Sizing Up The Competition Part 4 Futurology

 This is Part 4 of the series of posts titled Sizing Up The Competition.

Part 1 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/11/sizing-up-competition-part-1-tigress.html
Part 2 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/12/sizing-up-competition-part-2-winning.html
Part 3 http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/12/sizing-up-competition-part-3-romancing.html


Last week I ended off describing how I'd upgraded my household tech starting with my TV.

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I upgraded my household tech this year starting in January with my TV.  I got a Panasonic Viera and hardwired it to my router.  I got a Sony google-tv blu-ray player, and plugged the HD DVR from Cox into one HDMI plug of the TV and the SONY into another of the 3 HDMI plugs on the TV.  And I hardwired the Sony to my router separately from the TV.  So now my router has a wireless connected computer and 2 wired-connected computers on it plus a blu-ray google-tv device plus a Viera TV.  (Viera doesn't offer google TV - this is a hugely complex market but you need to understand it to solve our master puzzle subject here, raising the prestige of Romance genre among the general public.)


The Viera offers access to Netflix (as does the Sony) and some other things I don't use, but Viera's business model is to provide more kinds of online access with time -- I haven't seen any additions this year. 

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Here's part of what I learned before, during and after this upgrade, after which I upgraded my computer.

Each one of these accesses provided by Sony or Viera is a business deal, and online Web content providers are really reluctant to cut these deals.

Almost all the bizmodels of content providers doing business with Viera or Sony are "subscription based" -- like Netflix.  You need to make an account with a user and password, and use that to access your netflix account which then charges your credit card for whatever you get from netflix.

That's why I got both the Sony and the Viera access for my TV.  Nobody offers everything.

The Sony has google TV which uses a built in Chrome browser.  Other than that browser which cruises the internet, your only access is what they provide by contract. 

I can access Amazon Prime and all its streaming movies and TV shows, with the Viera TV (you do that by registering the TV's online ID number with amazon so their computer recognizes your logon.)  It seemed complicated to me. 

The google TV is the powerhouse device, the one you should watch carefully -- though for bizmodel reasons, google-TV is being out-competed at the moment, and not making enough money yet.

So I didn't think I needed a ROKU device or any of those headaches.  I'd already ached my head enough to understand that I can see on my TV a lot of what is available on the web but not everything unless I hook up a laptop to the TV (I got the cable to do that). 

GOOGLE internet access via the Sony blu-ray player hooked to the TV has certain commercial stations blacked out -- you can't use google search to get into the TV network URLs that provide access to proprietary TV shows they deliver on the web because those networks wouldn't do deals with google. I also had tech issues with the Sony blu-ray switching back and forth to Google Chrome.  It crashes and has to be rebooted. 

And as I mentioned above, Cox Cable has gotten into this web-delivery model to compete with Viera and Google TV. 

In other words, Cox sized up the competition in the way that the big publishers have not (yet). At the moment, Cox Cable has an "app" for the iPad that lets you access a small handful of stations on the iPad, but only when it's on your home internet connection.  It doesn't work on the iPhone or iPod. 

So when Beck offered 2 weeks free to test out his new network, gbtv.com, I fired up my Sony and googled up gbtv.com and to my surprise I was able to WATCH A REAL-TIME WEBCAST!!!  (nevermind what antics he was up to!  It's irrelevant.  It's the fiction delivery system that's being remade here.)

I should post here an iPod photo of me with my jaw on my belt-buckle but I was too stunned to make one. 

Since Beck was selling the Roku headache, I really didn't expect the Google-TV connection to work, just the way Google tv users can't get at the USA network TV shows online. 

But it did work.   The webcast is HD, but doesn't fill my 42" screen side to side -- it's a squarish patch in the middle like the non-HD channels.  It's good color, movements don't blur, the picture is in every way acceptable though the sound is a bit dimmer than the cable sound.  But the TV's sound tuner was able to bring the sound up to comfort levels.

The picture didn't jump and lag as streaming often does.  He's carrying some commercials already, and will probably add more with time.  The really big bucks he invested was in that smooth-HD picture delivery, and he has a couple of cameras and a very competent crew, but in the first week they had a number of snafus and gliches like microphones and teleprompters coming unplugged.  The set he had built also cost more than the one he had on Fox, but that's a one-time investment he'll monetize. 

My best information at the moment indicates it cost him about 25 million to launch this venture, but within the first week he was out-drawing Oprah.  Yeah, Glenn Beck bigger than Oprah.  Think about that very hard because Oprah's audience is far closer to the typical Romance readership than Glenn's.  Oprah's stuck on cable, Glenn isn't.  Where did that marketing consultant (read the previous parts of this series) say his contemporaries are?  The web, not cable TV. 

Can you write a Romance novel using ONE set?  3 or 4 characters, 1 set, webisodes.  That's the toe in the door our project to elevate the perception of Romance needs. 

So I'm warning you, get yourself some sort of hookup of your TV to your internet, unless of course you really prefer your computer screen or tablet screen.  Another alternative is to get a really big computer monitor and hook that up to TV (lots of people doing that). 

Oh, and with both the Viera and the Sony I can access YouTube directly.  Do you see the POTENTIAL for Romance writers? Do you remember the coffee commercials that told a little story about neighbors borrowing coffee, getting to know each other?  Study the delivery system evolution carefully. 

Beck has gbtv.com rigged to deliver to iPods, iPhones, and iPads -- I downloaded the app for my iPod and it works just fine to bring up an episode of the Beck show (don't try to sit through the whole thing).  Do you see the potential? 

I think he'll expand the delivery modes and methods as budget allows -- he's going for the big time here, and I suspect he can become bigger than he ever was on Fox, considering how shrewd a businessman he is (again, nevermind WHAT he says, watch what he does.)

But BIG is no longer the bizmodel.  CUSTOMIZED is, just like Toffler predicted. 

Beck is customizing his product for a very specific, narrowly defined audience and pleasing that audience beyond their wildest expectations.  It's the narrowness of his focus that causes that intense pleasure.

His audience is not our audience (mostly, anyway).  But that doesn't matter.  If he gets people to hook up their TV's to the internet, he's giving us all the other members of that household, isn't he?

I'm telling you, watch what this guy is doing!  Pay attention to how he frames his message to his audience, figure out the business model and watch it morph over the next year.

Compare that, if you can find the time, to what Oprah is doing and how well she's succeeding at it.

Now, go back and check the beginning of Part 1 in this series on Sizing Up The Competition and tell me if I made my point.  Do you understand what I'm talking about and why I'm talking about it on a blog about writing craft techniques?

Can you now write an essay on what studying Glenn Beck's business model has to do with succeeding in the future of the Romance field, all aside from the concept that if you study his content you'll have plenty of firey inspiration for rich, deep, complex themes.  That inspiration would be useful only if you're not too tongue-tied by what he says to articulate the components of those themes. 

Another attribute of Beck's impact on his audience is the way he slices and dices a subject.  He admits he's trying to make the bits and pieces digestible for his audience.  I seriously doubt that's his own work.  He's got someone working for him who creates these essays or monologues.  That person's thinking style (not conclusions) is the key discipline behind creating novels with complex themes so deep that the reader doesn't know the novel even has a theme. 

Deep and rich thematic material is already native to your thinking.  But there's a writing craft trick to taking your own rich thinking apart into its components, then restructuring the ideas so you can hang a story on them without the skeleton showing.  We'll get at more of that next year. 

And don't forget to sign up for notification of what the twitter founders are doing. 
http://lift.do/   

And I'm assuming you've investigated http://fora.tv/  and know all you want to know about Apple TV.  I've heard Apple will be coming out with an internet-ready TV set, no device to attach.  At this time, people use these things mostly to access movies (or old TV shows) on Amazon or Netflix which are Apple-TV's competition.  Again, each of these sources owns proprietary rights in certain products (movies, TV shows, originals).  Beck is producing his own original stuff you can't get anywhere else.  (News shows, kids shows, comedy shows, Features, new originals by subscription only). 

Netflix reported a larger drop in DVD-only subscribers than they had expected after raising prices steeply this year.  They're after the "streaming" customers, but aren't really getting the growth they expected.  They are on Viera and Google TV and Roku.

The bottleneck as demonstrated by comments on Beck's trying to sell Roku devices to his audience, is the technology. 

The slim percentage of tech-savvy won't stand for being locked away from the functionality they desire.

They hack their cell phones to get the kind of device they want onto the network they want to subcribe to. 

Here's a YouTube video of how to hack the current Apple TV (a device like Roku that you attach to your TV; you can buy the device on Amazon for about $100, but like cell phones and Google TV, it comes with "blocks" that keep you away from some information streams) in order to get to your Hulu streaming TV show account. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSSAxEYaGJQ 
You do subscribe to Hulu.com, don't you?  There's a free level and a Plus, or fee based level of Hulu subscription. 

