" would a writer need to use?

>>>

With the previous answer in mind, I would frame the novel as part of the debate on a controversial topic.


----Comment by Jacqueline Lichtenberg -----------
As I've discussed at length in the various blog series on THEME -- what you extract from a Headline is not the setting, characters, historical veracity, or the actions of various people.  The writer has to distill out the THEME that the Headline defines for a large number of people who read the specific genre the writer is working within.
----End Comment-------------------

<<<

9. What Headline topics work better as non-fiction or docudrama than they do as fiction?

>>>

Almost all news does better as nonfiction or docudrama. Isn't that why people watch the news? That is when the news is at its most compelling moment.

<<<

10. Staring at their inevitable rejection slip pile, a writer may become discouraged from marketing their chosen Headline topic.  What personal considerations of the acquisition editor should a writer take into account when evaluating a rejection that says something simple such as "This is not for us at the current time."

>>>

Acquisition editors are extremely busy. They receive hundreds, perhaps thousands of queries, yet it takes a full two weeks to fully evaluate one submission. The reasons for rejection are usually not explained, or if they are, explain only vaguely and briefly. It just takes too much time to write even the shortest of rejection letters.

It is good practice to remember that acquisition editors and book editors are real people often under stress.

One terrible example happened on Friday, December 13, 2013, a gunman entered Arapahoe High School in Centennial, Colorado, not that far from my daughter's school. It happened right in the middle of #SciFiChat, a weekly Twitter chat I moderate.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg was the one to break the news to me live on Twitter. I quickly began to mobilize parents and journalists I know who have connections to the school. I also frantically culled all the information I could from the Internet, to find out if my daughter and her school were safe.

In my email, sandwiched between the lockdown notice for my daughter's school, and the safety procedures report from the Denver Public School District, there was a query … a query I wish I'd never seen.

The query was for a YA Thriller titled High School Hit Men. The protagonists are high school students who are secretly government assassins. These protagonists must deal with their school's ubiquitous bully delinquents.

At first, I was shocked. Was this some kind of cruel prank? No, worse; this was a legitimate query.

If this was a dystopian novel, where the protagonists are fighting the tyrannical government that has so violated them, I might not be as outraged. But this query made it seem that this is an acceptable reality.

Obviously, the author found that Flying Pen Press was the closest publishing house to Arapaho High School, or saw my frantic tweets on Twitter with the hashtag #Arapaho.

I'm still not sure which is more offensive: that this author was so opportunistic so as to query me with such a story at my moment of greatest horror and distress, or that the author was approving the exploitation of minors as government-trained killers.

Like Hot Topic, I will never forget this author's name, and I will never stop associating it with a sense of dread.

<<<

11. Give your contact information and URL for submission guidelines.

>>>

I can be reached at Publisher@FlyingPenPress.com, and our website is FlyingPenPress.com.

However, we are about to drastically change our submissions guidelines as we move to Colorado titles and writing guides, so please wait for the changes shortly after the New Year.

The best way to reach me is through my Twitter account, @DavidRozansky.

<<<

Keep 'em Flying,
David A. Rozansky, Publisher
Flying Pen Press

Email: Publisher@FlyingPenPress.com
Address: 1660 Niagara Street, Denver CO 80220 USA
Phone and Fax: 303-375-0225
URL: FlyingPenPress.com
Twitter: @DavidRozansky

---------
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Bodies and Spirits

Out-of-body experiences explained away? This page examines the case of a woman who can induce that condition at will:

Astral Travel

A fascinating article, but one feature of it irks me, pronouncements such as these: “This is not an astral trip, like those described by mystics. There's no paranormal activity of any kind,” and the assumption that the experience is best described as “a type of hallucination.” Not that I necessarily believe this woman’s ability proves the existence of astral travel. On the other hand, neither does the fact that the scans show activity in the part of the brain that senses the body’s movement and “makes you feel where your body is in relation to the world” prove that astral travel does NOT take place. Nor does the fact that the same perceptions can be induced by drugs. The purely materialistic interpretation is an assumption brought to the facts, not a conclusion legitimately derived from the facts.

