The Crumbling Business Model of Writers

This is a lesson on the business of writing in our everyday world (very much the topic , but contributes much to Colby Hodge's discourse on When A Story Doesn't Work, and how the craft of writing blends into the Business of Writing
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-story-doesnt-work-part-two.html
as well as the issue of "worldbuilding" of a fictional world, and also references the Expository Lump problem writers face. Oh, this is a long post covering a lot of territory.

And the point of all this rambling and muttering over many, many posts here focusing on the real world (on a blog about Alien Romance) is to gather the necessary data to figure out why Romance in general and Alien Romance in particular is not regarded with the respect we feel it should garner and what we can do about that.

We all love our fiction, but few readers, game players, movie goers, video-watchers -- i.e. fiction consumers -- still think in terms of how the creators of their entertainment can make a living good enough to keep on producing top notch entertainment.

As I discussed last week
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

(where I beg you to go read the comments that correct a mis-statement on my part!)

the business model of most industrial revolution businesses is busted, and some new thing is coalescing out of the shards of our civilization's economy.

Those who properly divine what that new thing is, how it works, why it works, will be making the new founding fortunes of this century and probably the next. Very few have yet figured out just how profound the shattering of the foundations of our economy is at this moment.

But one SF writer may have a grip on explaining it. C. J. Cherryh.

C. J. Cherryh's marvelous SF novels (with a good dash of alien romance) showcase her talents at their best in her FOREIGNER series. The latest is CONSPIRATOR, and it's book #10 which will likely be the first of another trilogy in the series. Series composed of trilogies seem to be all the rage again.

Read those 10 novels (preferably in order) just for the sheer pleasure of a good story -- a refreshing joy to read such a well written, good story about what I like to read about (smart people caught in impossible predicaments, plights, and stymied by cognitive dissonance).

Put in perspective, those 10 novels give you a vision of our own society from the point of view of the anthropologist. It works better than studying anthroplogy in college courses though - because it is the application of the basic principles of the interface between science, technology, and culture to a Situation (Cherryh is the best in the biz at Situation).

The world C. J. Cherryh is working with is a human colony isolated on the world of the Atevi. Atevi are so similar to us, sex is possible, but "love" is a word that applies to a salad not a person. Atevi are driven by emotions about 45 degrees off the direction of human emotions. Not opposite, not at right angles, but skewed in a dizzying way.

Atevi are more herd creatures than humans are. But not really. They're just Alien.



It takes many novels to let Cherryh draw us into the mindset of these alien creatures. Cherryh is an expert at avoiding the expository lump, yet the narrative goes on and on about the multi-axis Atevi political situation. There's a little repetition, but it provides emphasis, points you might miss if you were skimming. While you're reading about what seems to be completely comprehensible politics, in fact boring politics, you're actually learning to look at reality from an alien point of view.

These long political analyses seem to be expository lumps, but they aren't. They move the story along quite briskly, setting up the action even in future novels. If you are following the anthropology and commentary on humanity, you see things beyond the politics.

Yes, it's an intellectual exercise, but that's what SF delivers as part of the pleasure.

In the FOREIGNER series, Cherryh has also recently introduced other aliens "out there" among the stars, and they're very likely to make their first visit to the Atevi homeworld too soon, so all the Atevi politics has to do with preparing for that eventuality. Meanwhile, the main character is a human whose job is to see to it that human technology does not destroy Atevi culture with potential world war as a result (the Atevi don't do "war" -- but they fight and assassinate a lot).

And here I go inserting exposition into this discourse on the Business Model of Writing.

See my blog post on expository lumps at:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/08/source-of-expository-lump.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/09/sexy-information-feed.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/dissing-formula-novel.html

Reading this 10th Foreigner novel right after writing last week's post about the massive shift in the "business model" that isn't confined to publishing, gave me a different take on just how dire this culture-quake we're in may become.

This week's news is once again about North Korea rattling atomic bombs at us, and all about the cooperation between North Korea and Iran and the arms race that's being unleashed into a ferment of cultural-warfare (which is what this whole Terrorist thing is about; the culture generated by certain religious outlooks). Meanwhile, the USA is facing the legalization of gay marriage which seems a dire and horrifyingly revolting change to some and pure justice to others. It's cultural change.

Cherryh starts CONSPIRATOR with the basic problem being a speech that Bren Cameron, our human POV character who is translator between human and atevi, has to write trying to stop the atevi from adopting cell phones.

The rest of the novel illustrates why the Atevi must adopt cell phones, and why they must not! It ends with the speech unwritten and undelivered. I expect that speech to be a roaring occasion for violence in the halls of the Atevi legislature.

Today's multi-function cell phones are web-access instruments, wireless windows on everywhere. The newest features give you direct access to facebook, twitter, and other social networking tools.

So when you talk cell phone, you talk Web 2.0 -- which means you're talking about the force that is pulverizing the industrial revolution business model, bureaucracy and even democracy itself -- certainly pulverizing capitalism! Perhaps destroying our cultures even more traumatically than the human technology leaks are destroying Atevi culture.

Pulverizing our culture just as a sound wave pulverizes kidney stones.

Most Americans don't even know what culture is. Can you point to your culture? Which pocket do you carry it in? What ringtones have you downloaded into your culture?

We have the TV Show REAPER where parents sold their son's soul to the Devil -- and this season ends with the boy's girlfriend selling her soul to the Devil on the chance of getting her boyfriend's soul free.

A whole, very successful TV show about the SOUL - but can you point to your soul?

It's like "air" was say, a thousand years ago. You don't know it's there because you live in it. It took science a long time (and a lot of computers and satelites) to get a model of weather that's almost working! It's hard to study something you're inside of.

The book I best like for conveying a concept of "what" your culture is, so you can look inside yourself and find it (trust me; it's there somewhere) is



But like souls and air, you miss your culture only when it's GONE.

So we all know the term culture-shock but most Americans who have never lived isolated abroad (with no American community and no one who even speaks British English around) simply don't know what "a" culture is, nevermind their own.

And that's why alarm has not been more pervasive in the USA as our culture crumbles. We don't know it's there, can find no use for it or value to it, and we just don't care.

But we should. Global Warming is nothing compared to this.

You can barely see the cracks in the foundations of our culture yet, but one of those cracks is the downfall of our huge 19th and 20th century corporations. General Motors going bankrupt practically on the 100th anniversary is just one example of failed business model, a surface crack caused by a movement in the foundation underneath our CULTURE.

And C. J. Cherryh has explained what's happening today in an SF novel ostensibly about alien politics, the 10th in a series. Yes, you can read it as the first novel you read in the Foreigner universe, but I've been reading them in order as published, and I see bits and pieces of information I'm using that I picked up in each of the previous novels.

The whole set of 10 Foreigner novels makes this image of our culture under attack by our technology so clear.

Start with the first in the series here:


Now let's skip all the way back into "reality" -- and refer to the series of posts I've done here on Web 2.0 (read them in the following order if you haven't already)

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

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/02/blogging-and-reading-and-blogging-oh-my.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/beauty-and-beast-constructing-hea.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-cb-radio-come-on-back.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/writing-tips-tweets.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/urban-fantasy-job-hunting.html

You see? All this is adding up to something, and giving you a view of the gears-and-chips inside the writer's mind.

This is how a writer thinks, and what a writer has to think with, the reasoning laid out like a beginning Algebra student has to write out each step of the solution to a problem with liberal application of imagination.

So far as I know, only a few SF writers have twigged to what is going on beneath our feet, in the vast unconscious of the human species, because of technology.

In past posts and in my review column
http://www.simegen.com/reviews/rereadablebooks/
I've surveyed the trend toward depicing "reality" as a thin film over a seething cauldron of EVIL. That portrayal of the world is so popular now, you can barely sell anything that doesn't express that philosophy.

Here, in an article in Wired magazine, you may find the reason WHY you can't sell any other kind of fiction lately -- or when you do, it plays to a very narrow audience that leaps for joy over it because it's such a wonderful breath of fresh air.

http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism

My previous post on Wired can be found here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/04/wired-magazine-for-romance.html

The social networking and Web 2.0 developments I have been talking about in the above linked posts are barely the tip of the iceburg.

The banner headline for this article in Wired says:
----------------
THE NEW SOCIALISM: Wikipedia, Flickr, and Twitter aren't just revolutions in online social media. They're the vanguard of a cultural movement. Forget about state ownership and five-year-plans. A global collectivist society is coming -- and this time you're going to like it.
----------------

Frankly, I'm not so sure about the "like it" part which may just be the "slant" of this particular magazine. But this article fingers something very important about what's happening, and C. J. Cherryh's latest novel, CONSPIRATOR, describes that very thing from an alien perspective which makes it more comprehensible (as Spock added the alien POV to Star Trek and let us see ourselves from the outside).

But if the panicing Chinese (and other country's) attempts to "block the internet" -- to dictate what Google links will or will not work if you're inside their blackout curtain -- definitely bespeaks a deeply spooked humanity.

This Web 2.0 development may be even worse for humanity than Cherryh depicts it is likely to be for the Atevi. (oh, I do wish everyone had read the whole Foreigner series to date! This is all part of the STAR TREK discussion I haven't gotten to yet.)

The A-bomb proliferation race breaking out may just be part of this sense of panic set off by the forces described in this article in Wired (you can read it free online).

The totalitarian governments have the knee-jerk response of trying to "control" these new technologies, keeping them away from the poor peasants who would use them to overthrow centralized government control. Control is of course absolutely necessary. Humans can't exist without our betters controlling us. We all know that.

Why just look at the mess in society because we gave up the arranged marriage. Control is necessary, you see, and everything is getting out of control!

I don't know where to start telling you about this article "The New Socialism" in Wired Magazine. Every three or four paragraphs I put a post-it note onto the text to remind me to quote it at you, but this little essay is already too long.

The article quotes a book, HERE COMES EVERYBODY by Clay Shirky, from which the article takes a 4-part division to help sort through the effects of social media.

It targets work, how you get paid for what you contribute, and how people get access to what you've created with your work.

It doesn't harp nearly enough on the cultural aspects of the changes in these economic foundations of society. (A culture and a Society are not the same thing. Different societies can share a culture and do just fine relating to each other. What's happening because of Web 2.0 is that the cultures themselves are being pulverized.)

The culture generates the economy (think about Moslem law being the foundation of their banking system -- it seems to be working for them). The economy generates a zillion societies. Take a "society" to be just a group of people who agree on a certain set of laws -- like driving on the right, not having a King but a President, protecting property rights of the individual from the government, rule of the majority strictly limited to protect the individual)

We're currently trying to extend our "social contract" to include healthcare for everyone. Corporations discovered it's economically advantageous to provide healthcare for workers -- they work more consistently and productively. So now "society" wants to model itself on corporations and declare a social profit to having everyone healthy. Do you see any holes in that, other than trying to pay for it?

Our culture says "be kind to the less fortunate" -- our society says, "health is a right not a privelege," and our economy says, "I'm dying!"

Where do writers fit in all this?

COPYRIGHT!!!!

That's right, copyright is dead. Really. It's been uninvented, and the law hasn't caught up with the CULTURAL VALUE CHANGE that has left the old industrial revolution values pulverized.

Quick, GOOGLE creative commons, and see what turns up. The Wired article sites Creative Commons and GNU licenses as the newly invented concept, (ethical platform) replacing copyright.

http://creativecommons.org/ is only the beginning of what you'll find. Check the Wiki entry, since this Wired article sites WIKI as an example of the new economy.