Hulu links with the Roku device -- so you can indeed get to your Hulu que via Roku and watch your shows on your TV without cable or satellite subscription.  But, you see, the Roku/Hulu connection is a "deal" they make behind the scenes, and in order to get Hulu on Roku, you have to subscribe to Hulu Plus, which costs a continuing fee. 

Here's a page where you can see all the devices that can connect you to Hulu, including Apple.

http://www.hulu.com/plus/devices?src=homepage-roku

But it doesn't include my Viera Panasonic TV or my Sony/Google-TV.

This is so reminiscent of the beginnings of AOL when it was a dial-up service with local numbers everywhere, but once you got online, all you could access was items AOL itself provided to you, not the whole internet that was outside AOL's sandbox.  

Now, remember the question we started with, a deep, far-reaching philosophical question that can generate limitless numbers of rich, complex themes to hang a Romance on:

It can be argued that the whole animal kingdom is at war, and it's all based on sexuality.  OK, it's a stretch to blame microbe-wars on sexuality since they don't have any, but still they eat each other.

The thesis is that violence is inherent in primate nature.  Violence is necessary to ensure that the strongest among us mate and proliferate the most. 

Is this format/contract game of keep-away and the violent fighting back (hacking your this to make it do that) an example of human sexuality properly expressing itself in competition to the point of annihilation of another group's (corporation's) physical resources so its own progeny will survive and proliferate?

Wars, throughout primate history, have centered on resources such as water, food, forests, then minerals like copper, iron, tin, finally oil.  Is information the next resource to trigger wars?

Have you been following the Middle East conflicts at all?  Do you know that the Israeli/Palestinian border conflict over the "West Bank" is about water aquifers?  If the Palestinians win, Israel hasn't enough water to support it's population and they die or leave.  If the Israelis win, Israel has the water and the Palestinians don't.  If they try to co-exist in the same area, they end up killing each other.  Is that human nature that can't be changed, or a problem to be solved by Love (as in Love Conquers All)?

"Water" is a wonderful symbol for "fiction" or "entertainment."  Or even for "information."

"Water" is a symbol for emotion, and fiction or entertainment both deliver an emotional charge.  Laughter is often proved to be "the best medicine" -- and it's an entertainment commodity. 

"Information" is also a "water" symbol because getting information produces the satisfaction of curiosity, an emotion. 

So these "proprietary devices" which limit your access to this or that stream of fiction, entertainment, or information, are an opening gambit in hostilities against the consumer -- and the answer is to hack the device and make it deliver what you want from it.  The counterstrike will be more hack-proof devices, or escalating legal penalties -- or some hostile regulation that requires companies to give away their product instead of getting paid for it.

It's "White Collar" violence (like the TV Show White Collar instead of, for example, the TV show Alphas or Burn Notice) but it's definitely a violence of a kind, a sublimated violence.

The Business World and the world of Games reflect each other.  People say business is based on Football, but I wonder if Business and Football are both rooted in that zero-sum-game competition for water, food, forests, etc:  the competition for the means for survival of me, mine, and my progeny. 

The Romance writer knows the power of raw, violent sex scenes.  There is something very primal there.  But is that primate-primal or Human-Love-Primal?  Or is one dependent on the other?

Questions like that lead to "rich, deep, thematic structures" as you apply "show don't tell" to them.

According to that marketing guru's consultant I pointed you to earlier in this Sizing Up The Competition series, the internet and the Web have significantly changed how younger people assess the threat of another person - how they size up the competition.

At the same time, there's been a cognitive shift away from using the mental shortcuts our ancestors always relied on to identify another human as a threat - race, color, village of origin, or just plain stranger.  That's a survival shortcut, kill first ask questions later.

You, as a Romance writer in SFR or PNR or any sub-genre, must write for the children of the current twenty-somethings, using that rapidly changing method of sizing up the competition, of identifying and nullifying threats.

To understand them better than they understand themselves, you need to experience their interface with the technological platform on which they are building tools to assess or nullify threats.

That's why I'm talking about Roku and Hulu and Amazon Prime and Apple TV and Netflix and this next venture by the founders of twitter  lift.do 

These ventures and a half a dozen others I've encountered (maybe more than that) are all duking it out for the direct channel to you, the potential subscriber. 

One of them will be willing to carry a dramatic product of yours (a story in pictures, video, screenplay) to their subscribers. 

But so far none of them reach "everybody" - not even Facebook!  People get leery and shy away.

So we look at this field and we see "competition" to the level of escalating white-collar violence.  But are we really seeing something else?  Is this actually not competition at all but rather Customization of the sort Alvin Toffler described in his non-fiction book Future Shock?

Is it delivery-systems competing for audiences?  Or is it audiences competing for delivery systems?

Are audiences competing against each other for the scarce resource of fiction-delivery or information-delivery? 

That gbtv.com thing I talked about delivers video of Glenn Beck sitting before a big microphone doing his RADIO show. Lots of "radio" shows these days do a video posted to the web which consists of the talk show host talking into a (super-huge) microphone.  You even see such "radio" on TV, (Imus In The Morning for example). 

Why is Beck joining these people, web/podcasting an image of himself (and others in the room) doing a radio broadcast, webcast?   

Well, it's drawing an audience WATCHING him talk on the radio.

Why?  Whywhywhy?  Is it his content? 

It doesn't seem so to me because I've recently seen a big increase in the number of podcasts and videos of exactly this same format of radio show on a huge variety of subjects including talk shows about books.

Here's one source created by a friend of mine, Lillian Caldwell:
    http://www.internetvoicesradio.com 

That's a web-radio station she started but it's undergone a number of name and URL changes, tech upgrades, proliferation of shows MC'd by different people, and an ever growing number of "hits" or downloads or life streaming listeners.  The focus is on talk about books, author interviews, and listener interactions. 

Currently, the statistics stand like this:

Total listener base is 760,000.  Up 200,000 since 2010.  The station receives 34,000 downloads per day.  196 countries listen to the station on a daily basis.  Youngest listener is 13.  Oldest listener is 97. 

And it delivers a quality product much appreciated by the listeners, creating growing fame.  The radio station was invited by the 2011 International Miami Book Festival in late November to do remote streaming  & interviewing of their authors, publishers, & agents, and other activities going on.  PWRTALK (or Power Talk -- one of the newest names of this endeavor) is the only Internet talk radio station invited.

Passionate World Radio, Inc.  is another way this same endeavor is known.  That name changing happens because as it grows, it needs more succinct URLs and references.  The work Lillian Caldwell has been doing has been gaining prestige. 

Lillian was in Miami November 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, & 21st.  for the Festival, and they also invited her to participate with the delegation from China, take part in their Comic & Graphic Novel Section, and with their youth group.  She's took an intern to work with her crew which includes a videographer plus one other host from Washington, DC to help interview.  Plans included an interview with Al  Gore as well.

If you have a published book and would want to be interviewed on this web-radio station, email     LSaraCauldwell@gmail.com

Somehow radio - especially via the web now - has burgeoned, and the most popular shows are talk-shows, information shows, discussion and opinion shows that consist not of actors telling a story but of a few people sitting before over-sized microphones doing a words-only presentation. 

What do the people doing discussion table video podcasts know that we don't know? 

They are usually start-up entrepreneurs -- not well funded like Beck -- who enter the fray of massive competition and painstakingly gather an audience, customizing their product to the audience rather than trying to be all things to all people.

But they compete for audience-share, for advertising revenue, and try to create a viable business in a field that's changing as fast as the 20-somethings become replaced by the former teens. 

Study this roiling turmoil of shifting delivery system channels carefully.  Study the multimillion dollar start-ups and the $200 start-ups.  Study the few-thousand-dollar a year operations.

As the marketer's consultant pointed out, young people are assessing threats in new ways, using new tools, drawing new conclusions.

Many of these twenty-somethings don't own a television set, a landline telephone, or cable or satellite service and have no ambition to ever do so.  The significance of that has not been adequately assessed by the traditional publishers. 
 
I suggest you assess it.

"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

If you're the canary, you stalk that tiger. 

Wellll -- so I talked myself into it writing this and bought a Roku.  It displays the Beck show FULL SCREEN on my HD TV.  Full screen, not a patch in the middle of the screen.  It also has a few channels of offerings the other services don't have.  It has a channel that offers low-budget amateur films, Vimeo, which doesn't require another subscription as Beck's GBTV.COM does.  Vimeo may be on the other services too, but I didn't notice it.  It has a classical opera/symphony channel.  You just buy the Roku ($50-$100).  You don't pay a subscription to use the Roku, but still Netflix and the others all require a subscription which you sign up for and activate on your computer, then go to your TV and enter a code into the Roku connection. 

The competition in this biz is cut-throat and ferocious - more tiger than canary.  Very hungry tiger.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Big Love Sci-Fi: Part III How Big Can Love Be in Science Fiction?

In this Big Love Sci-Fi series we've been talking about the place of sexual activity in Romance, Love, and science fiction.