In the Judeo-Christian world-view, body, mind, and soul form a unity. It would be no surprise at all to find evidence of the spirit’s activity in the synapses of the brain. Rather, we’d be surprised NOT to find such evidence. See C. S. Lewis’s essay on “Transposition” for a lucid discussion of the physical manifestations of emotional and spiritual experiences. The text isn’t available online as far as I can tell, being under copyright; however, here’s a pretty good summary with extensive quotes (note especially the paragraph using grief and tears as an example):

Transposition

On another topic, speaking of bodies and spirits, next week I’m scheduled to appear on a panel about vampires and zombies. Any thoughts about the current popularity of zombies? I’ve never grokked the appeal of them myself. (I’m representing Team Vampire.) From what I’ve seen of zombie movies, they seem to be a subset of post-apocalyptic fiction and probably satisfy the same audience expectations. Anyone have favorite zombie books or movies?

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

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

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

Here are previous posts in this series on Marketing:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reading News Headlines is an excellent method.

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

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

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

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

The most interesting thing in that tweet is the PUBLISHER. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why do "people" think that way?

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

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

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

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

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

They claim not to "use metrics."

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

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

Otherwise, the headline would be:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Does success require that sort of hypocrisy? 

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

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Pirate site BookZa claims to be "library", financed by Doubleclick (Google subsidiary_

There are writers who feel that piracy is not a concern to them, or that piracy is beneficial. I am not one of that ilk.

How does it help me --or you-- that Disney and Norton place paid adverts on BookZa on pages illegally offering my books to anyone who wants to download them free?

I own the copyright. I did not give permission for BookZa to create illegal versions of my titles or to publish and distribute my titles.

A friend gave me a heads-up about BookZa. Here is one of the many pages sharing my stuff   http://bookza.org/g/Mate%20Forced

I was able to copy the illegal links on the page, but not the Google-placed advertisement.
Now, what is happening to tax revenues as a result of this piracy?

The pirate probably isn't paying taxes. Is the income from Norton and Disney and other advertisers paid to Google greater that the income would be if income taxes were paid at the individual rates? I have no way of knowing.

There is another site that is in my opinion a pirate site. It is Mobilism.org and although it posts a copyright page, it pays uploaders in WRZ and it does not (appear to me to) ban prolific uploaders no matter how many takedown notices are sent in.

Here's the link to the page of someone who apparently uploads an average of 4 ebooks every day, and appears to have uploaded material encouraging people to infringe the copyrights of more than TWO THOUSAND AND SEVEN HUNDRED works.
http://forum.mobilism.org/search.php?author_id=644185&sr=posts

The ebooks that KellyKing29 has allegedly uploaded are hosted on TusFiles and on Hulkload.

Here is mobilism's "policy".  In my opinion, they would not be in business if they enforced it or followed it.

Copyright policy Last modified: 15 April 2013 Mobilism does not condone, allow or permit copyrighted content to be uploaded to our servers. Please ensure you read and understand this policy before uploading to Mobilism servers or filing a copyright infringement notice. DMCA Mobilism accepts DMCA infringement notices for copyrighted material. External infringements To file an infringement notice for a file that is not hosted on Mobilism servers (subdomains ending in .mobilism.org), please follow the copyright infringement process of the site the file is hosted on. Mobilism does not have access to remove files on external services and therefore may not respond to copyright infringement notices relating to files on external services. Internal infringements Mobilism may remove pages that link to copyrighted material. To file a copyright infringement notice with Mobilism, you must provide written communication using one of two methods set forth below. By filing a copyright infringement notice you understand and accept if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing on your copyright, you will be liable for damages including costs and attorney fees.  Option One, Email: Your notice must contain all of the following to be accepted: Details of the copyrighted work that you believe is infringed upon including its location under the mobilism.org domain. An email address where Mobilism can contact you. Information and/or proof that you are the copyright holder or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. The statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." A digital signature. Mobilism will generally handle complaints within 48 hours of the complaint being received. The contact details for filing a copyright infringement notice can be found on our contact us page.  Option Two, Registering as a Developer/Author/Other copyright holder or representitive: Alternatively to filing a copyright complaint by email, you may register on the forum and send a private message (PM) to the Section Head of the forum where the infringing content was posted. Section heads are listed on the index under the title of each section. Your first notice must include all of the following to be accepted: Details of the copyrighted work that you believe is infringed upon including its location under the mobilism.org domain. Information and/or proof that you are the copyright holder or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner. The statement: "I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed." Once your identity is confirmed, subsequent emails are only required to have a link to the infringing content and the statement of the last bulletpoint. Messaging section heads directly will generally result in much faster removal than emailing us. Repeat infringers Any users of Mobilism services who repeatedly upload copyrighted material to Mobilism servers may have a permanent ban placed on their account if they are issued with more than two infringement notices.

