. . . that the old way of doing this is the right way or even the cheapest way.
I’ve had this drilled into my head by several real-life examples over the last few months. Things are changing so fast that you really owe it to yourself to do a couple of quick Google searches before you go romping off with assumptions that are a decade (or even half a decade) old.
Fair warning: the following post contains a couple of engineering-ish examples. If you’re allergic to technical stuff, it’s probably best to skip this one.
Case 1: Pen and napkin versus Google Earth/Redfin/Second Life. You may have seen the Sylmar fires on the news a couple of months ago. A friend of mine lost his house in the fire. It was insured, so it’ll get rebuilt.
But, while it’s in the process of getting rebuilt, he figured: “Hey, this is my chance to throw in some money and fix some of the problems with the house. Change the floorplan. Make it a bit bigger. Hell, maybe move the foundation back for a better view.”
And so, a few nights after the fire, he was sketching his ideas in the most classic of forms: pen and napkin. I glanced at it and thought, “Wow, he’s drawing the house as if his lot is 200 feet wide.” Which I knew it wasn’t.
To make a long story shorter, I helped him find his lot lines on Redfin and match them up to a dimensioned Google Earth map, which showed a lot size of just about 60′ wide. Knowing that Google Earth isn’t exactly an architect’s tool, though, we also measured the lot the next time we were at the house. It turned out to be 59.5 feet wide. Good enough.
From there, we did a 0.1″ = 1′ overlay in Adobe Illustrator and let him sketch something like what he wanted, with believably-sized rooms, that fit on his lot.
And then, just for the hell of it, we imported the sketch into Second Life, threw up a few walls, and created a walk-throughable house in about an hour. When my friend doubted the dimensions of his garage, I simply pulled a car out of inventory and put it in the garage, cloned it, and showed him how there’d be plenty of space for washer, dryer, and tools.
Bottom line: no, it’s not architect-ready, but the architect he’s working with now has a much better idea of what he wants–and we can tweak the plans in real time if we want to do what-ifs. Not bad for a total of about 2 hours invested . . . which you could easily burn making non-workable sketches on napkins.
Case 2: iPhone versus a whole lotta engineering. My wife is a TAPS member. Yes, that’s right. She chases ghosts. That’s a whole different story in itself. But one of the things they do in TAPS is look for EVPs (electronic voice phenomena), which tend to appear most on noisy equipment.
(Now, I’m not going to get into arguments about whether or not ghosts exist, or, if they do, are they influencing the equipment through the EM spectrum or through quantum effects like shot or thermal noise. That’s her bag.)
But, I figured, “Why not make her a piece of equipment that is inherently noisy? I could use a noise diode, amplify it to 1/3 the sample step size, and use a really bad A/D converter, like, maybe, 8 bits, or even 6. All I’d need would be a noise diode, a microprocessor, an A/D, a power supply, a microphone and some associated electronics, and an output to a recorder, or maybe I could add in some memory so it could record internally, but then I’d need a USB interface, and I’d need to write the code for the PIC micro, and I should put it on a PC board, and in a case so they could carry it around–”
And then I looked at the iPhone in my hand.
Which had a microphone, an (extremely powerful) microprocessor, A/D and D/A converters, power supply, case, associated electronics, computer interface, memory, recording capability–
–and had a free software development kit that I could download.
Hundreds of hours of hardware and software work just became learning the capabilities of a platform and doing some coding.
Case 3: Cheap eBay scope versus new scope. For a number of reasons, I’ve decided to get back into the audio engineering game a bit. Yes, I am an idiot. But, to do this, I needed to get some new equipment. My old oscilloscope was finally dead. So I started looking on eBay. A cheap Tektronix 465 would be just fine, I figured. And maybe a Sound Tech for distortion analysis. Or an Audio Precision System One, if I could find a used one.
All very sound, logical reasoning.
But, just for the hell of it, I decided that I’d look at what was available new. And got the shock of my life. Today, inexpensive digital sampling oscilloscopes also include FFT–which can be used for distortion analysis and used to be only found in expensive, standalone packages.
The bottom line? I could buy a new Tek scope with FFT, the ability to export files for analysis on a computer, and a lifetime warranty for not significantly more than the old, used scope. And the new scope would outperform the $20,000 or so of equipment I used to work with a decade ago.
So what’s the point of all of this, from a science-fictional perspective? Well, actually there are two points:
1. Things are moving so fast, we can’t base our futures on linear extrapolations. It’s no longer about a new, incrementally better model every year. It’s about wholly new capabilities being remixed in wholly new ways.
2. With all these new, wonderful, and free (or inexpensive) capabilities, more people can do more things. And they can come up with new ways to use the tools. Change is going to accelerate even more.
When I first recieved the email from Wyrm, my first reaction was “Cool! I’m in another anthology.” Then it was, “Wait. Printed anthology from online stories? What?” And then, when I sat down and considered it for a bit, I thought, “Hmm, this may be a very good idea. There’s a lot of online fiction out there. Very few people have the time and inclination to winnow through it. And it’s right there, in the same format, in a convenient book (or ebook, one wonders).”
And, for all of us, I’m thrilled to see this level of recognition for online publication. There was a time in the far distant past–say, ten years ago–that online publication was hardly considered worthy of review. Today, there are a lot of fine authors whose work only shows up online.
Thanks again to Futurismic for publishing the story, and thanks again to Rich Horton!
It’s no coincidence that many of the people who wrote science fiction in the “Golden Age” were engineers, technicians, or scientists. Back then, if you knew something about electronics, mechanics, or propulsion, you were fully enabled to imagine the wondrous future that was coming: rockets to take us into space, helicopters to replace cars, household robots to mix your martini.
Yes. Fully enabled. Because the innovations of that era fell solidly, and most visibly, into the electromechanical space. So it was gadgets, gadgets, gadgets (many full of vacuum tubes and spinning open-reel tape, even if the story was set in 2050.)
Today, things are more complicated.
To write fully believable, near future science fiction today, you almost need to be voracious antisocial polymath, deeply conversant in half a dozen technical fields, as well as familiar with ongoing social, economic, and environmental change.
Things are moving a whole lot faster than they were in 1950—and the advances in multiple fields are becoming interlinked. You can’t really understand the advances being made in genetics without understanding the advances in information technology, and you probably won’t have a realistic idea of what all that actually means on a functional level without knowing a bit about how genetically engineered organisms are developed and marketed. You can’t understand the ramifications of information technology unless you’re at the forefront of implementing it, seeing mind-bending demonstrations of ongoing change from the reconstruction of the Sistine Chapel in 3D from publically-submitted Flickr photos, to early brain-machine interfaces, to augmented reality already working on a phone, based on user-generated data, to the myriad of social and business connections happening in social networks. You can’t envision the social changes without understanding how infotech and biotech are changing people, allowing them to communicate as never before. You can’t talk about nanotechnology without understanding a bit about molecular structure, nanotech viewing and manipulation technology, and even some quantum physics. You can’t write about changes in medicine without knowing about genomics, infotech, social tech, algorithmic selection, persistent networks, sensors, and more.
And you cannot pull the curtain back and look beyond linear extrapolation of these trends without some knowledge of what is happening on the fringe. Life extension, full-scale Drexler-level nanotechnology, brain-machine interfaces, neural augmentation and uploading—what will be the surprise that’s the equivalent of the infotech revolution?
Or—let me clarify—you can write about these things without understanding, but probably not in a believable manner.
And that’s the burden of the modern science fiction writer. If you want to write believable near-future fiction, you can’t choose a single point of advancement. You need to have a good understanding of advances in many different fields, and you need to be able to imagine how these can come together, for good or for bad. And to be really believable, you’ll need to know more than you ever wanted to know about how the world works, economically and socially, as well as where the trends are heading.
Otherwise, your fiction will soon read like that Golden Age lit, filled with spaceships manned by human calculators and spinning reels of tape.
Because your near-future stuff has a chance of getting into print before it diverges forever from our time-line. Case in point: “Willpower” is already up at Futurismic. So, if you like my stuff, stop by and have a read and let me know what you think. Or even if you don’t like my stuff.