Here's the first post in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-love-sci-fi-part-i-sex-without.html

And here's Part II in this series:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2011/06/big-love-sci-fi-part-2-drama-of-illness.html

Last week we looked at the place of illness in fiction.


The general subject is all about carnality in life, where it fits, what it's for, and how various societies have handled it.

In the 1800's, carnality was hidden, out of sight, kept from children and even teens and unmarried girls.

Today it's in every TV ad.  In order to make a point, I had to post a Bikini photo on the SIMEGEN Group on Facebook -- because the product that has just come on the market which will shape the next Sime~Gen novel worldbuilding I do is a Bikini!

http://www.gizmag.com/solar-bikini-goes-into-limited-production/18920/

Possibly that post won't be there any more when you read this.  It's a bikini going on sale made of the new cloth that can use solar energy to power small personal devices (like an iPod or GPS).

So why do you suppose they chose to market this cloth as a bikini first?

And why are they marketing it with an illustration of a Swimsuit Issue perfect model in the bikini?

Wouldn't it be enough to show the bikini on a hangar?  I mean men aren't going to buy it, at least not to wear themselves!  Why show it on a model?

Carnality sells.  Sex and violence never fail as a marketing tool, even (or maybe especially) in a society that keeps such things private.

Remember, from the first blog in this series, that the conflict, the Romance and the steam behind the Romance comes from the tension generated across the border between public and private.

That's rooted in the human adolescence, when awareness of the personal individuality as distinct from the parents first emerges.  And at first, (which is why virginity was so protected and prized) the individual's inner, personal awareness is very tender, very sensitive.

That's why teens tell each other tales of how EMBARRASSED they were in this or that "awkward" situation.

Try to explain "embarrassment" as a major issue to a three year old.  Even a shy three year old just has no awareness of anyone else's "embarrassment."

Embarrassment is sexual, or at least coupled to the new unfolding awareness in adolescence.

Now to the point of this post.

Science Fiction originated as a genre for adolescent males (NOT females!)

With the impact of STAR TREK (and the women's lib movement) on us, girls discovered the glories of Science Fiction.

Those original science fiction virgins discovered a private/public tension dimension that had escaped the notice of all the guys.

They discovered SPOCK!!!  The most "private" creature on the Enterprise.

What was "fascinating" about this alien, what drove the sexual interest, was the huge realm of his life that was PRIVATE FROM US.

Like young virgins everywhere, they were so desperate to know all about Spock that they made up all kinds of stories.

What were those stories based on?  The single episode done by Theodore Sturgeon, Amok Time, which established the Vulcan mating drive (just barely sketching it).

My article on Theodore Sturgeon is here:

http://www.simegen.com/sgfandom/welcommittee/TedSturg.html

And here's one connecting Sime~Gen to the magazine WORLDS OF IF, and Fred Pohl (all related, trust me).

http://www.simegen.com/jl/IFS~GConnection.html

Breaking through that privacy barrier, especially with the SF-premise of telepathic bonding as the root of Vulcan sexuality, fueled the first Science Fiction Romance, and gradually and tentatively (like virgins) explored the carnal issues of sex with an alien.

And since at that time homosexuality was a huge social issue in America, many of those human/alien romances ran permutations and combinations into same-sex relationships.

Why was that so fascinating?  Because it broke a privacy barrier, a taboo if you will.

When you cross a privacy barrier, you enter into INTIMATE relationships.

And it's always emotional, always a loss of emotional virginity, when two people enter each others' private space for the first time.

You might want to read my articles on Intimate Adventure, here:

http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html

So how "big" can love be within SCIENCE FICTION and still stay in the science fiction genre?

How much science does it take to ruin a Romance?

Well, just look at that bikini picture in that advertisement I referred to above.  If it's not available, close your eyes and imagine, then imagine that tiny scrap of cloth as the science.

No mere "amount" of science can ruin a Romance. And no "amount" of Romance can ruin a good science fiction story.

It isn't the "amount" (or number of words devoted to) either science or Romance that makes the story work or not work.

It's all in how the story elements are orchestrated (yes, it's an artform!).

The key to learning to "orchestrate" the science, carnality, love, Romance, and Relationship in such a complex genre as SFR lies in that concept of PRIVACY BARRIER.

How "big" the Love is in a story, how overpowering or commanding, how much the Love drives the plot to resolution depends on the author's awareness of the reader's sense of private-vs-public.

The Adventure in Intimate Adventure as I've defined it comes from crossing from that Public space adventuring into the strange territory of someone else's Private space.

SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE where you deal with a human/alien couple caught up in a Romance is all about how very STRANGE that other person's private space is.  How alien.  How different.  How unexpected.

How embarrassing to intrude into!

The measure of "how" big that Love, Romance, and Relationship is depends on how SENSITIVE the two characters are (how virginal), and how sensitive the readers are.

In our society where that bikini ad just had to include a model to sell the science product, you can see the reason why most Romance novels today include a series of increasingly carnal and explicit sex scenes that go on and on and hit and hit harder and harder on the reader's nerves.

As you become less sensitive, you feel those blows less.

To feel a response to a sex scene, you need more and more detail, private-space invading language, coarser language, hammering gyrations described visually -- or you don't think it's interesting.

So as with the classic tale of the Princess and the Pea -- how Big the Love in BIG LOVE SCI-FI is depends not on the carnality of the sex scenes but on the sensitivity of the intended audience.

The typical Romance reader who hasn't yet been properly introduced to SFR is extremely sensitive (i.e. virginal) with respect to SCIENCE.  So any scientific jargon or explanation they must understand to decipher the plot is too much.

The typical SF reader who hasn't been properly introduced to Romance is extremely sensitive (i.e. virginal) with respect to LOVE.  So any LOVE related jargon or explanation they must understand to decipher the plot is too much.

When something intrudes into your sensitive private place, you squirm with embarrassment like a teen.  Is it good to become calloused there?  Is it good to have no privacy?

So the most effective mix of Love and Science for SFR novels is entirely dependent on the previous reading (viewing) experience of the audience and the prevailing opinion on privacy barriers and the value of callousness.

In a harsh world, you might want to be sure your children become calloused.  A violinist develops callouses on the finger tips for a reason.  Our skin barrier has that callousing ability for a good reason.  Callouses revealed to Sherlock Holmes a lot about a person's occupations.  Our bodies and minds custom-make our callouses, and they are part of our individuality (hence a writer can use them to sketch a character in multiple dimensions.)

Now you might want to ponder last week's blog entry on depicting illness in fiction.  When ill, we don't have the strength to hold up our barriers, and our emotional callouses might protect the tender inner parts for a while, but they too will fail.  A person who is ill all the time develops different emotional callouses.  

How sensitive you think "people" should (or should not) be, and how sensitive you think they are, and how to change what is to what you think OUGHT to be, may actually be the source material for the THEME of that illusive work we've been searching for -- the SFR story that hits the big screen and brings real respect to the genre.

The science fiction writer habitually thinks in these areas where ordinary people simply can't go on their own.  It's the mark of the budding SF talent.  Can you think the unthinkable thought and postulate a society where sensitivity is prized, fostered, admired and required?  Can you go beyond that to depict a society (probably non-human) where such sensitivity is in fact the greatest strength and most effective survival characteristic?  Once having built such a world, can you induce the calloused readers of today's Romance novels to visit you there?

So think hard about how BIG you think LOVE is and ought to be, in life.  What has to change to make it the "right" size?

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Can Serials Work Via E-publishing?

I Retweeted a post on twitter and got into a discussion of the Question titling this post.

First a quick primer on basic Twitter which, if you know how twitter works, you may skip. If you don't "do" twitter, please read this.

-------Writer's Tutorial On Twitter -------------

Even if you don't plan to join twitter, you should be aware of the potential use of tweets in your narrative writing to shatter your Expository Lumps. Tweets work in drama because you can optionally set twitter to tweet to your phone, not just in a browser. News Services and TV News Shows twitter breaking news and even Amber Alerts and CDC alerts. Twitter is THE bulletin source for moving plots fast forward.

People in different parts of a theater can tweet or text during a show and discuss dialogue lines, or plan dinner, or plot an assassination (because tweets can be "private" and even coded.

On Twitter, RT means "re-tweet" meaning that you copy a tweet from someone you follow, paste it into your 140 character tweet box at the top of your page, put RT and an @ sign in front of the person's handle, and trim to 140 characters, then send it out. Your own handle gets auto-added so people who follow you and thus get your tweets will see that you are forwarding what someone else said. Only the tweeple who follow you will see what you posted. The tweeple who follow the person you're RT'ing will NOT see your RT unless they follow the person you're RT'ing too.

Twitter is one-way communication unless you make it two-way. But tweets are "public" and can be sorted by keyword, so strangers can converse.

If a RT is interesting, the people who follow you might follow the person you RT'd.

So when you "talk" by tweeting on twitter you have to be aware that readers will see only what you said, not what you're responding to. Like listening to half a telephone conversation. There's an art to including kibitzers gracefully and your Expository Lump suffering readers are kibitzers.