Piracy is big business, but not for the majority of authors who are being ripped off. Think what they could be earning if Google, PayPal, file hosting sites, major businesses that advertise on pirate sites etc had morals.

This is back to the BookZa page.

Rowena Cherry

Mate Forced

Category: fiction

Download (EPUB)Mirrors: [1] [2]Reviews

530 KB, English

#3

Forced Mate

Cherry Rowena Beaumont

Category: fiction

Are Automobiles Passe?

The latest generation gap: An article from the TORONTO STAR about Gen Y and Millennials, their phones, and cars came as a revelation to me:

Gen Y and Cars

Whereas for us Boomers a car was the primary teenage status symbol, smart phones and iPads have taken over that role. I can understand that development. But I was surprised to read that many young people born in the 1990s don’t consider a car a necessity and often aren’t even in any hurry to get a driver’s license. Our own sons (birth dates ranging from 1967 to 1982) shared my generation’s “drive” (so to speak) to acquire licenses and cars as soon as they could afford to support a vehicle.

To quote the article’s overview of the situation: “While boomers continue their love affair with the automobile, their tech-driven offspring would rather get from point A to point B on their smartphones.”

Now, I can grasp the concept of the smart phone as a substitute for other forms of social contact and even for computers. (Although I never use it that way myself. I have no desire to read e-mail or surf the Web on a cell phone or iPad; I use the iPad for that purpose as a last resort when we’re away from home without the laptop. I regard phone Internet access the way Samuel Johnson was supposed to have viewed a dog walking on its hind legs: “It is not done well, but you are surprised to see it done at all.”) But a phone as a substitute for a car? That’s completely alien to me.

Of course, this IS a Canadian view of the situation. One authority remarks, “Also, parking’s expensive and it’s easy to get around. . . on public transport.” I understand that statement applies to some U.S. cities, but not to any we’ve ever lived in. We’ve lived in the kinds of places with such inadequate public transport that without a car it’s almost impossible to hold a job, a plight that describes most U.S. locales.

And without a car, how do you go out on dates? (Even if they don’t call it “dating” anymore, young unmarried people must go places and do things together sometimes.) My aging brain boggles.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World - Part 6 - The News Game by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Marketing Fiction In A Changing World
  Part 6
The News Game
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Previous parts in this series:

Last week, Part 5:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/02/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world_25.html

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

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

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

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


In Part 5 I referred you to a non-fiction book about the history of science fiction in which some of E. C. Tubb's work called "melodramatic." 

Here in Part 6, we're going to extend the reasoning laid down in Part 4 and examine how the News Game has changed over decades (and why) -- which could indicate what it will be in another decade or two.

We also (as writers who want to stay in print) have to gain a grasp of the connection between non-fiction and fiction -- between News and TV Series -- and what Marketing has to do with that connection.   

Let's start with Name Calling as a writer's tool.  "Melodramatic" is a Name that Romance is often "Called" so it didn't surprise me that E. C. Tubb gained that epithet for what is essentially pure male-action-adventure writing.  His work is built on Relationship, and dips into Romance (he does great Hunks).   

The discussion of Name Calling here extends the discussion in the series on writing Dialogue,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2013/08/dialogue-part-6-how-to-write-bullshit.html

The most popular post in the Dialogue series is How To Write Liar Dialogue, and in a way Name Calling belongs there.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/11/dialogue-part-5-how-to-write-liar.html

Name Calling is a useful tool for giving a character depth without sketching an entire life history.  It adds "color" to a characterization. It's a great way to make a minor character hated by the reader so the death is a triumph. 

So why is it that "Name Calling" tags a character as worthy of a messy death? 

"Name Calling" is revealing your own personal opinion, ramming your opinion down someone else's throat.  Neither the label nor the tone of voice explains or reveals anything about the object discussed, but only about the speaker. 

That's why "Name Calling" doesn't "work." 

