Quest for an audience: social media über alles?

From Digital Book World:

I see too many publishers placing too much importance and assigning dubious grades to authors based on the strength or weakness of their social media following. I’ve actually sat in several meetings with literary agents, acquisitions editors and marketing directors who asked misguided questions, such as:

• Is this author on Facebook and Twitter?
• How many followers do they have?
• How often does the author post and do they get many shares and retweets?

Making acquisitions and marketing decisions based in large part on an author’s social media popularity is like assigning grades to students based on their accent or physical attractiveness: it’s subjective and largely unrelated to the actual skillset needed to succeed.

You can read the whole thing here.

Augie Ray, a Director of Customer Strategy for a major corporation, has a pretty comprehensive article on how to do social media correctly here.

He also busts some social media myths:

Not only is reach falling but social has never succeeded in delivering reliable marketing scale, no matter how many case studies suggest otherwise. Social does not deliver purchasers (accounting for 1% of e-commerce sales, compared to 16% for email and 17% for CPC [cost per click]). Social delivers poor conversions (with a conversion rate of 1.17% compared to 2.04% for search and 2.18% for email). Social fails to deliver trust (with B2B buyers rating social media posts among the least important for establishing credibility and just 15% of consumers trusting social posts by companies or brands.) Nor is Social media a major factor in search engine rankings (placing dead last among the nine major factors affecting SEO [search engine optimization] according to MoZ’s 2015 Search Engine Ranking Factors report.)

Over at Without Bullshit, blogger Josh Bernoff argues that social media is only useful for certain products and brands:

Around 90% of brands are not worth talking about. Coca-cola is not worth talking about. Bank of America is not worth talking about. For lord’s sake, Comcast is not delivering experiences that they want you to talk about. For brands like these, social media is not a marketing channel.

Maybe 5% of brands are worth talking about. Apple and Harley-Davidson, for example, create experiences that generate discussion. Movies generate discussion. If you think this is you, it’s probably not, but you may be one of the few brands for which social media is a marketing channel.

Books would also, I'd think, fall within the 5% worth talking about.

Publishers increasingly want you to have a massive social media presence. That's how they gauge the popularity and appeal of your work. 

The article argues for a different approach: you should actually judge an author by their email list, their monthly website visits, their speaking schedule, and previous sales history. 

Judging an author by their actual writing doesn't even make the list.

It's a business, so it's understandable that sales history is a key metric. People want what sells, and to dump what doesn't.

Publishers have never had the budget to promote all their authors, so lower end ones have to seriously hustle to get their books out there. 

Nowadays, authors have more direct responsibility for self-promotion than ever and marketing has become a key aspect of what writers do. 

So how does a publisher know whether or not an unpublished author is good at social media and marketing? The answer is that they won't, unless that person has already self-published and built a track record on their own. As such, it makes no sense for publishers to frown upon self-publishing, as many currently do. 

The new paradigm reminds me of what happens in tech and comic books. Small companies and independent creators take the risks and develop and innovate and throw out new, risky ideas, while the big corporate behemoths and publishers sit back and wait to see what emerges successfully. 

Why invest your limited resources in an unknown quantity when you can scoop up someone who is already successful, and practically guarantee profit? Which means the stigma of self-publishing has to fall away, at least for those above a certain sales threshold. Those authors are going to be the prey, and publishers the hunters. It will change the nature of book acquisition: why bother with slush piles of unknown material, or taking submissions at all, when you can troll through lists of self-publishing successes and spear yourself a best seller?

The only problem then for publishers is that they aren't needed. An indie writer who's already successful would have to be offered a sweet deal right out of the gate, with promises of serious cash for promotion, and access to connections and reviews that they don't have. 

Publishers still have a great advantage in terms of prestige, industry connections, and cash. But the nature of the business is rapidly changing.

What does all this mean for the usual mantra that the best way to market your book is to write another book? And if a semi-annual book release on your website improves the number of visits, then the whole pressure for marketing is a mirage. If writing books sells books, then what are you writing on the website? The only thing you really should be doing is writing and releasing new novels and short stories. 

Bold and Beautiful Post-Apocalypse: The 100

I didn't expect to get hooked by a CW show. When the program was first mentioned to me, I thought it sounded like a post-apocalyptic 90210 (Or whatever constitutes teenage melodrama these days. I'm afraid 90210 is long in the tooth now and the actors will be collecting their pensions soon. Sigh. Nobody under 20 will have any idea what I'm talking about… never mind).

The 100 is based on a series of books by Kass Morgan. So what's the premise? Get this:

It is 97 years after the world was destroyed in a devastating nuclear war. Only a small number of human beings are left. They live in an ad hoc space station cobbled together from dozens of smaller habitations that were in orbit when disaster struck. Now they are running out of air and water, and everyone will soon perish unless they get more supplies.

So they decide to send 100 juvenile delinquents down to the earth, unsupervised and in secret, to see if the radiation has abated enough for the world to be repopulated. The teenagers are tagged like gazelle and their life signs are monitored by the adults far above.

The teenagers are given no survival training whatsoever. They're just chucked in and forced to find a way. It's sink or swim.

If that doesn't sound like a setup for a teen show, I don't know what would.

Remove adult supervision? Check. 

Dangerous conflict laden environment? Check. 

No pre-established hierarchy so teens must fight for dominance? Check. 

Teens must create a new society, free of fuddy-duddy adult rules? Check. 

High stakes? Check. 

Hot, dashing young guys and beautiful babes? Check. 

Heaving bosoms? Check.

Requisite bad boy? Check. 