On Twitter, clicking a twitterer's handle (@something) sends you to their homepage where you can find out who they say they are and what they've been tweeting lately.

That's on the crude interface supplied by Twitter. There are "clients" you can download that present twitter data more neatly.

I wrote a long post about Web 2.0 recently,
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html
and Twitter is just one of the newer and more popular components of Web 2.0. Twitter can be RSS "syndicated" so you can follow your twitter traffic on friendfeed.com or just follow me on friendfeed.com (scroll down the right sidebar of this post for my friendfeed box). And you can put your tweets in a box on your blog, so your blog always shows what you've just been talking about, with links). Simplify and organize your web-life.

-------END TUTORIAL ON TWITTER---------

So I (who follow KFZuzulo and "hear" all her tweets) retweeted a retweet sent by KFZuzulo where she starts with her own comment, then supplies the comment she's Retweeting.

It looks like so:

@KFZuzulo Or by "episode"=Serials!! ->RT @kriheli prediction on where publishing is heading chapter by chapter publishing #followreader

So KFZuzulo was answering kriheli's comment that publishing is headed for chapter-by-chapter presentation, and KFZuzulo said that means "episode" or "serials" which I know is in fact already successful with certain readerships online.

The hashtag #followreader was in @kriheli's original post. These hashtags are used to let strangers sort the whole twitter feed by subject and find people saying interesting things in order to follow more interesting tweeple.

Frankly you might want to follow @kriheli if you're interested in the E-book business model that Margaret Carter discussed here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

So in response to my RT of her RT, @KFZuzulo asked me a question that looked like so:

KFZuzulo @JLichtenberg Do you think serials can work via e-publishing?

And I replied with a #followfriday hashtag because it was Friday and thus the hashtag was "allowed" by protocol. #followfriday means I recommend that other Tweeple should follow @KFZuzulo who is Kellyann Zuzulo who supplied us with a Guest Post here on this blog
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/living-with-fatal-flaw.html
My reply to her looked like this:

@KFZuzulo Serials working in E-publishing? THAT's a blog topic not 140C's I'll try to cover it #followfriday @KFZuzulo

Another feature twitter has is that you can sort the feed so you can see any post with your handle in it. I'm @jlichtenberg and you can find me at
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg

Though twitter allows for private Direct Messages, all these posts I've mentioned went to all our followers, in aggregate, probably over 3,000 tweeple.

So my answer is much more than the 140 characters limit on twitter.com

1) My answer is related to the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom (oy, she's waxing metaphysical again!)

2) My answer is related to the history of the media in all its glorious forms.

3) My answer is related to the 4-generation rule (unto the 4th generation); it takes 4 generations to effect a basic cultural change.

4) My answer is related to my blog post here "I Love Web 2.0"
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

Let's do those points in reverse order.

4) Technology is the natural place to start since this is a question about E-publishing, a new form of delivery system for fiction.

We've finally got handheld screens that are legible to most people, and not most but a lot of people are used to cell phones with some "features" like web access (called smart phones). I read e-books on a PALM TX which has wi-fi access to the internet if there's a hotspot. But it's not a phone and doesn't have wireless access to the internet. I have a phone that does have wireless access to the internet, but it doesn't have a download for mobipocket reader which is the one I use.

And of course, we now have the electronic paper display used by Amazon's Kindle that pleases a lot of other people. Sony and others are making readers, and building in wi-fi or wireless capabilities to make it easy to download e-books and newspapers.

Some new, lower-energy-consuming chips are revolutionizing the palm top market, (with more innovations on the market next year) so we are very close to solving the tech problems and dumbing down the machinery so anyone can use it. At the same time smart-devices like smart-phones are smarting-up the users. Generally, you like what you're used to and you like new things that are easier than you're used to.

I covered a lot of the Cloud Computing and interactivity on the web in my "I Love Web 2.0" post, so we won't go over that again. Just remember it and think about the rising tide of CHANGE sweeping over us. At the same time, think about why Science Fiction is a shrinking genre while SFRomance is a growing genre.

(Though I have to admit EUREKA's use of smart-roads and boson-clouds as a landing field for a crash-down of a space ship is pure SF at its best! TV Shows like EUREKA (on scyfy channel) are also smarting up the users.)

Smarting-up the users is where the 4-generation rule comes into play.

Here's where you should either read or remember Alvin Toffler's first book, FUTURE SHOCK. The point he made is still valid, and much of what he predicted has already come true (the rest seems on the way).


Humans are hardwired to tolerate only so much change. A person can make only so many "decisions" (a brain function as much as it is a mental function) per day. As you age, you can tolerate change less and less, make fewer decisions per day. Read Toffler's book for the full explanation. And trust me, to understand the e-book publishing potential, you need to read FUTURE SHOCK. It's not out-dated (yet).

The result of this purely physical nervous system limitation of humans to make major changes in the way they think and do things during a single lifetime is the 4-Generation rule. It takes nearly 80 years at the very least to make a major change to a culture.

A recent study revealed that multi-tasking (the tempo of the modern world) actually chips away at efficiency and productivity.

Here's an article:
http://www.apa.org/releases/multitasking.html

---------QUOTE-------------
The measurements revealed that for all types of tasks, subjects lost time when they had to switch from one task to another, and time costs increased with the complexity of the tasks, so it took significantly longer to switch between more complex tasks. Time costs also were greater when subjects switched to tasks that were relatively unfamiliar. They got "up to speed" faster when they switched to tasks they knew better, an observation that may lead to interfaces designed to help overcome people's innate cognitive limitations.

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

So the last word on the tech underpinnings of the new Fiction Delivery System has not been posted! But the culture is changing.

3) The 4-generation rule (unto the 4th generation); it takes 4 generations to effect a basic cultural change.

In the last 20 years with the advent of the Web and now Web 2.0 and even 3 and 4.0 starting to show up, with the digitalization of TV broadcasts, and other fundamental infrastructure changes especially integration by "aggregators", we have made several of these fundamental changes in the whole way "the world" works, all at once within one generation.

As a result, there are those of you reading this blog who shudder and flee at the idea of opening a twitter account. You don't know what it is and you don't want to know. You want it to go away, and you can't see any reason why the TV News shows give it so much attention and credence.

Your grandchildren will cling to networks like twitter (it's losing money and may not survive, but microblogging probably will; there's now a micro-blog that lets you use a lot more than 140 characters) and those grandchildren will likewise shudder at the thought of opening a something-else-account.

Through the middle-decades of life, humans embrace these new tools or major changes, shift career direction, experiment with new brands etc. By age 40, advertisers have lost interest in you. By age 50, you've lost interest in advertisers with NEW NEW NEW things to offer. By age 70 you actively resent anyone changing anything.

That's not wrong, or evil, or anti-progress. It actually is progress to resist change! It's progress toward stability, and valuing what progress has already been made more highly than progress that might (or might not) yet be made.

The 70-something's aversion to rapid change is nature's way of stabilizing society because at a certain rate of change, all society will disintegrate. Humans can't tolerate it.

And, according to Alvin Toffler, we're right at the edge of that rate of change.

What happens when a society disintegrates?

WORLDBUILDERS LISTEN UP.

The portrait of a disintegrated society has been painted before our eyes by CNN in these last few decades. Bosnia. (Ireland almost got there) Afghanistan. Iraq. Everyone for himself and devil take the hindmost. Then non-combatants aggregate themselves under the protection of "strongmen" who bears arms to protect, to ferociously exact revenge so his group will be feared and left alone. (Hatfields and McCoys to the 4th or 5th generation).

When the social glue fails, there's blood in the streets (literally) and starvation at home. Foreign countries see an opportunity to seize the disintegrated region for its raw materials and labor resources. Conquest is the result of social disintegration. Starvation. Poverty beyond belief.

So "society" a nebulous, almost indefinable thing (try explaining "social networks" to someone who's not online!) has a use and a purpose, as well as a structure!

So where does society come from? How do we stabilize large groups?

2) That question brings us to the HISTORY OF THE MEDIA IN ALL ITS GLORY.

When society disintegrates, there is no education of the young except in how to scavenge enough to eat today, and build a fire for tonight.

Our vertical integration of generations is what stabilizes society. Lore. Campfire morality tales. Cave paintings. Faith. History. And maybe above all technology, and the science that goes behind it. Technology gave us flint knives and which berries are edible. Today it gives us e-books, a new medium, and "social networks" which are currently "destabilizing" society while they form a totally new platform for stabilization.

But all this change takes time if it's not to be destructive. For a serious tutorial on the hows and whys of that time-requirement, read

C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner Series

Yeah, read SF about a non-human society to understand what humans create and use for "society."

Vertical integration of the generations is why the resistance to change built into the human brain during aging is GOOD. The job of youth is to innovate. The job of age is to discard innovations that are destructive to the stability of society -- because without society we're back to every-man-for-himself-and-devil-take-the-hindmost.