The objective is to harm the other, but the result is harm to the self. 

Name Calling is an aggressive act.  It's a great tool to increase the pacing and action-element in a scene.  Think of the bar scene where gamblers sit around a table.  One calls another "cheater" -- boom, bar-fight. 

When you "call" someone a "name" (or categorize or classify them together with others who share one of their traits), you are revealing your opinion, which says a whole lot about who you are and nothing at all about who the other person is. 

The statement the Name Caller makes about him/herself (regardless of what "name" is "called," or who is so labeled) is, "I am a person of very weak character, and I hate myself because of that, so I resent the fact that you are not weaker than I am so that I don't have to work to get stronger.  I am going to destroy you." 

It doesn't matter if the Name being Called is a prestigious label or a derogatory one.  The act of "Calling" reveals all.  This is an application of the writing rule: Show, Don't Tell.  You don't tell the reader that this character is weak.  You give the character a line of dialogue that reveals all. 

Putting someone on a pedestal above you by Naming them something prestigious reveals just how little self-esteem you have. 

As a Dialogue Technique, Name Calling is fabulously effective for communicating to the reader that the character doing the "calling" is in a peak emotional state (discussed in previous parts of this series on Marketing). 

That peak emotional state is so very treasured by Public Relations professionals for a reason. 

And that reason explains the connection between TV News and TV Fiction Series (and Reality Shows also). 

As explained in previous parts of this series, the state Advertisers treasure is the one in which emotion supplants rational thought as the driver of actions. 

The act of plastering a category-label on another person is done in this activated emotional state so you don't have to think.  Name Calling substitutes for the hard work of evaluating all the disparate traits that make this other person unique.

Name Calling is a technique for denuding a person of individuality.

Name Calling is a technique for creating a human "herd." 

For more on Public Relations and Herd Creation as the goal of Advertising, see the previous entries in this series listed at the top of this post.

Name Calling -- real, serious, professional Name Calling -- is a complex technique, and has been reduced to a mathematical formula by Advertisers. 

Professional Name Calling may turn out to be the source of our problem with the prestige level of Romance and the HEA.

It is possible that Romance has been the victim in a PR campaign -- or possibly we're just collateral damage. 

In Part 5 of Marketing Fiction In A Changing World, I did note in the discussion of E. C. Tubb's DUMAREST OF TERRA series that Tubb gives us an example of how to use words with precision and variety -- a lesson in why a writer must develop a massive vocabulary.  Choosing the exact word for what you must say lets you say it more succinctly - and that increases the "pacing."  Tubb is a writer to study for this technique. 

The Dumarest Series is erudite, deeply philosophical, and precisely focused on today's hotest thematic topics -- yet it is pure Action-Adventure and textbook Romance writing.  Tubb uses Theme exactly as I have explained in the posts with THEME in the title. 

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

Tubb does everything I've explained, all of these techniques flawlessly executed simultaneously -- and makes it look effortless. 

And yet, the historical work on the history of Science Fiction that I pointed you to in Part 5 of this series, written by those who should know better, "calls" E. C. Tubb's work "melodramatic." 

Yes, name calling in non-fiction.

Why is "melodramatic" a name that's being called?

It's just a word.  It's a technical term for a specific genre of stage play. 

Oh, there's a lot of reasons to regard this label as a name being called. 

If we can understand the nuances of what's going on with this, we may be able to figure out where the opprobrium laving the HEA is coming from.  If we can figure the origin of that opprobrium, we may be able to fix that problem. 

An adjective like "melodramatic" refers to a quality which is only present subjectively.

The usage of Melodrama to refer to Science Fiction and Romance has changed the meaning of the word Melodrama over time. 

In the mid-20th Century, the Merriam-Webster definition was "...emotional in a way that is very extreme or exaggerated : extremely dramatic or emotional..." held true.

The word was used to refer to an "extreme" or "exaggerated" fictional situation - a caricature of reality.

The more modern Urban Dictionary says:
The state of being overly emotional - therefore often in a situation that does not warrant such a strong reaction.

Can you see the subjective judgment components of the term Melodrama?

What is "extreme?" -- well, that's your opinion, and might not be mine.

What is "exaggerated"  to you may seem in correct proportion to me, or even understated.

What is "overly" emotional?  What exact situation does in fact warrant 100% response? 

