Suburgatory vs. Subsurdity: Learning the Craft of Exploitation

By now most of you have heard mention, by commercial or the ever trusty interweb, about the new ABC TV series Suburgatory. It starts the end of this month and is about a young woman's observations of suburban life. From the ads it looks a bit like Desperate Housewives with a Lynchian undertone. Well, guess what? I plan to exploit the hell out of the series title and its similarity to my own books Subsurdity and Suburbilicious. (Both available at Dreamspinner Press or Amazon or where-the-hell-ever.)

At first I felt weird about this. I've never exploited anything in my life for my own gain (not counting the sexy men on this blog to attract readers...or the other things I have done in my life for my own gain). How would I even know if I was doing it right? Is there a class I can take? Or do I just watch the nightly news?

And then, too, there is the question of ethics. I consider myself a decent person of GOOD MORAL FIBER. Tasty moral fiber even! Will my newly found exploitative nature turn me into a vampire, or worse, a politician?

In the end, however, it comes down to survival. It's every man for himself in this world of men who only think of themselves. That may sound like a redundant statement, but...so are you. You've gotta take advantage of what you can. Your head - use it or lose it. Somebody needs to put that on a t-shirt

My reaction to first seeing the adverts for Suburgatory was "Hey! That's my idea! And that's my title! Those bitches!" I'm quite certain now that getting my own series similarly called Subsurdity is out of the question (the teleplay is still floating around out there, by the way). I guess they could re-title it... but I don't want to ask the creators of Suburgatory to do that.

The premiere of the show has pushed me on to at last get to writing on the third in the Jasper Lane series, SuburbaNights. I have finally written an outline I'm happy with and will get started on it this week. I'm sure it will sell in the double digits. At least 24 copies.

Also, I will be sending a copy of my book Subsurdity to the makers of Suburgatory to see if I can't get it featured on their show. Why not, right? I was here first. Well, right after Desperate Housewives...who were right after Knots Landing...who were right after Peyton Place... I'll keep you informed as to what happens.

In the meantime, I shall be randomly tweeting things like "Like Suburgatory? You'll LOVE Subsurdity!" You see, exploitative people are often very annoying as well. And then too, if Suburgatory is not a hit, I will have learned my lesson.

Oh. One more thing: SUBSURDITY. Thank you. That is all.