So it isn't improvement or progress toward a better world that elders resist. But they do resist.

They resist INSTABILITY caused by running experiments in change in society at large when such changes really need to start on the lab bench, and proceed to the pilot plant and field testing before being released. But youth is "impatient" with methodical testing. It's the nature of youth, and that's not bad unless it is not restrained by age. Not STOPPED, mind you, but RESTRAINED (slowed).

What the elders understand that youth does not is just what is at stake in their madcap pursuit of "progress" in all directions except stability.

If society disintegrates to hand-to-mouth again, and if two generations don't get book-learning educations, continuity is lost and society disintegrates even further. With climate change threatening famine, sword-rattling threatening mass destruction, and free-travel mixing up the genes of viruses and bacteria, bedbugs making a come-back because of hotels not changing sheets every night, and bedbugs being a prime vector for bubonic plague which is mutating and making a comeback, -- those who have lived long enough to learn to see "4 moves ahead" in the chess game of life want to avoid any innocent looking first move that could lead to destabilization in a 4th move.

Elders can see that we can't afford to be off-balance taking a step forward just when we must face one of those major threats (threats that youth discounts as something that will never happen because youth is immortal).

We stand on the shoulders of giants.

What we have today is the result of vertical integration of the generations - the elders teaching the youth, and restraining youth until they get some sense.

OK, this resistance to change analysis is very simplistic, and you can easily argue against my thesis here, but just wait a few minutes and think about these points as a skeletal outline in the subject of serialization as the future of the fiction delivery system.

So "the media" started around campfires in caves, then minstrels roving the countryside singing for their supper (advertising business model), and continues unbroken to Radio, TV, CNN, satellite feeds, and RSS feeds. (do subscribe to this blog; you won't regret it, and if you don't know how to subscribe to a blog, click one of the SUBSCRIBE icons to the right. Try GOOGLE and it'll lead you to the Google Reader setup.)

Ponder Margaret Carter's post on the business model of the e-book again.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

And consider this treasure of a post titled Traditional v self-publishing: a false comparison by Alasdair White (who isn't the famous musician Alasdair White, but rather the famous business management consultant Alasdair White). I met him on LinkedIn where he answered a question on publishing with the following totally brilliant analysis:

http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

Note that "e-publishing" is synonymous in some people's minds with "self-publishing" which couldn't be farther from the truth. But the e-publishing industry has grown up from scratch in about 10 years or so. Nobody knows what e-publishing IS, least of all the e-publishers, except that it's a big change. Just as TV started by copying the business model of Radio, e-publishing started copying publishing, and has now diverged markedly.

After reading Alasdair's analysis, I pointed him to Margaret Carter's post on the business model discussion among Romance Writers of America members and he wrote me back with the following illuminating insight which I'm quoting with permission:

----------------FROM ALASDAIR WHITE------------------
LinkedIn
Alasdair White has sent you a message.

Date: 8/31/2009

I read through the post you link below and it seems to me that there are still some fundamental misconceptions as to the relationship between author and publisher (no matter what form the publisher takes). The author, publisher, bookseller and reader form a value chain (in business terms). The author invests their time in the creation of a manuscript. The publisher invests their skills (and adds value) to the manuscript and turns it into a saleable product. The bookseller invests in facilities and stock and takes the product and sells it, The reader invests in buying the product and 'consumes' it.

Each part of the value chain is investing time, skill, and/or money in their part of the activities of the value chain. Each is taking a 'risk' with their investment. Each receives a reward for risk taken once the value chain is completed. Except when the author is commissioned by a publisher (who then effective buys the time and skills of the author who then has no investment in the product) there is no valid reason for an author to assume that they have any relationship with a publisher other than that of supplier.

Normally, if a product is supplied to another part of a value chain, then the supplier is recompensed at a fixed value - but very few authors simply want to be paid a fixed price for their manuscript - they want to garner the rewards of the sales (hence the royalty system). Thus, in exchange for a greater potential reward, they risk their short-term recompense.

BUT, and this really irritates me, authors then want an advance against the royalties - so they are now expecting the publisher to become a bank and to lend them money- which is possibly OK (although poor business management) because the publisher could set up the contract in a way that the author has to repay the advance proportionately if the sales fail to reach a certain break-even level. But can anyone name an author who would accept that?

No, the author wants an advance (fixed amount payment) AND a royalty and consider those publishers that don't pay advances as exploiting the authors and trying to avoid the risk. Now that is pure unadulterated greed speaking - but I bet the same complainers are criticizing those bankers who were paid bonuses in the good times but don't have to repay them in the bad - but it is the same argument.

If authors are paid an advance, then they should receive no royalty whatsoever until the sales reach a break even point which is determined by advance+in-house investment in bringing the manuscript to print+production costs (designers, printers etc)+marketing spend+lost opportunity cost (return that could have been generated had the money not been used as it was). This would, on an average novel push the break even sales to around 3000-5000 copies - which, for most novels is fantasy.

The fact that e-publishing does not have the printing costs (usually less than 30% of the final production cost) means only that producing an e-publication is marginally less costly than doing it as a hard-copy. And authors who feel hard done by need to take a crash course in the economics of publishing.

Even with our parsed down operating model it still costs a lot to link the first part of the value chain with the last part and authors need to consider whether they wish to take a risk of greater rewards (royalties only) or to be paid for their work at a fixed price. Personally (as both an author and a publisher), I feel that the combined advance+royalties model is unworkable and essentially unfair as it penalizes the publisher. If authors want the greatest return then they simply have to be willing to share in the risk.

Alasdair
http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

----------------------END QUOTE FROM ALASDAIR WHITE--------------

What has this to do with "Can Serials Work Via e-publishing?"

Well, that question is actually a complex question. First you must understand what publishing is/was. Then get a good grasp of the Web 2.0 model of cyberspace -- and anticipate where Web 4.0 will take us.

Alasdair is teaching us some things about "Media" as an industry that writers don't generally internalize. He's showing us "what" we as writers are actually doing. And his posts reveal a world totally different from what any creative artist would envision as the delivery mechanism for their art to their end-consumer.

Understanding the infrastructure of the fiction delivery system, and the meaning to "society" of the madcap pace of CHANGE in that delivery system over the last few decades, we can turn our attention to the really difficult part of this Question: What exactly is serialization?

In the history of the MEDIA, when did the SERIAL arise?

I honestly don't know.

But I think the origin of the Serial relates to my post on the Medium Is The Message:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/medium-is-message_19.html

Fiction has always been a for-profit endeavor by the fiction creator. The shaman was supported by the tribe in exchange for Wisdom conveyed in a form they could understand and use. The Minstrel brought news and got fed for it. In the Middle Ages, Church copyists copied older documents and were supported by charity gifts to the church, and by their scribe function. Think about it in terms of a business model - the fiction-delivery-system and the news-delivery-system.

The printing press, of course, is the evolutionary step in "The Media" which is comparable to the leap into electronic distribution.

But this one, Web 2.0, social networking, and gaming (interactivity between the consumer and the story), is much bigger even than the printing press or even "motion pictures."

If words are to be distributed FOR PROFIT, they have to go down a delivery system that has a pre-determined size, shape, delivery point and most especially that "value chain" that Alasdair White tutored us in.

The delivery system is the "business" and the words are just the commodity being purveyed by the business.

This is something new writers trying to "sell" their work have a very hard time grasping. They think of editors as "gatekeepers" who favor one person over another rather than African hunters spearing fast-moving antelope in a jungle to supply meat to a Packer shipping to South America.

I wrote a lengthy reply to a Question on a LinkedIn Group I'm on (LinkEds & Writers). I'm going to insert that Answer here because most of you won't be able to access it inside the Social Network and INSIDE a "Group" within that Social Network. Most readers can skip this insert. I'm mostly just sending the new writers to absorb Alasdair White's post on publishing as a business.

-----------FROM Q&A on LINKEDIN.COM LINKEDS&WRITERS----------

Q: I just distilled and posted an email I got from a very disgruntled young writer. It's a rant about the industry - what would you advise this writer?

Here's the transcribed email
http://ontext.com/2009/08/beginning-writer-bitches-publishing-industry/

A: (by Jacqueline Lichtenberg - there are well over 30 Answers so far -- I'm editing mine down)

I have encountered this "beginning writer's rant" that has echoed down the ages.

Beginner Commercial Artists are both right and wrong because they don't understand what they are doing or what the "industry" does or should do, but they do understand that what the industry is doing is wrong somehow, inadequate or philosophically askew.

I'm in a discussion with another LinkedIn member who answered a question on self-publishing with a marvelous analysis of the business models of publishing of all sorts.

His name is Alasdair White (but he isn't the famous Scottish musician).

I saw his answer to a question on LinkedIn and urged him to post it on a blog where anyone could get at it so I could point people at it. I mentioned it on twitter and made White a new fan out of a publisher.

