I recently found a post-nuke series called Deathlands. Is it good? I don’t know yet. I just received my copy of Deathlands #1 ‘Pilgrimage To Hell’ today. Maybe I’ll dissect it here when I’m finished. Something interesting is that GraphicAudio, the publisher, has a specific marketing strategy. There are seventy or so Deathlands books, and a large number of them are audiobook only. They state their target as long-distance commuters. I find this interesting as it’s not often that publishers have such a narrow target audience.

More important though, I like to go through everything within my genre to make sure that my ideas haven’t already been exploited by someone else. In most cases, they haven’t been. My configuration of setting and character elements has enough of its own identity that it won’t be confused with others. This is good, but it doesn’t make the fear go away. I have this paranoia that one of these days I’ll pick up a novel and read exactly the novel I was writing. This is mostly an irrational fear, but in some ways a healthy one. It’s good to know what’s out there.

Is anyone encroaching upon your ideas?

To me it is less a question of originality, and more one of differentiation in the marketplace. If your product is the same as everyone else’s on the market, you will be marginalized or forced to fight a price war — as price wars are the result of a market flooded with similar products. Without any differentiating features, companies have no choice but to slash the bottom line.

It’s not like writers on average are the highest paid members of society anyway, so on many fronts we (I say we, not our publishers) can’t afford to slash prices. This isn’t Wal-Mart, right?

Anyway, the questions here are:

• Who is your competition?
• Who are the top three companies publishing in your genre?
• How do those publishers market their books?
• What are the top three brands or Intellectual Properties in your genre? (If you write fantasy one of these is inevitably the Harry Potter I.P..)

How does your product fare against the competition? Have you done any market research lately?

In our creative endeavors we often strive to be clever. I came to storytelling after a thorough mentorship in marketing from my bosses at 3D Realms. Positioning is everything, which is why the soon-to-be-released game Prey features a Native American character named Tommy Hawk. Get it? Har har.

However, there can be a shortsightedness in trying to be so clever.

For every Tommy Hawk there is a James Bond. Ian Fleming explained that he chose the name because it was the most generic name he could come up with. It had no pre-built associations–a blank slate.

It worked out pretty well, don’t you think?

This Design Observer article agrees.

So which do you prefer? Ideas with pre-built associations? Or the blank slate?

If you prefer the blank slate, how do you propose to build a healthy, marketable context for your brand?

“If you’re stuck thinking of authors as ‘writers,’ you’re never going to understand branding.”

An apt quote from this Forbes article on successful authors. Which begs the question; What is your business plan for novel-writing? Do you have one?

Thanks to Grumpy Old Bookman for that link.

On one hand you have this idea of integrity–that as a writer you should just follow your own heart, mind, wants, dreams, whatever and then just hope and pray that other people like it. On the other hand there is the idea that maybe you can identify the things that make up a bestseller, and maybe strive to nail some of those things in the hopes they will work.

The problem here whether we’re talking about ‘following your heart’ or ‘writing for the market’ – we’re talking in the abstract, being as vague as anyone can possibly be. As a result, we’re not getting to the bottom of the issue and truly cracking these values that seem to conflict for so many writers.

So this morning I was reading Ian Hocking’s post, which was prompted by an essay. The essay came pretty close, albeit accidentally, to identifying the problem with this art-entertainment conflict of values.

“At some point you find that 90% of the stuff you’re writing is motivated and informed by an overwhelming need to be liked. This results in shitty fiction. And the shitty work must get fed to the wastebasket, less because of any sort of artistic integrity than simply because shitty work will cause you to be disliked.”

First, I like that he eventually throws the notion of artistic integrity out the window. We’re talking about fiction here. The writer’s job is to make things up. The writer’s job is to tell a lie, and to make that lie as believable as possible. I’m not sure how integrity can be valued in a portion of books that are entirely mythical. When you boil it down, fiction is nothing other than well-crafted bullshit. We’re not publishing groundbreaking science nor medical knowledge that will save millions of lives and earn us the Nobel. We make widgets that people bury their nose in when they’re bored. Some may not like that image because it erodes the grandiose idea of what a writer is, but it’s true. How can you say one B.S. artist has more integrity than another? You can’t. At the end of the day we’re all pulling stuff out of our butts. I can’t pretend mine stinks any less than yours, and you can’t pretend that yours stinks any less than the next person.

Second, the line about “the stuff you’re writing is motivated and informed by an overwhelming need to be liked” comes very close to identifying the heart of the matter.

The unfortunate mistake that both art-minded and pop-minded writers make is they both often write for the approval of others.

If you’re aiming for art, your most cherished goal is to create something that the critics will applaud, that intellectuals will dissect, and that everyone will find ‘deep’ and meaningful.

If you’re aiming for pop fiction, your most cherished goal is to create a story that everyone likes, talks about, and that everyone finds highly entertaining.

Here’s the problem; Both of these ignore why stories catch on, become liked, or sell.

The answer is content. Ideas. Everyone in the lit world is talking about how horrible Dan Brown’s prose is. Clue Phone for Lit World–Dan Brown stories don’t sell for their beautiful prose.

Neither does Stranger in a Strange Land, any Philip K. Dick story, or just about any fiction I can think of…

Nor do they sell because they had twelve stages within three acts. They don’t sell because you did or didn’t use flashbacks. They don’t sell because you used lots of metaphors, similes, or other literary constructs. When it comes down to an individual buying a book, they never buy books for this generic range of tools that writers use. Admit it right now–nobody cares.

