Jennifer Becton's Blog, page 18

Nooks Disappearing from Retailers’ Shelves

Nook owners take note. Recently, older model Nooks have been disappearing from brick-and-mortar retailers’ shelves.

With little fanfare, Target has ended the two plus year old with Barnes & Noble to carry Nook hardware in stores. Read more here.

If you’re in the market, now is the time to buy Nooks on clearance, if you can still find them.

Prices on the clearance items are in the range of $30 to $55, or at least they were in that range before all the stock was snatched up. My local store sold the last two units yesterday, and the Target website doesn’t even have a listing for any of the Nooks any more. Read more here.

Nooks are also being removed from brick-and-mortar BNs!

All that remains in-store is the Nook Glowlight, Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 7.0, and the Galaxy Tab 4 Nook 10. Read more here. Read more here.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Nook book sales have been tanking and BN’s plans to sell off the Nook portion of the business are in jeopardy.

In short, it ain’t looking so good for the Nook.

The post Nooks Disappearing from Retailers’ Shelves appeared first on Becton Literary.

KDP Select Ad Campaigns

I noticed something new pop up on my KDP account. Pay per click ads on Amazon!

Here’s the information available.

The post KDP Select Ad Campaigns appeared first on Becton Literary.

FWAP Villain Edition: The Governor

The Governor (AKA Philip Blake and Brian Heriot), The Walking Dead
Spoilers through Season 4, Episode 8


Appearance (played by David Morrissey)

via AMCTV.com

 

Family History

Mrs. Blake – Wife (Deceased prior to the “turn”)

Penny Blake – Daughter (Deceased, whose undead incarnation he keeps chained in a secret room in Woodbury)

(Unnamed) – Brother

Info via The Walking Dead Wiki.

Significant Relationships

Andrea – Ex-Girlfriend (Deceased)

Lilly Chambler – Ex-Girlfriend (Deceased)

Occupation/Special Skills

Before the apocalypse, the governor may have been a disgruntled, unappreciated office worker, and after, he became the leader of Woodbury, a settlement of survivors. After the fall of Woodbury, he became the leader of the River Camp.

Signature Item/Prop

Eyepatch, wall of Walker heads preserved in fish tanks

Personality Traits

Anti-social personality disorder is the governor’s primary personality trait–actually a disorder–and it gives birth to a whole host of secondary characteristics that make him a compelling and realistic villain.

Superficial charm: The governor is a successful orator. He lies…with style. He is able to explain away his more questionable (aka EVIL) deeds, thus keeping the average citizens of Woodbury in the dark about his true nature. He is even able to reframe his heinous acts as righteous heroism. On a more personal level, he uses his sad back story to manipulate Andrea into a sexual relationship with him.
Violation of the rights of others: Where to begin? The massacres? The torture? The keeping of prisoners? The assassination attempts? And on top of those obvious evils is the hiding of the truth from the people who trust him. All forms of physical abuse–battery, sexual assault, etc.–incorporate an emotional component. Long after physical wounds heal, the wounds of the mind remain. Having your free will compromised and your mind twisted with lies is a crime as heinous as a physical attack.
Lack of conscience: The governor does not care about others, and he feels no remorse for his lies or for the many homicides he commits. He enjoys torture and even sets up staged gladiator-style Walker battles for evening entertainment in Woodbury.
Manipulative/use of flying monkeys: In general, the governor hides his depravity: in his secret room of Walker heads, in his torture rooms, or behind lies. But if he can reframe a blatant act of murder as one of courage, he will not hesitate to lie about his actions and the motivations behind them. In addition, he uses a small band of insiders (flying monkeys) to do acts of violence on his behalf. These people know the truth about the governor and keep his secrets.

