If you aren't entirely familiar with buzz marketing, the basic breakdown is that any company with a tangible product is now able to hire a buzz marketing firm to create artificial "buzz" about that product. For instance, if you're trying to do this with a book, the firm will probably give copies of that book to their agents. The agents will then read the book on buses and subway trains with the cover prominently displayed; they will recommend it to all their friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, write about it on their blog, etc., the purpose being to make it look like people are very excited about this book, the same way they would be if... you know, people actually were getting excited about it. Some may take more extreme measures, such as writing graffiti on public property of the product's name.
The topic was brought up in my publishing class a few weeks ago, and not everyone was entirely fond of it. The general consensus among people who weren't was that it would violate the trust we can place in anyone when they recommend something to us. As Teresa Nielsen Hayden, consulting editor at Tor Books, said at Boskone last weekend, the number 1 reason someone buys a book is because they read and enjoyed another book by the same author; the number 2 reason is because someone they trust (my emphasis) told them about it. Indeed, a world where anyone could be a buzz agent sounds more like a Phillip K. Dick novel than something I'd think could really happen. I know I'd be a little paranoid.
Mrs. Nielsen Hayden's comment, by the way, was from a panel called "Traps to Avoid: Scams and Other Issues that Can Affect New Writers," which also included Larua Anne Gilman (formerly of Roc Books) and literary agents Michael Kabongo and Eleanor Wood. When I asked the panel what their thoughts were about buzz marketing, reactions were uniformally negative.
Of course, the real confusing thing about buzz marketing, which is closely tied in with guerrilla marketing and viral marketing (the terms are, in fact, often used interchangeably) is that there have undeniably been very successful cases. And in a business where success and word of mouth are so inextricably linked (think Harry Potter on this one) it's very attractive to think that we can just do it all ourselves and create the kind of buzz that previously only came from marketing our stuff in the usual ways and hoping for the best. It's a notion that's especially popular among the growing pool of entertainment do-it-yourselfers; indie filmmakers, self-publishers, underground musicians, and so on.
Nevertheless, if you're thinking about trying to get yourself started through anything that could be called buzz, viral, or guerrilla marketing, I advise you to think twice (and not just because of that mooninite silliness). The most important thing to remember about those campaigns is that far more of them are ineffective than successful, and a great deal of them backfire--disproportionately, it seems to me, with products that are marketed along traditional routes. If you're paying attention, I'm sure someone, somewhere, has told you that these techniques are changing the face of entertainment. But as Teresa said, when you look closely at it, it's really nothing new, and certainly not a basket to put all your eggs in.
Buzz Marketing: Opportunity or Trap?
Job Resource: Freelance Referrals and Bookings
Something that's been brought to my attention recently is a very useful service that a surprising number of people don't seem to be aware of.
Freelance referral services came to me in the form of Central Booking Service, a business operated out of Canton, MA that serves film producers in the New England area. Essentially, it exists not just to find jobs for freelance production workers, but to find the right jobs, matching a list of several hundred clients to projects based on their unique personalities and ways of doing things. If it works out, it can be a great way for someone who's just starting out in the business to accelerate his or her reputation. If you're one of the freelancers, the downside is that the money comes from your end, in the form of a monthly fee, but if it leads you to a job where you make more than fifty bucks a month, then that's a small concern.
Services like this exist on a broader scale for many businesses, but it is especially helpful to locate one specific to your needs as an aspiring entertainment professional. When looking for work, take a look at your community and the web for organizations like Central Booking. A few that come to mind:
The American Federation of Musicians has a similar service attached to it as the "Freelance Services Division" which does not specify a monthly fee on their website (though the organization itself seems to have some form of membership fee). If you happen to go to Oberlin College you're pretty well set on this one as well.
The American Society of Journalists and Authors has a writer referral service.
Since most of the associations that have these programs do charge membership fees, it's very important to assess what kind of services you'll be getting before diving in head-first. Central Booking got a glowing profile in Imagine this month. If you get a chance, it's an article I recommend tracking down; not just because it's informative about Central Booking, but also because it will help you know what to look for in a freelance referral service.
Remember that signing up with a bad or ineffective referral/booking service may be counterproductive. If at all possible, try to contact someone from a freelance network you're looking into. Ask some questions, let them help you get to know their organization. Among some things to consider: just how does this organization hook up freelancers with employers? How is the matching methodized? How good are they at getting gigs for their members (as for hard numbers, if possible)? Have they worked with any people of particular note?