Should responses be metered by degrees of emotion driving them? 

Remember, we're discussing "degrees of emotion" in the context of PR, and Parts 3, 4, and 5 of this series of posts. 

This is all about Advertising which is the science of arousing emotion to a peak high enough to get humans to form a herd and follow the leader to buy a product (such as your book, for example) -- regardless of whether the herd is rushing to self-destruction (paying a lot for a badly crafted book).

PR (Public Relations) is the mathematical science of creating human herds and then gaining power over the herd's stampede.  Advertising is the main tool of PR.  Once you understand what's behind Advertising, you become immune to the herd-joining impetus of the emotions advertisers try to whip up.

Here's an article that gives you a "professional" slant on emotional content used to increase visitor response to a website:
http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/emotional.html

So where emotion is involved, what does it mean "overly emotional?" 

Where that borderline between over and under is, depends on who you are and what else you've experienced.

Imagine two characters arguing about whether the argument two other characters are having is "melodramatic" or not.  As an exercise, write the argument the two characters overhear, and write their elevator conversation as one calls the argument melodramatic and the other says it's not melodramatic. 

Now review Part 4 in this series where we ended off discussing how Hard News used to omit any hint of opinion, and carefully reveal the editorial policy whereby they chose "important" stories and ignored others. 

In that kind of a Hard News organization, a JOURNALIST can't use the word Melodramatic -- except when quoting someone. 

The word melodramatic itself is commentary -- and Hard News is factual and only factual.  There are many such words that Hard News must avoid.  Interestingly, English provides many alternative ways to convey facts without ladling on opinion. 

So there are a hundred little tricks of the trade journalists used to use to keep all hint of opinion out of News Reports: word choice, syntax, tone of voice, and juxtaposition of topics are only a few. 

Another characteristic of Old Fashioned Hard News was that, while every outlet had an editorial slant (clearly delineated in editorials and never hinted at in News items), and each outlet selected things to report on according to their slant, they did not CRAFT A NARRATIVE.

Today, TV News (and most other media outlets) blatantly admits (via TV anchors) that they omit any item that "does not fit the narrative" being crafted, and they do those omissions merely to justify their editorial slant -- no matter how much hypocrasy oozes through the cracks.  They see nothing wrong with that because it's The News Game -- it's essential to the business model of TV News to create a "narrative." 

The very definition of News has changed, just as the definition of words such as Melodrama has changed. 

This discussion in Part 6 of Marketing is about where that change came from, why it happened, and what that means for the fiction-delivery-system into which you are marketing your novel. 

 Very few people channel-surf News programs and do relentless contrast/compare studies to sift out the few real Hard News Facts buried amidst the torrent of opinion.

Most people don't understand the reasons the use of the word Melodramatic disqualifies a piece as a News Report. 

Most people have no idea there is a Narrative being "sold" (via precise mathematical PR techniques).  And in fact, if you told them, they'd consider you a bit daft, or maybe a flat-out liar.

In Part 3 of this Marketing Fiction series, we discussed the movie Anchorman 2, and most especially the PR campaign that surrounded it's debut. 

OK, it's a funny movie -- but it's about the News Game.  If you're going to set a novel amidst The News Game, you must understand the game, and you must understand how very little of that game your readers believe exists. 
-----------------
Here's a quote that turned up on twitter from poster TheBlackBoard:

TheBlackBoard
"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious."
—Peter Ustinov
-----------------
Anchorman 2 may be an example of that principle. 

In the SAVE THE CAT! trilogy of books on screenwriting, Blake Snyder makes the point (emphatically) that you must, at all costs, KEEP THE PRESS OUT OF THE PLOT. 

When you bring in news stories, your plot explodes in your face, your theme goes out the window, and your project flops...unless you really know what you're doing. 

So that's another objective we're pursuing here.  We have to really know what we're doing when trying to sell the HEA to readers who live in a HFN world portrayed on TV News as if HFN were the only reality. 

So, we're looking at how the News Game has changed (and why), and we're looking at the audience perception of that Game. 

Once you have both of these firmly in mind, you can use Press Conferences and Newspaper Items as plot-points in a way that viewers of TV News who think that news is "reality" can accept and believe. 

So changes in Hard News on TV have happened in lockstep with changes in Fiction. 