Let’s just examine a few of the governor’s signature moves. In his introductory episode, he massacres a camp of soldiers, and then returns to Woodbury with the news that they were already dead when his team arrived. He tortured everyone he possibly could: Andrea, Michonne, Glenn, Maggie. He freaking bit off two of Merle’s fingers before murdering him. Then, the governor uses Merle as a scapegoat for the deaths of several other people, reframing his death a righteous act of salvation and not a vicious act of murder. The governor excels at convincing innocent people to go against their own consciences and beliefs and do violence on other innocent people. Too late, these people see the governor for the monster that he is. After a failed attempt to overtake the prison, he murders 23 of his own people who are too scared to fight the governor’s battle for him. And that’s just a small sample of his crimes.

Character Development

Flashback Episodes

The writers of TWD do something genius with the episodes detailing the governor’s story between the fall of Woodbury and his second attack on the prison. They try to manipulate the audience the same way the governor manipulates the people of Woodbury and the River Camp. (The same way abusers manipulate their victims.) They paint a picture of a broken man, unable or unwilling to fend for himself or even defend himself after the fall of Woodbury.

Taking the name Brian, the governor ends up finding his way into the Chambler family–David, Tara, Lilly, and Meghan–mostly attracted to Meghan, a young girl who reminds of him of his deceased daughter. Brian is shown playing chess with Meghan and risking his life to get oxygen for David, the family patriarch who is dying of lung cancer. He offers aid to this family and seems to care for them.

The audience is left to wonder: Could he be trying to redeem himself?

After David dies, Brian takes the family on the road with him and begins a sexual relationship with Lilly, Meghan’s mother, effectively recreating his former family. They eventually meet up with some of the survivors of Woodbury. They join their River Camp and live as a family there. He has been given a second chance.

By this point, the audience may have developed a grudging tenderness for the guy. I mean, look, he seems to be trying. He’s clearly desperate to be a good father figure to Meghan. He will do anything for that little girl. Tara, Lilly, and Meghan love him. And he seems to have changed.

Maybe he can be trusted.

And that’s when it happens. We see the monster behind the mask again.

Brian realizes that the River Camp lacks good leaders, a fact that puts his new family in danger. Once again, he is motivated to do whatever it takes to keep them safe, including murdering said leader in cold blood. In this world, safety means walls. And the safest place around is…the prison. Does he go to Rick and his group at the prison and ask for refuge? Uh, no. He tells the River Camp that the people at the prison are evil and that they slaughtered his family and destroyed the town of Woodbury. His lies convince his group of innocent followers to participate in an armed–with a tank–assault on the prison. As the attack occurs, the River Camp people begin to see the hidden aspects of Brian, his ruthlessness and evil, and Lilly turns on him, finally ending his miserable life.

And viewers have just been through an abuse cycle: The governor appears remorseful (reconciliation phase) after the fall of Woodbury. He goes through a period of relative normalcy with the Chambler family (calm phase). As they venture out on the road, things get stressful (tension building phase), and then the governor acts out (acting out phase). Viewers experience a version of the emotional manipulation that keeps many abuse victims locked in their unhealthy relationship. Some little part of the viewer’s mind might have wondered if maybe–just maybe–the governor had changed. And the human part of us–the part that expects most people to behave normally and to have a conscience–hopes he did.

The writers’ manipulation of the viewer helps to us to understand the governor’s manipulation of the people of Woodbury, the River Camp, Andrea, Lilly, Tara, and David. Often, TV watchers find it easy to sit back and say, “They should have seen it coming. Why didn’t they kill him when they had the chance?” Just like many people wonder how Carol could have stayed with Ed despite the domestic abuse she suffered. Or how people will proclaim that if their significant other ever hit them, they would punch him in the nuts and leave for good. If abuse were only physical, then many victims would get out fast. But there is always an emotional component, manipulation, and mind control. It’s never that easy.

How is Brian/the governor different from Rick? Rick–and TWD’s other protagonists–own up to the difficult things they have had to do in order to survive. They feel bad about some of the choices they have made. The governor only owns up his crimes if he can spin his actions for a greater, manipulative purpose. He feels no shame or guilt.

