According to the latest issue of Poets & Writers Magazine (March/April 2009), perhaps one of the reasons literature seems to be a dying art is because writers no longer lead the glamorous, tragic, rock star, hard partying life. Instead, we're all boring, hard working at our 2-4 other jobs, too busy writing to cultivate bad habits and hobnob with starlets and divas.

hmmmm...

this is true. Which kind of reiterates a thought I have on marketing my works, which is that maybe we writers need to get some glamour back in our lives.

Of course, the trick is balance. As the article pointed out, none of the heavy drinkers had great lives, and I'd rather not off myself a la Hemingway or Kerouac. And Faulkner, as the article states, pointed out that drinking heavily wasn't exactly conducive to being prolific or disciplined with one's writing.

This is true. It's hard to write when you're at a bar, and I'm certainly not suggesting any hard drinking habits or snorting lines off of hookers. For one thing, that's hardly the glam life. Have you seen most hookers? No offense to the ladies and gents of the night, but most of them are not Heidi Fleiss.

But where are the Marilyn Monroe's holding up their copies of Ulysses? Maybe what we need is to up our public persona a bit without getting swept up in the downfalls.

In some ways, this mirrors my ideas about how poets are a bunch of rather dry, unassuming types-- who have not done anything for the image of poetry. Where is the passion and the anger and the fire and the love? We need more places and events like Bowery Poetry Club, and more poets than the same five names that pop up in all the literary tomes. And for that matter, we need to rethink our same programs; no wonder literature is dry and dull -- if you are too busy writing about life, you aren't living it. Balance, folks. I'm not saying go hog wild, of course, but if you haven't been in a loud, smoky (or not-so-smoky in a lot of places these days) how are you going to describe it? Because loud, smoky... is a bit overdone. More to the point, it's a great place to observe all kinds of events simultaneously-- go to a bar and check out the people. How do they interact? What's happening there?

Life, in a little microcosm, is happening in that bar. In fact, maybe I'll try to set my next novel entirely inside a bar, in one night. We'll see...

And who knows, maybe that would be a great place to host the book release party when all is said and done, and I'll tell you one thing: I'm not going to be the girl in the carpal tunnel brace scribbling away in the corner, though I'll not be doing blow off a hooker, either... I'll be somewhere in the middle, having myself a good old time and partying it up with my friends, and maybe, hopefully, a few rock stars.

Domino Magazine's Fans Mourn Its Demise

I think it's a fascinating look into how the magazine industry works-- or, in this case, doesn't. By all accounts it should be successful: a dedicated, young, readership, who will grow old with it and adapts practically to it. They're shopping, they're using the techniques involved. And yet, simply because the ad revenue isn't there, the magazine is folding.

Several things make me question this.

1. Why not seek other forms of advertising? Or maybe they have. Given that I can't seem to get away from adverts, it seems to me that money is still there for it, but where is it going? Are advertising budgets just automatically pulling out of magazines because they see it as a dying industry?

2. The model of ad revenue reliance. Is there a way of changing the ways magazines work, so that they can make a profit without advertising dollars? What about without hiking their price fees too much?

3. With a young, web-based readership, and the mention of these people all filling the vacuum with blogging, creating a network, I wonder how that will affect the way information is shared and disseminated, and also, how that could be taken advantage of. I think I'm seeing a new trend, the group blogs-- and those make a lot of sense, blogging communities/groups, rather than one big one-- and if so, a community of readers and bloggers could get the same ad revenue as the print magazine did-- there's more of a spirit of sharing, more becoming active within that community, and if there is a subscription requirement, it could generate funds that way-- just like a traditional magazine, but online.

But, it has to be done well. And that's the thing that I think we'll start to see, is more attrition. People will flock to what interests them, be it in real life or online. But with all the novices out there, it's a requirement for the professionals-- or at least, the serious-- to be on their game and offer the content readers-- and buyers-- want to see.

Should Technology Change the Way We Read?

The article goes on to talk about two different ways in which texts could be enhanced by current technology. I say absolutely to the question, and in fact, my comment to the article, awaiting moderation, was thus:

How about both? In fact, I think that the advantage, should the book world decide to embrace it, of digital media is that a book does not simply have to be a book (ie the way we think of them). Books, whether the traditional kind, or e-Books or any other kind of thing can be expanded in ways we’ve never before thought of. How about a combination of audio and written words? We don’t have to confine those things to our kids’ Leapsters, after all. Or having a soundtrack to a book included?