A whole new set of ethics underlies this new culture. I mean really pulverizing all the unconscious assumptions implanted in our cultures since the 1600's and the invention of the printing press and the business model of publishing (which didn't start as a for-profit business, you know. You have read Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's St. Germain series, particularly Borne in Blood - where St. Germain owns a printing business in Amsterdam, I think it is.)

In fact, the internet and the web are forces unleashed into our world that are as huge or maybe more huge than the printing press was in its time.

I've been on a number of panels at conventions about how evil the copyright laws are.

This article in Wired takes that to a whole new level.

The writer's business model is based on COPYRIGHT. Or it has been.

That business model is still functioning, but about as well as General Motors was functioning in say, 1990. Lehman Brothers did pretty well in the 1990's. They seized what appeared to be the new business model (securitizing home mortgages). It killed them.

These behemouths are corporations. Each individual writer is a corporation -- whether you incorporate or not (writers are legally allowed to incorporate and make their corporation the owner of their books. Several revisions of the law ago, this was the best deal you could get on your income taxes as a writer. That's why you see some books copyrighted by some corporation that almost sounds like the author's name.)

Alongside the writer's business model of the 1600's, we now see the business model described in this article in Wired as an application of a principle in the book "Here Comes Everybody" -- 1. Sharing, 2. Cooperation, 3. Collaboration, 4. Collectivism -- and this blog post is an example of the new business model. I'm writing. You're not paying me unless you link to this blog entry in a post of your own, mention it on some popular blog comment space, twitter it, digg it, I don't know what all.

Think about what I said about Alvin Toffler's book Future Shock in this post:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/marketing-fiction-in-changing-world.html

The human brain can make only so much change in a lifetime, make only so many decisions in a day, -- we have a hard-wired physical limit.

Think about historically what happened to the American Slaves abducted from their slow-changing culture in Africa and then systematically stripped of their culture here, to break their Will so they'd make good workers. They borrowed, desperately preserved, and just plain invented a new culture. A few decades ago, the novel and TV miniseries ROOTS explained to a vast majority just what they'd lost and where to go to find it again. The result has been a black President of the United States (who couldn't be proud of that accomplishment!)

That black President though had a father whose parents and grandparents had not had their culture stripped from them.

Humans need that multi-generational cultural grounding. It is our strength.

The internet and the Web have riven our generations apart, like a hot knife through butter.

The young people today are starting to live in exactly the world "The New Socialism" by Christoph Neimann describes.

The older folk, and even not-so-older folk, RESIST. E-book readers, high-tech phones, twitter, (follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/JLichtenberg ) myspace, flickr.

The Google email spam sorting mechanism is a perfect example of the exact kind of "socialism" the article talks about. We, the people, decide what is and is not spam by our votes.

Now, why is it that I am so at home in this new world, while others my age don't even have a computer, nevermind social network memberships, RSS feed reader (I use Feed Demon), friendfeed and other aggregators. I'm using 2 different aggregators for Twitter and haven't found the one I really want, yet. I don't text much, but I would gladly if I were dragged away from my desk more. I text people's phones from my desktop instead.

Why? How is it that I DO ALL THIS? And blog too. There are so many people so much younger than I am who just don't.

Why am I undaunted by Web 2.0? Why do I feel that the advent of all this culture pulverizing tech is not at all disturbing? Why don't I resist it? What's different about me?

Three guesses, and the first two don't count!

I grew up in FANDOM!!!! I was in 7th grade when I wrote my first letter to the editor of an SF magazine, and they published it (with my snailmail address -- something that could never happen today; it was a much safer world back then).

My parents' mailbox became stuffed with dozens, then hundreds of letters from fans all over the USA. I had just learned to type, and I learned that in "fandom" typing was more intimate than handwriting, and if you didn't type a letter you had to explain for at least 3 paragraphs why your typer was broken.

That's a CULTURE. Fandom had it's own language (fanspeak) just as texting today has developed a condensed spelling shorthand.

In fandom, it was rude to address anyone, but especially someone older than you, by their last name. In fandom, culture demanded not only first names but NICKNAMES - fan names.

"fandom" is a kingdom, (fan = fanatic dom = domain as in Kingdom) floating amongst the real world, above it, interspersed with it, but having no fixed geographic location. The fannish calendar is divided into before and after Worldcon (which used to be Labor Day weekend, but now it too floats dates). Worldcon = World Science Fiction Convention. Most conventions (not CONFERENCES!!) have the infix "con" in them somewhere, if only by allusion.

I'm on a mailing List (an email List; an entire concept made obsolete by Web 2.0 but still existing and growing) for the Las Vegas SF fandom organizations. Recently a new member joined and a veteran Fan, Arnie Katz, sent the new member the following welcome message which may give you some idea of "what" fandom is (other than what you think it is if you joined after fandom moved online).

-----------FROM ARNIE KATZ on VegasSFAssociation@yahoogroups.com ----------------

I saw your premiere post on the VSFA listserv and thought I would drop you a note of welcome and introduction.

I'm not big on writing autobiographies, but let me attempt one so you at least know who is talking to you. I'm a 62-year-old professional writer and editor, married to Joyce Worley, also a professional writer and editor. I'm from New York, she comes from Missouri and we moved here in 1989. I've worked in a number of fields, including science fiction/fantasy, popular culture, collecting and collectibles, video and computer gaming, sports, adult and professional wrestling.

Joyce and I met in Fandom in the mid 1960's. She was a leading fan in St. Louis (she chaired a worldcon and got a Hugo nomination for her fanzine) and I was similarly well-known in New York. Hyndreds of pages of correspondence led to Joyce moving to New York and we got together pretty much upon her arrival.

Fandom is kind of a busman's holiday for us, as it is for many creative people. We're known for our writing and publishing for Fandom. I was chosen as the number one fan in the world in 2009 as well as the hobby's best writer.

Enough about me... Let me tell you a little about the entity that you have just encountered, Fandom.

Fandom arose in the late 1920's, born in the letter columns of the professional science fiction magazines. The people who filled those letter columns began writing to each other directly, easily done in an era in which such letters carried full addresses.

The first fanzines appeared around 1930 and the field quickly grew and evolved. The earliest fanzines were little more than blurbs for upcoming prozines. The hobby slowly progressed from a fixation on the stories and authors to an interest in discussing the idea contained in the stories. During the 1940's, that stretched to include ideas not derived from specific stories, but which seemed "scientifictional." By the early 1950's, though, Fandom embraced talking about anything under the sun, including personal experiences and Fandom itself. That's pretty much where the hobby is today.

The current incarnation of Las Vegas Fandom dates from 1989 and the formation of SNAFFU (Southern Nevada Area Fantasy Fiction Union), the city's formal, open SF club. SNAFFU (and Las Vegas Fandom) broke out of its isolation when they met Joyce and I. We introduced them to the like-minded folks around the world and Vegas Fandom has prospers ever since.

There are two other clubs in town, VSFA is by far the smallest, little more than a video-watching group. They're nice enough, but very mundane and pretty much uninterested in the creative side of Fandom. VSFA, through a cooperative arrangement among the three clubs, puts on the annual Halloween Party.

Las Vegrants is the largest fan group in town with two to three times as many members as the other two groups combined. It's an informal, invitation group that includes the city's top fans, many of whom are professional writers and editors.

I'm pretty much the answer man around here, so please feel free to ask any, and as many, questions as you may have about all this strangeness. To get you rolling, I'm including a copy of the second edition of THE TRUFAN'S ADVISOR, a little guide that I turned out a year or so ago. It should be fairly helpful.

Don't hesitate to contact me if there is anything I can do.

Faanishly,

Arnie Katz
----------------------------------

Over the years, I've welcomed many mundanes into fandom and I've had to teach them the inherent values of fandom which I learned in 7th grade and have lived ever since. If you read a fanzine, even if you paid for a hardcopy, you only paid for ink, printing and postage, and you owe a LoC (Letter of Comment). That's true of blog posts too -- you PAY for any post you find valuable by dropping a comment.

Barter is coin of the realm in fandom. You get something good - you give something. Your words, your coolie labor collating a fanzine (minding a website), your thoughts, your arguments, your publicizing a convention by mentioning it on big blogs, or as Arnie here above has offered, his ANSWERS for a neofan. Perhaps the best thing you can do for a blog you love is to "follow" it by RSS or subscribe because there are aggregators out there that position a blog in their search results according to how many subscribers it has.

So the coin of the realm has a new design, but the principle hasn't changed. As ever, coin of the realm today is your words, and your LoCs are more valued than you know until you've gotten one on something you wrote.

The LoC comment can be critical, lambasting the author for any number of errors or omissions, even typos -- but the praise garnered in LoCs is important too. Fanspeak has a name for that praise; egoboo -- a boost to the ego. It's food for the ego, and for the culture of fandom as a whole. Praise for one person's accomplishments feeds the ambition of others to contribute accomplishments. It's not boot-licking or toadying to praise a blog post or web page. It's contributing to the new Culture 2.0.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about fandom is that it has no government, needs no government, but is not "ungoverned" -- it isn't an anarchy, but it can't tolerate "organization" as a top-down-management style except in small endeavors like, perhaps an ad hoc committee putting on a convention.

Now that Arnie has introduced you to fandom, go read that article in WIRED.
http://www.wired.com/culture/culturereviews/magazine/17-06/nep_newsocialism

If you understand fandom, and read this article -- you will see that this "new socialism" is actually not so new. It's not an 'ism. It's a 'dom. Webdom maybe.

If you understand C. J. Cherryh's FOREIGNER universe, the Atevi culture, and why human technology is such a threat, you will understand that the magnitude of the threat to our current world from this growing "The New Socialism" collectivist society is so pulverizing, and especially pulverizing to the business model writers have used since the 1600's.

NOW TO STAR TREK.

And no, I'm still not going to talk about the new movie or the script or acting or directing etc.

It's the IMPACT of Trek on our CULTURE.

Remember THE PRIME DIRECTIVE -- and then think about the Atevi.

Now look back on history and see how fandom, and our world has changed under the impact of Trek.

OK, Trek hit in the late 1960's, and the 1970's are famous for Women's Lib and of course the rise of Black Culture after Roots in 1977. In 1975 my non-fiction book STAR TREK LIVES! was published and blew the lid on Star Trek Fandom -- and fandom in general.

The Star Trek conventions were about getting together to meet the people you'd only snailmailed before -- to brainstorm ST fanzine stories, to tell stories, to buy and sell and exchange paper fanzines, and little by little, a track of programming was added (well attended but not the heart of the matter) where the stars of the TV show stood on stage and later signed autographs.

The ST cons were modeled after (and run by BNF's Big Name Fans) SF cons, but that proved to be non-scalable, so the structure gradually evolved to be big enough for the crowds.

So LITTLE ST Cons popped up, just for 'zines, costumes, how-to-run-a-con practice and so on.

Star Trek took the CULTURE of SF fandom and scaled it up, filling fanzines with more than just articles and as Arnie says "life and life in fandom." SF fandom used 'zines the way most people today use blogs, for the meta-conversation. But Star Trek fandom injected FICTION into the fanzines, and sold those zines for paper and postage only, no labor charge.

That's the model Christoph Neimann is describing in his article, calling it a "new socialism" -- but it's neither new nor socialism. It's FANDOM!!! Star Trek style.

Now back to the envelope subject of this whole series of blog posts that's probably bored away the entire readership of this co-blog.

HOW DO WE DO IT FOR SCIENCE FICTION ROMANCE????

We must study how culture evolved, (or as C. J. Cherryh said in CONSPIRATOR -- adjusted) to accomodate the new forms of communication.

