marketing and politics (Was SF/Fantasy authors/DVDs)

[Stephen Hart]

Hi Pardoz,

I dunno? Does it mean that both SF and Fantasy is a "mainstream"
genre, when you end up with good writers who start turning out
"formula fiction."

P> This is nothing new, though. 's been the case since, oh, the 1920s
P> at least.

Say it ain't so! ;-)

All in all, I'm beginning to think that some book editors have been
totally "corrupted" by their publishing house marketing departments.

P> I think putting all the blame on the publishers is a bit one-sided;

I've obviously left this reply way to long, because I had to go back
and look at my last message just to make sure I remembered what my
point had been. Aside from my whining about "formula fiction", I was
mainly moaning about the apparent trend towards overly long novels
that are beefed-up with extraneous "filler"...

P> changes in the retail and distribution end are at least as much to blame.
P> The topic comes up fairly frequently in r.a.sf.w., and I'm fighting off
a
P> cold, so I'll refer you to Google for the nonce. (To narrow things down
a
P> tad, try looking for stuff posted by ***@tor.com; should help).

It was interesting reading his posts, but there was too much of a good
thing. I spent several hours in July and August going through the
google archive of rec.arts.sf.written and found references to the over
300 message threads he had participated in, with usually one or two
messages per thread. I read a fair number of them, because it was
interesting seeing an editor being nice enough to participate in a
newsgroup. Eventually I tried getting more selective, and I did find
some messages relating to book pricing, trade paperbacks, and other
marketing issues. However, I didn't stumble across anything directly
dealing with novel length. (I did see a few messages dealing with
things like paper price affecting book price, but that was a close as
I came.) Anyway, it was educational and did clue me in on how the
situation is more complex than one might think...

P> These days the electoral process *is* demographics, focus groups,
and
P> marketing. While people like DW Griffith and Leni Riefenstahl were
I'm ashamed to say that I'll have to look up those two.

P> Two of the grandparents of modern propaganda (and marketing, to the
P> extent that there's a difference).

When I saw the name Leni Riefenstahl linked to propaganda, I resisted
the urge to assume we were talking about Nazi Germany. So then I did
a Google search and found that she was "Hitler's film maker", tho the
web site waffled on whether or not she herself was a Nazi.

I'm assuming the DW Griffith you mention is the U.S. film director who
was accused of either being a racist or a dupe for racists, after he
made a few movies from the "Southern" perspective...

I can easily see relating Riefenstahl to propaganda but I'm not so
sure about Griffith, unless you categorize some of Griffith's films as
racist propaganda? I haven't seen any of them, but the online
synopsis do seem to qualify a few of them as racist. What interested
me was the not-so-subtle hint that he was a "dupe", and only trying to
portray a positive view of the Confederacy to offset all the other
more negative movies.

...I'm guessing that, when people care enough about someone
to put a biography online, web site creators may be inclined to
portray their subject in a slightly positive light.

Just to bring this closer to the present, and to show that I'm not
totally clueless, I'll quickly mention how the Bush Sr. administration
hired a Madison Avenue advertising shop to help "sell" the U.S. public
on the need for the first Gulf War against Iraq.

...My impression is that
the big new thing is assembling "customer profiles" that include
buying habits. Then, that person can be targeted with advertizing for
products that fit her/his buying profile.

P> Oh, yeah. Plus putting together all kinds of nifty aggregate data.
P> Consider that when you use one of these customer loyalty cards, they
end
P> up knowing what you buy, where you shop, when you shop, and how you pay,
P> plus all the demographic data they got from you on the sign-up form,
P> including age, marital status, income, etc. Put it all together, and
P> you've got a marketer's (or pollster's) wet dream. Things get even better
P> when you merge data from multiple sources - say a video store, a grocery
P> store, a pharmacy, and a bookstore.

You're pretty much "preaching to the converted" here, but I decided to
quote all that back in case someone new wanders into the message area.

Lord above! Everyone used to worry about _1984_ as a cautionary tale
where "Big Brother" is working for a tyrannical government. Leaving
aside how much surveillance governments indulge in, perhaps we should
also be worry about "Big Brother" working for corporate marketing
departments?

P> This presupposes there's a difference between Big Government and Big
P> Corporations....:-)

That's an interesting point. I can see where you're coming from, but
I'll probably spend more time digesting the idea.

Meanwhile, I gather that this type of thing does not bother many
people. If they do realize exactly how much information is being
compiled, both by the public and by the private sector, some people
just think that these files will help government and business to
better "serve" them.

P> Mostly I think they're just blissfully unaware of how much their
P> privacy is being invaded and how much they're being manipulated.

