I also must consider the future of all my creative audio endeavors, whether that be podcasting, audio dramas or podcast novels.  Of the three, podcast novels are the lowest on the priority scale.  After all, those novels will eventually be released electronically, in some cases also in print, and I don’t see the need to plan on releasing audio versions of the same.  This does not mean I’m ditching The Last Guardians.  More on that later.

I want to continue podcasting.  It’s how I built my audience initially, it’s a great platform for an author to build a community around their work, and I still see an opportunity to expand that audience.  As I discussed at some length on The Adventures of Indiana Jim, one of the keys to successful podcasting is niche focus.  A show with specific content targeted to a niche audience provides clarity when someone searches for a podcast to listen to.  A show that lacks a clear focus struggles to attract an audience.  People searching for podcasts tend to look with an eye toward a specific subject matter.

This is something I’ve never been able to provide.  When I started with The As-Yet Untitled Podcast, I had no idea what I was doing.  When I changed to Things Are Looking Up, I branded myself a positive thinker, the answer to the cynics, but search algorithms aren’t based on philosophy.  I still was all over the map content-wise.  With The Adventures of Indiana Jim, I centered the style around an image, me in the hat with my microphone whip and a mischievous smirk  (With thanks to Devin Cox for the image).  Of late the content has centered on writing, books, author interviews and general geekdom.  But it’s all very vague and it’s nothing if not subject to random fits of inspiration.

All of that is about to change.

The Adventures of Indiana Jim will become the brand, an umbrella underneath which multiple specific podcast properties will emerge:

1. There will be a show geared specifically toward the aspiring writer, chronicling my own journey in storytelling and into independent publishing.
2. I will have a show devoted to the discussion of other authors’ works, as I still have a strong appetite for purchasing books.  I’ll have reviews as well as roundtable discussions with other book lovers.
3. Movie and Television franchises will have their place as well.  This podcast will be geared toward geeking out on all our favorite film franchises and TV shows, old and new alike.  Those random tangents on midichlorians will be featured here!
4. I’m considering the prospects of doing a general interest show directed at an audience of Christian believers.  This one may, in fact, resurrect the title Things are Looking Up.  Literally.
5. The 49ers Fancast, already reaching a devoted following, will be under this umbrella.

Each will be one of several “adventures” of Indiana Jim. Graphically, each show’s artwork will feature some sort of iconography designating it as within the same family. Each will have its own seperate feed and iTunes listing. As for other flights of fancy and random acts of bit comedy, those will be reserved for longtime listeners who stay subscribed to the master feed.

You may think this looks like an awful lot of work, and no doubt it can be.  But in this multitude of properties comes a clarity for my ADD-riddled brain.  Currently there is one show, released sporadically, for God-knows-what-duration, covering whatever random thoughts I might be having at the time.  This isn’t working, and it sure as heck can’t be boiled down to good metadata for the search engines.

Instead each recording session will be focused on one topic.  One segment.  One discussion.  Sometimes stream of consciousness, sometimes written down.  Instead of trying to find multiple topics for one episode and trying to group them together, I will know exactly where each thought is going to go as they come to me.  This is an exercise in compartmentalization, something I desperately need to practice.

What will happen to the current Adventures of Indiana Jim?  Nothing, really.  Subscribers to the current feed will see the same content on the same site in the same feed.  In fact, nothing will change on the site itself.  WordPress really makes all of this very simple, with the ability to automatically generate a feed for a specific category.  The only difference is you’ll see some new artwork, hear some new intro/outro bumpers, and get a much more streamlined experience.  It will take some work, and it will start slowly, but it will be done.

What will happen with The Last Guardians?  Now that I know what I’m doing with the rest of my life, I can focus on getting the project done.  I can carve out some time in every day to work on it, all the while plotting and planning for future audio endeavors.  The Last Guardians will be my priority until it is finished.

Wish me luck.  I’ve stapled my fedora to my head… because this adventure is about to get rough!

So it is with great joy and anticipation that I welcome the future, its myriad devices and its impact on the publishing landscape, especially the new opportunities writers have to publish independently. I’m not here to talk about my opinion regarding this whole thing:  i.e. how I see things playing out, how useful the changes are, or our how successfully authors might harness the new paradigm. All that will come later on.

Michael A. Stackpole and “House Slaves.”

As an earthquake is the result of the shift of tectonic plates far beneath the surface of the Earth, so are the plethora of arguments surrounding the shift in publishing. In discussions held primarily on the internet, emotions tend to run high and unfiltered, often sparking the fuse to a flame war. It is no wonder someone coined the term, “incendiary rhetoric,” and it abounds, does it not?