Fandom evolved from the SF magazine readerships, readers meeting in micro-cons in New York. Star Trek fandom likewise started in and around New York.

What is going on now that has allowed SFR and PNRomance to get a toe-hold is e-books and e-media and Web 2.0 devices like http://www.goodreads.com .

What is happening in the world today, this whole pulverizing impact of social media on our culture could (it's not that big a stretch) be attributed to the success of STAR TREK, or perhaps more importantly of STAR TREK LIVES! a little Bantam paperback that went 8 printings in the 1970's.

The conventions and fanac (fan activity) surrounding Star Trek became public knowledge as the New York Times and other big papers picked up the hints in STAR TREK LIVES! about K/S and other exotic fiction experiments.

Star Trek itself went only 3 seasons then grew in syndication. The media execs wanted to repeat this "fandom" phenomenon, and thought they had it with SPACE 1999, which Trek fans sneered at and stayed away from though it was advertised as Star Trek fans will love it.

Likewise the original BATTLESTAR GALACTICA -- (not the remake which is Intimate Adventure
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventure.html and Ronald D. Moore has even said so
http://www.simegen.com/jl/intimateadventurecomments.html )

They tried and tried, and they just could not duplicate the appeal of Star Trek. But Trek fans took the K/S premise and "slashed" combos of characters in other shows and made fascinating reading in fanzines for shows that have absolutely no SF appeal.

We eventually got Star Trek films, new series, a few new series, and a hiatus, now a new Star Trek movie, with the one thing no fan would have gone for in 1990 - NEW SPOCK AND KIRK ACTORS.

That's the test of a classic role - when a succession of generations of actors play the role successfully, the role becomes bigger than any actor.

That's important to understand. It's vital. It means Hollywood has stopped excluding SF from the concept "classic." And that's happened gradually as SF and Fantasy movies have won Oscars (which was unthinkable before Trek).

Star Trek and Trek fandom broke down a wall in our world, and now Trek has spread to all levels of the ambient society and culture.

Don't forget, it was Trek fans in a university environment that basically invented the internet to play a video game from campus to campus. A Trek type video game.

Christoph Niemann goes on and on about the social networking and the internet changing our very economy, our entire concept of personal property is being changed.

Gene Roddenberry's concept of the Trek universe was that it had no MONEY - money wasn't used anymore, nor were pockets needed to carry money. People weren't hired to crew the Enterprise; they were volunteers. Honest, that was his concept and few have ever understood that.

So Star Trek spawned the Internet, and the older SF fandom which spawned ST fandom has now spawned what Niemann dubs "the new socialism" in Web 2.0 and social networking.

Any number of us on this blog have mentioned how disregarded readers of SF were in the 1950's and 1960's. Disparaged. Held in open contempt wouldn't be too strong a wording for the attitude we endured for liking science fiction. Fantasy was even worse.

Then came Star Trek. It got cancelled because it was science fiction. (really, the network execs who made the decision didn't care about the tons of fan mail -- they just didn't like the show. That's it.)

So "we" fans organized in just the way Niemann describes what he thinks is a new cultural form, and we beat Hollywood to its knees and produced this new Star Trek film which has been given rave reviews and a HUGE amount of space in Variety, the NYTimes, Wired Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Business Week -- you name it. Talk about prestige.

WE WON! We fought for decades. We used the oldest tool in the fannish arsenal, FANDOM ITSELF, its strange organization, its unique way of using words, its intrinsic value system and economy of sharing -- most especially fueled by the LoC.

And we won.

Science Fiction and Fantasy are now mainstream.

How did that happen?

Star Trek -- Wagon Train To The Stars. (based on the incredibly long running TV show that everyone watched Wagon Train).

Star Trek, OK nobody else will ever notice this is true, because it took 40 years and everyone's forgotten everything about that long-ago time -- none of the salient facts of how this happened have ever been recorded for posterity because Star Trek and SF in general was not important.

Star Trek provided the pivot point in history, the inflection point, the "place to stand" and eventually with the films, books, and fanzines, provided the "lever long enough" and we changed the world into the vision Niemann is talking about in Wired.

These people who are inventing Web 2.0 devices, un-inventing copyright and all the industrial complex business models, in fact uninventing currency itself, these people are the descendents barely 2 generations removed from those who envisioned the future world of Star Trek.

The impact of Star Trek is just beginning to be felt (will never be identified officially, I'm sure) in the pulverization of our culture and our society and our business models. But we can take a lesson from all this.

The world was inimical to the SF fan. SF fans flocked to the first real SF on TV. We changed the world to be friendly to SF and SF fans.

The world is inimical to Romance. Romance fans need a vehicle to flock to. Then we will change the world.

The vehicle SF fans flocked to was a TV show, because at that time about a third of all the adults in the USA watched TV. There were 3 networks. What else was there to do in the evening but listen to the radio which didn't have any good shows anymore.

The vehicle Romance fans need has got to be Web 2.0 based.

Look at the numbers and websites with numbers that I talked about last week

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

Nobody watched TV anymore. And the TV watching public is graying fast. Any TV watching younger people do is on the web.

The web as a fiction delivery system is burgeoning, and copyright and other business model elements from the 1600's to the 1900's only strangle that burgeoning growth.

We're having our economy shattered by the new business models, uninventing money and labor for a wage, etc.

Do we, as Romance readers, writers and fans, do we seriously want to add a shattering effect from Romance, which is our fundamental life's relationship to this deadly mixture?

Or do we, as Romance readers, writers and fans, bear an obligation to produce that Romance vehicle that will draw us together to become a Web 2.0 force, (and Web 3.0 is already in launch mode!) to provide the SOLUTION to the pulverizing, culture shattering, social fabric ripping effects of the loss of copyright?

Which is it? Tell me by commenting on this post that's longer than a chapter in a long book!

If you got all the way to the end of this post and have any idea what I'm talking about, you owe me a LoC according to Christoph Niemann.

Live Long and Prosper,
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://www.simegen.com/jl/

One Man's Trash

(due to deadlines I'll be recycling old columns, "The Full Sass," that I wrote for FUTURES magazine, 1999-2001. I hope you find them fun.)

ONE MAN’S TRASH


Dumpster diving is a lucrative occupation. For those of you who don’t keep a deerstalker hanging in your closet, I’ll explain that dumpster diving is P.I. lingo for trash recovery. Which is regular person lingo for stealing except that a few years ago the Supreme Court in its wisdom decided that anything you put out on the curb is fair game for scroungers and investigators alike. Which means finding out when the municipal sanitation engineers make their rounds and getting there at least an hour or two before them. And being paid $150 or more for each of your early morning acquisitions.

From an investigator’s perspective, a lot can be learned from someone’s trash: eating habits, reading habits, drinking habits. I worked one custody case where the sole proof we had of a custodial father’s out-of-control alcoholism was the liters -- and yes, the LITERS-- of supermarket rum we found on our twice weekly ‘dives’. It took two large shopping bags to bring all the empties to the judge’s chambers, and at that point even the argument of compulsive rum-cake baking didn’t hold water. Or even cola. Those bottles were much less in evidence. Our friend liked his poison neat.

He also liked a number of other interesting things, like canned yams and paper towels decorated with fruit and spearmint chewing gum. Only the gum made sense in relation to the alcohol consumption, but all of it, everything we found over a three month investigation created a picture of an individual more thorough than anything his ex had been able to tell us.

We are not only what we eat and drink, but what we collect, consume, acquire and dispose of.

From a writer’s perspective, a lot can be learned from some fictional dumpster diving into your characters. What would we be likely to find in Scarlett O’Hara’s trash -- used draperies? And how about Captain Jean-Luc Picard’s recyclables on board the starship “Enterprise”: old Earl Grey tea bags is my guess. Detective Columbo of t.v. fame would throw out his cigar stubs. And the used cat litter generated by Koko and Yum-Yum in “The Cat Who...” mystery series would be considerable.

A peek at what has yet to be tossed is also instructive. As a licensed private investigator, I am governed by the same laws as average citizens when it comes to accessing private property. That is, I can’t, unless invitited. But over the years I’ve discovered -- out of necessity -- a myriad number of ways to get myself legally ‘invited’ into a subject’s home or office. I routinely carry a photograph of one of my cats, Friday, who it seems is forever getting lost in just that neighborhood where the subject lives. Knocking on doors with mascara stains under my eyes, clutching a photograph of dear old Friday kitty almost always gets me invited into the living room in order to access the back yard, where my cat may be hiding (along with the stolen motorboat, as in one case), or into the garage, where my cat may be hiding (along with the dented automobile as in a hit and run case).

Garage Sale signs and For Sale signs are other legitimate means I’ve used to gain lawful entry. Especially in investigations of financial misconduct, it’s not uncommon to find the subject selling his house and/or possessions as a means to raise quick cash. And I, as a P.I., was fortunate to locate a real estate broker who was a former Pinkerton security agent. We got along famously.
Once inside, souvenirs and memorabilia on display will tell not only where a person has visited but where they are often likely to flee to, if pressure is applied. Family photos can also confirm the existence of Mom in Duluth or a best friend in Dallas or even time in the armed services complete with the requisite ‘Fort Patriotic’ sign in the background.

‘Rosebud’ was a childhood sled one famous fictional character never let go of. Possession of other items -- like a statue of the Maltese Falcon -- trigger a whole other series of events. And a pair of ruby slippers were more important to Dorothy then any frequent flyer miles she could have accumulated.

So what do your characters have on their shelves, on their pianos? What do they cling to for comfort in the darkness of night? Keying on an object or a talisman as part of your character is not only a way to give your character personality or depth, but can be used to signal their presence or absence without specifically saying so. Romance novel verbiage notwithstanding, I’m less likely to perceive the recent departure of a person (or a character) from the “lingering scent of her perfume” than I am from a favorite CD left playing on the stereo. Or a pair of ruby slippers tucked neatly under the bed.

We all have our treasured possessions. We all have our habits reflected in our routine discards. Since our real essence, who we are in our hearts and souls, can never truly be seen, we are all often judged by the things with which we surround ourselves. Our trash and our treasures tell the story of whom we believe ourselves to be.

And again, from an investigator’s perspective, it’s from a subject’s trash and treasures that we begin to understand such things as motives and uncover a subject’s habits and secrets. And from a writer’s point of view, it’s from these props that the reader can delve more deeply, more intimately into our story and our characters.

Leave Pandora’s Box to the mythical gods of old. You can learn everything you really want to know inside a sturdy Dempsey Dumpster.

Just another tidbit from the Center for the Slightly Skewed.....

~Linnea

HOPE’S FOLLY, Book 3 in the Gabriel’s Ghost universe, Feb. 24, 2009 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

It's an impossible mission on a derelict ship called HOPE'S FOLLY. A man who feels he can't love. A woman who believes she's unlovable. And an enemy who will stop at nothing to crush them both.

Do Space Pirates Need Special Sheets

Do Space Pirates Need Special Sheets?

This Crazy Tuesday, June 2nd is all about SPACE PIRATES and regular host "Row-hard" Rowena Cherry will be joined by "Madman" Mark Terence Chapman, "Dastardly" David Lee Summers and Jacquie "jolly" Rogers to plunder the icy blackness of space.

That's the blurb up on the PIVTR site. I apologize for the dreadfully bad "pirate" names, but for an unscripted, "blogging aloud" show that begins at 10 am Eastern (which is seven am for my nightowl, West Coast friends) and runs until 12.00 noon, I prefer to set a low standard and deliver better than expected.