Another potentially great tool to be aware of. Especially if you aren't sure exactly what you want to do, services like these can provide an excellent way to get started.
Children's Book Banned for Silly Reason. Again.
This year's Newberry Medal, surely the most prestigious award for a children's book, went to Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky. The book, as Jeri Kladder, chair of the Newberry Medal committee puts it, "is a perfectly nuanced blend of adventure, survival (emotional and physical) and hilarious character study... as well as a blueprint for a self-examined life. Through Lucky’s experiences, we are reminded that children support one another just as needy adults do." It has also subsequently been banned from libraries across the country because it contains the word "scrotum."
This is stupid, and let me tell you why.
Dana Nilsson, a librarian who was interviewed by the New York Times about the book, is quoted as saying: "I don't want to start an issue about censorship, but you won't find men's genitalia in quality literature. At least not for children." And she's got a point. I, too, would question the integrity of a children's book with a bunch of johnsons in it. The problem is, Lucky doesn't actually have men's genitalia in it; it mentions the word "scrotum" in a context that reflects important and relatable life issues faced by children. Not the same thing.
Pat Scales, the Medal's former chair, hits the nail on the head. "The people who are reacting to that word are not reading the book as a whole. That's what censors do: they pick out words and don't look at the total merit of the book."
One example of this is that one of the most popular (and very rarely morally questioned) children's franchises revolves around a game in which children capture small animals and force them to fight each other. Yet, the only complaints we ever hear about Pokémon, which contains no naughty words, have to do with the amount of time kids spend playing it and the inability of adults to understand its appeal.
We've probably all heard of the story about the elementary schooler in New York who was hit by a car, and whose friends, instead of going for help, ran into the street and began collecting his Pokémon cards.
If you have a little extra time, please do evaluate both of these examples--Lucky and Pokémon--and decide which one you would rather keep your children away from. Feel free to leave feedback.
Another question to consider: where are the children in all this? I've seen a few sources reporting this story, and not a single one of them has cited a quote from--or even an anecdote about--a child who read Lucky and was confused or disturbed by the presence of this dirty, bad word.
My observation, is encapsulated by a comment from librarian Frederick Muller (also cited in the Times), who said, "If I were a third- or fourth-grade teacher, I wouldn't want to have to explain that." And another one from the NYT: "Andrea Koch, the librarian at French Road Elementary School in Brighton, NY, said she anticipated angry calls from parents if she ordered [the book]. 'I don't think our teachers, or myself, want to do that vocabulary lesson,' she said in an interview."
So. Who are the people who ban books like Lucky really protecting? And from what? 'Cause they aren't mentioning the kids a whole lot.
As we all head for careers in an industry that is this susceptible to censorship, I implore everyone to search for another angle on this whole modern mythology of Children Can't Handle Anything. Going against the grain on this one may be a risky stance to take, but if nobody does anything, where does that leave us?
Update: another great post on this topic to be found at The Publishing Contrarian
Nifty Promotional Material
This is one of the coolest ways of marketing a book I've ever seen.
Some adroit individual from (assumably) Daw Books went around the freebie tables at Boskone this weekend setting out a bunch of these unbound paperback book covers. These aren't a new thing, but the only people who normally see them are sales reps and bookstore buyers (there's marketing/ordering info on the back that you can't see in the picture).
The thesis is that they're just a neat little eye-catching item that shows a buyer what they're getting: a tchotchke. Media companies hand out tchotchkes all the time; my favorite was when Houghton Mifflin gave out pins that read, simply, "Bury the Chains" (the title of one of their forthcoming books at the time). The pins were immensely popular with independent booksellers due to their double-meaning regarding chain bookstores.
What amazes me is that consumers so rarely see tchotchkes. I've picked up a number of them over the years, everything from ballcaps to bookmarks, most of which I found at conventions like Boskone, and one sure thing is that they make me notice the product better than any newspaper or TV ad.
The Silver Lake, for instance, is a book I wouldn't normally even look at, mainly because I find the cover art rather unfortunate in its gratuitous use of swords, lightning bolts, glowing eyes, and a humongous moon. Putting this item in my hand not only geeked out the bibliophile in me, it got me to read the back cover and start thinking, "Well, this sounds like it might be pretty interesting, and I have read some decent books with really stupid cover art." At the end of the day, Silver Lake won the prize for catchiest marketing (followed closely by the Greywalker magnetic bookmark and the Rowan Gant sample chapbook) and getting me most excited about getting a free, funky book-thing.