The Takeaway for Writers

Let’s compare two abusers–two people who not only lack empathy for others and but who enjoy the power of hurting them–in The Walking Dead: the Governor and Ed Peletier. Killed in season 1, Ed was the physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive husband of Carol and the father of Sophia. Ed is a stereotypical abuser found in fiction: a meathead who makes no attempt to hide his ill-treatment of his wife. (In defense of the writers, they had only 2 episodes to convey Ed’s abusive nature. No real time for realism there.) Ed tries to issue orders to all the women at the quarry. When Carol steps in to ease the tense situation between her husband and the other women in the camp, Ed hits her in front of everyone, causing Shane to give him a much deserved beat down.

What makes real abuse so difficult to face is that it is done mostly in secret, behind closed doors. The victim–no matter how many bruises she receives–fears that no one will believe her story. Because his deeds are done in private, the abuser could easily explain away his actions, even putting the blame on the victim. It makes sense that an abuse victim is ashamed and terrified to reveal the truth. That’s why many victims stay so long despite such awful circumstances.

This fear is compounded when you couple it with the fact that many abusers are like the governor, superficially charming and facile liars. The governor hides behind a facade of charm and is therefore able to manipulate many people. Few of his group members actually see his true self. That is reserved for his little army of flying monkeys–Merle, etc. His speeches and lies are compelling enough to convince a group of people to forget their own sense of morality and to go to war with another group of innocents.

The governor is a far more realistically drawn villain than Ed, and the comparison will help writers depict a more rounded antagonist. An abusive sociopath’s greatest weapon is not his fists; it’s his ability to rob people of their own freedom of thought and will.

The post FWAP Villain Edition: The Governor appeared first on Becton Literary.

The Self-Destructing Book?

Pay $294,038 to win a vacation, dinner with James Patterson, and the opportunity to blow up a copy of his newest book (one that he actually wrote apparently).



Apparently, James Patterson is too clever for me because I don’t get it.

The post The Self-Destructing Book? appeared first on Becton Literary.

Market Cycle to Blame

This article from The Digital Reader discusses the recent income drop that pretty much everyone had been blaming on the advent of Kindle Unlimited in 2014. It turns out that this same income drop happened around the same time in 2012 and 2013 as well:

There’s growing evidence that the decline in revenue some authors experienced in fall 2014 might be the third appearance of a market cycle which also occurred in 2013 and 2012….

In short, folks, what we have here is strong evidence of a market cycle and not, as many assumed, the impact of Kindle Unlimited, Bob Mayer’s content glut, or whatever happens to be the cause du jour. Read more here.

A sales decline that happens at the same time each year for three years in a row? Well, that’s a pattern. Three is a pattern, right? Or is it a conspiracy? In any case, for the last three years, the ebook market has tanked at the same point because of something: a subscription service, too many choices (which is absurd), or the Amazon algorithm. People seem eager to panic and predict doom. But a market cycle doesn’t usually get the blame.

People naturally want to be able to point to a specific cause and effect, but sometimes, they associate two unrelated things. Correlation does not imply causation. Sometimes we need to step back and look at the bigger pattern. Maybe there is a yearly slump. Or maybe it’s something else. But either way, there is no need to panic.

The post Market Cycle to Blame appeared first on Becton Literary.

Walking Dead Season 5b Trailer

The post Walking Dead Season 5b Trailer appeared first on Becton Literary.

Flooded Book Market

The Digital Reader has some interesting advice for indies in the new year:

One, the days of releasing the first title in a series as permafree have passed. All that accomplishes now is to flood the market and make it harder to sell ebooks.

Two, the idea of writing and publishing your next book as the best marketing strategy is also going to have to be reconsidered.

Three, getting in to or out of Kindle Unlimited isn’t nearly as important as some thought it was a few weeks ago. As I noted when I first reported on this story, this problem is affecting authors both in and out of KU. Read more here.

The middle advice is the most troubling. The premise of the argument is that the book supply is higher than demand (the market is flooded). This drives the price down. Because the market is so diluted, purchases can be spread out among zillions of books, leaving individual authors less revenue.