Edit: and it looks like io9 has now picked up on the story here.
Legal disclaimer: The preceding statement and all subsequent statements in this intartube blogpost (hereinafter referred to as “POST”) in no way (a) negates my love for print publications (b) implies that print is inferior to online publications or vice-versa (c) implies that online is inferior to print publications or vice-versa (d) will cause the overall amount of climate change, economic meltdown, or other scary things in the world to decrease or increase (e) will cause the amount of strange and happy things in the universe to increase (f) enhance the likelihood that I will be able to sell a client on an idea I have used in a story, thereby creating a future I can point at as having predicted (g) result in the discovery of a cuddly venture capitalist.
New bumper sticker: Science fiction doesn’t become obsolete, it just turns into alternate history.
So, has everyone been keeping up on their Interzone subscriptions? My novella, “Far Horizon,” has been listed by two reviewers as being amongst the best of 2008:
I don’t normally post links to current events, even when they’re as significant as the person who received a new trachea made of her own stem cells the other day. But this is so big, so SFnal, that it’s worth taking a look at:
Yes, it’s primitive. Yes, it’s limited. But so was the web, circa ten years ago.
This is another of those points in time when the game changes, just like the release of the iPhone development platform about 8 months ago. We may not know the game has changed, yet.
It’s that time again—my short story “Willpower” has been accepted by Futurismic, which is the best place online to get your near-future science fiction fix. That’s all they publish!
And yes, “Willpower” is positive. That is, if you look at it from an oblique angle and accept that the transition from a scarcity-based economy to a postscarcity scenario isn’t necessarily going to be all roses and teddy bears.
(And no, it does not feature any cuddly investment bankers or venture capitalists.)
We’re living in a magical age, and we don’t even recognize it.
For example, with a single click I can point you at this article, which was originally in Italian, but Google Translations turns into rough-but-understandable English. Let’s take a moment and count the things that couldn’t have happened when I was a tyke:
1. No machine translation available.
2. No free service to translate dozens of languages into dozens of other languages.
3. No internet at the consumer level.
4. No personal computers to speak of.
5. No mobile devices able to access free machine translation services and display web pages.
6. No visual internet.
7. No blogging.
8. No social media.
9. No such thing as many-to-many communications.
10. No electronic publishing, period.
No, it isn’t a flying car, but it is a whole boatload of change. And this is in just one tiny corner of consumer electronics. Consider that we’ll be looking at the same amount of change in the next 12-15 years, and tell me why there shouldn’t be room for optimism?
If you’d like, you can read the original in Italian via this link.
But yes, you heard that right. Positive. Near future. Depending on who you speak with, Jetse’s taking on two impossibilities at the same time. But, just for the record, here’s how I feel about this news: YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
There’s nothing inherently wrong with dystopias, but today there are too many of them. I’m sure the first wave of post-economic-breakdown, second-Depression stories are already sitting in envelopes at every SF publisher on the planet. Just like US-as-police-state post-2001, or climate-change-catastrophe from a few years back, or post-nuclear-war stories from before the USSR collapsed.
And, you know what? I’m not belittling any of those threats. But I’m willing to bet that we’ll find ways to move past them. If I’d written a story back in 1989 where the world’s second superpower had simply collapsed, and a bunch of people who gave their work away (open-source programmers) were the most serious threat to one of the largest corporations on the planet (Microsoft), you’d think I’d been smoking my lawn.
There are a lot more surprises coming. Both good and bad. I’m interested in helping to put up signposts to a positive future.
So, will I be submitting to SHINE?
Like, well, duh!
Congrats, Jetse. There’s nothing like taking on two kinds of impossible. And winning.
As a kid, I’d do anything I could to avoid being on stage. In elementary school, I ran the lights and curtain for the school play. In high school, I avoided any class or activity that might involve making a speech. I put off my single public-speaking class in college until my senior year. In my early career, I much preferred spending time in the engineering lab to going to trade shows and talking to customers; in my later career, I enjoyed being the lone creative guy who went away, locked the door, and came back a few days later with brilliant concepts–hopefully that the accounts people would present for me.
But a funny thing happened on the way to the present. During the first dot-com explosion, I was invited to speak in front of a group of students at Loyola Marymount University, on the subject of the then-emerging “search engine optimization and internet marketing” phenomenon. I figured, hey, I was in this with our creative director, who was a very polished, well-spoken fellow, so how bad could it be? And I discovered something pretty amazing: not only was I good at presenting, but I was better than our creative director! I still remember him looking at me in amazement and saying, “Where the hell did that come from? You were good!”
Since then, I’ve become something of a sought-after speaker in the emerging marketing space. I’ve given presentations on social media and virtual worlds in front CEOs and CMOs and executive vice-presidents of Fortune 500 companies. I’ve stood in front of crowds of a couple of thousand people. And, you know what? Not only isn’t it that bad, it’s actually a lot of fun.
“Cool, now I know more about Stoddard than I ever really wanted to,” you’re probably saying. “How does this help me sell my novel/market my crap/enjoy my life?”
Well, you could look at it as a metaphor for today’s author. The old model of the author as the lone creative worked well in the past. If you were a pulp writer, the more you could produce the better you would do; even if you were a public name, your marketing was handled by your publisher, and you only had to perform at some carefully-orchestrated signings. You were expected to be a little unapproachable.
But today it’s different. Your chance of writing enough to make a living at the pulp market is exactly zero. Your publisher may not be able to do any marketing for you, and, even if they do, they may not be capable of understanding how to best use the rapidly-evolving online marketing ecosystem. Which means: the better you are at engaging with people, the better your chance of success. And there are so many ways to engage: post your status on Twitter, Facebook, or MySpace, and tens to tens of thousands of people will know. Blog and people will hear. Participate in forums and popular sites, and people will notice. And, if you’re comfortable speaking, either one-on-one or in groups, you can get interviewed on podcasts and radio and online video and TV, and people will hear and see you. There are almost unlimited opportunities out there, if you’re willing to take them.
“But I’m a brilliant old-school writer, crafting some of the finest prose in the known universe! The publishing industry must discover me and bring me in front of the world!” someone might be saying.
Well, yeah, life is not fair. And I’m sure we will lose some great voices in this new world. But I invite you to go back to the beginning of this post and read where I came from. Until a few short years ago, I’d be sitting in the windowless room with you, waiting for someone to slide a pizza under the door.
And maybe that’s the real point. Never say never. Always be open to change. Don’t be afraid to surprise yourself. And, above all–keep trying.
Here’s something I don’t often do: put a free story up on this blog. But. Hey. Economic meltdown. Elections. Topicality. Too late to shop it. So, here you go . . .
1337 in 2012
By Jason Stoddard
“I want to know how she did it,” Alexandra Jetter said, almost pushing Gary McCabe down the narrow hallway with her refilled-from-the-lunchroom-for-a-week grande Starbucks. Not a single thank-you for calling him in at midnight.
“Doing it wasn’t hard,” Gary told her.
Alexandra snapped around to look at him, baring yellow teeth. “You didn’t vote for her, did you?”
“Of course not.” Though it had been really, really hard to vote for their pet candidate who promised the Bureau more funding, more growth, good times for everyone again, go back to buying Starbucks every day, hallelujah.
“Then how’d she do it?”
“She ran it like a campaign.”
“Of course it’s a campaign!”
“Not that kind of campaign.“
A snort. “She rigged it.”
Gary just shrugged.
And then they were at the door to their holding room. The Portland FBI office was tiny. Alexandra looked angrily from the door to Gary and back again, then sighed and swiped her card to buzz them in.
“We took her phone and headset,” Alexandra said, as she walked into the room.
Gary said nothing. On the other side of a scarred wooden desk sat Susan Acker, the woman who had stolen the election. Random facts rattled through Gary’s brain. In the two weeks before the election, she had been unavoidable. YouTube. Blip. VuDu. MySpace. QQ. Gbook. Gvirt. Thirty-nine. Sold her first ecommerce company in the web 1.0 days, then sold a social network to Google five years ago. Blonde. Slim. Pretty in a knife-edged way. She wore a comfortable-looking gray embroidered blouse with a red “1337 in ’12” on it, against a QR-code background in blue and white, and jeans that were blown out at the knees. She looked up at him with ice-blue eyes and the edges of her mouth quirked, just once, almost a grin.