Can we score a book? How about adding not just static pictures, but video content combined with those words? And yes, I see that just as possibly in “traditional” book format as I do online or on our iPhones and Kindles.

Books have the potential to become so much more, and rather than fighting technology, or decrying the death of the book, maybe we can embrace it and use it to our advantage?

Going on that, basically, I think each text should call for whatever content best suits it. It's no different in that respect from establishing a format for current literature; sometimes we form things in a poem, sometimes in a screenplay. A comic has a different format when writing it, because of the art directions, than a play, and a piece of fiction often differs in layout and form from nonfiction.

Others talk about the death of the book, and they mean the traditional one made of pages. Well, here's the thing, right? I like paper. Love it. But even more, I like trees, and this new technology actually gives us the chance to cut down on the amount of waste we add to landfills and the depletion of oxygen. Let's keep our trees in the ground and only take up the ones that are necessary. Not to say we should get rid of the traditional paper books completely, but like so many others, I think they'll make great souvenirs.

Kind of like records still come in vinyl. :)

Another Memoir is Faked.

When in doubt blame Oprah, huh? Well, no. I think basically, it comes down to marketing. For whatever reasons, people want stories that are "true." Memoirs a the big thing right now (that and comics, just look at the movie industry).

What is it about "true" versus "fiction" that is so appealing, and why, when a story proves to be false, do we feel so disappointed?

Personally, I find fiction holds no fewer truths, if truth be the capacity to feel and experience some event, thought, or emotion from which we grow, than nonfiction. In fact, I think that since fiction can be so unrestricting, not being held simply to things that have happened to real people on this plane of existence, that it can hold greater truths, more universal understanding. Yet so many people seem to want to peek into their neighbors' windows, and then when it turns out their neighbors are only puppets, they cry foul.

Huh.

Why this fascination with real life people? Why do we love to watch tragedies and train wrecks, whether it be Survivor/Big Brother-esque people debasing themselves and clawing their way up the celebrity food chain, or reading the "stranger than fiction" memoir of someone surviving the holocaust or something like that, what is all this fascination with "reality?" Because those things don't happen to everyone. They are no more my reality or most people's reality, and hell, honestly? Like the memoir above, those so-called reality shows aren't reality. The so-called real life that we as a culture are so fascinated by is just as scripted as a musical or short story, and I can't help but feel that, without losing its dignity or spilling its secrets across the page so everyone can gawk, fiction still quietly, and with great dignity, teaches those people still paying attention, how to really deal with our existence. In fiction, we find the ability to laugh, to love, to cry, to think, to speak, to hope, to despair, and mostly, to feel empathy. Rather that gawking at the trainwrecks on television or in these books, where in I'd wager that the predominant reaction is "Well, at least I'm not that [insert whatever adjective you wish here]!" fiction invites us in to the protagonists' lives and asks us to spare some emotion or regard for them, and ultimately, for ourselves. It asks us to stretch our emotional imagination, and to suspend our disbelief.

Maybe that's the problem. To read fiction is to expend energy; it takes work. It requires our participation, and sometimes, the characters leave us feeling our inadequacies rather than reinforcing our "it's not that bad" justifications for our petty-minded selfishness. We want to see the baseness of humanity so bad, I think, or gawk at the things we are not, just so we can pretend for a minute, that we are so much better.

But we should remember that there but the grace of god go we. All we do when we gloat (even if we're not conscious that it is what we're doing) at the suffering or viciousness of other people is debasing ourselves and the rest of humanity, and it shows in the lowering of test scores and intelligence, and in the quality of our entertainment. It is a vicious cycle; we are only as intelligent as our entertainment industry.

God-Shaped Hole by Tiffanie DeBartolo

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a good book. It's not a great book, as I think she relies a bit too much here on certain conventions-- something that's part of her style, that whole telling the reader what's going to happen well in advance of it happening trick. In a lot of ways, her overriding theme is the same as How to Kill a Rockstar, as well. On the other hand, she's a compelling writer, and these books draw me in quickly, and I find her characters appealing. They are flawed, they are three dimensional, albeit a bit too pretentious and slightly idealized. They are characters who are a bit Mary Sue-esque-- gamine, pretty girls with a taste for shabbily-dressed rock and rollers who understand pain and daddy issues.