Some thoughts

Book supply has always been higher than demand. There have always been more books than readers.
It’s true that the addition of a single book dilutes the market as a whole, but it increases the market share of the individual author.  To make the math easy, let’s say that there are a million books out there. Let’s say an author has published 1 book. That gives her .0001 percent of the market.


Adding 1 more book (total of 2) would give that author .0001999998 (2/1000,001)
Adding 9 more books for a total of 10 would give that author .0009 percent of the market (10/1000010)

Those numbers aren’t huge, and this does not take into account that other authors are also adding books to the market. Yes, flooding the market dilutes the value of an individual book, but it’s still the the benefit of an individual author to write as many books as they can because they claim a bigger fraction of the market, even if the market is always expanding.Taking this to an extreme, that’s like saying the book world would be better off if authors would take their books off sale because there would be fewer choices for the reader and the market would be leaner. Sure, the market would be better, but now the author is out of work.

The way that markets even out is by not by limiting supply. It happens by letting the cream rise and the dregs fall to the bottom. The authors who write good books and gain fans will get sales, and they will be motivated to keep writing good books. Authors who write crap won’t get sales, causing them eventually to stop writing. Most people don’t keep doing something that isn’t working for them. Eventually, the market will settle out.

 

The post Flooded Book Market appeared first on Becton Literary.

Holidays with Jane: Christmas Cheer Is an Austenesque Favorite

The post Holidays with Jane: Christmas Cheer Is an Austenesque Favorite appeared first on Becton Literary.

Fangirling with a Purpose: Daryl Dixon

Spoilers through Season 5.
Daryl Dixon, The Walking Dead

Appearance (played by Norman Reedus)

Daryl Dixon, season 1 promotional download via amctv.com

Family History

Merle Dixon – Brother (Deceased)

Will Dixon – Father (Deceased)

(Unnamed) – Mother (Deceased)

Jess Collins – Half-Uncle (Deceased)

The Stats (thanks to The Walking Dead Wiki)

Daryl’s mother died when he was twelve, leaving him to the “care” of a physically abusive, alcoholic father. His brother, Merle, was in and out of juvenile correction centers and claimed not to be aware that their father was abusing Daryl.

Significant Relationships

In the beginning of the series, Daryl exists on the fringes of the group of survivors. He sets up his camp away from the others and only interacts when necessary. As the show evolves, he slowly begins to seek out companionship of a select few trusted characters. Rick, the leader of the group, refers to him as a brother, and he has a close friendship with Carol and was developing one with Beth. Romantically, he is written as basically asexual.

Occupation/Special Skills

Before the zombie apocalypse, Daryl was unemployed. He drifted through life, mostly following his brother Merle’s lead.

Daryl’s redneck background uniquely prepares him for the new world.  Daryl grew up hunting and tracking. In the post-apocalyptic world, these skills are vital to the group’s survival.

Signature item/prop

Characters in The Walking Dead don’t have much to call their own. Their clothes have disintegrated into a muddy, bloody, torn-up mess. So the items that each person chooses to keep with them are very important identifiers and clues to their inner lives. Daryl has his crossbow.