“Ms. Acker, I am Alexandra Jetter. This is Gary Mc—“
“Am I being charged with something?”
Alexandra frowned. “That remains to be seen.”
Susan rolled her eyes. “How theatrical.”
“We have questions for you.”
“Not without my lawyer.”
Alexandra laughed, a terrible laugh, mechanical, like a robot from the dollar store.
You know we don’t need that anymore, Gary thought.
But Susan just sat there, bored, like someone waiting in line for a soup kitchen. Which didn’t make any sense at all. Unless–
“Give me your pendant,” Gary said.
For the first time, Susan looked directly at him. She grinned, then handed him her little crystal bauble.
“What’s that?” Alexandra said.
“Hookup. Geolocator. Tells your friends where you are.” Gary used his phone to sniff the wireless spectra. “Seems inactive, though. She’s not transmitting anything.” Still. He pulled the little battery off of it.
“You’re the tech guy,” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“Did you vote for me?”
Gary said nothing.
“Let me guess,” Susan said. “Not enough cred to be leet. Didn’t work the crowdsourced nodes. Dropped into this job because you couldn’t make it in industry, let alone start your own gig.”
Gary struggled to keep his face neutral. Yes. Yes. And then you end up working for the FBI, who don’t care about your backtrail on the crowdsourcing networks, your coding contest wins, the magnitude of your profile on the social networks. And then watch your circle of friends nod, get strange looks in their eyes, and drift away as fast as politeness let them. And try not to get lost in the new rah-rah-americah circle you find yourself in.
Gary’s phone rattled against his thigh. He had set his personal agent to alert him if anything significant happened with Susan Acker-related tags. He fished it out of his pocket and squinted at the display. The network talking heads were still yelling about the election upset, their big infographic maps all gray instead of neat blue and red. The electoral college was still refusing to cast their votes for Susan Acker. The House looked to have over three hundred new names, all unknown, all from the 1337 party. The Senate, with only 33 seats up, looked to lose 28 of them to the 1337s as well. The clock flashed 1:18AM. Less than 12 hours since the bizarre election results started to flood.
And the new news: eBay auctions had been started for cabinet seats, and the new US Legal Wiki had gone online. Just as Susan had promised during the campaign.
“What is it?” Alexandra asked.
Gary showed her the phonescreen. She squinted at it for a few moments, then shook her head. “She’s started the cabinet seat auctions.”
Susan smiled. “I promised to put my changes into effect as soon as possible,” she said.
“You aren’t really going to sell the cabinet seats, are you?” Gary said.
“Why not? That’s what has happened at every election since, oh, well, probably the beginning of time. At least my bidders have to maintain at least 98% positive feedback for 1000 or more transactions. And then they have to keep their Gbook comments at 90% positive or neutral ongoing.”
“You really think that will work?” Gary said.
Her eyes slit. “Do you have a better idea?”
Gary said nothing. Not enough cred to be leet.
A snort. “That’s what I thought. You might as well let me go. It’s a sweep. They’re projecting 56% of the popular vote, and 43 of 50 states.”
“You rigged it,” Alexandra said.
“Not at all. It’s just time for a change. Government 2.0.”
“eBay isn’t exactly a 2.0 thing,” Gary said.
And, for the first time, Susan stopped a beat, and frowned. “That doesn’t matter.”
Gary fought a grin. Of course. Of course. Once a geek. Always a geek. They didn’t like to be challenged. They didn’t like to hear that their grand ideas might have holes in them.
“Even if we let you go, it wouldn’t work,” Gary said.
“What–“ Alexandra began, but Susan cut her off.
“What do you mean?” she sat up straight in her seat, for the first time actually angry.
“I mean, come on. Nobody can maintain a 90% neutral or positive on Gbook, once they get flooded with kinda-friends and not-friends. And what are they gonna do? Not friend them? Then their friends hear about it and go negative. It’s a no-win.”
“So I change the metrics.”
“And change one of the foundations of your campaign?”
“We wrote that into the terms of service!”
“Who reads those?” Gary asked.
Susan shook her head, her eyes shut, frowning. Gary kept on. “It was all kinda silly, wasn’t it? Legal wikis open to the public, so they can edit out duplicate laws, and the Supreme Court trials being ad-sponsored–”
“–hey, you know how much money CourtTV still makes?” Susan interjected.
“The House and Senate turned into a reality channel on YouTube, where the public can vote them out of their offices–“
“–no different than what we have now–“
“Digg as a feedback system for your campaign platform, and an online calculator where people can see the effects of the new programs on their actual paycheck–“
“—and can contribute if it takes us over budget, that was a neat PayPal tie-in, don’t forget that,” Susan said, her lips tight-set.
“But where is the money going to come from? With the Second Depression–“
Susan stood up suddenly, knocking over her chair. “And this is my fault how? This is your fault! This is the whole old system’s fault! We’ve let you run the place for, what, two hundred years, and we end up with a country owned by China, grabbing used Starbucks cups to feel better? What’s sillier, running the United States based on shit that was made up 200 years ago, or trying something new?”
“Did you rig the election?” Alexandra asked.
“No! No! No!” Susan put a hand to her brow and turned around. “People want change. It’s that simple.”
Alexandra shook her head. Her eyes settled on Gary. “You. You said it wasn’t surprising.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Why not?”
Gary sighed. Alexandra knew nothing about technology. She was one of the last few who had had a choice. Late 40s, early 50s, he imagined her angrily pecking at her pristine keyboard with two fingers, cursing old-style spam. How could he explain? As soon as he’d seen the 1337 party’s campaign, he’d thought to himself, This is good. Really good. Someone’s finally using all that information that’s out there. Finally. And when the confused announcers started showing up online and on the remnants of the networks, talking about errors in the vote and an upset in the polls, he’d known exactly what had happened.
“What social networks are you on?” Gary asked Alexandra, taking out his phone. He set it looking for info on her.
“I have a MySpace.”
“And what did you put on it?”
“Just some photos,” she said.
Gary looked at the display. It showed Alexandra’s MySpace, with photos of her three kids, an ancient AOL profile, a rant against her ex-husband and a long trail of threads in a cruiseline’s forum. His ConText software knit it together into a synthetic profile of her life, complete from marriage dates to likes and dislikes. Gary turned it to her and waited for her eyes to focus.
“So if a candidate promised you a free cruise with your two tween kids, you might be more favorably disposed towards them?”
“Where’d you get this?”
“Or if that candidate showed up as a cruise-ship captain, who also had three children, would you be more likely to vote for them?”
Alexandra’s mouth hung open. “She rigged it like that?”
Gary sighed. It got tiresome, so damn tiresome. Alexandra wasn’t a terribly dumb person, she just refused to understand anything with technology in it. Even when the penalties for falling behind got greater and greater every year, she could barely use a desktop when handsets were the standard and eyesets were coming on strong.
And there’s no way to explain what Susan had done in simple language, he realized. It took deep understanding of how things worked. It took realizing that the old days were well and truly over, that YouTube was bigger than all the world’s television networks put together, that data-scraping and psychographic targeting were just things that everyone did, that there were millions of chatterbots smart enough to fool most of the US population into thinking they were human, and that the ongoing grind of the depression had honed and sharpened advertisers targeting techniques to razor-sharp levels. This was the new system, this was how it was done.
It’s actually amazing that it took this long for someone to figure out how to use the system, he thought.
“It isn’t rigging to use publicly-available information to target messages specifically to your audience,” Gary said. “In fact, that’s the basis of every modern advertising campaign. Susan ran this like a modern short-spike net campaign centered around an alternate reality game, as did all the leet candidates. They waited until a month before to submit their candidacy, they did highly targeted social activation programs on a short timeframe so people wouldn’t be bored, and they offered a helluva prize for the win: control of the United States government. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the voters really thought this was a game.”