And no one ever has a "real" job.

All of this sounds harsh and nitpicky, when in fact, the stories work in spite of it. Like I said, it kept me turning pages. And I like her characters, as she gives them their due respect, at least. And she makes LA feel like I imagine it is-- a lot of hot asphalt, overpriced, and soulless. Out of her books that I've read so far, I like Rockstar better-- but this one is good, too.

Ultimately, it does what good fiction does best and offers little gems of truth and beauty. Who could ask for anything more?


View all my reviews.

Okay, here's the thing: obviously, we are in a recession. Thanks for clearing that up, right? And the major publishing houses are laying off, there are job freezes, pay freezes, all across the board, and over and over again... and that's just publishing. It's the same way in all the industries.

It's awful, we know that.

And all across the board, we get these memos, printed over and over again: we appreciate your work, but we have to take steps at this time to ensure what's best for our welfare--for all of us...

Except all of us doesn't include the people getting laid off right before Christmas. "All of us" doesn't include anyone who will now have to scramble to find another job, keep a roof over their heads, feed their families.

Yeah, it sucks. And that ball just keeps rolling, faster and faster as it gains momentum.

The truth is, those execs aren't doing what's best for us. The rich folk who run things and run them into the ground are doing what they can to keep the status quo.

And for everyone who thinks that the Republicans would have been better in office: well, they still are, right now. And have been for the past year. Think about that for a minute, will ya?

This is what over-inflated capitalism looks like. There are a lot of corrections that could be made to the system, and I'm not just talking about capitalism itself, but about publishing, too. I've mentioned many of them before. But under the current system, they won't happen because everyone is too busy panicking and going into bunker mode.

"Don't panic." Yeah, where's the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy when you need it?

The good thing is, all this provides contextual background-- all this tension and worry and drama; everyone worried about layoffs and such-- well, this is prime fodder for novels. Not just current day stuff, but sci-fi and everything. Think about what the movie Iron Man did with making it relevant to modern day society; think about what can be done with this material now and in the future. This is PRIME material, folks.

And by the time you have it done, then maybe the dust will settle, and there will be new giants in publishing. New technology as well. But in the meantime, this is one hell of a ride. Write it.

A World of a Different Color.

There are some obvious parallels that can be drawn, whether in publishing or in the automotive/environmental industry, or anything, really. It's about the process of change, and how new technologies can, at least initially, bring about an increase of the old.

As far as horses go today, they aren't used so much for labor-- but they are still in existence, and they still have a very specialized function, in sport and hobby (and possibly glue and dog food, but let's not go there, shall we?). And while people use other technologies to cart themselves and their goods around, and that has diversified, people do still ride horses, because, auto racing aside, there's still something that captures the spirit when watching a horse race.

Applying that to books: they will continue to exist. As will magazines. And yes, the modes of delivering knowledge will continue to diversify; as it has done in the past, but while its easier to sell nonfiction books than fiction, and the short story is all but dead in print anthologies, I see an enormous potential for something different.

I think what will happen is that the internet and online media will be the favored method of reading both nonfiction news and short stories; the realms of magazines in decades past. Newspapers in print are a dying breed, honestly-- and I don't have a problem with that, and neither should journalists, and honestly, that doesn't mean we need to have less journalists. In fact, the medium means we can have more journalists covering more news and get it to us instantly.

I think the kindle and other devices means that a lot of the longer nonfiction titles and novels will go into e-media as well, but there will always be a niche for design books-- things you want to lay out and be able to flip through, and for print novels, both hardcover and paperback, at least as long as my generation is alive. We're the transition generation, really. We like technology, but we still want our tactile experiences.

But we have to figure out a way to make money from them. I foresee a time when the internet is going to be a lot less "free." But then again, in my primary lj, I have a paid account. I survived years without having it paid, and its not that I use every single service that paid offers; I tend to forget to do texts and such, but I like not having ads to deal with, and I like being able to edit and correct my comments to other people. The extra pics are nice, but I don't cycle through that many. So people will pay for services, and people will pay for someone to sort through what is worth knowing and what isn't, for them. That's where editors come in. People don't have the time or energy to do it all themselves; and others just want to follow what someone else tells them is good.