I'm sure we will get into deeper topics, such as cloaking; motherships that look no different from regular traffic until it is too late for their victims to respond; space barratry (scuttling ships to hide theft of cargo); corsairing and privateering; and star ship commanders who pay lip service to Star Fleet Command, but do not necessarily comply with their orders... because who is to know? And perhaps if the politicians and generals back home had real time information, their orders would be different.

All credit to my friend Jacquie Rogers for getting me thinking (again) about sheets, and the logistics of hygiene, sex, and repose in deep space. Are space pirates simply Jack Sparrow with an air lock? I think not.

If Diana Groe's historically accurate Vikings managed to sustain an unfair seductive advantage over their European sexual rivals by wearing reasonably clean underwear, I wonder what the competitive advantage would be of body odor inside the confines of a space ark. Would it tend to demoralize and depress the enemy?

I should imagine there would be a product much like Procter and Gamble's Febreze. I hear that college students are using the odor eating product to simply spray the unwashed crotches of their jeans.




David Lee Summers is the author of five novels, and here is an excerpt from a guest blog he wrote for me to promote our June 2nd show.



The first of my novels is The Pirates of Sufiro, which starts off as the story of a band of space pirates that are marooned on a distant world they name Sufiro. Over the course of the novel, the pirates who were stranded have to battle corporate pirates who try to take over the planet. Thus the book explores the idea of "piracy" from multiple angles. I have recently explored my space pirate characters even more in stories appearing in the anthologies Space Pirates and Space Sirens published by Flying Pen Press. Another of my novels, Vampires of the Scarlet Order, is a supernatural thriller, but it features a cameo by the real life pirate, Grace O'Malley.

The phrase "space pirates" conjures up images of marauding bands cruising the galaxy in space ships. Perhaps the blaster-wielding captain has a robot parrot on his shoulder and some kind of high-tech eye-patch with a heads-up display. Movies and television have invoked this image numerous times and I think such pirates can be a lot of fun, even though they're often extremely campy.

Look a little harder at the idea of space pirates, though, and an interesting picture emerges. To summarize the United Nations definition of piracy, it is a criminal act of violence, detention or depredation committed by the crew or passengers of a ship or aircraft directed against another ship or aircraft – or directed against a ship, aircraft, persons or property outside the jurisdiction of a country. Apply that idea to any vessel that is either in space or operating on a distant world, and you open up tremendous story potential.

My own love of pirates started at an early age. I grew up in Southern California and was lucky enough to visit Disneyland a few times as a kid. One of my favorite rides from the time I was about six years old was The Pirates of the Caribbean. I was also a Star Trek fan from a very young age. Though a bit too young to remember the original series when it first ran, I was exactly the right age to watch Star Trek: The Animated Series when it ran on Saturday mornings. One of those episodes was "The Pirates of Orion" written by Howard Weinstein. I already was a fan of pirates and I just fell in love with the idea of pirates in space.

In the years after that, though, most depictions of space pirates that I came across grew painful. I saw far too many actors with robot parrots on their shoulders hamming it up for the camera. As I mentioned earlier, they could be fun to watch, but they did get old. I probably would never have even tried to write a story about space pirates if I hadn't come across the Bio of a Space Tyrant novels by Piers Anthony. In the first novel, Anthony introduced space pirates that were colorful and fun, but at the same time very dangerous. These were the kinds of space pirates I was looking for.

In 1988, I set out to write my first story of space piracy for a writing workshop in Socorro, New Mexico. I wanted to create pirates that were larger than life, fun, but yet a bit dangerous, much like the good space pirates I had encountered before. That's when Ellison Firebrandt and the crew of the Legacy who appear in The Pirates of Sufiro, Space Pirates and Space Sirens were born.

As I worked to create my pirates, I spent time in the library reading historical accounts, trying to get some idea for the motivations of historical pirates and how they operated. As I read, I found the stories of Henry Avery, Bartholomew Roberts, William Kidd, Anne Bonny and Mary Read particularly captivating.

Now, I believe it's important that a writer create a world where it's believable that space pirates exist. That said, if we postulate a universe where humans are colonizing other planets in the galaxy it's reasonable to expect that pirates will exist. In my "day" job I operate telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. It's actually hard to imagine a star empire or galactic alliance with so much money that they could patrol every possible planetary system imaginable. Likewise, it's hard to imagine a future where everyone is so well off that someone won't be motivated to try to take what someone else has. Just recently, we had the incident of Somali pirates taking an American ship not far from American warships. Even with only a small boat and a few guns, they created a very difficult situation for this country. The galaxy is a much bigger place.

In my universe, Earth recognizes that it simply cannot patrol much of its territory at all with warships of any sort. It becomes much more practical for humans to issue Letters of Marque to pirate crews and allow them to harass ships from competing systems and colony worlds.

My pirate captain, Ellison Firebrandt, comes from a poor family. His father was a miner in the asteroid belt and it looked like Ellison's fate would either be to follow in his father's footsteps or go into some other hard labor for the rest of his life. As with the pirates of old, life aboard a pirate ship seemed to offer more freedom and opportunity for young Firebrandt than a life wasting away as a miner or a laborer for one of the giant corporations of Earth. Because Firebrandt is the protagonist of the stories in which he appears, I felt it necessary to give him a moral compass. He is loyal to Earth because the government provided his Letter of Marque. He kills and robs, but he does so with the intention of aiding Earth.

In the story "For a Job Well Done", which appears in the anthology Space Pirates, Firebrandt tries to fence stolen items through a gang that secretly pulls the strings on one of Earth's colony worlds. The gang maintains control through the torture of the planet's populace. In the process of discovering this, Firebrandt meets a woman named Suki Mori and a romance is born. Though Firebrandt is, himself, a criminal, his moral compass can't abide the self-serving interests of the gang he encounters and he feels compelled to stop them. Even though the story is science fiction, it was heavily influenced by contemporary headlines.

In the follow-up story entitled "Hijacking the Legacy" that appears in the anthology Space Sirens, Suki Mori discovers the cold hard reality that her new-found "friends" really are bloodthirsty pirates. She tries to escape but throws herself and the pirate crew right into the hands of a military captain that doesn't recognize Firebrandt's Letter of Marque. This puts Suki into a crisis of conscience. She recognizes that the crew of the Legacy is composed of criminals, but she also realizes that they're the ones who saved her from an even worse criminal gang. Can she simply let the pirates be killed?

Historically, not all pirates were clear-cut villains. They often came to piracy through a series of circumstances and choices. Often times there were no good choices for these people. Sometimes it was live as a slave or live as a pirate. Sometimes being a pirate seemed less horrible than being a crewman for a ship of the "legitimate" military. In creating my space pirates, I worked to create a universe that presented my characters with many of those kinds of difficult choices from history. I worked to create characters with enough of a moral compass that those choices were interesting ones to explore. Hopefully the stories are an exciting, fun ride as well!

If you would care to learn more about my novels and the anthologies where my stories appear, please visit davidleesummers.com and click on the links for "Books and Audio Books" and "Short Stories and Poems."

Or, visit David Lee Summers's blog on barratry
http://rocketpunk-manifesto.blogspot.com/2007/10/density-of-power.html



Mark Terence Chapman adds:

Rowena: Here's the premise behind the pirates in My Other Car is a Spaceship.

In my "universe", there are a number of alien civilizations in our sector of space, but none of them large enough or wealthy enough to patrol the space outside their respective territories. So pirates run amok in the "in-between" places, attacking remote settlements, mining colonies, and cargo ships traversing deep space. In addition to swag, some of the pirates trade in slaves.

Seeing the growing threat to commerce, a number of commercial outfits formed the Merchants' Unity, a sort of police force funded by the member merchants and tasked with the mission of suppressing the pirates and keeping them from disrupting interstellar commerce.

For many years, this worked. The Unity held the pirates to a nuisance-level only. Then one day, a pirate leader (a human ex-slave, whose grandparents were kidnapped from Earth) got a number of the pirate chieftains together and formed a corporation (BAE, Inc., short for Buck-an-Ear). Now organized (with stockholders and profit sharing), the pirates begin to attack in swarms instead of individually, overwhelming the Unity patrol ships and pushing the Unity to the brink of defeat.

Present-day Earth is unaware of any of this. But when a Unity ship patrolling our solar system (a pre-interstellar, and therefore embargoed system) loses both its pilots, it's forced to scour Earth for someone suitable, someone with the rare hypertasking gene that gives his mind the ability to handle thousands of simultaneous inputs.

It's into this universe that Colonel Hal Nellis, retired USAF fighter jock, is thrown. As pilot of Adventurer, he, along with Captain Kalen Jefffries (a son of human slaves), must find a way to defeat the seemingly overwhelming might of the pirates, or face the destruction of the Unity and the pillaging of a defenseless Earth.

[Bio: Mark is the author of three published science ficiton novels: The Mars Imperative, The Tesserene Imperative, and the just-released Sunrise Destiny. My Other Car is a Spaceship is his fourth, recently-completed, novel.)




As for the sheets question.... That is a matter of individual taste. Jacquie Rogers's pirates in her yet-to-be published novel that predated Fifth Element have special sheets to cope with bedding (verb) in zero gravity. Mark Terence Chapman's spacefarers are to be a surprise (to me). Some don't. In my first alien romance, Forced Mate, my high and mighty hero Tarrant-Arragon steals the love of his life's bedding from Earth to encourage her to feel more at home in his bed.

I've never visited a pirate's bed (in my books), but my Scythian pirates are a bit like downsized Chewbaccas with claws so with all that reddish hair, there's little need for modesty in bed.




Rowena Cherry
Space Snark

By the way, for those who do not know, you can download royalty free wallpaper and fabulous images from http://hubblesite.org/gallery/

When a story doesn't work, part two

First off, jazzed to say Twist was nominated for a Prism in the Time Travel category. Fellow blogger Linnea was too. Thanks for posting this earlier this week.

Now more on the journey of my proposal. Below is chapter one. When I envisioned this story, the world was a dark and dreary place. I cannot imagine one part of this story taking place in the sunshine although I'm sure I would have worked some in. Its just the overall concept is just dark.

While I usually am pretty regualr at writing stories from the H/H pov, (unless in first person like Twist) I decided that I needed to do some pov of the antagoist. You will noticed the tone is omnipotent, which is how Swaim sees himself.

Also adding, I am dyslexic and horrible at grammer. The follow has not been edited.

The Real

They were like insects scurrying to their holes. Vile creatures. If only they could be exterminated. But even insects served their purpose and these would serve his. He watched them move from his position fifty feet up in the air, safe on his thoptor as the LED’s tracked back and forth on the uneven ground below.

“We’re locked.”

Swain turned from the view port to the console where a young techno, fresh out of academy, stood over a holi-vid. His nostrils flared as he approached the younger. Only purebloods were allowed to be near him. He smelled the usual array of bodily odors, more so since the younger was nervous. But no admanium. There was not any mechanized enhancements on this techno as there would be none on anyone else aboard this craft.

“Here,” the techno said. His finger trembled as he pointed to the ruins of a building. It cut through the blue line of the three dimensional representation that hovered over the surface. Inside the building a lavender blob could be seen, accompanied by a smaller red blob. They moved quickly through the ruins on the surface as if they knew where they were going.

Luckily so did he. Swain allowed himself a small smile.

“We’ll take them here,” he said and pointed to a place where three paths converged upon the ruins. The techno tapped the screen of his vid and the image was transferred to the terrain transport below along with an image of his finger, pointing out the places where he planned to lay his trap. “Place your men,” he said to the land unit below, as usual being proper in his address even though his skin crawled at the thought of referring to the hybrids awaiting their orders below as men. But even one of the members of the Protectorate must obey the chosen guidelines of society so that no grievances may be filed against him. “Here and here,” he continued.