In his original post, House Slaves vs. Spartacus, Mike Stackpole was trying to make a point about people staying in a less-than-ideal situation because it provided a measure of comfort. It’s the same concept Dean Wesley Smith and his wife, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, have been lamenting in writers who have the attitude where they want to be taken care of. Letting the agents and editors do the hard part while writers focus on writing their stories.

Stackpole has been taking a lot of heat for this comment, and it stands to reason. He has made a reputation of being outspoken, he’s stuck his neck out there about his own publishing difficulties, and is a lightning rod for criticism. For one reason or another people have taken offense to this phrase. Some feel a comparison to slavery of any kind minimizes the evil of slavery, when this is not a case of equanimity but of metaphor. I suspect others are authors who have found that measure of comfort in the current system, and either object to the suggestion that they are less than in control of their career, or object to the insinuation that their editor/agent/publisher don’t have their best interests at heart.

I think the problem for some people is not with what’s being said but how it’s being related. “House Slaves” is just one example. Dean continues to say writers as a class are stupid for allowing themselves to be taken advantage of. His assertion that agents are increasingly irrelevant and unnecessary tends to ruffle feathers, because most authors consider their agent a friend.

My opinion? A lot of people need to put their big boy pants on, (See there?  Incendiary, ain’t it?) take the emotion out of it and view things from a business perspective. Friendship has little to do with bad business models.

People like Chuck Wendig have also been weighing in, and in a recent post suggested that we should not add fuel to the fire. His basic point being, I believe, to leave the egos to themselves and stay out of the flame wars (though there was a little “I’m not going to mention his name” dig at Stackpole). Will Entrekin recently made the point that there really is no debate, per se, merely differing options and a plethora of options. Dean and Kris Rusch have consistently said that writers should explore both traditional and independent options.

I think a lot of people don’t want to upset the apple cart. Authors published traditionally may feel secure in the current system. Writers struggling to get noticed don’t want to somehow invalidate their struggle to achieve that recognition. There’s still a prestige to having the Penguin, Bantam or TOR logos on the spine of your book. Perhaps there’s still that stigma to the label “self-published.”

But above all, one of the things I look for when someone tells me that there’s a better way of doing things is evidence that it works. Do you present me with facts, evidence and personal experience? Or do you give me anecdotal evidence, esoteric reasons to pursue a traditional contract, mixed with “so-and-so offended me” when presenting your argument?

Despite your feelings about how Mike Stackpole makes his point, he and Dean Wesley Smith, Kris Rusch, J.A. Konrath and others are doing the math. When it comes to agents, Dean gets a lot of flak for arguing that they are increasingly irrelevant, and possibly entirely unnecessary. I’ve heard it said the argument over agents amounts to sour grapes from authors with bad experiences. But as he says in this most recent post, “I had great agents and no bad experiences with my agents in the old world of publishing.” That’s not the stink of sour grapes.

When you get past the emotion, the tectonic shift and incendiary rhetoric, what do the numbers tell us from a business perspective?

Facts First – The Math

Simply put, the math on independent publishing works. I’m just going with assumptions based on a Mass Market Paperback and a 8% royalty, and Amazon’s %70 royalty rate. All things being equal, If I contract with someone to sell my widget for me at $8 to earn $0.64 or I can sell my own widget at $3 and make $2, which one of these options makes the most cents to me?

“But wait,” you say, “a traditional publisher can do things I can’t,” and you list for me editing, cover art, promotion and distribution including shelf space in bookstores. You can reach more readers this way, you say. Perhaps, but if I sell a hundred copies of my $8 paperback, I make $64. I only have to sell thirty-two copies on my own to make the same $64. If my math is right, I only have to sell at about a 30% clip compared to traditional publishing to make the same amount of money.

Where the traditional model struggles is that it’s entire author/publisher relationship is based on a gamble. They may bet $5,000 against the house that you’ll sell about 7,800 copies of your paperback. This doesn’t strike me as a sound business practice, yet this is what they do all the time. If you don’t sell that many copies, earning back your $.64 a pop–in a short period of time–the likelihood of earning that second book is extremely low.

The traditional model is all based on selling quickly. They have no time for the “long tail” philosophy. Sell now, or get out of the game.

Conversely, I only have to sell 2,500 copies of my $3 ebook to make the same $5,000. Can you sell 32 per cent of a midlist author’s goal? Plus, I don’t have to wait around for those 2,500 copies to sell before I know if I can write the next one. They’ll never go out of print, and no one can tell me not to write a sequel. If I have a trilogy, only 833 people need to buy all three for me to make $5,000, while some poor soul’s trilogy is languishing in “I-only-got-to-put-out-one-book” land, because they couldn’t sell one book to nine times as many people. I may have to write three books as opposed to the one, but at least I know I’ll actually get to books 2 and 3.