The reason can be seen as PR.

Public Relations software, Google tracking, all in service to Advertising can measure audience size, composition, and emotional response to a TV News or Series segment by segment, even minute by minute.  The News item or "Act" of the TV Series exists to 'set up' the audience's emotional pitch for the run of advertising that comes next.

Have you noticed how many more ads, more products, are pitched between segments of content than was the case 10 or 20 years ago?  Have you noticed how the runs of ads are as long, or longer, than the content-segments?  Have you noticed how the length of the ad-runs differs from hour to hour and day to day around the week?  Have you thought out the reasons for all this?  Writers need to understand.  Others can ignore it all. 

This new PR science is called "metrics."  All TV Network content choices pivot on "the metrics."

Driving that PR push to measure and quantify every aspect of the eyeballs attracted and held by the content-segments, is profit. 

The TV metrics' objective is to control which eyeballs are present for which commercials.  That's the opposite of online advertising which aims to choose the commercials to suit the eyeballs preferences. 

PR "metrics" is the business-model shift that caused a shift in content in broadcast and cable TV. 

The shift in content is easiest to see in News -- but is also visible in fiction. 

This business model shift in TV News is largely attributable to the advent of the Internet -- but more broadly, to technology, computers, data-mining.  You all know the NSA problem -- Big Brother Is Watching You out of your TV set, whether you're hooked to broadcast, cable or internet streaming. 

Cable became popular and brought us the giant, world-girdling news gathering and delivering organization CNN (Cable News Network). 

Cable was advertising driven (PR) but also subscription driven as you couldn't get it over broadcast airwaves.  You had to have cable, and that's a subscription fee.  In some cases, Government had to force cable to carry local broadcast channels. 

Cable still operates on this antiquated business model which is why it's collapsing.

Cable charges subscribers a FEE for a BUNDLE OF CHANNELS (most of which you don't want).  They make you pay for other people's taste.

That's why, for example, Fox Business Network (FBN) is bundled by Cox Cable (in the Southwest) with the Sports Channels.  FBN is a non-lucrative item to carry -- very VERY small audience.  Stuffy, abstract, numbers-strewn, full of abbreviations nobody understands and about nothing of any moment to most people.  But almost every single household lives and breathes SPORTS.  So the bundle taken together is profitable.

CNBC is another cable Financial News  channel and is in the general-tier subscription (Bloomberg is another).  CNBC is not a lot more entertaining than FBN but is bought by the Cable provider in a bundle from CNN which everyone wants.

Now, it is true that the Financial Markets Coverage is all about gambling, aggression, swagger, bluffing, playing chicken over shorted stocks, so the appeal to Sports fans is obvious.  Most professional investors are sports fans, or pretend to be for professional reasons -- you have to have something to make small talk about with strangers.

The Cable business model is to sign up subscribers who pay a monthly fee -- then go to channels and buy content to deliver to the subscribers, all wrapped around advertising. 

The Cable company has a department that markets TIME (between show segments) to advertisers.  Cable is a middle-man operation.  They get paid by subscribers and by advertisers who want glued-to-the-screen-eyeballs, and they buy and operate equipment and Content with the money they collect with hopefully some profit left over. 

With the Internet growing, people are "cutting the cord" to Cable -- just subscribing to the feeds they actually want.  That's why your Cable bill keeps going up -- fewer people subscribing means less income to spend delivering the same (bloated) number of channels.  Of course, taxes are adding to Cable bills, too. 

Another reason Cable bills are going up is DVRs.  People time-shift, and skip commercials, so commercial time is worth less because there are fewer eyeballs being delivered to the advertiser.  Cable operator gets less per commercial, but still has to pay for the program content -- so they stuff in more ads. 

Cable advertising metrics show a waning effect -- in the 2012 Elections, vast amounts of money went to Cable ads but barely budged the needle in most races.  People skip commercials, audiences are smaller.  PR formulae are being adjusted.

As writers, you followed carefully the Auction of Spectrum by the US Government a few years ago where they mandated the shift from analog to digital (that forced people to buy new TV sets or $50 set top boxes).  The conversation to spiffy new flat-screen (or 3-D) TV's in digital is almost complete.  I own an analog TV still, but never turn it on!