“Command accepted,” the ground commander said as if he had a choice in the matter.

“These readings are off the chart,” his assistant, Foster, hissed in his ear. “I’ve never seen anything like it except for…”

Swain turned quickly less Foster give something away. “Show me,” he said and Foster turned his scanner so the screen was visible. The lavender blob covered most of the screen, greatly overshadowing the companion red blob. “Any way of knowing which one it is?”

“Not until we’re on the ground and I can separate the scans.”

“Make sure they are not harmed,” Swain said.

“Ground.” Foster tapped his earpiece. “Both are to be taken unharmed.”

“Accepted,” ground came back.

“Get me down there,” Swain barked. “And quickly.” He didn’t trust the hybrids with his find. Especially if there was a new one among them. There had been occasions when their programming was faulty. There had been occasions when the “Kill” order was the only thing they could comprehend. He was not one to trust others to do something when he was capable of doing it himself. It was the only way he could be assured that it was done the correct way. His way.

The thopter moved quickly, arcing up then quickly down to a wide empty space among the ruins of the former metropolis. At one time it had more than likely been a parking lot. Now it was simply a flat place covered with a thick and cloying grass that encroached upon the pavement instead of sprouting from it. Not that it mattered to him what was beneath his feet beyond the fact that his shoes would have to be destroyed upon his return. The Real was dirty, unkempt and wild. Swain preferred the orderliness and cleanliness of the Dome.

“Savages,” he spit out as the thopter settled. Yet they did have their uses. Where else would they find workers for the lesser jobs since those on the inside had long ago learned the consequences of going against the gentle reminders of how life should be inside? Peace must be maintained. Those who did not maintain the flow of peace would be assigned a better way to serve the general populace.

The truth be told, they needed them as a barrier between the Dome and the droves of bandits called Scrabbers that roared down from the mountains every time the full moon came round. They needed them to replenish the army that was the only barrier between civilization and chaos.

The same army that awaited his orders as he stepped out of the thopter. He looked right and left. The squads had better be in place and waiting to ambush the two that would be coming this way or there would be a reckoning.
The commander of the ground forces stood well away from the thopter blades with his expressionless face turned towards him. Swain saw the thin red beam cross over his goggles which meant the commander was scanning him for proper identification. The lights from the ground transport shone across the area and cast distorted shadows upon the cushion of sprawling grass.

He would have to make sure that all records of his actions here tonight were erased. There was nothing to worry about. Foster would see to it. He could feel him on his heels even now.

“Squad Four and Five is still in pursuit sir,” the commander of the troop said. The voice sounded familiar to Swain and he spared a look at the square jaw and mobile mouth that showed beneath the visor. He must have come across the hybrid at sometime. Possibly in his youth before the soldier was adapted. The society in the dome was such that it was possible. The hybrid had been in the service long enough to rise to commander.

Why are you even thinking of this metal remnant? He is not important.

“You are positive that all other escapes routes are covered?” Swain snapped.

“As you ordered,” the commander said without a sound of emotion in his voice.

“Foster,” Swain said. “As soon as you are sure.”

“I will let you know,” Foster said. Was there a note of surliness in his voice? Swain refused to turn and look at his assistant. If there was, he would rout it out later. What was about to happen was too important. “The only way to tell is to separate them.”

Swain motioned upwards with a finger, casually turning it in the air and the thopter lifted off to hover above and await his next order.

“This way sir,” the commander said and turned to lead them to a safe place to watch the proceedings. Four men closed ranks around them. The transport backed away and turned off its lights. The only sound to be heard was the soft thump-thump of the thopter’s blades.

The commander was one of twenty-five in a squadron which consisted of five five man squads. Each member was designated as a number depending upon seniority and each squad was numbered. The commander was known as One-one, if he needed to be called by name which Swain was disinclined to do. The Squadrons all had different codes to discern them from the others. There were 100 squadrons in all, each one named after cities from the old world order. This squadron was called Dallas. Something he needed to remember for later, when their work was done for the night.

“Reissue the no-kill order,” Swain said. If Squad Five was in pursuit then it was the least experienced squad and the most likely to make a mistake.

“Accepted,” One-one replied. “No kill,” he said into his mouthpiece. “Repeat. No kill. Acknowledge.”

Swain heard the strange chirps that signified a response as a litany of Accepteds coming in through One-one’s earpiece. Foster’s echoed the same, only without the chirp. It was something in the hybrids programming. Something he found strangely annoying as if they were privy to some sort of secrets. Perhaps he should look into it upon his return.

There was nothing to do now but wait. He stood off to the side with the five mechs surrounding him with their Lasters charged and ready. Foster squirmed in anticipation beside him and kept up a running monologue with his scanner as if it would reveal more about the two that would soon fall into his hands. They had too. There was no place else for them to go.

Swain studied the layout once more. The ruined buildings that surrounded him seemed strangely elegant in the dim glow that shone from the dome in the distance. Almost as if they could come to life at any minute. Ivy twisted around columns that arched over broken steps and the trees that grew against the buildings swayed gently in the breeze created by the thopter that hovered above. Generations ago this had more than likely been a center of learning for the old world order. A college or university of some sort. Now it was nothing more than a haven for the rebels that roamed the real and tried to eke out a life among the ruins.

A strange shiver ran up his spine and he felt as if he were being watched. As if the buildings around him stared him down and whispered threats into his ear.

Nonsense. It was more than likely there were people inside, hiding in fear, watching and waiting, just as he was. He would order the area purged when this was over. When he found what he wanted.

One-one turned to him, his face strangely vacant beneath the visor.

What does he see? Does he see what I see or an image translated onto a screen? What was behind the visor? Would One-one’s eyes look upon him with respect or contempt for what society made him? What he made himself…Swain corrected his train of thought One-one chose his path. He knew the consequences of breaking the laws.

What is wrong with you? For some strange reason he felt morbid tonight. He was seeing motives that could not possibly exist; he was assigning emotions where there could be none. Why did he feel so unsettled when he was on the verge of finding the very thing he’d been searching for?

“The target will be acquired in mark ten, nine, eight…One-one intoned.

Swain kept his eyes locked on the building before him. From his peripheral could see the two squads on either side move up on the building. He saw lights flashing across the black holes that at one time were windows. The squads were herding them out, right into the trap. One-one motioned his squad forward.

Swain stopped when Foster touched his arm. He looked down at the offending hand and his lip curled in contempt.

“Shouldn’t we stay back?” Foster asked. “In case they are armed?”

Swain swallowed his temper. He was too anxious. Too excited. This was too important. “Of course,” he said. He allowed Foster a reassuring nod to let him know he was forgiven for encroaching upon his personal space and moved to the side to wait.

He heard a crash. Swain willed his eyes to pierce the darkness and was suddenly blinded as the transport and the thopter lit up the area at the same time. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them.

Two figures ran across the front of the building. A man and a woman. The man held the woman’s hand, keeping her close to his side. She seemed ethereal against the dark color of the building. The light shining upon her enhanced the white of her dress along with the shimmering silver of her hair. Both flew about her body as the thopter hovered overhead.

“Anything?” Swain had to raise his voice to be heard over the thopter.

“Still too close,” Foster said.

The three squads converged upon the duo. The man feinted one way, turned to run the other. He kept hold of the woman’s hand until he realized there was no escape. He pushed her behind his body and backed her to the wall. Swain willed his body to stay at a walk as he and Foster moved toward the two who were now surrounded. At least twenty Laster’s were aimed at the two.

“Metals!” Swain spat out curse in disgust. “We’ll be lucky if they don’t kill both of them.”

“Stand down,” Foster yelled into his earpiece. “They’re not going anywhere.”

The Laster’s were lowered as he walked into the circle of mech’s. As one they stepped back with their weapons pointed safely upward.

The man stood tall and strong. His chest moved with the exertion of his flight but his dark eyes betrayed no fear as they moved back and forth across the mechs, seeking an escape route. There was none, still his hands curled into fists as if he would fight his way through. Swain saw a spark of hatred as he stepped forward. The man knew Swain was the one responsible. He knew the mechs were just following orders. He knew where to direct his frustration.

“What do you want?” the man said. The woman peered over his shoulder, her eyes wide and pale in the light. They shone with something… not fear… was it anger? She had spirit. He felt something he had not felt for a long time. A challenge? How extraordinary. His loins tightened suddenly. The feeling was a pleasant surprise because it was not something that happened for him, at least not this easily and never without a certain type of outside stimulation.

Which one? No matter which, he would keep the woman. If it was her it would certainly simplify things.

Swain kept his eyes on the man but he spoke to Foster. “Anything?”

“We must separate them,” Foster said.

“Do it,” Swain ordered.

“Two-one, Three-one,” One-one said. “Take the male without regret.”

“Accepted.” Swain watched as two of the mechs from either side of the circle handed their weapons off and moved to take the man.

They approached him from both sides. He watched them warily with his eyes darting back and forth between the two. Suddenly he moved. He dropped into a leg sweep and with his shoulder shoved the falling man into the other one while removing the stunner from the mech’s hip. Before Swain could blink the man fired and rolled. He came up beside another mech and caught the Laster before the hybrid hit the ground.

“It’s her,” Foster hissed as the woman moved after him.

“Are you sure?”

The man leveled the Laster on another mech and fired. The proton blast hit the man square in the chest plate and he fell backwards and shook violently. A scream tore from his throat as the admanium in his system exploded from the minute nuclear blast and he was torn apart from the inside out. It happened so fast that there was no time for the mechs to react as they had not received new orders from One-one. They were still on stand down mode. Held in place by the No-kill warning.
The man handed the downed mechs Laster to the woman.

“I’m sure,” Foster said. He ducked as a Laster blast went off over their heads, aimed toward the thopter. The thopter pulled up and away as another blast followed it.

“Take out the man,” Swain said.

“Revoke kill on male subject,” One-one said calmly. Instantly weapons were leveled. “Take the female unharmed. Repeat. Kill male subject. Take female subject.”

“No!” the woman screamed.

The man shoved the woman forward and swung the Laster in a wide arc, firing the entire time. Swain and Foster both dropped with their hands over their heads as if that would protect them from the blatant destruction of body that the Laster would cause. One-one and the rest of his squad took up defensive positions around them.

“Dax!” She screamed it. As if she were the one dying.

If they hurt her I will tear each one of them apart bit by bit…
Swain looked up. The woman was on the ground, cradling the man against her chest. The man’s face was twisted in agony and Swain realized the man’s right leg was gone, blasted away by a Laster at mid-thigh. Still he was able to reach for his Laster and he held it steadily in his hands as the mechs approached.

“Merritt,” he said. “Go. I’ll hold them off.”

“No,” she cried out.

Swain approached the group.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Foster said from behind. “Her PNA is off the charts.

“Excellent,” Swain said.

“GO!” the man roared.

“If you move we will kill him,” Swain said calmly to the woman.

“I’m dead anyway,” the man spat out. How could he talk? His leg was gone, nothing but a bloody and charred stump remained. The front of the woman’s dress was covered with blood. It showed black against the pristine white of her long white dress. The LED’s from the thopter shone down upon them and she stared up at him with eyes that flashed with silver.

“What do you want with us?” the woman asked.

Swain looked at her and smiled. “Why Merritt,” he said. “Didn’t you know? I want you.”

She looked at him curiously and he saw the realization settle over her face. “If I go with you, will you let him go?” she said.