Susan smiled and nodded in grudging respect. “Very good, tech guy.”
Alexandra shook her head. “So she did rig it?”
“She ran a very unorthodox campaign, but she didn’t rig the election. She just told people what they wanted to hear.”
Susan’s smile grew wider. “In other words, no different than any campaign in history.”
“It’ll never work!” Alexandra said. “We’ll re-run the election with paper ballots.”
“You don’t think we factored that in, too?” Susan said.
“We can just . . . make you disappear!” Alexandra’s face was twisted in hate and rage.
“You can’t do anything,” Susan said. “You’re just functionaries, set to babysit me until your lazy bosses get out of bed at ten. I know how government works. Waste, laziness, waste, and more laziness. That will change.”
Alexandra shrieked, pulled her little 9mm out of her shoulder holster, and pointed it at Susan.
Silence in the room. After some time, Susan shook her head. “Do you really think you can do that?”
“It’s not like we’re going to post it on the internet!” Alexandra screamed.
“If there’s video, it will be found,” Susan said. “If there isn’t, they’ll reconstruct it in virtuality.”
“Either way, she’ll be a martyr.” Gary’s heart pounded enough to blur his vision.
Alexandra turned to snap at him. “Thanks, Gary! Thanks for that upbeat thought!”
Gary said nothing for a long time. Finally, softly, in a voice that didn’t even sound like his own, he said,“Don’t do it. Think of your kids.”
Alexandra grimaced and turned away from Susan, dropping her gun towards the floor. She sobbed, quickly, twice, and put the gun back in her shoulder holster. “What do we do?” she asked. “What do we do?”
“We wait until morning, when your bosses show up,” Susan said. “You can let me go then. Or maybe a little sooner.”
“Shut up!”
Susan shook her head, but said nothing.
“What do we do now?” Alexandra asked again.
Gary shrugged. Probably nothing, he thought. Probably just like she said. Wait until the bosses show up–probably earlier than later now–and then release her. And then they’d try to discredit every 1337 candidate they could, from Susan to Kevin Rose, the new Governor of California, and the ones they couldn’t discredit they’d try to tie up in court, and rerun the election, this time with paper ballots, and they’d hem and haw like they always did, and nothing would get done . . .
Gary’s phone buzzed again, causing him to almost drop the thing. What it showed on the screen came directly from Google Maps. He looked at it for a while, thumbed through different cities, and laughed.
“What’s going on?” Alexandra said. “What now?”
Gary just laughed. Susan grinned at him, as if they were sharing a secret.
“They factored this in, too,” he said, showing the real-time traffic of cars streaming into Portland, converging on the FBI office. In many other cities, the same thing was happening. Early news footage showed protesters holding 1337 in ’12 signs, yelling for the release of Susan Acker.
And in that moment, Gary saw it. This was really a revolution. This was a fundamental change. It hadn’t taken rewriting the Constitution, it hadn’t taken a single weapon. It just took knowing the system.
Everything would change, and there was nothing they could do to stop it.
“What the hell do we do?” Alexandra said.
“We let her go.”
“We? We can’t do anything!”
“You know what I mean,” Gary said, waving his phone. “We can’t stand against this.”
“Yes we can! We can!”
Gary shook his head. Everything was so clear now. His mind thrummed along, singing crystal. “No. We can’t. It’s going to change. From now on, we’re a leet nation, whether we like it or not.”
“Thinking of joining us?” Susan said. Her eyes searched him up and down, as if waiting for an eyeset to scan his face and spit up data. But it didn’t. She wore no eyeset; she didn’t even know his full name. Gary smiled at her, and her grin flickered uncertainly. He liked that.
“I resign,” he told Alexandra. He put his ID on the table and turned towards the door.
“You can’t do that!” she screamed, putting herself between him and the door.
“It’s still a somewhat free country.”
“And it will be freer soon,” Susan said. “You’re joining the right team.”
Gary pushed past Alexandra and put his hand on the door.
“No!” She wailed. “Don’t do this!”
“You know it’s the right thing to do,” Susan said.
Gary paused for a moment. His heart still hammered, but his mind still raced in a way it never had before. He didn’t know what he was going to do tomorrow. The next day he might be in the soup lines, or working a rich guy’s organic farm, or heading off to Canada or China.
Or he could finally pick himself up, use his own code skills, and do something. Maybe in a small way. Or maybe not.
He looked back over his shoulder at Susan. “Do you know what you’ve won?” he asked.
And it was Susan’s turn to blink and look confused. He liked that, too.
“You’ve proven the new rule is how well someone can use the system,” he said. “But now the rule is out. How long will it take another leet haxor to do the same thing? Will they wait until 2016?”
Susan’s grin disappeared.
“Will they let you get in office at all?”
Her eyes, wide.
“And who’s going to come up next? You’re not super-high profile. What kid is going to come out of nowhere and knock you down? What kid is gonna invent a new system, one you’re not on top of?”
“But . . . we need to change.” Susan’s voice was very small.
Gary turned back to the door. He thought of saying, Yes, of course, I agree, that’s why I’m not working here anymore. He thought of saying Yes, of course, I agree, but this isn’t a meritocracy, it never will be one, it can’t be a utopia, and I can’t imagine anything that isn’t a popularity contest in the end.
But he just opened the door, and stepped out into the new world.
Note: Revised 10/1/08 in response to Jetse’s comments below. Key revisions: (a) Renaming the “manifesto to a “platform,” and (b) An open invitation for everyone to chime in, remix, add, change: consider this the beginnings of an open source platform on positive science fiction, and use it as you’d like, (c) some clarification about characters, big and small.
I feel slightly responsible for all of this. After all, following Jetse in January, I called for positive change in SF back in February, and followed it up with clarification after that original post was picked up on i09, Futurismic, WorldChanging, and Velcro City here.
And, despite lots of words about how positive science fiction can still be gritty, realistic, and encompass lots and lots of scary crap, people still don’t know what positive science fiction is. So, here’s a shot at a definition:
Positive science fiction starts with acknowledging that there are positive things happening, now. Whether we’re talking about real advances in science, or simply the fact that there are people out there trying to do good things, the world is not, and never will be, a monolithic entity seeking to destroy the ecosystem and enslave the population. Such a monoculture is impossible outside of scenarios that include complete mind control of everyone on the planet. And novels set in such a world would be very, very boring.
Positive science fiction is about the possibility of positive change. If the system is so big and the characters so small, there is no possibility for change. All we can do is watch as the mechanism of the world turns. All we can take away from this is that we can do nothing; we might as well roll around on the ground, crying, saying, “Woe is me! There is no hope!” There has to be a possibility of change. Even if that change isn’t fully realized. Even if that change isn’t what we expect. Even if that change is, in itself, frightening.
Positive science fiction has a protagonist or protagonists that can effect change. Small characters are perfectly fine—but if they can’t pick themselves up and rise above their origins, then why are we spending any time with them? Why can’t we include a full palette of characters who are captains of industry, or doods-next-door with a mission, or brilliant scientists, or girls who bootstapped themselves to fame, or even trust fund babies bent on doing good–or evil–or simply serving their own complex personalities? We need to remember that Elon Musk is not only an “Evil CEO,” but that he made his billions in the dot-boom ecommerce days–and is now head of such forward-looking companies as SpaceX and Tesla Motors. It seems to me that many authors would be well-served by continuing to spend time in business and industry (and not just at a copywriter level). The perspective is invaluable in creating real, believable characters on every level.
Positive science fiction isn’t afraid to look at challenging definitions of “positive.” What we consider “positive” is heavily colored by our politics, our scarcity-based economy, and the current state of the world. A positive mid-future or far-future world might be very, very different than we expect, especially if we start heading into post-scarcity based scenarios. I think of an iPod Touch full of rap videos and Torchwood torrents being transported back to Victorian England. Would they be in awe of our technology—or would they recoil from our mores?