Maybe. Surveillance combined with marketing makes quite the tool for
controlling a population, but it's hard to explain without seeming to
be yet another "conspiracy theory paranoiac".

I notice that so far no one else has joined this message thread, so
I'll thank you for indulging me. In passing, I'd highly recommend
some of the books David Lyon has written. His being a Queen's
professor naturally means that I've easy access to gems like
_Surveillance As Social Sorting_ and all his other work...

I figured I should mention him, just in case we've made any other
Users249 readers curious enough to need further reading material.


TTYL, ...Steve

-
Our five year mission, to sorta, like, explore and blow up stuff.

[Pardoz]

On 02 Dec 2003 15:49:22 -0500, Stephen Hart

Post by Stephen Hart
point had been. Aside from my whining about "formula fiction", I was
mainly moaning about the apparent trend towards overly long novels
that are beefed-up with extraneous "filler"...

That one goes back to...well...in print it dates back to just
post-Gutenberg, really. Certainly authors like Dumas and Dickens can be
tarred with that particular brush.

Post by Stephen Hart
P> Two of the grandparents of modern propaganda (and marketing, to the
P> extent that there's a difference).
When I saw the name Leni Riefenstahl linked to propaganda, I resisted
the urge to assume we were talking about Nazi Germany.

You resisted incorrectly :-). "Triumph of the Will" is brilliant.
Disturbing, but brilliant.

Post by Stephen Hart
I'm assuming the DW Griffith you mention is the U.S. film director who
was accused of either being a racist or a dupe for racists, after he
made a few movies from the "Southern" perspective...

That's the one, yeah.

Post by Stephen Hart
I can easily see relating Riefenstahl to propaganda but I'm not so
sure about Griffith, unless you categorize some of Griffith's films as
racist propaganda?

I'd say that "Birth of a Nation", a paean to the founding of the Ku
Klux Klan, certainly qualifies, yeah. I have an unfair advantage here,
having seen both Griffith and Riefenstahl's work (nobody much other than film
students has anymore).

Post by Stephen Hart
What interested
me was the not-so-subtle hint that he was a "dupe", and only trying to
portray a positive view of the Confederacy to offset all the other
more negative movies.

I'll give in to temptation and just call that an attempt at a
whitewash...

Post by Stephen Hart
Just to bring this closer to the present, and to show that I'm not
totally clueless, I'll quickly mention how the Bush Sr. administration
hired a Madison Avenue advertising shop to help "sell" the U.S. public
on the need for the first Gulf War against Iraq.

Indeedy they did. Hill and Knowlton, PR advisors to dictators and
scumbags the world over.

Post by Stephen Hart
P> This presupposes there's a difference between Big Government and Big
P> Corporations....:-)
That's an interesting point. I can see where you're coming from, but
I'll probably spend more time digesting the idea.

Digest away. Meself, the only real difference I see is that Big
Government is probably better run and more efficient than Big Corp, since it
generally avoids the bloated inefficiency that inevitably creeps in when you
let the private sector run things.

Post by Stephen Hart
I'll thank you for indulging me. In passing, I'd highly recommend
some of the books David Lyon has written. His being a Queen's
professor naturally means that I've easy access to gems like
_Surveillance As Social Sorting_ and all his other work...

I'll have to check his stuff out - thanks for the pointer.

[Corey M Seward]

[snip]

Post by Stephen Hart
P> changes in the retail and distribution end are at least as much to blame.
P> The topic comes up fairly frequently in r.a.sf.w., and I'm fighting off
a
P> cold, so I'll refer you to Google for the nonce. (To narrow things down
a
It was interesting reading his posts, but there was too much of a good
thing. I spent several hours in July and August going through the
google archive of rec.arts.sf.written and found references to the over
300 message threads he had participated in, with usually one or two
messages per thread. I read a fair number of them, because it was
interesting seeing an editor being nice enough to participate in a
newsgroup. Eventually I tried getting more selective, and I did find

PNH and his wife Theresa are really good about taking the time to deal
with fans of their authors. It's been a blessing being able to get the
real info about book release dates from them, rather than trying to find
out from the bookstore people (Do Not Trust The Bookstore People).

[snip]

Post by Stephen Hart

people. If they do realize exactly how much information is being
compiled, both by the public and by the private sector, some people
just think that these files will help government and business to
better "serve" them.

The rest of us realize that this is in the agricultural sense..
[snip]

Post by Stephen Hart
I notice that so far no one else has joined this message thread, so
I'll thank you for indulging me. In passing, I'd highly recommend

I've been busy. :) I'm now in Dublin, Ireland, if anyone is looking for
me, after finishing the PhD thing. :) I'm afraid the rest of the messages
I had planned to reply to have been lost in the ether, so I'll have to
start from here. :) Hope everything is well in K-town.