“Merritt,” the man ground out between clenched teeth. “You can’t trust him.”

“Will you get him help?” she continued. “Make sure he lives?”

“Of course I will,” Swain said. He held out his hand in what he hoped was encouragement.

She looked at the weapons leveled on them. The building was at her back. There was no place for her to go and no hope of help coming from any direction. She bent her head and gently kissed the man. “I love you Dax,” she said. “Never forget it.” She slid from beneath him and lowered his head to the ground.

“Merritt!” he yelled as she stood and straighten her dress. He struggled, bracing himself up with is arms. It was if he could stand up with determination and stubbornness. Neither was a sufficient replacement for a leg.

Swain shook his head in surprise as he looked at the woman. If he didn’t know better he would swear it was a wedding dress she wore. It resembled the ones that he’d seen in the vids from the past. She stepped away and was instantly flanked by two mechs. As they walked her to him a team of mechs yanked the Laster from the man, Dax, she’d called him and trained their weapons upon him.

“Merritt,” Swain said when she stood before him. “I am most happy to meet you.”
She punched him. Hard. His head snapped back and he felt a crack in his jaw along with the coppery taste of his own blood. He swiped a hand over his face as he tongued the inside of his cheek. Was that a tooth? He spit it into his hand. Anger swelled over him and he clenched his fist over the tooth as he felt his cock harden. It took every bit of his will not to strike her.

She had no fear in her eyes. Only anger. Her white blonde hair tumbled around her shoulders and her bosom heaved with emotion. Her pale blue eyes bore into him, daring him to strike her.

“Orders?” One-one asked him.

Swain looked beyond Merritt to the man who obviously wanted to kill him. If he could do it with a look then he would most certainly be a dead man. A smile moved over his face as he realized that he could strike out at her, without actually lowering himself to show violence in front of his men.

“He’s yours,” Swain said. “To replace the one you lost.”


“No!” Merritt said. “You bastard!” She lunged for him. She sunk her nails into his cheek and raked them down. Swain staggered back with his hand over his cheek. He realized that he lost his tooth.

“Do something about her,” Swain said as he stumbled toward the thopter that had settled behind him.

“Stun her,” Foster said. Swain heard the charge of the stunner. He heard her fall and he heard the man, Dax struggle and calling her name. A hand reached out to help him into the thopter but he slapped it away and settled into a seat. A medic was there, waiting. He sprayed steriskin on his cheek and the burning immediately went away.

One-one stepped inside with Merritt in his arms. He placed her in the chair beside him and turned away without a word. Foster climbed in after One-one stepped out. Swain arched an eyebrow at him in silent communication. Foster handed him the port key.

Swain pushed the key into the admanium simport that was buried in his temple. The LED on the end glowed green to show it was communicating with the computer on board. As the thopter took off, Swain saw the mechs freeze in place as they received their orders to forget everything they’d seen tonight. When questioned about their activities Dallas squadron would report that they had captured a thief and rehabilitated him. “Make sure there are no witnesses,” Swain said to Foster. Foster immediately tapped his earpiece and ordered another squadron out to sweep the area.

Swain looked at the woman that slumped in the chair next to him. She was young, he realized, younger than the fight she’d shown. She was also exquisitely beautiful and once again he felt his cock harden. He would have to make sure the pleaser he used tonight had the same silvery blonde hair and pale blue eyes.
Not that it would matter what she looked like when he was done with her.

Crossing Genre Lines

The new RWR (magazine of Romance Writers of America) contains an article on cross-genre fiction, or, as the author puts it, mixing subgenres. I was surprised, by the way, to see mystery and romance mentioned as a “mix.” Love story subplots are so common in detective novels that the further step of raising the romance to equal importance with the mystery hardly counts as genre-bending. In fact, back in the 1930s Dorothy Sayers wrote a fully developed romance-mystery crossover, GAUDY NIGHT, with the two plotlines sharing a common theme, integrity in one’s work. Anyway, “Mixed Marriages: Blending Subgenres,” by Christie Craig, is a useful article that makes several good points, such as the need for balance between the two elements of a novel so that readers don’t lose track of one subgenre thread or perceive it as unimportant compared to the other. Craig also mentions the importance of a consistent tone to ensure that the book doesn’t come across as two separate stories forcibly spliced together. She doesn’t say much if anything, however, about the question of whether there exist any pairs of genres that resist being blended because their conventions and expectations are just too different. Do you think there are any such completely incompatible pairs?

We know Regency romance can be effectively combined with vampire-slaying, because Colleen Gleason does it in her series about a Regency-era female vampire hunter. How about Regencies and zombies? If you haven’t read Seth Grahame-Smith’s PRIDE AND PREJUDICE AND ZOMBIES, check it out. Here’s my mini-review that will appear in my June newsletter. (The page to subscribe is: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/margaretlcartersnewsfromthecrypt.)

[Grahame-Smith takes the text of Austen's classic novel and, by altering some passages and inserting a few new ones, converts Elizabeth and her sisters into mistresses of the "deadly arts," trained by a Chinese master to slay the undead victims of the "strange plague" that has overrun the British Isles. The word "zombie" is seldom used; the euphemistically termed "stricken ones" are usually called "unmentionables" or "dreadfuls." The violence besieging civilized Regency society extends to social relationships as well. Ladies seem as likely as gentlemen to challenge each other to deadly duels. One of the most amusing scenes involves Elizabeth's rejection of Darcy's first proposal while using her martial arts skills to throw him around the room. His aunt, Lady Catherine, scorns Elizabeth not only for her low family connections but out of disdain for her Chinese fighting background as opposed to Lady Catherine's allegedly superior Japanese training. On the whole, I enjoyed it. I thought the author (co-author?) did an excellent job of smoothly integrating the zombie interpolations with the original text. My only reservation is that the tone seems to wobble a bit. There are passages of genuine horror and pathos, and then there are moments when the zombie element is clearly being played for sheer silliness. And I do dislike the frequent vomiting and the repeated emphasis on bedridden Wickham's "soiling," both of which seem to me incompatible with Regency style. (And if he's that disabled, how can he function as a working clergyman? That was before handicapped-accessible architecture and technology!) Otherwise, I think the tour de force is pulled off very well. The alternate-universe Regency England infested with zombies comes across as quite believable. To appreciate the story completely, of course, the reader needs familiarity (or at least acquaintance) with the original novel.]

Interestingly, a crossover of Jane Austen and Mary Shelley has also been published—a novella called “Pride and Prometheus” in a past issue of THE MAGAZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION, in which Victor Frankenstein visits England and becomes involved with Mary Bennett, Elizabeth’s bookish sister.

Speaking of the undead, I’ve come across the claim that even if all other classic monsters become romantic heroes, zombies will never achieve that status. They’re shambling, mindless, cannibalistic animated corpses. Could a zombie star as the hero of a romance? Piers Anthony’s Xanth series features zombies falling in love. He’s altered the template to serve his narrative purpose, though. His zombies aren’t mindless; they retain their personalities. But, then, the wonderful thing about fantasy fiction is that we can shift the creatures and traditions of myth and legend in new directions limited only by our imaginations. One more question arises from that freedom: How far can a familiar monster be transmuted before it’s no longer recognizable and resembles the original template in name only?

Margaret L. Carter (www.margaretlcarter.com)

Marketing Fiction in a Changing World

The mantra that has leaped out at me from every corner of my little world is, "The Business Model must change." It comes in variations: The Business Model has failed. The Business Model is obsolete. The Business Model is outdated.

The way to make a profit marketing anything is to have the right business model.

I wish they'd taught me about marketing in grammar school instead of harping on penmanship and drawing maps -- even the hours spent mastering spelling turned out to be a waste since now spellcheck does it for you as you type. And arithmetic? Even my phone has a calculator!

A fiction writer is the sole proprietor of a BUSINESS and thus needs a business model, and that business model must be correct or the writer won't turn a profit.

What does a writer do with profits? Buy bread, milk, cheese, DVDs, books, and pay the utility bills, rent and lowest on the list is usually clothes.

So a writer needs to know not only how to craft a terrific idea into a story, but must craft that story to a business model. If the end product does not fit the correct business model, the end product (the novel) can't be well marketed, and there will be no profit.

The artist side of our creativity listens to the bean counters and screams SELLOUT! But it's not really. It's opportunism.

What good is great art that molders away in the artist's basement? To do its job, art must connect with an art consumer.

The artist or writer in this case (writing is a performing art, as I learned from Alma Hill) has three choices.

1)Write anything you want and let it molder away unread by anyone but yourself.

2) Write what you want and build a mechanism for delivering what you want to the people who want it. That is build a delivery chute for your art.

3) Or be an oppotuntist and write what you want, what fires your creative furies, but first shape it so you can PACKAGE IT to fit down existing delivery chutes.

If you try to build your own delivery chutes and conveyor belts, (which is what startup ebook publishers are doing using new tools) you incur an additional overhead and take time and energy away from writing.

If you use existing delivery chutes, you may squash your art with the shrinkwrap, but most of your art will reach consumers hungry for that product.

What's happening today that has publishing melting down (and reforming), that has the very definitions of genre changing faster than publishers can invent logos, that has profits dwindling and copyright becoming an archaic term nobody understands -- what's happening today is THE BUSINESS MODELS OF THE WORLD ARE MELTING DOWN.

That's right. It's not just publishing that has foundations crumbling, it's every kind of business there is from autos to construction, and even Old Time Religion revivals.

Politically, we're all blaming it on the financial industry and its business model that collapsed in 2008 (the whole idea of distributing risk via derivative securities; mortgages that were securitized and sold abroad -- that's a business model of how to make money off of selling to people who can't afford to buy what you're selling).

But we, as writers, have to look at a much bigger picture here. The reason the financial industry was able to grow the securitization business model so explosively lies way outside the financial industry. Their brilliant idea for a business model was possible because of the computerization of the whole world. They did it all by computer! (and didn't spend the extra money necessary to figure out how to de-construct those securities when parts of the mortgages failed or needed refinancing.)

The people in the finance industry who know they operate on a business model, and are artistically creative enough to create new business models created one -- and it didn't work well at its first big test.

But it was a brilliant piece of creative work, inventing a CHUTE to deliver their PRODUCT to a hungry MARKET. They built a new mechanism to deliver product, and they built it out of the newest high-tech computerized materials.

Take GM and Chrysler as an example of the opposite phenomenon. They didn't change their bussiness model to a computerized high tech model fast enough -- by the time they put any real effort into tech, they were so far behind the times that at the first titanic blow from outside their industry, they collapsed.

Publishing is in the same situation. The biggest publishers still insist on doing business on paper, and even demand printed manuscripts. Hollywood script submissions are also still somewhat skewed toward paper copies!

The EPIC list ( http://www.epicauthors.com/links.html ) is always abuzz with the issues of e-book reading devices and e-publishing, new publishing companies, specific genre requirements, and advice to authors on how to promote your latest book from a small, independent e-publisher.

As a reviewer, I can say that some (maybe a lot) of these e-books are easily as well crafted as anything Manhattan is publishing in Mass Market. But they're usually aimed at a much narrower, smaller market.

But this is changing too, and changing fast. Soon, the e-book will be the mass market "chute" to put your product down, and paper books will be for narrow, specialty markets.

Today, however, the Mass Market paperback sells more copies of any given title than e-books do.

If you want your art to reach a broad market, you have to understand what it means "Mass Market" -- and how that relates to "High Concept" in screenwriting.