Writers pursue agents in the hopes that their connections to editors get their books in front of the right set of eyes. The agent, we are told, is supposed to be good at pitching a title to editors. Typically untrained, unregulated by any licensing board and certainly unqualified from a legal standpoint, Agents are supposed to negotiate favorable contracts on behalf of the writer. How can an agent aggressively see to my best interests, while at the same time ensuring their own ability to return to that house or editor with more titles? When does a house stop publishing titles from an agent who consistently wins for his author at the negotiating table?

Further, agents typically receive the money from the publisher before taking their cut and passing the rest on to the author. Authors usually are paid every six months, do not have direct access to any sales figures, and are often paid late. In any other industry, this is grounds for the severance of any business relationship, as most business-to-business accounts are settled every month. Just like your rent or mortgage, your electric bill or your car payment.

How does any of that entitle an agent to 15% of everything generated by the property, even rights they did not specifically negotiate, into perpetuity? Nothing makes that math work! Not if I’m only making 8-10% on something I created. However, hiring an Intellectual Property Attorney, a person trained, licensed, regulated and qualified to negotiate legal matters–and paying a one-time flat fee–makes good business sense from a numbers standpoint.

This has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not the agent is a reputable person, is a good sounding board, has experience in the business, is not on Writer Beware, or all the hundreds of positive things you can say about your agent or someone else’s. There are great agents out there who are good at what they do, who come highly recommended by their authors.  But the old model is no longer good business.  The fact that agents are more than willing to start publishing author backlists should throw up huge red flags about conflicts of interest and the sustainability of literary agents as we currently know them.

Fame or Fortune?

Here is the chief criticism I think I have heard of people such as Mike Stackpole. “Sure Mike, you’re making it work for you, but how did you get here? You built your audience through traditional publishing!” They say this as though it invalidates the math. Pointing to one former New York Times Bestseller making his way independently does not negate the efforts of other largely unknown indies and mid-listers making a good living.

I had never heard of Dean Wesley Smith before this year. I only knew of Kristine Kathryn Rusch from her Star Wars novel The New Rebellion. I had never heard of J.A. Konrath, Amanda Hocking or Lawrence Block before I began to explore the changes in publishing. Does the fact I’ve never heard of them, or that they may not be mainstream names, negate the fact that they’re making a living at their writing?

Isn’t that the dream, gang? To make a living doing what you love? To write stories while paying your bills? I find myself struggling with this dichotomy that writers, upon hearing how they can take control of their own careers, prefer trying to have a name when they can start earning money. No you’re not going to get rich quick. It’s going to take time to build your pipeline, but you can have more stories out in the market sooner, earning right away.

Writing Star Wars tie-ins launched Michael Stackpole to the top of the New York Times list. That’s fantastic. Chuck Wendig isn’t on that list, yet he’s making his way. David Gaughran isn’t a big name, he’s just getting started publishing short stories independently. Already he is amazed at the supplement to his income just from that. J. Daniel Sawyer, widely known to my podcast audience, is making a nice income from his independent publishing.

On the other side of the coin, people such as Amanda Hocking and J.A. Konrath are taking independent success and turning it back into traditional publishing deals. They’re doing both. Didn’t Scott Sigler and J.C. Hutchins teach us the power of learning to build an audience first, and translating that into success? Have we so quickly forgotten the power of all the internet and social media tools at our disposal?

You Have the Power

I hear all the arguments about cover design, promotion, copy editing… all the things we look at traditional publishing and say they’re the experts at. I don’t have a real answer for those folks except that stuff can be paid for at a flat rate that won’t take you to the cleaners. Yeah, it may take some cash to get those things, but it’s probably not as expensive as you might think. Look at people practicing the DIY ethic, such as the aforementioned Dean Wesley Smith and J. Daniel Sawyer.

You, dear writer, have ever-increasing power and resources at your fingertips. Welcome to the revolution. Whether you wanted to be here or not.

The WARS universe is a rich one for storytelling. In a far-flung future, space travel within the Solar System is a reality. Earth is run by the Central Governance Corporation, and must answer to global shareholders. The Earthers see themselves as the cultivator and owner of all things humanity in Space. A nuclear meltdown across Asia displaces millions, who establish a colony on the planet of Mars. They declare independence from Earth and rename themselves Gongen, meaning “mountain deity,” after the Martian volcano Olympus Mons. A fringe element develops, the outcasts of society making up astral gangs of questionable aims. They are the Mavericks, playing both sides of a revolutionary conflict. In Maverick space, the name of the game is cybernetics, and the possibilities are endless for the kind of equipment with which a person can augment themselves. These are the first three factions in the WARS universe.