Teenagers who are smarter and wiser than all the adults put together? Check.

My God, man—they've created the ultimate teen drama!

You'd think it'd be awful, right?

Cheesy, superficial, overwrought melodrama with a preposterous premise.

It's AWESOME.

It's tight and transcends the tropes.

Yes, boiling teenage hormones do run amok, but they never quite take centre stage. There are too many rolling death clouds, mutants, subterranean vampires and falling satellites in the way. Sappiness is kept at bay, because this show isn't afraid to get dark. Really, really, little-kid-jabbing-guy-in-neck dark. It doesn't dodge issues or take the easy way out.

You don't get quite what you expect. And I love subverted expectations. Don't you?

Save me, strong and silent mutant man!

The show builds nicely, and is based around seasonal arcs, with what appears to be a larger multi-season story chugging along in the background. It feels coherent and directed. There have been two seasons so far, and both have escalated to thoroughly compelling climaxes. At the very end of each, The 100 throws in a new element to set up the next season. I called the new element for Season Three (yay!), and I'm looking forward to what the writers do with it. Because showrunner Jason Rothenberg knows what he's doing and it'll be awesome.

Tons happens each season, and there is enough resolution to feel satisfying. Some shows just leave you hanging, and offer no resolution whatsoever. Helix, for example, I found particularly bad this way. And Lost. You just get more questions. Game of Thrones, God help me, sometimes feel like mostly filler: characters spend eight episodes traveling, finally meet up for one episode in which all hell breaks lose, and then have a wrap up episode in the aftermath, along with a cigarette. That's an unfair caricature of what is, really, an awesome show, but it doesn't stop me thinking it every now and then. The 100 doles out events in a more even handed manner.

Bad boy beefcake Bellamy. I bet he works out. No, seriously. I bet he does.

What I have enjoyed most about the program are the endless, devilishly tough choices the characters are forced to make. And believe me, there are some doozies. These poor, post-apocalypse types don't get softballs, like choosing between good and evil, or Coke and battery acid. They're presented with only the choice between evils (okay that probably describes soda options, too), and have to figure out which is the lesser one. There's moral nuance and sophistication to the show that takes it to the next level. Characters you think are slimy bureaucratic swine are redeemed, dashing young heroes fall from grace, goody-two-shoes condemn innocents to death, and wise leaders go batsh*t crazy.

Which brings me to the cast: up above, you have the spiritually tormented commander Thelonious Jaha (Isiah Washington), the strict second in command Marcus Kane (Henry Ian Cusick), and concerned mom Abby (Paige Turco). Down on the surface, you've got earnest young doctor Clarke Griffin (Eliza Taylor), bad boy Bellamy Blake (Bobby Morley), sociopathic John Murphy (Richard Harmon), and the put upon rebel Octavia (Marie Avgeropoulos).

Most of the characters either are obvious archetypes, which is typical for a genre show, but often with a twist, and the program doesn't do with them what you'd expect. Not by a long shot.

Suspiciously sexy mutant leader. I just want to know where the mutants are getting their teeth and hair done.

Thelonius Jaha turns into something I certainly wasn't expecting, and while I'm not sure if it's entirely consistent with his character, it's interesting. To be fair, he does go through some dreadful things to get there.

John Murphy I expected to be one note and written out right quick, but the writers had other ideas. Same goes for heartthrob Finn Collins (Thomas McDonell), who zigs when you think he's gonna zag.

The emotional connections and conflicts between the characters have been handled extremely well. The relationships build in a manner that feels natural, and the occasional betrayal is set up elegantly enough you can buy it when it happens. This isn't always the case on TV. 12 Monkeys, for example, has a betrayal that I didn't buy into at all.

They all have competing and frequently conflicting interests. Conflict, of course, is where drama comes from, so characters should be designed to clash. Viewpoints are laid out, so when characters do things, you understand (eventually) why. So it makes sense. People often do bad things for good reasons. The show lays out understandable motivations, making it a great example of action from character.

More powerful bonding with bound beefcake

It has 4 way character opposition, where each node has 1 point in common with the next, but none with the primary opposite. That makes for really rich and nuanced conflict, with an ebb and flow as people argue and are pulled towards different nodes.

And as they say, sh*t happens. If you want a program where you feel like the status quo is different at the end of every episode, this is the show. The show kills off its picture-perfect young cast with the wild abandon you'd expect of G.R.R. Martin.

The entire third season of House of Cards would be one or two episodes of The 100. 

Eliza Taylor plays Clarke Griffin, a born leader and budding doctor, is the lead character and primary point of connection for the viewers. She's got balls, and is preternaturally wise for one so young. She's always showing up her elders, which is a typical teenage show trope.

But she makes mistakes, and that humanizes her. She may not be terribly compelling personally (which allows greater viewer identification), but the choices she's faced with are.

Clarke and her powerful friends. Also, some old dude.

And she's got great cleavage, too.

Hey, it's CW.

Sometimes ya just gotta embrace genre tropes.

Because entertainment!

Screenwriter Rollercoaster with Scott Beggs

Over at Filmschoolrejects, Scott Beggs has an interesting article about his first couple years as a screenwriter. It's a great look at the ups and downs that are an intrinsic part of the industry's nature.

His conclusion?

"What’s been my biggest lesson over the first ‘official’ two years of my career? Be great to work with. Be collaborative. Be open. Fight for your vision, but don’t be an ass. Listen to your instincts. Do the right thing. Don’t always take the advice of your reps. Do right by people. Keep reading screenplays. Keep watching movies. Spend time with your family."

Read the whole thing.