The spectrum auction re-allocated spectrum so we can have LTE phone-data service for smartphones.  It reserved some spectrum for Emergency Services.  It totally changed the foundations upon which TV signal delivery has been built -- and as a result, as people adjust their habits, Cable's business is less and less profitable.

And Advertising Firms are going NUTS!  PR still works, but their business model doesn't! 

A new generation of Advertising Executives are conquering this problem.  Google leading the pack.  The new generation of ad-execs grew up on a world dominated by Google. 

Internet Advertising is beginning to work, thanks to Google's "tracking cookies" that lets them sell your eyeballs to advertisers selling something you might be interested in.  It doesn't work yet, though.  They keep trying to sell me what I bought last week and so don't need anymore.  They need better spies.  They are inventing them.

With Cable came hundreds of channels -- with DIGITAL and INTERNET came thousand and thousands more channels, websites, blogs, YouTube, all kinds of ways to spend the little time you have to acquire information you need, and entertainment your frayed nerves absolutely demand.

I've noted on this blog how fragmented the USA has become -- nobody watches any one thing.  About a third of the country's 320 million watch the Superbowl. 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/04/us-superbowl-cbs-ratings-idUSBRE9130P720130204

This fragmentation of the market works against profitability -- but in favor of the Indie market. 

With streaming, on a Roku or Apple TV, or other device, you have access to Vimeo, Netflix, other movie deliveries, Amazon Prime with TV shows -- more hours than anyone can possibly watch.

If you track the rise of this fragmentation against the rise in the number of commercials  between content-segments, against the longer advertising-runs vs shorter content segments, you find something very interesting.

As advertisers have become more desperate, content-segments have changed the nature of their content.

This is evident in TV Series Fiction, yes, but much harder to spot.

It's most clear in the TV News. 

As advertisers have become more desperate for glued eyeballs, TV News has become more "narrative driven" and content has changed.

How exactly has content changed?

Where once opinion was prohibited, now it is required to be salted into Hard News.

Where once narrative was prohibited, now it is the only thing allowed.

Where once name-calling was prohibited, it is now reported on by other networks.

Where once mention of the existence of another network was prohibited, it is now THE breaking news story of the day that this anchor said that nasty about another anchor on a third network.

It isn't enough that Anchors yell at Guests who yell back, everyone talking at once, on opinion or analysis shows -- they yell at anchors on other networks! 

Where once the Lead Story Of The Day would be something you needed to know to figure out what to DO to avoid harm to you and your family, now the Lead Story is some bit of local-news gossip.

What's gossip?  Oh, that is another study that belongs in the Dialogue series.

Essentially, gossip is something of personal interest woven of emotional dynamics.

Today National News And Commentary shows focus on traffic accidents, road rage, mentally disturbed people shooting children, rape and other violent crime, and the subsequent court cases.

These are "reality show" drama topics popularized by Oprah Winfrey, but they are local gossip and belong in local newspapers aimed at the people with a personal connection to those involved (such as the Apartment Building Fire on the block behind your house - what happened? Who's responsible?  Who was killed?  That matters if you know the people -- otherwise it doesn't.)

Why are the 20 minutes you have to discover World Events you must know about (to plan your next vacation; to know why you couldn't get a call through to Europe) now occupied by local gossip, oblitterating the information you need?

Maybe it is a political conspiracy, but "never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity."  Or perhaps by profit motives.

Now, as a writer, I'm all for PROFIT.

But Cable profits are on the decline. 

What's really going on?

The same thing has happened to TV News as has happened in Book Publishing under the impact of technology.

As noted in a previous part of this series on Marketing, TV News, back in the day when it was news rather than gossip, was not a profitable department of a broadcast network.

Networks ran News Departments (and corporations owned Newspapers or Wire Services) for the prestige of it.  To get prestige, you had to deliver real facts, first and devoid of opinion. 

Just as big publishers were owned by bigger businesses for the prestige of it, and therefore could publish unprofitable but "important" books, Networks owned News departments and lost money but delivered Hard News.

Neither big corporation looking for a tax write-off cared whether anyone watched or read or paid any attention.  The few who did pay attention awarded them Pulitzer Prizes,  etc. 

The information feed to "the public" (e.g. the audience of a TV News show) was a by-product of the operation, not the point of it.

Then came Pac-Man Publishing where publishers ate each other, and now audience-fragmentation is weakening all Cable companies.