It is my pleasure to be writing in this universe, following in the footsteps of vetern gaming writers including Mark Tuttle, Chuck Kallenbach, and New York Times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole. For me, the world of the Mavericks is a little bit Firefly, Star Wars, Tombstone, and a whole lot of fun. Then again Firefly is both of those last two, but I think you get my drift. There will be plenty more stories to come, but only with your support.

To be brief, WARS came about after Lucas Licensing took their Star Wars Customizable Card Game to Wizards of the Coast once Decipher’s license expired. The game was based on the mechanics of the Star Wars CCG, and was a hit with players. After Decipher fell victim to extortion by the company’s treasurer, they came upon some hard times, and were unable to expand the WARS property. The company is looking to get back on its feet, and with it, attract a new audience through the release of literary proprerties. That’s where Grail Quest Books comes in, and yours truly.

Currently there are three titles available for Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook devices. If you have a smartphone such as Android or iPhone you can acquire free apps for both devices and have full access to all their titles. You can get your feet wet in the WARS universe for three bucks. What’s not to love about that?

For those who prefer print versions, each of the three faction titles will be released in an omnibus trade-paperback edition later this year, we’re aiming for somewhere around Memorial Day.

Grail Quest Books has outlined a long-term vision to its authors, and is at the forefront of utilizing modern technology to get a foothold in the new publishing industry. As the traditional publishers are slow to take advantage of technological advancements and the advent of social media, the small presses come in and provide content to hungry readers in ways the big companies either can’t or won’t. There is risk involved, to be sure, as there is with any new venture. Grail Quest Books is not in the position of possessing large amounts of capital to pay advances to its authors, therefore we are essentially working on commission.

We hold no illusions of Amazon sales rankings through the roof. We would love that, but we know this is a stepping stone for all of us. While we will have full access to traditional distribution channels, stores will only be ordering our titles upon request. This will be a community effort, both for us and for the fans of the WARS TCG. I definitely covet your support, and I think you will love the stories we’ll be telling.

Firefight at Overwatch Command is currently available for Kindle and Nook.

When you spend enough time in writing circles, following other writers on their journey, reading the advice of published professionals, you begin to learn that the ones that have made it all agree on one thing:  writer’s block is a myth.  Writer’s block is an excuse for the amateur.  It’s a scion of the writer’s life to the non-writer.  It’s a big, bad, ugly psychological thing that has given many a sleepless night to a fledgling writer.  But I have found that to the professional, day-in and day-out working writer, Writer’s Block does not exist, because it’s simply not an option.

To me, the block happens when I have failed to fully think through an idea.  This is something that I accept as a part of my journey.  My ADD brain sometimes just can’t process things all the way through until I’ve made headway on a project.  I suspect that the block affects discovery writers more than the outliners.  I am more of an outliner than a discovery writer.  I tend to think through a plot in large chunks.  I discovery write my outline, in most cases.

Over the last year or so, one of the more prevalent tips that I have heard is a question to ask yourself whenever you feel like you are stuck.  Whether you don’t know where to go next in your plot, or if you’re bored with the story you are telling–even if you think that the reader might be bored with your story.  It can be boiled down to this:  ”What’s next?”  That may sound almost stupid in its simplicity, but it carries more weight when you expand it.  Every writer expands on that question in their own way.  For me, it comes from the pulp era, and the adventure serials we’ve all heard George Lucas talk about as his inspiration for Star Wars and Indiana Jones.

The question I ask whenever I feel stuck, or bored, or think the reader will be bored is: “What kind of conflict can I put my hero into next?”  Now that also sounds stupid on the face of it.  Interesting stories are always about the conflict a character faces.   But it really is a helpful concept, almost like a game I can play with my stories.  Imagine yourself as a narrator and summarize your most recent plot development: “John took his car to the shop to get a brake job,” then say, “when suddenly….”  Fill in the blank.  You might fill it by saying, “when suddenly his ex-girlfriend shows up!”  I used that particular one two days ago.  It opened up the plot like you would not believe.  Consider an idea I would relate to James Bond:  ”James Bond rides along the gondola over a canyon in Austria.”  Then you add, “when suddenly one of the cables breaks!”  You can imagine the hair-raising plot possibilities.

