Public Consumption
Posted By ron on May 11, 2009
OK, so The Flyover War project is getting a bit consumptive, of both energy and time. Unfortunately, doing things that haven’t exactly been done before often are. It’s a lot like publishing your outline, then figuring out how the heck you’re going to stick to it now that it’s out there. Or like building a house in components, confusing as hell while it’s going up in pieces all over the lot, hoping the foundation you laid actually works, and then finally tying it all together.
As I laid out the intial strategy for the project, and as it comes together piece by piece, the concept I had in my head was like filmmaking, but without the camera. In the process of making a film, it’s very rare that the scenes are shot in the same order in which they’ll appear in the finished product. For an outsider looking in, the filmmaking process seems disjointed, often disorganized, with a number of people, or teams of people, working on seemingly unrelated activies, simultaneously in a dozen or more different locations. Somehow, within the scope of the director’s vision, the efforts of dozens, even hundreds of people all seem to come together in a perfect union — 120 minutes or so in length.
Most novels come together in a completely different way. A solitary author drafts, hones, polishes, redrafts, submits, reworks, resubmits, and finally sends an completed manuscript to a publisher. At this point, the editor, the cover designer, and the marketing teams build the finished project from the author’s foundation.
A relatively new concept in the the publishing world, the brand or franchise model, expands the basic concept of novel production to include many of the elements used in the creation of a film. The franchise project may actually begin in the hands of a packager, who pairs a brand-name author with a development team that may include apprentices and co-writers, then involves the marketing and branding people from the projects inception. Sounds a lot like movie making to me.
The key thing that all franchise projects have in common is an immense scope. Like a major film, the franchise novel (or more accurately novel series) has immense revenue targets, in the millions and tens-of-millions of dollars. At this level, dozens and perhaps hundreds of people tackle myriad tasks and assignments necessary to bring the project to completion.
Then, the inevitable happens…
With far too much money at stake for “just another book,” the packagers and conglomerates behind the franchise project begin to function very much in the same way as a franchise fast food outlet, or franchised hair-cutter, or franchised hardware store. They begin to genericize the product. Forget the fact that the “brand” author has 100,000 devoted fans that will put every single release on the best-seller lists. This is real money here. This franchise is about building an audience of millions–maybe not as devoted as the 100,000, but devoted enough to buy a book or two, then maybe three.
An audience of 100,000 can be fanatically devoted and have very similar tastes, wants, expectations. An audience of a million, two million, five million, is a different ball of wax entirely. Take out the stuff that “some people” might think is too violent. Take out the stuff that “some people” might think is to romantic. Take out this, take out that, ad infinitum. Oh, yeah–then come the addins.
“Our numbers tell us that there are sixty three million(*MUN) people world wide who own cats. Can you maybe make this scuba adventure story something about cats? Never mind, I forgot this isn’s a scuba story anymore, not enough in people in the demographic. It’s now a taking the kids to soccer practice adventure. Anyway, can you add a cat or two?”
Anyway, I digress. Back to The Flyover War. The audience is just beginning to build, SLOWLY, but it is happening bit-by-bit. And the project is happening very much like a film in progress, or a novel franchise project. Except that in a film, you don’t release the dailies. Except that in a novel franchise project, you don’t print the outlines, the backstory, the daily pages.
It seems disjointed now, because 90% of what has been published falls into three categories: future details, backstory, and rabbit holes. When I write actual scenes and chapters, they contain links to newspaper articles, radio broadcasts, book references, companies and government agencies. All of these have to pre-exist before the chapters can be written and published.
Even in its disjointed state, there is a lot of entertainment already in place. I’ve had “fans” tell me stories of falling into one of my rabbit holes and wandering for hours.
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Ron
*MUN = made up number
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