Both these trends were caused by technology -- innovations coming in waves of 20-year-duration.

The not-for-profit publishing operations suddenly had to turn a profit -- Accounting Department Ruled All Decisions. 

Publishers were taken over by "the bean counters" -- and where there used to be indepedent acquisitions editors who chose books to publish, suddenly those same people had to take a book proposal "to committee" (marketers, cover artists, PR department) who would have the final say on whether a book was published.

The Editor would later be reviewed for profitable choices, and could lose a job on the basis of not making as much money for the company as the editor in the adjacent cubicle.

And TV News operations had to go from delivering information to making a profit because the TV Series fiction wasn't making as much profit (because of falling audience numbers).

Not only that, but the PR science of "metrics" could now measure which news stories kept the most eyeballs glued to the commercials.  (I know it sounds ridiculous; but it is really happening.) It's not enough to make a profit; you must make the most profit.

Advertisers pay for your "free" TV News, and it's their metrics that determine what is or is not News. 

TV News isn't just on TV.  Check Yahoo News, AP, CNN, NBC, FOX, New York Times, any source you want -- correlate with the concurrent TV news -- same items handled the same way, only slightly different slants, and sometimes radically different narratives.

They call it the 24-Hour-News-Cycle -- and a number of Anchors have used those words with tension in their voices, with scorn and even derision (yes, I'm evaluating).

Note how there's an ad running before videos, popups and pop-unders evade your blockers.  The content of those news stories is chosen according to the responses to those ads.

The PR principle to remember when duplicating this research is that the "News" Stories with the highest emotional pitch (tragedy, pathos, horror, The Injustice Of It All, Victim-hood, etc) get the most responses to the advertising. 

You'll see this with the Healthcare Law coverage -- the focus will be on the joy of individuals who have been relieved of an injustice, and the utter hopelessness of victims who have become victims of an injustice. 

Watch how that coverage unfolds into the next Election - watch the emotional content.

The reason that statistics, facts, figures and even reality don't count, and just don't make the News, is that tragedy, pathos, horror, injustice stir audiences emotionally, thus cutting critical thinking out of their motivations -- right before a commercial run.

This shift in the relationship between Prestige and Profit has been going on for centuries -- since Guttenberg, actually.

The Aristocracy were Patrons of the Arts (not Patrons of News!  That was delivered by the Indie Writers called Bards -- some of whom had Patrons!) for prestige not profit.  With an Aristocracy dominant, you see the rise of Rumor as the main source of information. 

Trace the fall of the Aristocracy over centuries against the rise of the concept "Commercial Art" which is what genre fiction is.

Now we have almost all Art (even News Reporting) done as Commercial Art.  There is a minority practicing "Fine Art" -- but they have to find another way to earn a living besides writing.

Have we reached the end of this cycle?  Will e-book, website art, etc. draw Patrons (e.g. advertisers can be regarded as Patrons who must be pleased by content produced)?  If not, what happens at the end of this cycle?  Will we break out of this Historical pattern of Prestige to Profit to Prestige to Profit?

If you look closely at TV/Webisode/IndieFilm as an industry, you can see how, at this Profit-dominated point in this cycle, we are seeing Prestige and Profit confused, mixed up with one another, the line blurring.

In the early 21st Century, we have a situation where the only prestige you can achieve is by amassing huge amounts of money.  Power goes with that money -- but Prestige does not naturally come from fortune.  Your current fiction audience is under a trip-hammer PR Messaging campaign to convince them that the only way to Prestige is Profit, and in fact Profit is Prestige (there's no difference).

Prestige is a word/concept being redefined, just as Melodrama has been redefined.

The central problem we've been tackling on this blog is the problem of the Prestige of the Romance Genre in general and the Science Fiction Romance (and Paranormal Romance genre) in particular.  Why the general scorn for the HEA as a life-goal?

Perhaps we've been looking in the wrong direction for answers to that question.  Perhaps we are collateral damage of the tug-of-war between Profit and Prestige.  Romance SELLS gangbusters compared to other types of novels!  We have a Profit Producing Business Model in the exploration of the HEA and how to achieve it in your own life.  Is that why we lack Prestige?

If so, then our Prestige should rise as Profit becomes more prestigious?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com