To some writers this may sound like cheating.  It may sound arbitrary.  It may seem like an admission that you didn’t think things through.  But to me, isn’t that the problem when you encounter Writer’s Block?  A lot of times we reach a block and we take a break.  We go for a walk, watch a movie, fool around on YouTube… but these things can become distractions.  It can become like the addict going back to his cigarette or alcohol to get away from the pain, because for a writer, the block is pain.

But it’s all mental.  The question I ask above is an exercise, because writing takes work to do well, and all our muscles–even the mental ones–need exercise. Ask a musician–a good one–next time you see them about exercises.  Sometimes the exercises aren’t the most musical.  Sometimes inserting random conflict isn’t the most artistic, and not always the most writerly.  But it should open things up for you if you give it a shot.

In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destro… hang on… sorry. In a way, you can determine how the Starkeeper corner of the Star Wars universe continues forward.

I’m starting to realize the direction of the story for the sequel to Codename: Starkeeper as I write the script. However, it occurs to me that I have not fully come to understand the implications of the first production. I’ve learned some things as a writer since then, and I want to make sure the sequel is at least as good as, if not better than, the first.

To that end, here are three questions I’d like you to answer, either in the comments on this thread, or via email to podcast@indianajim.net.

1. What Went Wrong?

I’ll be honest, I didn’t get a lot of negative criticism about the production. If there are any, I need them now. Writing the script the way I did, straight into script format, I tended to gloss over difficult plot points, or simply ignore places I might have been able to make the story stronger. I think it worked well, and I can’t think of any specific places where I would change anything, but I suspect those places are there if I really think about them. I need for you to tell me what glaring problems you saw.

2. What Went Right?

What specific elements of the plot, characters or scenes did you like? Every creator needs to know more than just “Hey, that was good,” but what exactly rang true with you? What sort of successes can I try and repeat?

3. What Promises Were Made or Implied?

Sometimes an author will write something that wasn’t intended to imply any future plot implications, yet the audience will find something that triggers one. Sometimes the author does this intentionally, as well. What are the promises stated or implied in Codename: Starkeeper that either were not kept in the production, or were implied for the future?

WARS
The first WARS novella, Healers and Hunters by Nathan Butler, has received final approval from Decipher and is on its way to publication. Healers is the first novella from the standpoint of the Earthers, one of the main factions in the WARS universe. Meanwhile, the Gongen novella written by Sean E. Williams is nearly set to go to Decipher for approvals, while mine is still awaiting the preliminary editing process. This means there will be a delay from the original November target date for my WARS debut. The hope is that this delay is only for a couple of months, as we’d like to get it out at least in the beginning of 2011.

The Last Guardians
Occasionally I manage to find time to work on the scenes from Awakening, the first book in this series. I think I’ve gotten into Chapter Six, which is okay, but I’ve only recorded narration through Chapter Seven, which is not so good. I think I might get some done this weekend, but I don’t know for sure.

I know a lot of people are wondering just when this thing is going to come out, but I’m sticking hard and fast to my “when it’s done” timeline. I know it’s been going so long that voice actors are starting to forget they’re even in it. I think I may have to solicit someone’s help putting the spoken parts together, because I just don’t have the time to do it. If you’d like to help, please let me know.

The Sword of Calagrim
It’s the one writing project I’m most into at the moment. I have a pretty solid outline for it, that’s why I’m plugging away at it, at least a few days a week. It keeps looking like it’s going to be a short novel, somewhere in the 80,000 words range. A good length for a published debut novel, if I decide to go ahead and start sending it out.

The Adventures of Indiana Jim
I am soon to begin the great cohost experiment, beginning with my strongest candidate. It shall remain secret, but suffice to say the next episode will feature twice as much Jim with none of the bad aftertaste.

One of these things was not so obvious, and that was the idea of consistency.  When he elaborated on the idea, he talked about how many novels he had put out via podcast before he landed that first contract.  Sigler was busy podcasting his fifth podcast novel, Nocturnal, before he signed his contract with Crown.  I have yet to see another author in the podcast fiction realm replicate this success.

* I’m talking about podcast audio books specifically, not authors like John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow, who have used other elements of giving away free fiction to build quality careers.

* * Yes, I know J.C. Hutchins landed a big publishing contract, but he hasn’t experienced the sustained success of Sigler, who is poised to release his third hardcover novel with Crown, Ancestor, on June 22.

I’ve talked about this before.  Why am I bringing it up again?  Because I’m taking Sigler’s advice.