It's important to keep sight of the big picture and not get lost in the details. People will still want information, they'll still want stories, and people will continue to tell/write/deliver stories and other content, as what seems to be the big buzzword these days. It's all a matter of how we deliver it and continually adapting our systems to the latest technology for that. That will be how companies not only survive this transition, but survive.

It seems to me that in the uproar about failing magazines, the dire predictions of the death of books, and all the other drama and trauma, that the idea of content management does seem to have a few things going for it, in part because it has a foundation in history, albeit in a strange way. The old adage is true: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

( Branding )

The music and publishing industries act, for the most part, in similar ways as far as their business structure and models. The large houses essentially offer an advance against royalties, which means that they offer their artist a loan to print in mass quantities, either a book or CD (or some variation thereof). Depending on the project or the budget, smaller "indies" do this on a smaller label. The company then has to earn revenue before any royalties are paid out to the artist.

Of course, the artist gets only a small percentage; the houses and labels have to make their money, of course. They have to pay a lot of folks who made that product available in the long run.

The problem with the music industry, and to a lesser extent, with publishing, is that the houses have become bloated. In order to justify a large advance to big name authors, they have to make the product appeal to a wide variety of buyers, so they have on site marketing and publicists, designers, editors, etc.

The editorial staff are still necessary, as are the A&R reps and producers in music. And I'm not just saying that because that's what I essentially do; what these people do, whether in-house or by contract, is to improve product, or weed out substandard products. With the ease and advancements that technology brings, their job is more important than ever.

However, recently the focus has changed. The labels, such as Fueled by Ramen, and the Media houses, such as mine, are restructuring so that there is less in-house marketing of their products. It is now becoming up to the artist to create (and indeed, already have) a platform in place. The artist is no longer just an artist, but a marketing guru and businessperson.

The artist, of course, can (and probably should) hire their own publicity team. And who better to market the product than the person or people who created it? Those who are most passionate about it? In fact, this could actually remove some of the more disaffected artists from the mix; rather than having the shying away from fame that certain artists and musicians go through, like Kurt Cobain, the artist has controls and can set the levels of privacy, of publicity, that they want to do. They are then as successful as they want to be.

But if artists are having to take on more responsibilities, and those big numbers that the houses earn from their royalties are no longer paying for distribution, publicity, and such, then shouldn't there be a shift in the contracts negotiated so that the artist gets more money? After all, publicity rarely comes free.

Of course, the other option is self-publishing and/or self-producing an album. That, of course, has a bad reputation in publishing (though in music, it's a lot different); the products often still look inferior when it comes to packaging, and in publishing at least, credibility is coming slow, though it is coming.

And it's expensive. With a traditional publishing house or label, if an artist doesn't earn out their advance, they probably won't get a second contract-- but they're not out any money. Instead, they get to keep that advance. With self-publishing, the author is out money. And then they have to promote that, so they are then out more money.

So how is the market going to shake out?

It's going to be the truly creative and motivated who get ahead, and I foresee a few of the larger companies going down, but not all of them. The ones that restructure, but without getting hysterical, simply adapting, will end up on top.

And I think it's a good time to be an writer or musician. Marketing these days is relatively cheap and easy, what with the internet, but in the scurry to use up all these new-fangled tools, let's not forget some tried and true, more traditional methods as well.

And when it comes down to it, buyers want to believe they're getting something worth their money and their time, and they want it from a name they can trust. And with all the scrambling and fighting everyone in those industries are doing to keep or gain a position, everyone seems to be forgetting the most important thing, which is their audience.

I make no apology for the fact that I won't buy a product from a company/label/artist I feel is disreputable. I will buy something, even if offered free, when the artist (Radiohead) shows that they believe in their product so thoroughly that they don't care about money, they just want their audience to enjoy it. I don't think I'm alone.

Appeal to them, make it worth their while, and make them feel valued rather than suspicious-- that will be what makes them pay. Raising prices and laying off employees? Two things that will destroy my trust in a house or label. And I don't care if everyone is doing it, that doesn't mean it's acceptable or good business practice.

If we want to help the economy by having people buy our stuff, we need to show that we care about them enough to give them good quality products that we truly care about, not that we aren't just out for a buck. As for the argument that if we underprice we undermine? I don't buy it, not one bit.

the Hero is defined by the Villain

Actually, that whole site is good: PoeWar

good stuff, especially the part on speech patterns and distinctive character voices, to think about.