Of course, marketing promos like this aren't free to make, which is probably why most companies don't give away tons of them. But they are effective in moderation; there were three of these unbound covers sitting out, and one of them caused me to buy the product (the other two were about dragons and sexy vampires--no go). Not a bad ratio.
The problem with advertising nowadays is that a great deal of it is incredibly annoying--they're putting ads in the bins at airport security for dog's sake! Things like this, that people actually enjoy getting, are something I'd like to see more of.
Things I Do Not Enjoy Thinking About
The reason I haven't been posting until late this week is because I've been running around looking for job leads for myself (slowed only slightly by a level 2 snow emergency in my hometown), and because I've been running around even more frantically at Boskone 44. Boskone is a sci-fi convention, which means lots of discussion panels about Battlestar Galactica and Lord of the Rings, but it also means getting to meet a lot of successful screenwriters, authors, editors, agents, and other entertainment professionals. There's also some amazing fudge being sold here, but I'm not sure how that's related.
I've got a lot to talk about, but I'll start off with something I think we all need to be aware of. Entertainment is a dangerous career; after graduating college, many of us will be finding jobs that are much less secure than other professions. Many of us will need to find day jobs that have little to do with our passion in film, writing, music, etc. except to keep us from going hungry. Many of us will work on a freelance basis. Most of us will be walking on relatively thin ice.
I've sat in on a number of panels today that addressed how to take care of yourself in a situation like this. You need to be a businessperson, and an agressive one, in ways that aren't particularly enjoyable. But it will be easier for you if have a good idea what you're doing. Here are some of the tips I've picked up, and some specific comments about them from some of the panelists:
1. Save little pieces of paper. This is especially important for freelance work. Have a file of every contract, royalty statement, positive or negative reference/review, and receipt for anything that might be a business expense (which includes visiting conventions like Boskone, by the way). Learn how to use Quicken and enter these things as you incur them.
-"Hold onto all your paperwork for 10 years. If you've heard of the 'paperless society,' that's not true" (Sharon Lee)
-"It helps to be a little bit of a pack rat in this business" (Joshua Bilmes)
2. Read up on taxes. Be aware of things like self-employment tax rules that may apply to you if you work on your own, even if that work isn't your day job.
3. On that subject, keep your day job. It may not be what you want to do, but chances are, you'll need it. When you want to make your passion your work, you will always have to make accommodations. Learning how to budget your time is a big asset in this regard.
-"Life will always conspire against you writing. Life doesn't want you to sit around and write." (Ian Randal Strock)
4. Plan for good and bad years, the same way the industry has good and bad years. If you catch a big break, don't change your lifestyle; put money away so that it will last a long time.
5. Presentation has a great deal to do with success in this field. People skills are some of your most important ones, in many ways (which I'll be blogging more about later). Being anal-retentive about the way you portray yourself will never hurt, and not just for potential employers. Everyone talks to everyone in this business, so a good word anywhere is a good word everywhere.
-"Be nice to everyone you meet." (Darlene Marshall)
-"Hollywood is a business that rewards you on how well you talk, not necessarily how well you write." (Melinda Snodgrass)
6. Last and most painful. While you're not required to live in New York, LA, or Boston, it is, in most cases, a very very very good idea. Being located there will give you access to more information with more immediacy than you will have other places, even in this information age of ours, and you will have a much greater ability to act quickly on new developments. Saying that where you live puts you a big step ahead is neither an exaggeration nor an outdated myth.
-"I live in Santa Fe. It was a choice, and it has probably hurt my career" (Melinda Snodgrass)
And to the Rest of the Industry: Hope You're Listening
Apple is (apparently) pushing for the end of DRM on music purchased online. If you need an explanation of what this means, you'll find a helpful mp3 here, found via this post on BoingBoing, which is a good place to start if you want thorough reporting on this development.
If you don't want to wade through Steve Jobs's entire article, here's an exerpt that summarizes what he's finally figured out after years of copy-protection craziness:
Why would the big four music companies agree to let Apple and others distribute their music without using DRM systems to protect it? The simplest answer is because DRMs haven’t worked, and may never work, to halt music piracy.