Positive science fiction inspires people to act and influence positive change. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to live in a world of slackers who can do nothing more than complain about “the man” and “the system.” I want people to be inspired to get the education and do the work necessary to get us off the planet. To fix the environment. To figure out systems that don’t need to go through destructive boom and bust cycles. To extend our lifespans. To discover wholly new frontiers. To create new life. To develop true artificial intelligence. To make workable nanotechnology. To create space elevators. We will not do this by wallowing in sorrow; we will not do this by bemoaning our fate; we will not do this by laying about on the couch.
So, is this the do-all prescription for instant science fiction relevance and growth? No, of course not. Like I append many of my posts with: this is one doods opinion. This is a start. If you’d like to chime in, that’s great. If you’d like to take this piece in its entirety and remix it, change it, and make it your own, have at it. I have only a single agenda: I’d like to see science fiction succeed.
And, in the end, I agree with Jetse. Moving science fiction in a more positive direction isn’t an option, it’s a requirement. If we can’t help point the ways to the answers, then what use are we, really?
From the back cover of The Best From Fantasy and Science Fiction, 9th Series, Copyright 1958:
“Life Magazine says there are more than TWO MILLION science fiction fans in this country. From all corners of the nation comes the resounding proof that science fiction has established itself as an exciting and imaginative NEW FORM OF LITERATURE that is attracting literally tens of thousands of new readers every year!
Why? Because no other form of fiction can provide you with such thrilling and unprecedented advantures! No other form of fiction can take you on an eerie trip to Mars . . . amaze you with a journey to the year 3000AD . . . or sweep you into the fabulous realms of unexplored Space! Yes, it’s no wonder that this exciting new form of imaginative literature has captivate the largest group of fascinated new readers in the United States today!”
Leaving aside the hype (I now see where the global exclamation point shortage came from), the gist is clear: science fiction was vibrant and growing. It inspired. It pointed the way to a positive future.
And, as silly and sophomoric as that Golden Age SF seems today, the ability to promote positive change, to create hope, and to urge ourselves to move forward is something we need to return to. As Gareth Lyn Powell says, “Sometimes you have to inspire.” And, as Jetse de Vries says, Optimistic SF: An Idea Whose Time Has Come.
A reader pointed me at New York Magazine’s blockbuster article on the publishing industry, cheerfully entitled “The End.”
I say: the end of what? The end of corporate hubris, broken business models, and lockstep, marching-into-the-oblivion party lines? You bet. And it’s well-deserved. An industry built on creating superstars to prop up the bottom line, which openly admits they don’t even know how to market their own product to a reader base that they know nothing about (and continues to shrink)—what part of this ever sounded like a good idea?
Some of the quotes are truly classic.
The piece opens with the most telling. Debbie Stier, #2 of HarperStudio, asked her 12-year-old son what they could do to fix the publishing business. He said: “So maybe you have to turn all the books into movies so nobody has to waste their time.”
Or about the audience:
“Nobody knows where the readers are, or how to connect with them. Fifteen years ago, Philip Roth guessed there were at most 120,000 serious American readers—those who read every night—and that the number was dropping by half every decade. Others vehemently disagree. But who really knows? Focused consumer research is almost nonexistent in publishing.”
Sorry, marketing-guy interjection: WHAT THE HELL? A $30B industry that doesn’t know what its customer base is like or what they want? What agencies have they been flushing their marketing dollars down the past few decades? Didn’t I just say, “Fire your agencies?”
Or about marketing:
“One key advantage of corporate publishing was supposed to be its marketing muscle: You may not publish exactly the books you’d like to, but the ones you publish will get the attention they deserve. Yet in recent years, more accurate internal sales numbers have confirmed what publishers long suspected: Traditional marketing is useless. “Media doesn’t matter, reviews don’t matter, blurbs don’t matter,” says one powerful agent. Nobody knows where the readers are, or how to connect with them.”
Wow. Give me a decent budget and a couple weeks of a research-focused AdWords buy and I’ll tell you where the readers are, how to connect with them, and whether it not it will be profitable at the first sale. This is the most basic online marketing stuff on the planet. But somehow, it has eluded the biggest publishers out there.
So, hell, let’s drop all pretense here: any publishers out there who want an agency that is full of readers and writers, which knows how this new intartubey marketing works, is getting real results, and is building for future success, maybe you need to talk to us.
Okay. Commercial over.
And, you know what? I refuse to get discouraged by all of this. Even if everything we know about publishing changes overnight—even if it disappears entirely—I’m willing to bet that the future for creative, flexible people who tell stories is bright. The form may change. The portrait of the lonely, tortured, antisocial writer will likely go by the wayside. We may have to accept different kinds of deals.
Sorry, I really can’t hold back on this one. From Green Man Review, regarding the Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and fantasy:
“The collection opens with a beautiful story by Jason Stoddard, “The Elephant Ironclads.” Not able to glean anything in particular from the title, I entered into this one with a clean slate. It turns out to be an alternate history, which the story’s intro describes as “based (as most of the best of the subgenre) on some unbelievable but actual historical events.” The story follows two young friends, Wallace and Niyol, on a short but grueling journey through the desert — first as guides, then captives, of two mysterious tourists with shady agendas. Adventure this story does have, and a gritty, absolutely believable social and historical backdrop. A story about choices, identity, and personal accountability, all on a very human and totally comprehensible scale. Absolutely one of the best stories I’ve read all year. Deserves major genre recognition and possibly awards.”
“An outstanding collection overall, with a diversity and breadth of scope not often seen in modern collections. A 2008 must-buy for anthology fans. Several award-worthy stories within, and if McHugh and Stoddard don’t win at least a couple between them, I’ll be sorely disappointed.”
Okay. Time for the last of three follow-on posts regarding what to do with the wealth of statistics, media planning tools, and modern maketing tactics available today.
In this one, I’m advising a hypothetical Large Publisher on what to do with this information and these techniques to maximize their results. This isn’t such a reach. I’ve advised companies as large as these publishers on marketing strategy—and created campaigns for them—in my day job.
What I’ll be doing differently here is that I’ll be talking to this hypothetical Large Publisher as if we were old friends—friends who were comfortable enough together to be brutally honest. So, buckle up. There will be no punches pulled here.
So, here’s what I’d advise a Big Publisher to do, in today’s marketing ecosystem:
First, get out a tumbler of your favorite single-malt, sit down, and say this aloud: “My business model is based on the shipping-around of slabs of pulped wood fiber, in a world where the current leading edge of entertainment, business and news are all in a shared electronic medium—a world that’s maybe 2 years away from a mobile-centric, persistently-connected information economy, and maybe 5 years away from large-scale deployment of augmented reality.” Does this scare you? If not, lean forward and look down from your corner office at all the people carrying smartphones. Compare this to the number of people carrying books or Kindles. Amazon may talk about “hundreds of thousands” of Kindles, but Apple wants to move 15 million iPhones this year—and that’s only one brand.
Think “Business Process Innovation.” You have something people want. There’s one big problem: today, you cannot control the distribution of the content; you control only the distribution of the physical books. And, for everyone who says “I like to hold a book in my hand,” there’s another who says, “I like to hold my entire library in my smartphone.” (Or, you know, ten others.) In a world where copying and transmitting your content is trivial, you have two choices. One: You can try to sue them into sticking to your old business model—but we all know how well that is working out for the RIAA. Two: you can look at new business models that deliver what they want in a way that your customers (and potential customers) consider high-value and easy to use.
Test these new models. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes effort. And yes, Tor is already experimenting with some social features on its site. But I’m thinking bigger. What about an all-you-can-read subscription model? Or an all-you-can-read ad-supported model—after all, your demographic is upscale, it’s easy to target by interest, and you should be able to command premium CPMs for ads placed in your electronic editions. Or a sliding-scale, pay-for-content model, where everything is nearly free, until it gets popular (the price of each ebook increases as the ebook increases in popularity, rewarding early readers). There are many opportunities to step outside of the current business model, most of which can be tested online before large-scale deployment.