The blog entry is here:
http://pm-solutions.com/infosys/blog/?p=32

Then I linked to White's post in a blog I will post on Tuesday Sept. 1, 2009. I'm a writer and co-blog with other writers on the craft and the industry, with a lot of beginning writers among our readers. My day to post is Tuesday.

I told Alasdair White that I would post a link to his blog, and pointed him to a post on the co-blog about an argument among Romance Writers of America members regarding the status of e-publishing.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/business-model-of-e-publishing.html

Alasdair kindly read that entry by my co-blogger Margaret Carter, and emailed me a lengthy and brilliant answer which I am going to ask if I can insert into my blog with a link to his. But I found this question first.

I think this discussion and analysis of publishing as a business from the management point of view that Alasdair brings to it (and his exemplary articulateness) is just the vision that new authors in the "rant" stage need the most.

Armed with this view of art as commodity, and understanding publishing (or video or TV or other media) as a business that must be managed, a new writer in the throes of The Rant may be able to found his own publishing business and serve his own target audience, or perhaps become the dominant player in the entire Entertainment Delivery System.

I am convinced our Fiction Delivery System is massively out of kilter and about to break. I think it should break. We are entering a new era and need an entirely new Fiction Delivery System.

However, the principles Alasdair so succinctly gives us in plain layman's language, will prevail. Nobody who attempts to create the new Fiction Delivery System can succeed without a full grasp of this picture.

Alasdair gives us the view from outside that artists need to make the leap from Art to Commercial Art.
-----------------END QUOTE FROM Q&A-------------

So again, what has this to do with where Serialization came from and where it's going?

We have serialization because the STORY we want to send down that value-chain delivery system channel is larger than the channel, so we have to break it into pieces (just as an email or web-page is broken to be sent across the internet then reassembled).

A cave dweller's campfire only lasts so long, and dawn's chores come too soon. Stories had to be SHORT -- or serialized.

Dickens serialized his novels in newspapers, same reason. Reach more people, don't try their patience with long involved exposition, leave them wanting MORE, serialize the story.

Magazines, especially genre ones like Action, Mystery and Science Fiction, relied on the Serialized Novel to bait readers into subscribing (back when a magazine cost 25 cents and that was a lot of money).

Radio brought the radio serial, and soap opera serialization which became the story-arc I've discussed here at length along with story structure and how to create and place climaxes, though I didn't address the issue of how to structure climaxes to allow a novel to be serializable. (yes, there is a craft technique for that, too.)

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

Radio serials like The Lone Ranger and Superman translated directly to early TV. Yes, though made in anthology format, The Lone Ranger (also running as a comic strip in newspapers), actually had a story arc, the story of the man who was the lone survivor of a Ranger compliment ambushed by the Cavendish band. The Lone Ranger had a story-arc mission -- nail Cavendish. He wore the mask so Cavendish would not know he was a survivor of that battle, and would drop the mask only after Cavendish was dead.

And of course, don't forget Dr. Who just because it was only in England all those years before we imported the TV show.

And early film resorted to the Serial installments (Buck Rogers etc) to get people into the theater to see the A and B pictures even if they really weren't that interested -- and that loyal audience then made superstars out of actors like Ginger Rogers, Cary Grant, Bing Crosby. The weekly serial installment was the value-added along with a few cartoons.

So serials exist because the delivery mechanism is too narrow for the entire story as one piece, and as bait to get an audience for some other product.

The "delivery mechanism size" issue includes the problem of the audience's attention span.

Cave men couldn't sit by the fire for 6 hours every night. Today's audience won't sit in a theater for 4 or 5 hours to watch 2 movies, 2 serial installments, and 4 cartoons (an afternoon like that used to cost $0.50 -- $0.25 if you were under 12).

So today's theaters offer 2 hours and COMMERCIALS. But films are more and more often becoming series if not actual serials!

Meanwhile, we have a trend I've been documenting in my review columns for the beginning of 2010, reviewing many many books which are parts of long series or beginnings of new series.

http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/2010/

Series and serials have one thing in common -- cliffhanger climaxes. It's only the placement of the climaxes and story-arc shape that differs. But they both accomplish one thing. They break a story into short chunks that can fit into the commercially driven business of delivery and parse into that "value chain" that White is tutoring us in.

Although the e-book and blog-posting format doesn't limit the size of posts (except for the technical issue of how long it takes to download which is largely solved), the person who reads the e-media limits the practical length by simply not having the attention span, or the actual time to read, or possibly the interest. (Yes, I know, this post is way too long and very boring, but it's a complicated question!)

The generation raised on Sesame Street has been conditioned to the commercial-break sound-byte length installments.

So though the actual e-medium can carry 6 or even 10 hours of reading in one download, the longer the piece the smaller the audience.

One thing all writers agree on. The objective is to reach a larger audience, the bigger the better. That's why microblogging like Twitter is burgeoning and the quality of a tweeter is measured by the number of followers, and their followers rather than the information density of the tweets put out.

The children of the Sesame Street generation and their children now, are jittery nervous wrecks compared to readers of the Elizabethan era.

The expository lump was regarded as richness in the Elizabethan era, and practiced as an artform (really! I studied it as an artform in High School where it was revered!) Today the expository lump is anathema.

So serialization leaves you with the problem of "What Has Gone Before." The e-serial can solve this with a hyperlink! But most readers won't follow the link.

Which leaves writers with this problem I indicated in my first point.

1) My answer is related to the difference between Knowledge and Wisdom

Can you tell me what that difference is and why it's related to the issue of whether serials can work via E-publishing?

Let's try this easy thumbnail, micro-blog size definition.

Knowledge is facts; Wisdom connects facts into a pattern.

That's wholly inadequate, but let's run with it.

I've talked a lot about pattern recognition on this blog, because it's a basic component of art. Here's one of my posts which is about the key question any Romance has to answer, "What Does She See In Him?"

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

Notice how I keep tossing in links here to other blog posts? To answer the question Can Serials Work Via E-Publishing?, I have to arrange those little but convoluted points I've made in previous blogs into a pattern you can recognize.

What have I been talking about here since I launched into my 20 posts on The Tarot?

See: http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2007/12/10-pentacles-cake-comes-out-of-oven.html
and follow the links back to Ace of Swords.

The overall objective of my many posts here is to figure out why the Romance genre in general, and maybe the SFR and PNR sub-genres too, are so scorned.

This question, Can Serials Work via E-publishing holds a clue to the answer if you can see the pattern behind these 4 points I'm highlighting.

The solution to a problem lies in the formulation of the problem. How you ask the question determines the answer. You can't solve an algebra problem unless you can state it properly.

KFZuzulo has given us an opening statement that could lead to the solution.

20 years ago, Romance genre publishing shunned the sequel, the series, and the story arc. Each novel had to be self-contained, (have very little if any sex), and end with an HEA.

Each story would have to start with the couple meeting, and end with them deciding to settle down together.

That's a tiny slice out of a story-arc of life, and it's the slice where more than likely Neptune is messing both of the characters up with some transit or another.

Usually, the Romance Novel would cover a time-span of weeks, months at most -- some maybe a year so you could do two Thanksgiving Dinner scenes.

The couple would meet, forget the rest of the world exists, and settle down to live HEA. The background, setting, world news situation, career goals, supporting cast, and everything else was incidental and often not well done. The Historicals, Regencies, etc broke through that mold and gave us richly researched detail from the real world history, showing that the typical Romance reader was educated and curious, and could enjoy learning useless trivia just for fun.

But the main story was still largely without conflict, without combat to the death, without a town or corporation or enterprise that was more important to the couple than their relationship. And most especially without challenging the premise: Love Conquers All.

The general reader would see the Romance as too easy, too comic-book, too facile. Too obvious.

In the old fashioned comic book (not the graphic novel mind you!) the characters would CHANGE the instant they hit epiphany, saw the light, understood who the villain really was, and would act without hesitation or introspection -- and all this would happen within a ridiculously short time frame.

For a real person to undergo serious spiritual enlightenment, character change at a basic level, major maturation, takes TIME. Years, not months. Decades not years. The bigger the lesson, the longer it takes to go from the mental insight to actual behavior.

The Romance often turns on an issue of the commitment-shy, on previously burned lover who just can't be sure this isn't a rerun of that failure.

Other plots use various reasons why one lover can't give her/ himself completely to another person, and use that instead of real conflict. (that's an internal conflict, not enough to turn a plot)

Romance has always explored the deepest psychological urges, wishes, aspirations, and vast issues of self-image, self-esteem -- massive psychological issues.

But 20 years ago, the genre required an author to invent new characters for each book, and resolve that character's deepest (hardest) psychological issues in 400 pages (or less).

These novels would span a few days, weeks, months, and chronicle personality changes that in reality take years, decades, or several lifetimes of karmic progress.

And the characters would walk away from these life-long problems scott free into HEA, as if they would never have that problem again.

This compressed time-frame and abbreviated page-count created a story that most people just couldn't decode. It would seem that the characters were cardboard puppets manipulated by the authors through unrealistic gyrations.