Notice the word MARKET in the title of the pocket sized paperback printed on cheap paper that yellows and crumbles in a couple decades or less. (some do have quality paper; you can tell because they cost more and feel heavy in your hand. Those pages will out-last the glue.)

What does it mean, "mass" market? It means HUGE. The Mass Market paperback is designed to be delivered down a CHUTE that has a wide bore and is very long, with many branches.

When you think Market, think of a huge factory making many copies of a thing, trucks and boxcars waiting outside, loading up and chugging off to deliver some of those things to various destinations where they'll be sold.

Think of Henry Ford inventing the assembly line to create cars the mass-market people could afford. He wasn't the first to hit on this concept, but he was the first to apply it to a product people wanted and make it work, the Model T Ford.

The entire innovation of the industrial revolution is based on UNIFORMITY. It's based on ARBITRARY CONVENTIONS. It's based on STANDARDIZATION.

Prior to the industrial revolution, everything was made by hand -- embroidered seat cushions, shoes made by a cobbler to match your own feet, patchwork quilts, rugs on a loom. No two looms or weavers were alike, no two die lots matched even almost, and no two copies of the same item were ever the same!

The business model of the master mason who built buildings, the farrier who shoed horses, the blacksmith who made plough blades and rifles, was based on the individual, specialized, made-to-fit, customized, and truly excellent item. The mastercraftsman sold his items on his reputation for excellence, not uniformity.

There was no such thing as "quality control" and "planned obsolescence" (where the factory puts out a certain percentage of lemons set just below the complaint-tolerance level of the consumer, and designs the object to fail after a certain amount of usage so the customer will buy another one).

The business model was UNIQUENESS + EXCELLENCE.

It became UNIFORMITY + BARELY-GOOD-ENOUGH.

Alvin Toffler wrote a (HC + Mass Market Paperback) non-fiction book in the 1970's called FUTURE SHOCK which also had some sequels that rode on the success of the first one but added little to his message. His message was that the business model was about to shift again, a paradigm shift prompted by the computer age, that would change things nobody at that time was even thinking ever could change.

He was right! He predicted what he called a return to the cottage industry of the customized item -- as opposed to the factory produced uniform item. He predicted that commuting to work in a centralized office would be replaced by telecommuting. He didn't predict the internet, but because of the internet, his predictions have come true.

The E-book publisher is essentially a cottage industry. They employ editors, writers, POD printers, website builders, and billing system such as Paypal, scattered all over the world. And they deliver a customized product, a Niche Product, rather than the Mass Market product.

The film industry has seen the rise of the Indie company producing niche films with craftsmanship worthy of awards. And you all know YouTube! Everyone with a cell phone can make a video to post on YouTube -- though they all don't grab as big an audience.

Toffler's theory was that technology would free us from having to conform ourselves to the median, to accept what the average person wants because the mass market product is cheaper. He predicted that the customized product would be cheaper than the mass market product.

So far, that prediction hasn't happened.

The e-book is not reaching the huge, MASS of the mass market yet.

The BUSSINESS MODEL of "mass" is being chisled away, but it hasn't collapsed yet.

Still, look at the Neilsen numbers on cable news shows --
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/nc/portal/site/Public/menuitem.43afce2fac27e890311ba0a347a062a0/?vgnextoid=9e4df9669fa14010VgnVCM100000880a260aRCRD

Keep in mind that there are about 310 MILLION people in the USA and the typical TV show only draws 23 million or so. Maybe 30-40 million for a big news event.

30 Million out of 300 million is not a MASS MARKET.

We seem to be a fragmented and fragmenting nation, but maybe not. See the article on Facebook and Twitter I've sited near the end of this blog entry.

Toffler's vision is coming true -- technology (900 TV channels, thousands more online sources of entertainment, thousands more e-books per day published than paper books) has shattered the Mass part of the Mass Market. Mass Market paperbacks don't sell nearly what they once did to a much smaller nation (60 Million -- and a product had to reach a third of those to be successful.)

We have more choices and less knowledge of how to make wise choices.

Another of Toffler's predictions is coming to pass. His book was called FUTURE SHOCK because it predicted that the rate of change in the fundamental rules of living, working productively, and making wise choices among products would change faster than the basic human brain can adjust.

Toffler predicted that humans would go into a state of "shock" (being unable to think) because of the pace of change. He based this on the ability to adapt with age. In Medieval times, the methods and wisdom you learned from your father would last you all your life, and still be true when you died of old age.

A cobbler, for example, who knew the best method of dying shoe leather would end his career using that same method and it would still be state-of-the-art, though his grandson might encounter an improvement, but it would only be a slight improvement and it wouldn't shatter the cobbler business model.

Human beings need that kind of stability over their lifetimes. But technology has lengthened lifetimes and it looks like it will lengthen career-lifetimes. Meanwhile, whole industries have come and gone, and our methods of doing everything have been shifted on their foundations by (as Toffler predicted) the computerization of the world.

(and computerization has hardly BEGUN to penetrate all the way through this world)

Those who lived through the industrial revolution "came in off the farm" -- you can't keep 'em down on the farm was the song and slogan. Young people abandoned life on the land for the cities, and went to work in factories where they could make a fortune doing the same thing all day over and over.

And those factories turned out masses of identical objects.

That business model now co-exists (think Neanderthal and Homo sapiens) with the computer driven E-business model.

The E-business model is dissolving the foundation of the Mass Production business model faster than humans can adapt, so some older people still cling to the older model (and that's what collapsed GM) while some younger people grab for any crazy thing that's possible to do with the new tools (which caused the collapse of the financial system).

OK, now what's this image of the world got to teach writers about marketing?

One of the foundation cornerstones of the Mass Market Paperback business model is that authors are never EVER allowed to do their own marketing. In the 1970's, that began to fall away, and today, it's shifted entirely to the other end -- most authors, especially in e-books -- are required to do their own marketing (finance or make YouTube videos, online banner ads, virtual blog tours, and anything they can think of).

Meanwhile, authors aren't paid more to cover the expense of self-marketing.

The mass market business model is tilting dangerously askew because of this. The Mass Market model only works with a market that's massive in size. And with those markets, the publicists hired by the publisher (usually working in-house) do manage to reach reviewers and get buzz started about a book.

Note what Colby Hodge said in her blog entry here
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/05/when-story-doesnt-work.html

Colby has swerved into a LARGER mass market because it's open to her, Historicals. Mysteries are still big. Westerns are gone. Romance is big, but (Toffler again) Romance is fragmenting. Mysteries are fragmenting too. Customization is slowly replacing Standardization which replaced customization even more slowly!

Since the cost per item is lowered by mass production, more people can afford to buy the item, and thus the item reaches more people in total. 10% hard-core fans made is 10,000 from a book that sells 100,000 copies, and 40,000 from a book that sells 400,000 copies.

How can an artist do this and keep their integrity?

By understanding the concept MARKETING from the inside and then applying that understanding to art.

The writer is essentially a creative person. The solution to every problem in life is to create something new that has never existed before and can't be copied because it is unique.

That is what storytelling is all about -- being unique. Being the only one telling this story. Being the single source for this customized product.

Your story, your characters, your plot, your theme are fresh, new, different, and therefore exciting. You know your story will ignite ravenous hunger for more in your fans, if only they knew you exist and could find your novel.

Writers entering the marketplace today have a unique problem.

"The Marketplace" is standing on a crumbling foundation, tilting worse that the Leaning Tower of Pizza.

New writers today have a career decision to make that no writer has ever had to make before.

You can write for the market that will, I'm sure, replace this one as the high-profit-margin business model, the e-book that is tailored and customized.

You can write for the old, traditional Mass Market that's still reaching a much wider (but diminishing) audience than the e-book and work at a fair but diminishing profit.

In other words, you can try to use the delivery chutes that e-book publishers are beginning to learn to build, or you can try to use the delivery chutes that Mass Market publishers are using.

In either case, before you "have an idea" for a story, you need to study the size and shape of the chute that will deliver it to your market, and you need to study that market, and train your subconscious to "have" ideas that fit the delivery chute you have chosen.

Business people create chutes. Writers fill them.

Some writers have both skill sets, and I've found lately that the currently most successful writers come out of the business community, with a background in commercial art, advertising art, advertising writing, and every aspect of managing a business.

But to be able to do your own, personalized, individualized creative art with its unique aspects intact, your integrity unblemished, and still reach a Mass Market customer base, you must create an idea that is already formulated to fit a commercial market.

Over the last 5 years, I've seen e-book publishers reinventing that uniformity of product. Profit lies in creating large numbers of identical things, so the unit price comes down.

That principle has been eroded but not replaced.

So writers need to learn how to apply wild, unbridled creativity to one part of the product they produce, and uniformity, conformity, and standardization to the other part.

The part of the story that has to "fit down the chute" -- has to be uniform. It has to be exactly like every other story that the chute was designed to deliver to a particular audience.

Imagine, if you swung through the Mall shopping 'till you dropped, and hit up the vending machine for a coke. You feed your bill into the slot and poke the button. Down comes the red can. Pop! Take a swig. IT'S 7-UP!!! Some people would spew it out on passers-by in shock, and scream for their money back. You might be more restrained, but still irked.

Our whole society and all our expectations are configured by standardization, uniformity, conformity.

We buy a coke; we want coke in the can.

It's the same way with novels. Buy a Romance, you want an HEA ending. Buy an Alien Romance, or a Paranormal, you want plenty of complications but satisfaction in the end, anyway.

Buy a Horror Novel, you want to be creeped out big time, right?

Romance, and Horror are two "chutes" that conduct a product from your mind to your reader's mind.

These chutes have been built by businesses with business models, and they depend on the standardization aspect of the product to make it fit down the chute and arrive at the correct audience. The genre formulas are the packaging, the standard aspect of the art. Plots, characterization, story, theme all are standardized so that marketers know what to market your art "as."

If they guess wrong, and package and market 7-Up as Coke, the market will evaporate.

Meanwhile, another part of the fiction market has been thriving on the return to customization. Board games such as Dungeons & Dragons which became all the rage in create-it-yourself fiction rely on a standardization of story and elements, put together in a creative way by a "dungeon master" who marshalls the playing group. The fun is in the group activity, and the push-pull among the players for command of the customization of their stories.

Board games still exist and are enjoyed, but the BUSINESS MODEL now still growing despite the recession is VIDEO-GAMES. The battle of the game-console technology is heating up, and online gaming is huge and growing (World of Warcraft; Second Life etc etc.)

The video and online gaming is an example of the new business model Toffler predicted, which discards standardization. But even in these games, uniform "rules" and standard ways of deploying resources (rolling dice for "powers" for your character) are what make the game go.

If you market a game that doesn't generate its rules via the standard formula, players won't flock to it. They don't want to learn everything from scratch in order to create their own fiction with your game no more than readers want to learn to read all over again just to read your book.
Today more young people play video games than read books.

What's going on there?

Maybe it's not what everyone thinks it is. Maybe it's not that young people don't want to READ. Or can't read.

Maybe it's what Toffler predicted. Customization replacing Standardization. Younger people growing up in the electronic age are embracing the new world their elders can't stretch to accomodate. They are willing to work to customize their tools (phones) and entertainment. They don't want to let someone else do it for them and make it like everyone else wants it to be. They want to make it their own way -- just like us creative artists want to write our own stories our own ways, not to fit the delivery chutes the marketers have built to suit their business model.

The basic human being can accept only so many paradigm shifts in one lifetime, and there have been several huge, basic "throw every skill you have out the window and start from scratch" paradigm shifts in the last 30 years. Everyone today who is over 50 is suffering some kind of FUTURE SHOCK.