I’m obviously currently working on the novella for Grail Quest Books based on Decipher’s WARS collectible card game.  I am continuing to bring in cast recordings for my first podcast novel, The Last Guardians (I don’t know that I’m ever going to do a cast recording again with a novel, because if I had done a straight read the thing would be out right now.  I digress).  I’ve just begun plotting out its sequels.  I’m roughly 1900 words into the first novel in a series tentatively titled The Raven and the Dove.  I have two novels plotted out in a three-book arc entitled The Bladewielder series.  Just last week over the span of two lunch hours at work I plotted out a novel called The Sword of Calagrim, undoubtedly the first in a three-book arc.  I have a rough sketch for a four-book space opera arc sitting on my hard drive.  I have the beginning of an idea for a fantasy pirate tale also gathering dust in there.

I’ve recently begun working again (as evidenced by my above “lunch hours at work” statement), and am crawling toward developing a consistent working schedule.  I have my steno pad at the ready.

I’ve also learned recently that I’m the kind of person who needs to dip his feet in a few different pools at once to keep momentum going.  If I lean too heavily into one property, I step back out into time-wasting hobbies all too easily and for far too long.  If I step out of a property before I’m burned out on it and into another, I find its easier to keep going.  I also find my time-wasting hobby breaks waste far less time.

Anyway another crazy idea Scott Sigler told me is, “don’t submit anything [to publishers or agents] for three years.  Podcast consistently for three years, build an audience, then see where you are.  Get to the point where you can say to a publisher, ‘I can sell books without you, but we can sell more together.’”

It was a bold statement.  ”Don’t submit anything to agents or publishers?  Where has this guy been?!  Doesn’t he know that it’s a struggling author’s duty to submit themselves to death and pile up rejection slips?  Who does Scott Sigler think he is, anyway?”  Well I didn’t mention that he happened to have a contract with AOL/Time Warner publishing for his novel Earthcore, before the Dot-Com Bubble burst and they had to drop unestablished properties.  He already did the serial submission thing.  He already paid his “struggling author” dues to land the big deal.  He also did it unconventionally.

Looking at my list of properties, it is conceivable that as I release The Last Guardians, I can finish Sword of Calagrim and record it, ready to release soon after.  I can also be working on The Bladewielder series.  I can also be working on The Raven and the Dove.  In three years I could have four novels finished and podcasted.  I could have four distinctly different Epic Fantasy properties for a publisher (or agent) to choose from, should they be interested.

I am Sigler-izing my creative queue, at last.  And I like the possibilities.

Where does this disillusionment come from?  A common theme out there is the scourge known as the Social Media Douchebag, or SMD.  No one knows exactly how to define an SMD, but we do know they feed primarily on Spam.  I talked about this on The Adventures of Indiana Jim on Adventure #36 – All About Twitter, in a segment called “Don’t Take the Social out of my Social Media.”  These are the people who simply bring down the level of conversation on a platform like Twitter, and attempt to reduce it to broadcast advertising.

Recall your last nice meal out, or the last time you were on hold with the phone company. What stands out to you about these events?  I argue that the most significant impression is created by the level of service we receive.  I know for me, I don’t exactly recall what the food tastes like. I can remember if it was good, but more important to me is the level of service.   Does my phone company fix my problem, or at least satisfy me that they’re working on it?

When it comes to Social Media on the corporate level, it’s very difficult for me to draw the line at exactly how to define Spam. In my social media segment I offered suggestions about corporate Tweeting.  Most corporate Tweeters employ a variety of search strings to key on certain words or phrases relative to their field, then immediately follow the users that provide a match.  My advice is, by all means, employ your search strings but then engage in the conversation.  It doesn’t take any effort or interest in other people to follow them on Twitter, but it does take effort to actually communicate.  If all you do is follow me because I Tweeted something that matches your string, I’m immediately suspicious that all you care about is upping your follower count.  It’s a bottom-line approach that I can appreciate in business, but not in Social Media.

A corporate entity like Comcast, for instance, employs a search string based on their cable service.  I know for a fact that at least a few people I know had a problem with their service, tweeted about it, then received an actual response related to their problem.  This is Tweeting on the corporate level that I can get excited about.  This was actually useful Tweeting.  If you are engaged in Social Media, you ought to be concerned with providing value to your followers.  It’s a lot like the publishing industry.  E. Keith Howick, author of Blow us Away!  Publisher’s Secrets for Successful Manuscripts, suggests that every book attempts to solve a problem.  Whether that be entertainment, information or inspiration, we are looking for the books we read to address some sort of need in our lives.