Today that's all changed. (well, not in all branches of the field).

Today though, the Fantasy field has produced the super-sized long novel sometimes spanning decades and generations. Some characters are hundreds of years old already (I do love Vampire novels).

The SFR can span decades of a character's life.

Women in Romances are expected to have a career, hobbies, interests, and an eclectic education. Some women are corporate bosses, and still have Romance in their souls.

Both women and men can be deeply involved in the issues of their world. That means that the internal conflicts that take a lifetime to work through can be REFLECTED in the external world the writer builds, and those conflicts can be tackled and partially resolved externally, or even symbolically, and thus the resolution and character-arc can seem far more realistic to readers (because that's how life actually works as explained in my Tarot posts).

Which means there can be, and usually has to be, a sequel or three.

With more room, the writer can tell you a much more realistic story about the stages of maturation and soul growth any human must go through in order to cement a love relationship that has a chance to last HEA.

Which brings us to the ultimate point.

KNOWLEDGE of what happened to a couple can be conveyed in one of these old fashioned Romance novels. The reader can add the details and stages of development by imagining it all on a more realistic time-frame. The novel only has to convey the KNOWLEDGE of what happened and who it happened to.

But if a reader is not already in the context of the Romance field, ready to imagine the years and years of character arc that are not detailed in the story, and picks up one of these old-style abbreviated novels, and absorbs the KNOWLEDGE of what happened the story makes no sense. And they discard the whole genre because of the "shallowness" of the characters.

The Romance author has given KNOWLEDGE (facts, actions, feelings as facts) but no WISDOM.

The reader outside the context of Romance can't see the PATTERN. They can't see there is a Wisdom to be acquired.

The main theme of the Romance Genre is LOVE CONQUERS ALL.

"Love Conquers All" is WISDOM, not knowledge.

I can tell someone that love conquers all with a straight face and they'll just laugh and shrug it off as inappropriate hyperbole.

They get the FACT that I said it. They have the KNOWLEDGE of what it means. But the WISDOM escapes them totally because they can't see the pattern made by scattered bits of knowledge that I have but they don't.

You can't convey the meaning of Love Conquers All, or the realistic-ness of it, in 400 pages. That's too small a chunk to contain wisdom, though it can contain knowledge.

Artists (and as Alma Hill taught me; Writing Is A Performing Art) reveal those patterns that people with scattered bits of knowledge can't see.

What art is for is to convey WISDOM, not facts.

To convey Wisdom vertically down the generations, binding society together and stabilizing it so the children can grow up secure in self-knowledge is the mission of the Artist.

The old Romance Genre was constrained to eschew Art and thus could only suggest a sketch of the Wisdom that Love Conquers All. To enjoy reading that old genre, you pretty much had to engulf the Wisdom that love conquers all before you started reading.

The new Romance Genre has had the shackles taken off by competition from e-publishing, just as women threw off the shackles of second-class citizenship in the 1970's. That was nearly 40 years ago. 2 X 20 years ago. We're HALFWAY through the 4 generations needed to make this change.

The new Romance Genre may lead us through the second half of this transition because of the advent of (#4 of my points) TECHNOLOGY.

Web 2.0, interactivity, RSS feeds, blogs, all these tools of distribution and publicity, are a new delivery system constrained by the audience to the short-take and the sound-byte. The YouTube video says it all in 90 seconds or less. Usually much less.

Structure the story into SCENES as I described in
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/07/6-tricks-of-scene-structure-part-2.html

The Love Conquers All romance novel SERIES or SERIALIZATION is uniquely suited to convey this intangible, unbelievable but vital bit of wisdom to younger generations because now you can tell your whole story, raise understanding of the rich complexity of identity and relationship, and then connect your data points into a pattern your artist's eye sees.

That pattern seen by the artist, encoded into fiction, and conveyed to the non-artist is Wisdom. And that Wisdom is the "Value" you contribute to Alasdair White's "Value Chain."

So with online technology you can tell a story that spans a long enough time-frame that the psychological changes your characters undergo seem realistic, convincing, maybe inevitable. You can do that by serializing Flash Gordon style -- or maybe invent an entirely new style.

With the 6 tricks of scene structure, you can block your scenes and connect them into neat chapters that will each start with a powerful narrative hook and end with a cliff hanger fraught with questions about what will happen next. Somebody please remind me to do a Part 3 to the scene structure series covering serialization.

With serialization giving you enough space to develop the details of step-wise psychological change, you can tell a Romance to anti-Romance readers and make them believe every word.

It's all about enough space to tell the story, and as our ancestor storytellers have taught us, the way to get more space is to serialize and serialization turns knowledge of isolated facts into the rich tapestry of wisdom.

Love Conquers All as knowledge is worthless. As wisdom, it is priceless.

You can deliver that payload of wisdom, even or maybe especially, in the e-published serialization, whether it's self-published, or in a newsletter or e-zine, or by a volume e-publisher or a big trade publisher.  But whatever method you adopt, Aladair White's wisdom about the "Value-Chain" has to be applied. 

That Value Chain concept is an Ancient Wisdom we all need to grasp. 

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://twitter.com/jlichtenberg

Continuing series, when a story doesn't work.

When researching victorian England for my Steampunk proposal I came up with an interesting fact. The Buffalo Bill Wild West Show appeared in England in 1887. I try to remain as historically actuate as possible, even though this book has fantasy elements and thowing a cowboy who is very good with his guns into the mix set my heart all aflutter. I write cowboys well and it seemed much more interesting than writing your typical British Lord of that time. I needed someone who could be in the same social circle as my heroine but also be forbidden. So Dax became a cowboy with a past.

I wanted him to have a rough edge of danger but also be able to pass in the society of the day. So I created a history for him. Dax was raised my his grandmother, a grand society dame in Boston. His mother died in childbirth and his father, who was a Doctor was stricken with grief and took off for the west. When Dax reached his late teens he took off to find his father who was living with the Sioux. Dax fell in love with Rebekah who'd was raised in the tribe. She died from a plague along with his father and once more Dax took off to become a scout for the army. He was part of the hunt for Geronimo and at one time was captured and tortured by the Apache. AFter his rescue he decided he'd had enough of the west and wanted to travel. He hooked up with the Wild West show and became Kid Cochran, the fastest gun alive.

The following is the first chapter which contains the meet between the Hero and Heroine and hopefully draws the reader into the story.