Well, I'm not a fan of Apple, but kudos to Steve Jobs for being the first one at his level on the corporate food chain to realize that stopping illegal music downloading is a battle that the record companies lost before it even started; and the reason for that is because everyone--EVERYONE--does it. It may be illegal, and it might even be immoral, but you can't stop everyone from downloading any more than you can stop everyone from drinking alcohol.
Since just about every form of entertainment has been transferred to digital media somehow, I hope the rest of the industry is paying attention to this. I want to reiterate this one more time for anyone who is involved with, or is thinking about becoming involved with, any field of entertainment:
Any media that you release in digital form, no matter if you do or do not weigh it down with DRM and copy protection, is going to be copied and distributed through channels you do not control. Do not waste your resources fighting this. Accept it. At least in the foreseeable future, it is always going to be the case. Instead, spend your resources finding ways to make it work for you. Yes, this will be hard. But, as we tell aspiring filmmakers, musicians, and authors every day: who ever said it was supposed to be easy? We live in a rapidly changing world. That's how it is. Deal with it.
Quick Note
I'm putting this blog on my Technorati Profile. It will be searchable through technorati.com, so for those of you with accounts there... here you go.
A Note to Artists (...and speaking of Simon Cowell...)
For those of you who may be involved on the creative end of the business, I want to address something you're probably seeing more and more of these days.
Ever since American Idol took off, lots of people (and not just recording industry people) have been popping up and saying, "Hey! American Idol-type shows are really successful these days, which means that if I create something basically resembling American Idol, it will be successful too! This must be the future of entertainment!" People watching the Super Bowl, for example, will get to vote in a contest to select who will perform with Justin Timberlake at this year's Grammies, and which aspiring advertiser will have their commercials shown during the game. An Idol-esque contest for writers on Gather.com is drawing quite a bit of attention as well. Wherever you look, contests are the new thing.
This manifested itself last year primarily as a contest called the Sobol Award, which claimed it would accept up to 50,000 entries of book-length manuscripts from unpublished authors, for the small fee of $85 each. The competition was criticized heavily, mainly because the winners would be offered a poor contract and the entry fee was too high, making it appear to be a money-making scheme. (nobody ever specified exactly who was going to read 50,000 books either, which struck me as odd)
The Sobol contest closed in January, but there have been plenty of similar ones--not just for books, but for screenplays, music, and more--in increasing numbers, especially during the past six months. Like the Sobol Award, most all of them bill themselves as the big new way for aspiring artists to beat the system and get the attention they deserve, and a great many of them, like American Idol, involve some kind of voting system.
Be wary of these contests. First of all, the idea that most of them push--that they are somehow a better alternative to making it the conventional way--is generally bullshit. Being selected out of a huge number of other aspiring talents is no different than going through an agent or producer the traditional way, and in most contests, your odds of being selected are even lower. Also, contests like American Idol that are supposedly decided by audience voting aren't as democratic as they seem; either the judges (as in Idol's case) pre-select the contestants down to a small group (all of whom probably deserve record contracts anyway), or like in Gather.com's contest, the judges or people awarding the prizes have the right to override the voting if they don't like the results. Once again, it's really no different than getting yourself a contract any other way.
Second, very many of these contests are too sketchy to be worth your time. Many, like Sobol, will smack you with an undesirable (and usually non-negotiable) contract even if you win, and even more of them are decided by judges with no real qualifications.
Most importantly, nobody has heard of most of these contests. Even if you win, where will it get you?
Writer Beware's blog has an entry on Evaluating Literary Contests. The rules they lay out here are meant for writing contests only, but if you must enter a contest in any field, the basic questions to ask remain the same:
1. Who's running it?
2. Who's judging it?
3. What's the prize?
4. If you win, will it mean anything to anyone?
That is, of course, if you're really set on doing the contest thing. Just keep in mind that more often than not, it will be a waste of your time.
Why You Need to Have the Best Simon Cowell Impression
This past week, my hometown's newspaper, The Columbus Dispatch, drew a bit of negative attention when its online edition reported the "Breaking News" that a synagogue in a near suburb of Columbus had been the victim of arson—only to learn later that the fire had been caused by a 7-year-old playing with matches. Commenters on the article had a lot to say about how professional that was.
To me, this highlights one of the most undersold job skills in entertainment: judgment. In a market where dozens of heads are rolling in one plagiarism scandal after another, and where overreacting the way the Dispatch did can have worse consequences than ever before (unless you happen to work for the Boston police department), being able to make judgment calls successfully is something you should make sure you can say for yourself.