I think of Social Media as a similar thing.  Every person I follow on Twitter fills some sort of need for me.  One of those needs that a book cannot fill is the need for social interaction, so the metaphor falls short, but you understand my meaning.  That need for social interaction should further drive home my point, which is we do not have an innate need for advertising.  We do not need for someone to cry their wares at us in the marketplace.  I go back to the Disney film Aladdin, where Jasmine is in the marketplace and someone shouts, “FRESH FISH!” and shoves a fish in her face.  I don’t need anyone on Twitter shouting “FRESH FISH!” at me all day, but sadly, that’s what some of these corporate Tweeters do.

This blog post is not for the casual Tweeter, but rather those with some sort of thing to promote.  A lot of the folks I interact with are artists, writers, musicians, web developers, etc.  These people have something they hope to convince you to interact with in some way.  Some of them are very good at developing real relationships with people through their various social media platforms, and others are not so good at it.  Sometimes they can be entirely self-interested, and I think that is where they can cross the line into mere advertising.  Social Media is not, to me, about upping your follower count or seeing how many fans you can get on your Facebook page.  Don’t merely approach Twitter and Facebook on the level of, “well if I get in with a guy like (Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, Adam Curry), then I’ll have a (famous, popular, interesting) person helping me to promote my (book, CD, service)!”

My personal advice and opinion is this: think of how you can harness the idea of service rather than advertising.  What service can you provide to people that make your social media presence valuable?  Don’t merely say, “information about my projects.”  That is an arrogant and selfish statement.  Focus instead on interaction rather than information.  There is a reason they call it “Social Media.”  How can an author or musician provide customer service? We artists don’t often think through that paradigm.  I guarantee if you connect on a personal level, you will have an army of friends, not just followers, who will help you promote that thing you produce.  You’ll generate word-of-mouth as a natural outgrowth of the proper use of Social Media.

The key to experiencing this paradigm shift in your own world is not to think that your Twitter followers or Facebook friends or LinkedIn contacts are there to serve you. How can you serve them?

I want to put it into perspective a little bit, though.  The biggest proponent of the Tea Parties has been conservative talk show host Glenn Beck.  I attended one of Glenn’s Rallies for America back in 2005 or 2006 in Huntington, West Virginia.  It was a modestly-attended event, but one in which the streets of Huntington were filled with flag-waving patriots riding everything from semi trucks to minivans to Harley-Davidsons.  This was the beginning of the undercurrent of cynicism for the current political system.  Back then, it was to show support for our military fighting the war on terror.

When this modern Tea Party movement really got swinging before the election of President Barack Obama, when George W. Bush enacted TARP, instead of letting the banks fail.  The layers of confiscatory taxation, government corruption and financial instability were peeled back, and we began to see that the weight of our financial system was essentially underpinned by… oh, I don’t know… something the consistency of cake.

Glenn Beck has been, for some time, railing against both parties for their contribution to the current economic instability, and what is yet to come.  But for some, Beck’s words are being twisted into a rallying cry for a third party, and that’s just not the issue at stake.  It’s an easy one to make, that being “both parties have sold you out, so vote Libertarian!” or somesuch argument.  Throw in the Constitution Party or some other minor institution.  What these parties won’t tell you is that they themselves want to capitalize on unrest and solidify their own power.  Why are they so interested on having their candidates elected?  Because they want a seat at the same table from which the Democrat and Rebublican hogs have been dining.

So where does that leave a nation that is a slave to the two-party system?  There is no easy answer.  For me, it is not some third party increasing it’s own voting bloc.  That merely ensures that one of the big two will be elected.  Ask Ross Perot.  To really nip it in the bud, impose term limits on our elected representatives, amend the constitution forcing judges to answer to the electorate, and pay them all a modest thirty thousand dollar annual volunteer stipend.  That will improve the performance of our government, but the problem is you need Congress to vote that into law.  And what self-respecting power hog living high off our taxes is going to pass that?  That is the real vicious cycle enslaving us to government, but again, I digress.

Those two events I was talking about?  One was when Glenn Beck appeared at CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) and spoke out against both parties.  Conservative and Liberal talking heads immediately assumed Beck was talking about a third party revolution, but this could not be further from the truth.  Glenn Beck can be incendiary and provocative, and most people write him off as a nutjob.  But actually listen to his radio show every day for a month, and you’ll figure out what he’s really trying to say.  You know, like an intelligent thinking person would rationally approach something new, taking the time to experience it, instead of boiling it down to a twenty-second sound bite.

Again.  I digress.  I apologize.

The other was a recent blog post over at politeaparty.com. Their contention was against something Mitt Romney recently said:

“Hopefully Tea Party candidates will run in respective primaries and they will either win or lose. And if they win, they will go into the general. If they lose, they won’t, and they will get behind the more conservative of the two finalists.” . . . “I’m really pleased that the silent majority is silent no longer,” he said, predicting that the movement “will have have an impact on this election.”