Fire your agencies. No. Seriously. Full-page ads in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, but not a single keyword buy? You have to be kidding me! Blowout ads with results that cannot be measured accurately (let’s face it, even with a bigpublisher.com/respondhere url, measuring the results of offline impressions to sales is iffy at best) are a service only to the agency that doesn’t want to be measured. And, seriously, none of your interactive agencies ever introduced you to Ning or Pringo as social network platforms? Or talked to you about widgets having 67% reach of the worldwide internet (this is a ComScore number, too). Or spoke to you about the value of getting into the social spaces in a meaningful, relevant way now, rather than waiting for someone else to do it? You have personalities. They have followings. This is an opportunity.
Create a marketing plan based on the new media realities. Focus on bringing in new customers rather than coddling old ones, or else your marketing will soon have a singular message: Please buy a few more books before you die. Think Buick.
Think loyalty programs, insiders clubs, and special perks. All of the advice we gave to small publishers holds true here as well. Though you’re going to find it a lot harder to gain a perch in people’s hearts and minds, unless you fragment your programs into genre- or interest-specific categories. The more you can make the book a ticket to an insiders club (though a virtual world like Neopets, or through local author events, or through special edition books designed to treasure) the better off you’ll be.
Stay flexible. The pace of change continues to accelerate. What we’ll see over the next 10 years will look like the last 20. And where was your cellphone, your email address, and your internet browser in 1988?
Is this the be-all and end-all prescription to end all woes in the publishing industry? Of course not. It’s just advice from one person. But really, think about the music industry. You don’t want to be their less-evil, lower-markup, higher-intrinsic-value, less-marketing-focused little brother, do you?
Okay, let’s keep this going. This post is a followup to my previous one on the wealth of analytics and marketing tools available today. It covers my recommendations for a small publisher who would like to use these tools to boost sales.
Here’s the setup: By “small publisher,” we’re talking about one who doesn’t have a household name. They aren’t part of a megaconglomerate. They probably focus on a genre (or a couple) rather than mainstream fiction or self-help books. They don’t have infinite money to spend on big ad campaigns, but they can spend when it makes sense. They don’t have infinite staff to spend on social media endeavors, but, again, they can spend some time working this angle.
So, the question is: how do I use my resources most effectively, given the free information online and the wealth of modern marketing tools?
Let’s start with a different POV. One thing we frequently forget is this: in all industries, there are always small, passionate companies hiding under the skirts of the multinationals—and, in many cases, they’re charging premium prices, and making a damn nice living at it. For every GE, there is a Mag-Lite. For every Nike, there is a Birkenstock. For every Toyota, there is a Mini. These companies cater to small, engaged groups of customers. Ones that consider their choices part of their personality, and aren’t worried if they can get ten bux off at Wal-Mart. Things shouldn’t be any different in small publishing. You’re creating unique content for a small group of highly engaged people. Look at what the successful small organizations are doing in other industries—and take a lot of notes.
Then, start at the beginning. I’m talking brand and their key messages. And yes, I just said “brand.” I know there’s going to be a lot of howling about this, because “brand” is such a charged word right now. Too many irresponsible branding companies have convinced too many large companies with too much money that creating a brand is a “finger-snap” away. It isn’t. But if you build the foundation of your brand with a unique position and personality that resonates with the audience, and if you deliver on that position and personality, you’re going to be remembered. You’re going to stand out. And people will come back. So: what is your unique brand and messages? Are you all about near-future science fiction, with a price point under ten bux (yeah, I know, keep dreaming), or are you about creating masterpieces of bookbinding to hand down to your kids. Or are you about finding authors too edgy for the mainstream? Are you the sacred cow skewerer? There’s a reason you got into publishing—and it probably stems from the fiction you like. What are you bringing to your audience that nobody else can? Have that in your head? Good. Now express it visually, and apply it to everything you do.
Now, do everything you can to engage your current customers, before you go looking for new ones. The most successful small companies know their success is based on deeply engaging a small audience, rather than fishing in the everyman pool. What are you doing to make sure your customers are engaged? Do you have an enewsletter program to let them know about new releases? Are you giving them a reason to sign up for it (and to accept the newsletter?) If not, this is probably the most important thing you can do. We’ve worked with many small companies where their customers have joked, “Wow, I gotta get off of your enewsletter, because I’m buying too much stuff, but I can’t because I don’t get the best deals.” Once you have your enewsletter program in place, it’s time to consider a true loyalty program. Buy 8 books, get 1 free (or whatever works with your margins). Then, it’s time to look at a referral program. Refer 3 friends who buy books, and you get a free book (or earn points.)
“Wow, this sounds like . . . evil marketing stuff!” You might be saying.
And you’re half right. It is definitely marketing. But, you know what? If you don’t do it, someone else will. Consider that the Mini is not that much different than a Yaris with better styling and good marketing—and it sells for 2X what the Yaris costs.
Okay, we can now look for new customers—and keywords are your friends. Okay. This is ridiculous. Go to Google right now. Type in “science fiction,” and take a look at the AdWords ads that show up on the right hand side of the page. As of this writing, there is only one ad—and it is for a self-published book. Try it for other genres. Look for other words at Compete.com. And if you don’t think this is a gigantic opportunity standing in front of you, check out now. Fact is, you can get a BIG footprint in paid search for very little spend in many genre-related keywords. And AdWords can be broadcast out to many other sites–including some very big blogs that cover our genres. Go to Google, sign up, and create some ads that compel qualified people to click through and shop at your store. Track the results with Google Analytics. You can throttle the spend, control what times ads appear, try different ads and have the system optimize the response for you. With a good paid search program, it’s entirely possible to deliver profit at the first purchase.
BlogAds and other targeted networks are also your friends. Okay, let’s say AdWords are working for you, and you’ve branched out to Yahoo’s own paid search ads. Where do you go from here? Well, it may be time to look at BlogAds and other, targeted advertising networks like Federated Media or Gawker. BlogAds is a great way to get broad exposure for very little spend, and you can target sites that cover books, technology, and more. Federated Media and Gawker get you into BoingBoing and io9 respectively. Best of all, most of these work on the same self-service model as AdWords–choose your sites, choose how much you want to spend, then track and optimize the results. No agency necessary.
“Wow. That sounds like, well, evil advertising stuff.” And yes, it is. And yes, it works.
These are ads that are highly targeted—either at people searching for your stuff, or at people who are browsing sites that cover the same genres. This is how you find new, passionate customers who you can engage over the long term.
And, like everything else, there’s a lot more you can do. The above recommendations are simply the most likely to produce real, measurable results.
But if you have bandwidth for more, here you go:
Run a “friend to enter” sweepstakes. Want to build the number of friends you have on MySpace or fans on Facebook? Run a “become our friend to enter” sweepstakes with the grand prize being a complete library of your books. Or something even bigger, like a paid-up iPhone with eBook reading software. More friends on the social spaces means you have more people you can communicate to (through bulletins) or make public comments on. Both are great ways to get the word out about new books and events you’re putting on.
Look at big shows, not small. It’s great how many small publishers I see at small science fiction conventions. But, by doing this, they’re simply reconnecting with the same small group of buyers—something that can easily be accomplished through an enewsletter or through contact via the social spaces. If you’re looking at doing shows, I’d strongly consider ComiCon. Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it’s only once a year. And yes, it’s 125,000 people—120,000 of which would never show up at a WorldCon. And ComiCon, despite the name, enbraces everyone. You’ll see comic book artists, yeah. And you’ll also see movies, books, games, and more. If you’re looking to get in front of a new audience, this is the ticket.
Create your own social network. Yeah, Tor did it. Finally. The irony is that you can do it too—and all it takes is a trip over to Ning, a few clicks, and zero dollars. Let’s repeat that: this is free. You can do it in an afternoon. No expensive agency necessary. The reason you may want to consider this is simple: you are catering to a small, passionate audience with similar interests. It’s entirely possible that they may want to get to know each other. It’s highly probable they’ll want to look at each others’ bookshelves, and hear what the others have to say about their books. Letting them connect deepens their engagement with each other—and it deepens their engagement with you, because you are the facilitator. It also gives you permissio to communicate with them. Remember: free.
Consider iPhone versions of your books. Not for free, for sale. Why? It gets you in front of 10MM leading-edge people who are frequently traveling. They’re frequently the tastemakers. And they are very, very passionate about things they believe in.
