Nate Briggs's Blog - Posts Tagged "assimilated"
Resistance Is Futile
Many of you may be acquainted with the "Star Trek: franchise: whose boldly going ships occasionally encounter cube-shaped vehicles that carry something called The Borg: a kind of hive-mind species who don't seem to get enough sun.
The Borg's intention is to subdue just about everybody: repeating a very confident catchphrase in toneless voices, "Resistance is futile ... you will be assimilated...."
I mention this since I'm having very threatened feelings as I read about promoting my books as a self-published author. Edmund Kean famously said "Dying is easy ... comedy is hard". I would change that to "Writing is easy ... selling is hard."
One of the solutions most commonly offered to me, of course, is coming A Brand.
My "day job" is in corporate life, so I am very brand aware. The Theory of Brands is the one thing you should talk about if you ever find yourself stuck in an elevator with an MBA. He (or she) will bite into that topic and not let go until the repair people arrive.
All the same, I'm uncomfortable with stepping aboard the Brand Borg.
I would have to become a Twit: sharing trivial events in short bursts of retwitable text: "I wouldn't have stepped on that dead mouse if I'd seen it! LOL". I have to become unavoidable - like Buick, or Maybelline, or Google - even though I've never liked being the center of attention.
I'd have to beat my drum. Run contests. And beg. I'd have to beg. (And who likes begging?)
Making a Brand out of Me seems so contrary to how I usually operate in the world. And yet resistance seems futile, so I might be assimilated. Because - at about the time that I'm getting ready to reject the Brand Borg - I get a subspace question: "Hey! You want to sell books, don't you?"
I do want to sell books. I do want to be more like Buick.
So resistance is futile. And I should probably twit (tweet?) that information so it can ripple out through the galaxy.
The Borg's intention is to subdue just about everybody: repeating a very confident catchphrase in toneless voices, "Resistance is futile ... you will be assimilated...."
I mention this since I'm having very threatened feelings as I read about promoting my books as a self-published author. Edmund Kean famously said "Dying is easy ... comedy is hard". I would change that to "Writing is easy ... selling is hard."
One of the solutions most commonly offered to me, of course, is coming A Brand.
My "day job" is in corporate life, so I am very brand aware. The Theory of Brands is the one thing you should talk about if you ever find yourself stuck in an elevator with an MBA. He (or she) will bite into that topic and not let go until the repair people arrive.
All the same, I'm uncomfortable with stepping aboard the Brand Borg.
I would have to become a Twit: sharing trivial events in short bursts of retwitable text: "I wouldn't have stepped on that dead mouse if I'd seen it! LOL". I have to become unavoidable - like Buick, or Maybelline, or Google - even though I've never liked being the center of attention.
I'd have to beat my drum. Run contests. And beg. I'd have to beg. (And who likes begging?)
Making a Brand out of Me seems so contrary to how I usually operate in the world. And yet resistance seems futile, so I might be assimilated. Because - at about the time that I'm getting ready to reject the Brand Borg - I get a subspace question: "Hey! You want to sell books, don't you?"
I do want to sell books. I do want to be more like Buick.
So resistance is futile. And I should probably twit (tweet?) that information so it can ripple out through the galaxy.
Published on December 11, 2014 18:25
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Tags:
assimilated, borg, branding, futile, self-publishing, twitter