Several times in a lifetime is just way too fast for humans.

Those who reject customization (some people have trouble programming their ring tones!) say things like "I prefer the feel of real books" despite the fact that a good e-book reader can customize the font to be more readable to old eyes. But of course, the "quality" (i.e. standardization) of the fiction available in the format can be an issue, too. Amazon's Kindle program is trying to break down that barrier by presenting the same Mass Market fiction as Kindle downloads.

The biggest innovation with Kindle that may reshape our landscape is that they deliver newspapers and magazines via Kindle download that is supposed to be hassle free for the computer-averse. That may save the business model of newspapers and magazines.

One day, the kids born in the 1990's will cling to their video consoles, e-book readers or handheld device despite the availability of something new that their children feel is "better."

How do you market fiction into this changing world?

Do you customize or standardize? Where, in the structure of fiction, does the creative writer get to create?

If you decide you'll have to build your own delivery chute between yourself and your consumer, here is a story about a person Jean Lorrah ran into at MediaWest Convention.

---------FROM JEAN LORRAH via email -------------------------

One of the reasons we do conventions: I just did a podcast with Mark Eller, who became a podcaster to publicize his own books. Here is the information for finding the interview online, though he doesn't know exactly when he will post it:

Bookmark http://www.podfeed.net/podcast/Chronicles+with+Mark+Eller/17298 . Then watch for an episode featuring me. In five minutes I managed to plug simegen.com, lochness-monster.com , tipsonwriting, jeanlorrah.com , the Sime~Gen books, the Nessie books, and the Savage Empire books.

Mark, at age 50, has suddenly fallen into a bunch of connections that have brought about the sale of seven of his books to small presses and his being chosen as a judge for a "reality" TV show on the CW network called The Write Stuff. http://www.thewritestufftv.com/ . The CW is a small network, but it is on most cable systems.

The premise of the show is that writers today have to do a heck of a lot more than writing for their books to succeed, and on the show they will have to demonstrate their abilities to do everything. What they win is a small press single-book contract and a marketing campaign, but who knows? If they get the 30 million viewers that they hope for, and one-thirtieth of them buy the book, it will be a huge best-seller.

It is VERY clear that the winner will not be the best writer, but the cleverest marketer among the contestants. But unfortunately that's what book publishing is today.

---------------END FROM JEAN LORRAH via email -----------------

Now that's an example of a man who is building a new fiction-delivery-chute.

And it's going in the right direction -- MEDIA. Via the podcast which is internet radio, usually voice only but sometimes with video now, niche audiences are being configured for each of thousands of special interests.

The total population of the world is growing fast, and the cost-per-unit of customized product is dropping fast. Where the two trends meet, niche marketing will explode.

Thus we have the call-in talk show done with online radio! And online radio advertising customized for novelists to promote their own work.

---------------FROM A PROMOTIONAL EMAIL ---------------

PIVTR has another new program in its line-up. It's called "Crazy Tuesday" (c) 07.

What's that? What is "Crazy Tuesday?" I'm delighted you asked.

"Crazy Tuesday" (c) 07 takes place on the first Tuesday of each month. Between the hours of 10 to 2 p.m. eastern standard time for $100, an author, playwright, screenwriter, actor/actress, free-lance, independent, publishing company, publicist, agent, the world can promote, market, brand, sell, advertise (whatever is clean and wholesome. PIVTR is a family station!) to get the word out about you and your product.

Contact Lillian for all of the details.

Don't delay. The first Tuesday of July and September are already booked!!

LCauldwell @ internetvoicesradio.com

Let the WORLD know about you!

Check out the website and look around: http://internetvoicesradio.com

----------------END PROMOTIONAL EMAIL---------------------

Web radio is another whole new business-model-busting tech application fragmenting the mass market and the underlying concept of standardization. It's a result of a huge paradigm shift, and many people are just shrugging off web radio as unimportant. It is, however, a harbinger of what is yet to come. (we've barely started on computerizing the world)

The production cost is way down because there's no broadcast antenna, huge airwave license fee, and electric bill. Some simple equipment that's easily available, some software specializing in recordings that can be webcast, a short but steep learning curve, and the talented and determined are in business, building a niche audience for a customized product.

The audiences on web radio are large and growing. Like e-books, the audience size doesn't rival Mass Market media like Cable and Broadcast TV, but like e-books this entertainment delivery system is chiselling away at the foundations of the mass market business model.

That foundation is Standardization. Standardization was developed to reduce unit costs to where the vast majority of people could afford the product if they wanted it.

Cost reduction via technology is making standardization obsolete in certain aspects of product design -- the aspects that the consumer can customize themselves.

Microsoft rose to dominance on standardizing the platform (Windows) and letting developers create applications all of which run on the same command sets and design look.

Their success changed the business model of the computing world that Toffler was familiar with. And yet his predictions are coming true, one by one.

The lesson writers can take away from all this is that success in this churning market depends on standardizing the invisible and the user interface -- letting the consumer customize everything else.

See my post on Web 2.0. The Web concept failed, and it's being patched with customizing tools like RSS feeds, news and social networking aggregators, twitter aggregators, etc.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2008/11/i-love-web-20.html

For a writer, that means standardize your plot structure then use your creative art to induce the reader to IMAGINE THEIR OWN STORY using your story as a springboard into their own story.

Your product is no longer your own story. In this changing world, your product is fuel for your readers' imagination in ways it never could be before.

And it's all about marketing, not writing talent. The best marketer will win.

Check out this recent news story on Yahoo Tech news

http://tech.yahoo.com/news/nm/20090522/tc_nm/us_summit_social_2
----------quote-----------
And analysts and investors, in search of the next Google-like hit, are paying close attention to the breakneck speed at which Facebook and Twitter are adding new users.

While the popularity of the two social media firms has yet to translate into the kind of revenue-generating machine that Google Inc developed with its search advertising business, some say Facebook and Twitter have become so central to the Internet experience that they are inherently valuable.
...
Facebook grew to 200 million active users in April, less than a year after hitting 100 million users.

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

Note that 200 million. Check the sizes of the average TV shows in viewers. Small wonder advertisers are abandoning TV -- which can be seen as each hour carries more and more minutes of ads instead of show. They're desperately trying to get enough advertising bucks to keep the shows on the air.

Read that exerpt. Listen to how they think and how they talk. "monetize" "adding new users" "inherently valuable" -- and "internet experience" !!! --

Amusement and Entertainment (which is what novels are) has become an "experience."
Interactive, and most of all customized, experience.

The whole social networking phenomenon is an example of customized entertainment. And it's being made into a mass market product. But the current business model can't figure how to monetize it, and that figuring is indeed being done by people so young they probably never read Alvin Toffler's brilliant bit of futurology, Future Shock.



Toffler was right about so much, chances are the answers are in there.

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

Heroes, Finalists and Deadlines...

Daq-Cat, Miss Doozy Kitty and your truly want to extend our deepest appreciation to all heroes, past and present, today as here in the USA, it's Memorial Day: military personnel, law enforcement personnel, emergency medical personnel, emergency veterinary personnel. All those who put their lives on the line for unknown and other unseen others. We salute you, we honor you, we wish you and yours many blessings. We'd not have the life, the freedoms we do today but for your diligence and sacrifices. Thank you.

Shameless BSP: The Prism Award Finalists Are Announced!

Posted with permission:

"Jennette Heikes & Theresa Kovian are pleased to announce and congratulate our finalists in the Prism Contest in alphabetic order:

Dark Paranormal
Immortals: The Redeeming by Jennifer Ashley
Hotter After Midnight by Cynthia Eden
Mona Lisa Craving by Sunny

Erotica
A Mermaid's Kiss by Joey W. Hill
Carnal Desires by Crystal Jordan
Siren Singing by Isabo Kelly

Fantasy
The Dragon Master by Jennifer Ashley w/a Allyson James
Dragonborn by Jade Lee
King of Sword & Sky by C.L. Wilson

Futuristic
Fallen by Claire Delacroix
Moonstruck by Susan Grant
Shades of Dark by Linnea Sinclair

Light Paranormal
La Vida Vampire by Nancy Haddock
The Trouble with Moonlight by Donna MacMeans
Wicked Game by Jeri Smith-Ready

Novella
"The Spacetime Pool" by Catherine Asaro
"Dark Nest" by Leanna Renee Hieber
"Kung Fu Shoes!" in These Boots were Made for Stomping by Jade Lee

Time Travel
Twist by Colby Hodge
Madman's Dance by Jana G. Oliver
A Sexy Time of It by Cara Summers

Young Adult
Cave of Terror by Amber Dawn Bell
CHOSEN: A House of Night Novel by P.C. Cast
Sleepless by Terri Clark

Category winners and rankings, as well as the coveted Prism Statue Award, will be announced on July 16, 2009 in Washington D.C. at RWAR National and Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter at The Gathering.

Jennette Heikes, Co-coordinator for Dark Paranormal, Erotica, Novella & Time Travel

Theresa Kovian. Co-coordinator for Fantasy, Futuristic, Light Paranormal & Young Adult"

What I find so cool on a personal note is that I blurbed (ie: read the manuscript before publication for a quote/opinion) both MOONSTRUCK and FALLEN and totally loved both books!

I'm also jazzed to see Colby Hodge, Jade Lee, Donna MacMeans, Isabo Kelly, Catherine Asaro, C.L. Wilson and Leanne Renee Hieber on the list. Except for Donna, they were all part of either my Intergalactic Bar & Grille party or the SF/F panel at RT this year. Woot!

Now, back to work for me... (that's the deadlines part). ~Linnea

SHADES OF DARK, the sequel to Gabriel’s Ghost, July 2008 from RITA award-winning author, Linnea Sinclair, and Bantam Books: http://www.linneasinclair.com/

Something cascaded lightly through me—a gentling, a suffused glow. If love could be morphed into a physical element, this would be it. It was strength and yet it was vulnerability. It was all-encompassing and yet it was freedom. It was a wall of protection. It was wings of trust and faith.

It was Gabriel Ross Sullivan, answering the questions I couldn’t ask. Not that everything would be okay, but that everything in his power would be done, and we’d face whatever outcomes there were together.

Mixed Metaphors and other inspiration

I meant to take questions... but forgot. My apologies. I've been deeply wrapped up in writing articles for a new authors' marketing and promotion advice website 1stTurningPoint.com

My first three topics were LinkedIn.com, Tips for Creating Buzz, and Online Piracy.

In the course of my peregrinations around the social networks, I saw a mixed metaphor that had originally been used in a business context, and which was being mocked as horrible writing.

"We're skating on thin ice. If we're not careful, we'll end up in hot water."

Being the contrarian and underdog lover that I am, I immediately started to imagine an alien world where the metaphors could work together. It's the moon Europa that is an ice planet with water underneath. Right?

It would only take a submarine volcano...

Actually, we wouldn't have to go to Europa. Imagine a volcano under the Arctic. Poor polar bears. Alas for the Russians if they started to drill for oil in the wrong spot, just to stake a claim.

The other bit of text that going me going was a url that I enjoyed so very much that I had to make a joke on LinkedIn.com .

http://whorepresents.com

Yesterday, I noticed that the punctuation on the url has been changed to http://WhoRepresents.com thereby thwarting a storyline I was considering where my Prince Thor-quentin might visit the offices hoping to acquire a gift to take home to his brother. Actually, it doesn't thwart it, as long as the old url was in use in 1995.


Best wishes for everyone's safety this Memorial Day weekend!

Rowena Cherry
alien romances, futuristic romances