“So where’s the blog? The Twitter?” you ask. Hey, if you want to, I wouldn’t get in your way. But I also wouldn’t put it in front of outreach designed to create sales.
Next week: What’s a Big Publisher to Do? You’ll like this one.
In case you missed my previous post on the wealth of analytics and marketing tools available for free online, this post covers my recommendations for an author with a book who would like to use this intelligence—and the complete palette of modern marketing tools—to improve their chances of success.
“Wait a minute,” someone might say. “Aren’t you an author?”
Well, yes. But I don’t currently have a book to shill. If I did, I’d be taking my own advice.
Okay, </commercial.>
Here’s the setup: Let’s assume our hypothetical author doesn’t have a household name. Nor do they control a web property with millions of visitors a month. They also don’t have a lot of money to spend on, say, full-page ads in the Wall Street Journal. And they don’t have infinite time—their family wouldn’t be pleased with recommendations that include a list of 89 social networks to visit every single day.
So, in this case, the question is: What can I do that provides the maximum result for minimum cost (both in terms of time and dollars)?
Let’s start with a change of mindset. Today, you need to change your point of view on what writing is. The lonely writer, hidden away behind closed doors, does not work in a world of constantly-connected electronic media. Your fans expect to see you. To know a bit about you. They’re looking for a personal connection. You need to think of yourself as an actor, looking for superstardom. You need to stand out. You need to be memorable. And you’ll need to do this all the time. Yes, it’s unfair. Yes, the best work should speak for itself. Unfortunately, it usually doesn’t. So . . . what makes you different? What makes you unique? What makes people want to be around you? Find it. Cultivate it.
Let’s turn it up a bit: get good at public speaking. And I’m not talking about a paragraph from your latest story, told in front of your local sci-fi club. I’m talking about being good at getting up in front of a lot of people and holding their attention for ten minutes, twenty minues, or an hour. Spend some time as a guest lecturer in your local college. Get on panels at conventions. Better yet, get speaking gigs on things you’re interested in anywhere you can. Having the guts to get up in front of a crowd separates you from . . . well, a whole lot of people. And it’s the best chance you’ll have to get someone’s attention.
“Wait a minute,” you’re probably saying. “What about all these online metrics and such?”
We’re getting to that. I’m looking at this from a holistic marketing standpoint. The preceding two steps can be considered “personal brand building,” if you’re in to buzzwords. If you aren’t, think of it as having something ready to deliver when you do get someone’s attention.
Then, let’s look local. Your best chance for exposure–and sales–will be through your local press, radio, television, and bookstores. Because, in this day and age of multinational conglomerates and faceless brands, there’s a real value in being local. And your local readers have friends—friends all over the world. Yeah, I know, you can’t keep this at arms’ length like a blog, and you may have to speak to some reporters . . . but you shouldn’t underestimate the power of “local dood makes good” stories. If you don’t know your local media, take a trip over to Mondo Times and make a list. Send letters. Learn how to write a press release. Call and introduce yourself.
Yeah, I know, online, online. Here you go.
Blog–but not just any blog. Here’s where Quantcast comes in. The first thing you’re going to do is compile a list of strategic tags. These strategic tags will include: your name, your genre, your publisher, the name of your book, the names of your awards . . . and tags taken from the keywords listed under high-traffic science fiction interest sites like BoingBoing, SciFi Channel, and io9. You’ll find these keywords at the Quantcast profiles for these sites, and for their affinity sites. The reason you’re picking these tags is because you want to be found when people are looking for science fiction-related content–and you have a good chance of being found if you maintain a good blog on a solid platform. You’ll apply these strategic tags to relevant posts (not all tags to all posts). For example, if you have a post about how terrible last night’s Battlestar Galactica episode was, and how you Twittered to all your friends using your iPhone, you’d be using popular strategic tags like “Battlestar Galactica,” “Twitter,” and “iPhone.”
Twitter–at least for now. Google is paying a lot of attention to Twitter posts at the moment. Use the same strategic tags (and tinyurl links to your longer content) and it will pay off in terms of search. Will this change in the future? Maybe. But for now, it makes a lot of sense.
Be visible on all the big SF outlets–and more. Have you responded to a post on BoingBoing, io9, or SciFi Channel? If not, why not? Identify yourself, use your strategic tags, and link back to your site. It may be the cheapest exposure you’ll get. Beyond the big guys, though, have you looked at forums such as Something Awful or Gaia Online? Yeah, I know. But–guess what? They are huge sources of traffic, and at least the former is self-selecting due to its paid nature. You’d be surprised how many science fiction fans and writers there are out there. Greg Bear’s son recently posted on SomethingAwful, and received a very warm reception. Threads that cover wacky science and new discoveries and supernatural are evergreen. These are communities you can reach out to. Finally, sign up for a full Quantcast account and use their Media Planner tool to look for demographics and site category to uncover places where you may want to be visible. For example, a search for males, 45+, caucasian, with a site category of “science and technology” could help you find where a “typical” science fiction-friendly audience might hang out. Or you can look for a younger audience. There’s a lot of data here to craft targets from.
“Wow, that’s a lot to do,” you say.
And yes, I hear you. Nobody said this is going to be easy. And, depending on the amount of time and money you have, you can go much, much, much farther. Here are a couple of things to think about if you’ve gotten some traction, and want to do more.
Consider SEO. Search engine optimization (SEO) is the practice of creating content that’s designed to be indexed highly in Google and other search engines. For example, if you were to create a “Ultimate Battlestar Galactica Resource Site,” with 45,000 total words spread over 1500 pages, and solicited 60,000 links in from other fansites, you have a site full of content that will appear very, very high in the Google listings. It may also lead people to your book. The time an energy required to do this can be very large, however.
Consider AdWords and BlogAds. If you have to advertise, Google AdWords and BlogAds are two of the most cost-effective ways to do it. Create a campaign around your book, buying low-cost, high-popularity tags taken from Quantcast, and you may be able to sell at a profit. Maybe. If you are very lucky.
Consider building your own world. If you have a very patient family, you may consider treating the world of your novel as real and building out an alternate reality site for, say, the town that it is set in. Or a site for a research company that features prominently in your book. Or even start your own Ning social network, and allow your fans to interact with your characters on the network. But, to be fair, these tactics take time, and are far more speculative than the rest. If you engage in them, good luck!
Up next: What’s a Small Publisher To Do? Look for this next week.
It’s a great time for internet analytics. What used to cost tens of thousands of dollars a year is now free, thanks to a new-ish service called Quantcast.
Some visitors may remember my Alexa-based comparisons of what I call “Popular Metafiction” and traditional science fiction outlets. Well, Quantcast makes Alexa look about as sleek and modern as a Ford Model T. Quantcast is a professional competitive analytics and online ad-planning platform—for anyone to use, for free. The data is also (typically) more accurate than Alexa and Compete.com, since Quantcast makes an effort for sites to quantify their traffic. Does it mean it is perfect? No, especially for smaller sites. But it is a very good tool.
Yeah, I know, I know: so what the heck does this have to do with science fiction?
Quite a bit, actually—provided you are interested in discovering what the real differences are between sites that get 2-3 million visitors a month and sites that get 5-50 thousand visitors per month—and then using that intelligence to market your work.
Let’s take a look at a few examples. I’m providing the screen caps here to freeze this instant in time, but it’s much more interesting to click through the live links (below the gallery)
“But wait!” some authors will cry. “Tor.com just launched its shiny new socialated website and Baen has been offering free stuff and forums and other argly-bargly internetish bits since, like, the earth cooled!”
Neither is exactly setting the world on fire—though, to be fair, it’s impossible to say what the Tor traffic will look like in a few months. If they do their job well, it should grow significantly.
But it’s the demographics, “audience also visits” and “audience also searches for” results that are most telling. And again, we get a very clean separation between the popular metascience sites, the entertainment sites, and the more traditional science fiction sites. Which means that the traditional sites are simply not reaching the audience that might be most interested in its content.
And that’s what we should be focusing on: how to effectively reach new audiences. What keywords are they using? What other sites are they visiting? What else are they interested in? Because even if they’re only interested in Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who right now, who knows what they might get into next?