Personality Traits

Social Awkwardness. While Daryl has skills that make him valuable to the group, he faces challenges from his past as an abuse victim. He has the desire to connect with others, but he still has to learn how to do so. Early on in the series, Daryl often speaks without making eye contact, and he cringes from physical touch. He also has a volatile temper. As the show evolves, so do his social skills. He tries to comfort Carol in the loss of her child, and he opens up to several characters, telling Carl about his family or Beth about his past.
Decisiveness. Daryl sees the tank. He blows up the tank. Even before the zombie apocalypse, he was a survivor who was used to doing what had to be done. While he is affected by the difficult choices he has made, he doesn’t get sucked into melancholy as easily as some others.
Attentiveness to Others. Victims of abuse–whether emotional, verbal, physical, and/or sexual–develop hypervigilance. They have learned to read body language and facial expressions so well that they can see minute signs of danger before most other people. While being hypervigilant all the time is a stressful, horrible way to live, it can also be an advantage. Daryl is hypervigilant. Not only is he always prepared for zombies, but he is also attentive to the emotions of the rest of the group. For example, Daryl voted against Rick’s plan to storm Grady Memorial to recover Beth and Carol by force because he noticed that Tyreese was struggling with the idea of a guns-blazing attack. Rick, the leader and better communicator, is oblivious to this fact. Daryl’s hypervigilance makes him aware of the pain others experience. Though he has trouble communicating sympathy verbally or through comforting touch, he will go to great lengths to use his special skills to help those in pain, which leads to…
Perseverance despite Long Odds. Long after other characters have given up, Daryl continues. He searches for Sophia, Carol’s missing daughter, when the rest of the group has given up hope of finding her alive. He searches for Carol when she goes missing in the prison, and he finds her alive. He runs after the car that picked up Beth, and he doesn’t hesitate to follow it when he sees it weeks later. He doesn’t give up until all hope is gone.

Character Development

Characters must change over time. Either they have to evolve or devolve, but they cannot stay the same. Story is about change, not stagnation. Daryl started the series on the fringes of the group, and by season 5, he is considered one of the leaders.

He has also left behind many of the negative attitudes he grew up with.

Photo via: http://dangerdan007.tumblr.com/post/43451100115

The Takeaway for Writers

Use a negative stereotype to your advantage. Few redneck protagonists can be found on TV or in books. Most often, rednecks are portrayed less like Daryl and more like Merle (a racist, sexist troublemaker). They are generally relegated to the status of bigot or uneducated hick, meant to be pitied or mocked. Or perhaps they offer some comic relief. Daryl rises above the stereotype. In fact, his redneck skills are an advantage in this world.

Allow past trauma to shape the character’s future in both negative and positive ways. Abuse is always bad. Let’s get that straight now. Daryl grew up in a terrible environment, but he wants to overcome those aspects of his past that are holding him back. He has not recovered emotionally or spiritually from his childhood, but he is trying. So he struggles with his past; however, writers also highlight certain aspects of his past–from his ability to hunt and track to the fact that he survived abuse and neglect–that make him a stronger, more suited to succeed in a fallen world than the average person.

Balance flaws and positive traits. Daryl is not good in social situations, but he’s not oblivious to the feelings of others either. His traumatic past makes him leery of others, but it also gave him skills that make him beneficial to others. He tries to maintain an emotional distance but always ends up wearing his heart on his sleeve by refusing to give up even when the odds are against him. These contradictory traits make him a watchable, relatable character.

Always develop the character. Daryl has evolved in a positive direction, but he is also not unaffected by the difficulties he’s faced. He has changed, but the change happens in a way that is specific and true to the character. Change is essential. Enough said.

In a post-zombie-apocalyptic world, no character’s fate is certain. So let’s enjoy Daryl Dixon while we’ve got him.

The post Fangirling with a Purpose: Daryl Dixon appeared first on Becton Literary.

New Year, New Blog Series

Fangirling with a Purpose

Fangirling. Some people who have had the biggest effect on my life do not even exist. They are characters created by writers, whose lives exist entirely on the pages of books or through TV and movies. I rejoice when my beloved characters find true love, and I weep when they suffer loss. They inspire me and horrify me. These fictional people teach me lessons about living in the real world. These unreal people help me see reality more clearly.

(I won’t be delving into the actors who portray these characters. This isn’t going to be that kind of fangirling. I’m far more interested in the fictional characters than in the lives of celebrities, no matter how hot they are.)

With a Purpose. In my new blog series, I’ll be taking a closer look at some of my favorite characters from books, movies, and TV. I’ll be trying to learn from their creators so that I can craft characters that touch readers in the same way.

Join me in 2015 as we Fangirl with a Purpose, starting with Daryl Dixon from AMC’s The Walking Dead. If you have any character requests, please leave them in the comments below.

The post New Year, New Blog Series appeared first on Becton Literary.