The problem is that entertainment is not an exact science. For example, if you'd asked me seven or eight years ago, I never would have predicted that the longest running live-action sitcom right now would be King of Queens. To me, it seemed like just another hokey show that would run for a few seasons and then vanish from all human consciousness. Earlier this month, though, I spotted a New York Times article that drew my attention to some of the less obvious cultural appeals that may have kept it going while dozens of its sitcom contemporaries dropped dead around it.
Maybe someone at CBS nine seasons ago picked up on those fine points, or maybe they didn't. But in an industry where the "gut feelings" that many editors and producers used to operate on mean less with every season, the ability to objectively assess things like quality, appeal, and risk is not to be discounted.
The problem is being able to demonstrate good judgment on a resumé. Most jobs you'll get as a student don't have high enough responsibility to put you in that position, and it's even harder to get the right experience with classes alone, so if you've ever wondered where extracurriculars count, here you are.
For my part, I've taken a stab at it by creating a small press magazine, but you don't need to go that far; I mainly did that because I love science fiction magazines and noticed a shortage of inflammatorily opinionated ones. Joining a college-affiliated club or organization where you can be trusted with some degree of decision making—such as working on a student literary magazine, film crew, TV or radio station, or even student government—is an excellent idea, even if you aren't the equivalent of and editor, director, or DJ right at the start. Starting early at a lower position and increasing your responsibilities semester-by-semester is just as good. If you really want to get moving on this one, though, you can try starting your own organization.
Even better if you can get an internship. Though many entertainment industry internships may be light or even menial in terms of responsibility, most do involve being trusted with some amount of decision-making; even if all you're doing is sitting in a publisher's office reading the editor's slush.
I have to admit, I wasn't always keen on the idea of getting an internship. Most of them pay low or not at all, and I thought it was improbable that I'd end up in a position that was very exciting. Take my advice on this one, though; you can never do yourself injustice by actively looking for an entertainment internship, and a positive reference from one can get you further than any number of good grades.
Lastly—and this is true for a million reasons, but for portraying your sense of judgment especially—for God's sake, pay attention to the content you post on facebook, myspace, or anything else that a future potential employer could find a browse.
I'll be pointing out more places where judgment is important, and more ways to portray your own sense of it, in future posts. In the mean time, please keep this in mind.
All the Free Books You Can Want
WOWIO is a recently launched online service where you can download eBooks for no cost whatsoever. And unlike Project Gutengerg (which is a also great site) the selection isn't limited to classics and books that are in the public domain. Several deals between WOWIO and houses like Rosetta Books and Oxford University Press are making titles from those publishers available too.
The catch? Okay, there's a catch: the big one is that the eBooks have ads in them. The thesis of WOWIO is to make freely downloadable eBooks profitable through advertising. The system is that they stick a few ads (not nearly as many as I expected, actually) throughout your eBooks, and every time an ad gets downloaded, the advertiser pays WOWIO a few cents, depending on placement. You also have to prove US residency (not hard at all, considering they allow you to do this by providing a .edu e-mail address, or credit card number if it comes to it), and you are limited to downloading 5 eBooks per day.
If you're not sold already, let me explain why this is a good thing.
Up to this point, no publisher has been able to make eBooks popular, mainly because their format makes reading boring and tiresome, and none of the portable eBook readers released to-date have been any good. It's not that eBooks are a bad idea; it's just that nobody wants to pay five or six bucks for them with all the hassles attached.
Making a multitude of titles available for free could help alleviate this. Before WOWIO, the only place giving away commercial eBooks for free was sci-fi publisher Baen, and let's face it, their list isn't everyone's cup of tea.
WOWIO is a different story. I encourage everyone who reads this to look for your textbooks and required readings there before buying hard copies. Besides its more mainstream appeal and academic potential, the eBooks you get there are in unencrypted .pdf format, which makes them relatively attractive.
This is something worth checking out, no matter what your reading interests are. Downloads take, at most, a few minutes (and that's mainly for comics and graphic novels; if you have a broadband connection, some books download in a few seconds). Not only because it's lots of fun, but because it's this kind of innovative thinking that may help fields like publishing—and especially e-publishing—out of the muck they're in.
Yesterday I downloaded John Wyndam's The Midwich Cuckoos, which was the basis for the film Village of the Damned. The novel is maddeningly hard to find in book form. I am very excited.