“Okay, okay,” long-time readers of this blog will say. “I get it. So what do we do?”
And that’s a great question. In the next three posts, I’ll put on my marketing hat and take a look at how I’d use this data, and the complete suite of modern marketing tools, to help:
1. An author with a book to promote.
2. A small publisher looking to expand their reach.
3. A big publisher looking towards the future.
Now, remember: this will be coming from the point of view of a marketing professional. This is my day job. Companies like Memorex, Princess Cruises, Warner Brothers, Epson, and Cotton, Inc. pay me and the company I founded to do this. I have some credibility in this space.
But if you think marketing is beneath you, and that the best authors and the best publishers always rise to the surface and win automatically, that’s fine. You can skip the next few posts.
But remember—your competition may be taking notes.
Here’s an argument I use in my day job: It ain’t about getting people to your site anymore—its about getting your site out where the people are.
For years, we’ve focused on “drive traffic, drive traffic, gotta drive traffic.” In marketing, this means “doing search engine optimization, buying keywords, placing banners, doing contests, putting together strategic partnerships” or, more simply, “anything we can do to get people to our site.”
But times are changing. We just did a little promo for the new Batman Gotham Knight movie that brought in two million pageviews—without driving a single person to the site.
“Wait, what?” you might be saying. “Does this have anything to do with writing?”
Yes. It does. It has everything to do with writing. It’s something that science fiction writers—and publishers, especially publishers—should take to heart. It’s not about getting people to your site anymore. It’s about getting your content out to where the people are.
Where are the people? Increasingly, they’re on social networks like MySpace or Facebook. Or on social media like YouTube and Flickr. Or they’re reading some of the 100MM blogs out there. They’re interacting with friends, and with people they respect.They’re building their own profiles on the social networks. They’re writing their own blogs.
Is it any wonder they don’t react well when you pop in like a carnival shill, screaming, “Come to my site, come to my site NOWWWW?”
(Now, cue the people who will say, “But that social stuff, that there’s for kids, it ain’t for the mature and sophisticated audiences that loves that there science fiction stuff!”)
In short: you’re wrong.
37% of adult American internet users participated in social networks last year. This excludes teens, where the number was 70%. 6 of the top 10 global websites are social sites. This is not a flash in the pan. This is not a fad. This is a serious, long-term shift that every marketer (and that means you, science fiction writers and publishers) needs to look at.
We need to change our thinking from, “How do I get people to my site?” to “How do I get out to where the people are?”
Well, you’ve probably already started with a MySpace or Facebook presence. If not, shame on you. You’re turning your back on free outposts in places where, statistically, almost 4 out of 10 of your prospects are. But a presence isn’t enough. Think of your presence on the social networks as your home. You still need to invite people to your home. Which takes us back to the same old game of driving traffic, driving traffic. Which is really silly. Because, unless you have a really, really cool home, people would rather stay at their own.
No. The new goal is to bring your content into other people’s homes–their own social network profiles. Here’s how you do it.
Make friends. Without friends, you’re not going to be able to do much of anything. Search the social networks for people who are science fiction fans and reach out to them. But be respectful. Spamming thousands of people a day randomly doesn’t help anyone. Reaching out to people who have listed authors similar to yourself–and maybe offering them a free story as a token of friendship–is cool. Or, if you’re a publisher, how about a free ebook? But this is how you start: by making friends.
Be active. Everything you do is reflected in your friends’ feeds. Just sold a book? Let everyone know. Bringing out a new book? Ditto. Awards won, releases made, parties thrown–you get the picture. Every time you make an announcement, this is shown on your friends’ feeds for their friends to see. And the next time they are at the bookstore, they might think, “Oh yeah, that was the guy who . . .” or “I remember that small press . . .”
Give them your stuff. People like to customize their home–that is, their social network profile. They change colors, add backgrounds, restyle, put in music and photos, throw in YouTube videos. They’re very open to adding content that they like–and that includes yours. Do you have a widget that gives them access to excerpts from new releases, selected stories, or (better yet) complete ebooks? Do you have a widget that allows them to play audio podcasts of your work? Do you have a widget that can be updated on the fly with new information, new content, and kept perpetually fresh? If not, you should look into it, pronto. Widgets are small applications that people use to decorate their social network profiles. A widget is how we created all those extra views for Batman.
“Oh, you mean I have to make another thing–a widget–to promote my stuff?”
Well, no. I didn’t say you had to do anything. But you may want to pay attention to this big, big market, because there isn’t a lot of activity on the author or publishing side here yet. And it really isn’t that hard to get in the game. There are a lot of easy-to-use widget platforms out there, from Clearspring to YourMinis to WidgetBox. You can put together a simple RSS widget in a couple of minutes.
But you may want to think bigger. Widgets can be deleted as easily as they are installed. You want to provide good, compelling, ongoing content to earn your place on a friend’s page. And widgets can be very full-featured. The Batman widget we did included video, production stills, text, and an interactive feature that made the Batsignal brighter for the more widgets that were installed.
But, no matter how small you start, it’s time to start. The time of “get people to your site” is coming to a close. It’s time to move to where the people are.
You may have noticed that the base URL of the site has changed from xcentric.com to strangeandhappy.com. Hey, why not? What is eccentricity, after all, other than being strange and happy? And, given my battle cry for more positively-oriented science fiction
(and, before the naysayers jump in here, I’m not talking about happy-sappy lighthearted stuff, but work in which yeah, there may be big and scary changes, but there is still humanity, there is still hope)
the site name change makes sense.
It’s kinda funny to look back on the xcentric.com domain–the first domain I ever registered, way back in 1995. The irony is that my company name, Centric, had already been registered by a small engineering firm in 1990, so I had to pick an alternate name: xcentric.com. And this is a time when domain names like mcdonalds.com and chevrolet.com were not yet registered . . .
In fact, it might be interesting to take a look back at that time. In 1995, if you said you were an internet user, you were a bit strange, right out of the gate. After all, there were only about 10 million internet users in the world at the time I registered xcentric.com–less total accounts than there are in Second Life today.
And, in 1995, if you said, “The internet will change everything we know, it will eat every medium we have, it will grow and eat newspapers and radio and television,” you were a bit of a nutter.
But that is exactly what I said. In fact, I have documents from 1995 saying, “It will eat television in 10 years.” Well, YouTube was a year late, but fact is, YouTube now has greater reach and engagement than all the television networks put together.
Since 1995, I’ve built a decent-sized business helping companies take advantage of these ongoing changes in the online space. From websites to social network marketing to metaverse development, this is what I do on a daily basis. And I have to tell you: the changes you’ve seen to date are only a tiny, tiny fraction of what is to come.
The mobile revolution will dwarf the computing revolution, the internet revolution, and the social media revolution put together. Augmented reality will be the de facto standard for business in well under 10 years, despite how Bruce Sterling makes fun of his spex these days. And virtual realities are awaiting only a simple, in-browser experience to become mainstream–which we have today, at Maid Marian.
It’s gonna be a neat ride, a fun ride, and its going to change everything, all over again. And the opportunities will be simply stunning. If we can look forward–truly look forward–the future is as bright as it has ever been.
Some of you have probably read this New York Times article, where David Pogue hand-wrings over releasing his works in electronic format, on the current ease in which people can pirate said electronic works, and offers a couple of examples of “there really seems to be no way beside the current 19th-century publishing model to monetize my works fairly.”
The article is perhaps a little unsettling to any author who intends to try to make a living through the advance- and- royalties model of the publishing industry. But what is more interesting is some of the commentary.
In particular:
Your thoughts are interesting but they miss a bigger point in our history. Technology is changing the way wealth is distributed. I have no doubt that Mr. Pogue has a mortgage. I highly doubt that it is small. What I hear in this post is him asking the question how am I going to maintain the lifestyle I think I deserve, not how am I going to feed my children.
I’ve had this drilled into my head by several real-life examples over the last few months. Things are changing so fast that you really owe it to yourself to do a couple of quick Google searches before you go romping off with assumptions that are a decade (or even half a decade) old.