Hit stories spread like wildfire for the controversy and conflict of their ideas. The ideas are the only thing that matter. If the content is strong enough, you can completely choke on the prose. I would even go so far as to say the ideas can sometimes carry a botched storytelling. The structure, pacing, arrangement, and the way the story plays out can even be flawed. If the ideas are strong enough, it will spread. If it’s still a story that people want to hear in spite of all flaws, it will spread.

The goal of both the art-minded and the pop-minded writer are the same; To have the book appreciated. Quality prose is great. A good structure is great. But ultimately, the work will be judged on its ideas–its content.

People don’t care about you as the writer. They only care about your ideas… your content. If the subject of your story is strong enough, only then will people care.

If you want your story to be successful then choose ideas that people care about. Choose ideas that many people would find interesting. This doesn’t mean they have to be existing popular ideas. But they need to be something that the audience would care about. Storytelling is about relevance. It’s about the question, “Why does anyone care?”

Only well-chosen content can answer that question.

Content is king. If you believe anything else, you might be lying to yourself.

“Historically, when we want to clean up, we spend zillions and gear the products to teen boys—the most easily distracted audience. Not only are they the ones with the most choices on Friday night, but they also know within a second of our holding a preview anywhere in the world whether a movie stinks or not. These guys cannot be fooled by marketing anymore. The harder we hype them, the harder we fall. By the Net and by BlackBerry transmission, word of mouth rules.”

The problem, as I see it is that few people inside or outside of Hollywood understand marketing and creation as the same thing. It’s the same problem in video games, and in every other medium. The best people to market a product are its creators, but the creators often have zero interest in marketing. As the creator, you know what makes your product sing, why it is cool, and why anyone else would care about it. Hopefully the answer isn’t “Because I made it and I rock!” or “It’s cool, just because I said so.” You especially shouldn’t say, “I spent a lot of time and effort creating it, so other people should enjoy it.”

Nobody cares about you or how much effort you put in. They want to know how your story benefits them. Is it entertaining? Is it interesting? Will it help them pass the time? Will it inspire them? We’re all surrounded by TV, movies, games, and books since we were children. We don’t care if someone thinks their creation is the best thing since sliced bread. We don’t buy the hype.

But creators or publishers often expect us as the audience to buy the hype. It seems the marketing behind a lot of movies, games, and books is that lame. Or any media for that matter. It’s the same problem we had in the band I was in at age fifteen. We didn’t know why we were cool, or how to even begin explaining that to other people.

And that gets to the crux of the problem. You can’t just tell somebody how cool you think your poduct is… it has to be cool in some genuine way. I’m not talking about quality of the product either. That’s a given. Of course general quality has to be there. Here’s an example;

Saw or Final Destination isn’t going to win art awards, but people will talk about them because they’re scary, gorey, have a lot of tension, conflict, twists, and surprises.

In his book Everything Bad for You is Good For You, Steven Johnson talks about the evolution of various mediums. Storylines, whether they be TV, film, or novel plots are becoming increasingly complex. And the audience has evolved alongside such complexity, craving more and more complexity.

In Obst’s article, she mentions how Hollywood was surprised by the success of Flight Plan. There should be no surprise. It features a twisty-plotted “What’s going on?” question throughout the movie. And all the marketing materials for the movie were a cue-in on that hook. The trailer had it. The posters had it. The audience knows there’s a story there–the premise alone leaves people wanting to find out what happens. The same principle behind the series 24.

So it’s a matter of your story having a story. Your story needs lead-in, a headline that pulls people into the story itself. Forget artistic integrity for a second. If you work hard and are worth half of what you think you’re worth, then you’ve got integrity and that’s the end of that subject. Moving on, ok?

We’re talking about a hook. An attention-grabber. People aren’t going to wait til they get to the movie theater, buy their tickets, refreshements, and then finally sit down in their theater seat before they find out what your story is about. Their butts need to be compelled to the theater seat way, way earlier. They need to say to all their friends, “I want to see that movie for X feature. X element looks really interesting!” Engage them with a source shot of buzz, and they will go on creating buzz for you.

Likewise people aren’t going to drive out to the Barnes & Noble, or order your book online, wait to get the book back home, start reading, and only then find out what your story is about.

If you give them that much lead time, you’ve already failed.

You need a reason beyond just artistic merit to get there. Plain old artistry won’t get butts in the theater seats. Plain old artistry won’t get people to buy your book. There has to be the lure. It’s just like fishing. You don’t need the fanciest, flashiest lure to catch a fish. It doesn’t have to be the most expensive. But it needs to get the fish’s attention.

Casting your line without a lure or hook is begging to come home empty handed.

That’s where Hollywood execs, video game developers, and the aspiring novelist often fall short.

The question “Why?” is responsible for more intrigue than creative people want to admit. Likewise the question “Why do I care?” is responsible for more apathy than creative people want to admit.

Is there a ‘Why’ in your work?

Ask, “Why would anyone care about my story?” Most writers are afraid to ask or answer that question. It’s too scary a question to be asked or answered.

You might think that the jaded audience will ask that question. They won’t. They won’t even afford you that luxury. People don’t ask questions about things they don’t know or care about.

Awareness has to exist first, and after the first few seconds of awareness–that’s where you’ve got to have an answer. It takes a sharp hook to cut through the apathy.

What’s your lure or hook?