Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion
II. Publishing & Marketing Tips
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How do I market my magical soothsayer powers?
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Hi Jeff, I once watched a show Prisoners of Gravity I think where they interviewed authors. One of the big names said that Science Fiction displayed the shot gun effect. Shoot off enough shot guns armed with buck shot in the general direction of the future and you are bound to hit something. Perhaps approach the marketing in that manner. PS. I have worked as a professional psychic counsellor I also read Popular Science and have written hard post-apocalyptic Science Fiction. If one truly studies metaphysics one comes to realise it is a science. If one is a flake it is a joke I agree. I just like to clear up that misconception because I hate getting painted with the same brush as the flakes.
Stephen wrote: "Hi Jeff, I once watched a show Prisoners of Gravity I think where they interviewed authors. One of the big names said that Science Fiction displayed the shot gun effect. Shoot off enough shot guns ..."Hi Stephen,
Thanks for the reply. I like the shotgun theory. I think that it probably applies for a lot of authors. I've got a pretty impressive list of things to mention from Ephemera, though. It's a pretty big list of things, poltical, cultural and technological that are happening real time. I think the reason is that I was closely watching trends while I was writing and kept asking myself, where could this trend lead to next? What would this group of people or that do if they could have exactly what they want? It seems to have been a very accurate way to figure out what is going to happen.
BTW - I meant no offense to anyone involved in metaphysics. I just was meaning that I chose a more observational, educated guesswork type of method to paint my vision of the future.
Jeff
No offence taken. It's just most folk ony ever notice the flakes, they stand out, so I try to sprinkle in a little balance when I can. I agree with you about observational pridiction. Common sence can do a pritty close aproximation for about a hundred years or so. Farther if it involves basic patrens of human socity which keep repeating on larger scales.
Isn't predicting the future part of sci-fi anyway? (most sci-fi, anyway). I'm not sure what is meant by using predictions as a selling point. As for 'internet glasses', I remember seeing something similar on the old BBC TV show Tommorrow's World in the 1980s, only back then the internet was no more than a prediction as well!
A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about futuristic imaginings from sci-fi and dystopian literature that came to pass. I was interested by the way writers imagine the future and how it can often turn out to be accurate.
Before I even completed the first draft of my novel in 2009, I had seen several instances of technologies and cultural trends that were in the book, were actually becoming real.
It has continued since then in, sometimes, eerie ways. I've got a laundry list of things from Ephemera that did not exist while I was writing it and do now.
The latest, and scariest are internet glasses:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/23/techno...
They look and operate almost exactly like the ones that are in the book and people are already speculating on the problems they will cause - the same problems I wrote about.
Right off - I don't think I have mystical powers. I think that there are reasonable and practical skills I put to use in the novel to imagine what the world might look like. But it is pretty interesting and uncanny.
What the point of my posting here is, is that the more of this I see, the more I think that this could somehow be a selling point for Ephemera. I just don't know how to use this to gain more interest and sales. I'm afraid if I write a blog about it, I'll come off sounding arrogant, or like some kind of kook.
I'd love to get ideas from others on how I can use this to generate interest in a professional way. It seems too good not to mention to readers somehow.
Jeff