After quoting Romney, this is what the author had to say for his own part:

Romney perfectly exemplifies the arrogant paternalism of the two-party statist: “I’m glad you’ve stood up and spoken up, now sit down and shut up!” Romney’s demand for the reproduction of the Democratic-Republican two-party state and duopoly system of government is being met with some amount of resistance. At Red Pills, Gary Shumway points out the contradiction inherent in Romney’s position:

No thank you, Mitt, I am not buying your propaganda. We have been the fools watching the same old dog and pony show for the last 100 years and we are on the verge of losing our freedoms. That should tell us that uncritically voting Democrat or Republican . . . isn’t working for us. VOTE PERSON, NOT PARTY. VOTE YOUR CONSCIENCE – CONSIDER VOTING THIRD PARTY! . . . LOL .. the flip/flopper is glad you’re not quiet but he wants you to be quiet in the general elections! GO TO HELL, MITT!

Apparently this mistrust of government has gone to extremes even I won’t, and that is intentionally misrepresenting what Romney is trying to get across.  As much as I like Mitt Romney as a person, “The Great Communicator” he is not.  Even Glenn Beck admits to Ronald Reagan being one of his heroes, and I must admit to the same.  Now before my left-leaning friends get on here and tell me about all the eeeevil things Reagan did, I’m not going to get into that discussion, because it doesn’t get to the point.

The point is about Reagan’s “Republican Revolution.”  The Republican party of today does not, by and large, look like the party of Reagan’s day, but that should come as no surprise.  Another Conservative that lefties love to lambast is Rush Limbaugh, who for years has been decrying the “country-club blue-blooders” who sit in leadership in the Republican party.  Some of these “limp-wristed, linguini-spined” politicians (to quote a popular Rush-ism) are no longer in elected office, such as Trent Lott, but others still are, such as Lindsey Graham.  These politicians would be threatened by a man like Reagan, who turned the party into a vehicle for his own political ends, not serving the party for its ends.

Reagan swept up the Republican party voters by running hard to the right, not stopping to bend over backwards for Republican moderates.  He cut taxes drastically, lowering the top marginal rate from a confiscatory 75% to %25.  For that reason alone, it’s no wonder the 1980′s was the single largest period of economic growth in this nation’s history.  Reagan was conservative, and even dared to win such states as New York and California as a Republican.

This is the kind of revolution Glenn Beck is talking about.  He keeps saying this nation needs a leader, and Reagan was one of the best.  He espoused a clear vision, he inspired us to believe in our own greatness, and he spoke the words that resonate with the Tea Party crowd:

When my friend Brian first linked me to the picture he made of Jack Wilgress, I thought it was pretty cool.  I shared it with the rest of my friends on Facebook, but I thought it deserved a blog post.

One of the coolest things about this picture is the wording behind the character, “3:10 to Uranus.”  If you haven’t seen 3:10 to Yuma, you’re missing out on a classic Western storyline.  The 1957 version starred Glenn Ford and Van Heflin.  You may recall the 2007 version starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale.  The film centers around a farmer with a bum leg (Bale) who volunteers to transport a convict (Crowe) to the 3:10 train to the prison in Yuma.  It’s an extremely well-acted and shot film, if a little light in the plot department.  This was a happy connection for me, considering I have always viewed my story of the Mavericks in WARS first and foremost as an Old West story. 

I am presently engaged in writing a story that I hope will generate some small form of payment.  To be honest, I think my fellow writers and I are more excited about getting a publishing credit than we are about any financial possibilities.  It’s nice to dream, but it’s really just another step along the way in the writer’s journey.  This is a professional project, and we are approaching it as professionals.

Brian, on the other hand, is not engaged in any professional venture with this.  He follows my updates on Twitter, friended me on Facebook, and I guess is a fan of what I do.  It still feels odd thinking of anyone as a fan of my work.  Only celebrities and narcissists have “fans,” right?  If you speak of people as your fans and you’re not “famous,” there must be something wrong with you.  You must be arrogant or something.  Sorry, I digress.  I get caught up on these points sometimes.

Anyway, Brian hasn’t even read a single word of my WARS Mavericks novella, and yet a mere description of the character has inspired this artwork.  I won’t say it’s a humbling experience.  I am already well aware of my need for humility.  But Brian’s art reminds me that someone is out there paying attention, and I am truly blessed to have even one single “fan,” especially when I haven’t even been published yet!

Thank you, Brian.  I hope I don’t disappoint you.