Prism

April 14, 1887

“What ever is the hold up?” Thomas Chadwyke, Earl of Pemberton rapped the silver handle of his walking stick on the roof of the carriage to get the attention of his driver. They had come to a complete stop on Gloucester Street and the Earl’s impatience was as usual, quite evident.
“It seems to be some sort of parade Sir,” Harry, the driver called down from his perch. “Coming from the train station.”
“A parade?” The Earl stuck his head through the carriage window.
“Really, Thomas,” Evelyn, Countess Pemberton said. “Don’t be crass.”
The Earl ignored her as he hung out the window and exclaimed quite loudly. “It’s the Americans! And I believe those fellows wrapped up in blankets are Indians.” The Countess leaned forward and peered through the window on her side of the carriage as the Earl continued with his exclamations. “Good Lord, those must be buffalo.”
“Oh!” The Countess said as she sat back onto her seat. “The smell is quite dreadful.” She pulled an embroidered square of linen from her reticule and placed it over the lower half of her face. “Merritt,” she said to her daughter. “Quickly, cover your face before some horrid disease creeps in.”
Before Merritt could respond, or even protest, her nurse and constant companion, Rose, slapped a ready handkerchief over the lower half of Merritt’s face and held it there. Merritt knew from experience that it would do no good to protest, or even move as Rose, in direct contradiction to her name, was extremely strong for a woman.
It was one of the requirements Rose met when she was interviewed for the position after discreet inquires were made by her parents. They lived with the fear that Merritt would hurt herself when she was in the throes of one of her spells, therefore her nurse must have the physical strength to keep that from happening. Merritt always wondered what it was they expected to happen to her since her spells usually entailed her speaking of strange things while seeming to lose all touch with what was happening around her. She was glad to know that with Rose’s constant care she would not throw herself from a window or cut herself with a butter knife which were just a few of the ways her mother’s vivid imagination had conjured up for Merritt to injure herself.
Merritt placed her hand over Rose’s and smiled agreeably with her eyes, since that was all of her face that was showing. She practically sighed in relief when Rose released the linen into her care and went about the business of protecting her own mouth and nose from whatever dreaded disease her mother was going on about.
“I do wish they would hurry,” the Countess said. “We’re going to miss our appointment.” The countess peered out her window once more as if just looking at the delay would convince it to stop inconveniencing her. Merritt sat with her back to the front of her carriage so could not see what was creating the stir. She was tempted to look but knew it would result in more fussing from her mother and Rose so instead she stared complacently ahead and tried not to think about what the day held in store for her.
If only we would miss the appointment…That would not trouble Merritt in the least. It would be cause for much rejoicing on her part. She might even be tempted to join the parade of Americans herself if only to prolong it so that she could miss her appointment. Of course that would be enough to send her mother into one of her own spells. She did her best not to laugh aloud at the vision of her mother swooning into her father’s arms while their rebellious daughter chased down the street after buffalo and wild Indians. Luckily the handkerchief covered the quivering of her lips as she suppressed the urge.
“I do believe they are coming this way,” the Earl said. He resumed his seat. “There are policemen about directing the carriages to move over to the side.”
“Oh, if only we had known,” the Countess exclaimed. “We could have traveled another route.”
“It was my understanding that they were supposed to ride the train all the way to the exhibition grounds,” the Earl said. “I say, it will not do to have the streets of London run amok with these wild creatures.”
“Are you referring to the buffalo or the Indians?” The Countess asked.
“Both.” The carriage lurched as Harry urged the four in hand over. Merritt barely heard Harry’s faint apology over the drumming sound of hooves against the cobblestones that suddenly filled the streets. Shouts and whistles joined the cacophony of noise. Her curiosity finally got the best of her and she turned so that she could see out the window.
“Do be careful dear,” the Countess instructed.
“I just want to see,” Merritt said. A rider went by and she caught the bright stripes of a blanket trailing over the brown and white splotched coat of a horse. “Is that what they call a paint?” she asked her father.
“I believe so.” He leaned out the window once more and Merritt rose up to join him, conveniently leaving her handkerchief on her seat. Rose tried to grasp her arm to stop her. Merritt managed to gracefully avoid her nurse and looped her arm through her father’s so that she was pressed against his side. She knew they resembled a pair of children with their faces pressed against the glass of the sweet shop but she did not care. It was not often that her father’s natural exuberance took over and she wanted to relish the moment. Who knew how long it would last?
“Oh his hair is nearly as long as mine!” she exclaimed as another Indian rode by. This one had long black hair cascading down his back and a feather sticking up in the back. “I wonder if Buffalo Bill is among the riders.”
“From what I’ve read he should be easy to recognize. Perhaps he stayed with the train.”
“Could that be Annie Oakley?” Merritt saw a woman dressed in fringed buckskin and a gun belt around her waist go by on a beautiful palomino. The papers had been full of stories of the Wild West show and the people who were slated to appear with it. For the past few weeks Merritt read about Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Red Shirt the Indian, and Kid Cochran who the papers claimed was the fastest gun alive, whatever that meant. She supposed it could have something to do with quick draw or rapid firing. Whatever it was, it all seemed very exciting and adventurous, especially when one’s life seemed to center around doctor visits and the constant hovering of her mother, her maid, and Rose the nurse.
“We are going, aren’t we Papa?” she asked as a dozen or so buffalo went by with their shaggy humped backs reeking from too much confinement.
“We shall see.” His usual reply to her requests for some sort of normalcy in her life.
“I do not see how it could possibly be safe,” the Countess interjected.
“Evelyn,” the Earl said dryly. “Or course it will be safe. The Prince is planning to attend and the Queen has requested a private showing.”
Merritt allowed herself a small smile. Her father’s retort was quick assurance that they would attend the Wild West Show and most likely at the nearest opportunity. The first scheduled public performance was for May the ninth but it was well known among the members of parliament, of which her father was included, that there would be private showings before then. It was a small victory she relished to make up for the dreaded appointment that was to occur later on.
“Watch out!” her father suddenly exclaimed. The carriage lurched as Merritt crashed into her father who steadied her with his arm. “Are you hurt my dear?”
“No,” she said. “I am quite all right.”
“Thomas,” the Countess said. “Would you please do something about removing us before we are trampled by these creatures?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” The Earl quickly exited the carriage on the side that was closest to the buildings without waiting for his man Jerry, to open the door. Merritt knew it was only because he wanted a closer look at the commotion without listening to her mother’s constant concerns. She turned back to the window and was amazed to see a buffalo staring at her. The head with its protruding horns was immense and the humped back seemed to her to be as high as the carriage windows. If she wanted to, she could stretch out a gloved hand and touch the shaggy coat.
A piercing whistle sounded followed by a shout.” Get outa there!” There was a popping sound and the buffalo jumped away and joined its fellows as they trotted on down the street.
“Sorry about that.” A horse and rider stopped by the carriage. The horse was extraordinary, nothing like Merritt had ever seen before. Its nose was a deep blue black then the color faded to bluish gray before becoming white on its hindquarters. There was a spattering of blue-gray spots across its back that ended in a silky tail that seemed to be a blend of all three colors.
“Oh my,” Merritt exclaimed. “What type of horse is that?”
The rider rubbed the arched neck of the animal with pride. “This here is Katie,” he said. “And she’s what we call an Appaloosa.”
“She’s extraordinary.” Merritt said as her eyes moved from the horse to the muscular thigh that held the animal in check. Her breath quickened at the sight of the raw wildness that was within her reach.
“Yes she is.” The voice had a lazy drawl and it captured her, drawing her gaze to his face. She saw a strong jaw and straight nose beneath the brim of a wide hat the types of which she’d seen pictures of in the newspapers. The jaw was covered with a stubble of beard and strong white teeth flashed a grin at her from full lips. He wore a short brown coat with the collar turned up against the crisp cold air. There was a blue paisley scarf tied about his neck and buckskin pants tucked into brown boots. Much to her surprise a gun belt rode low on his left hip and was tied off around his thigh to keep it from moving. He coiled a short whip around a knob that protruded from his saddle.
Her mother craned her neck to see who she was talking to and gasped at the blatant display of weaponry.
“They’re all a bit frisky after being cooped up for so long,” he said with a wave at the small contingent of buffalo that trotted on down the cobblestones with the riders doing their best to keep them contained. “We all are,” he added.
“I would imagine so,” Merritt said. She felt a flutter of excitement inside as she studied the cowboy. He seemed mysterious and forbidden, like one of the scandalous romance novels she kept hidden beneath her mattress or the champagne her mother would not let her drink at parties lest it bring on another spell. She heard her mother’s hiss and felt the sharp tug on her skirt. She ignored it as the cowboy pushed back his hat so she could see the rest of his face.
Deep blue eyes gazed at her from beneath a flop of golden brown hair that touched his incredibly long lashes. He pushed the recalcitrant locks aside and gave her a wide grin. “I hope you’re coming to the show.” He looked at her, boldly, brazenly and a lazy smile turned up the corners of his full lips.
Merritt felt the heat of his eyes and her cheeks burned with his look. He sees me… For the first time someone was looking at her, as a person, whole into herself. She was so used to the whispers about her spells and the sympathetic looks of the servants or the constant worry that lined her parent’s faces. No one ever truly saw Merritt. They only saw the circumstances that surrounded her.
“It is my intent.” She returned his smile with a shy one of her own.
“Merritt!” Her mother’s voice was loud enough for the cowboy to hear. She was not surprised. It was unusual for her to engage in conversation with the prim and proper gentlemen of the peerage. Of course it would shock her mother to see her hanging from a carriage window, talking to a complete stranger who seemed so rough around the edges. It might even be considered dangerous, enough so that a thrill went down her spine.
“That’s a pretty name,” he drawled. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before.”
“Thank you,” Merritt replied. “My father gave it to me.”
As if on cue her father stepped round from behind the carriage with Jerry close behind him. “Taking in the scenery?” he said to the cowboy.
“Yes sir,” the cowboy said as he looked between Merritt and her father. The relationship had to be obvious to even a stranger on the street. She had the same blonde hair and the same piercing blue eyes although she was grateful to be blessed with her mother’s nose and chin. Her mother was still considered to be a great beauty. Merritt’s beauty was always an addendum to her condition.
“That’s an interesting piece you’re wearing there,” the Earl said, motioning towards the gun strapped to the cowboy’s hip.”
“It gets the job done,” the cowboy said. His eyes changed, along with his posture. He was no longer open and easy. Suddenly he was more reserved, as if there were secrets that he was trying to protect.
“The way seems to be clear, sir,” Harry said from his post.
“Oh,” the Earl said. His disappoint was evident. “Well then, I supposed we must be off. The cowboy backed his horse away as Jerry opened the carriage door and her father stepped in. He leaned out the window once more. “Will we see you in the show?” he asked as Harry set the team in motion.
“Yes, sir,” the cowboy replied. “Just keep a lookout for Kid Cochran!” he called out after them. He tugged on the reins and Katie, the beautiful appaloosa, rose up on her hind legs and pawed the air as her rider lifted his arm in the air and let out a farewell whoop.
Merritt and her father clapped their approval of the show as Katie took off in a clatter of hooves after the retreating buffalo. The crowd gathered in the melting snow let out a collective gasp and then a cheer at the cowboy’s bravado.
Kid Cochran…The fastest gun alive. And to think she had met him boldly on the street. Her friend Caro would never believe it.
It would make for much better conversation than the coming appointment.