Sex, drugs, rock and roll; (and cute cat pictures.)

It was Samuel Johnson who said “Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
He also said “No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money,” and I have tried to follow his guidance in this matter.
I once got the job of writing up the annual article in one local paper on what the local authorities in the county had been doing in the way of development within the county. A topic so tedious and worthy that they always hired in a freelancer to do it. I wasn’t complaining, it fed us for a fortnight. Two thirds of the way through I dropped in a couple of dry asides on the general tedium of the subject and the sorry nature of the freelancer’s lot. I got an email from the editor, who proudly announced he’d noticed them and after mature consideration had left them in.
But now where does the hack writer turn for gainful employment, where will his work be most sought after? Just look on Facebook at some of the beautifully scripted stuff which circulates.
Imagine, you’re running a charity that wants to raise its profile but cannot afford to hire a firm of chuggers to mug their way into the newspaper headlines? Then hire a decent writer to produce for you the sort of story that will beguile the tears from the most stony hearted and you’re half way there.
But only half way; we’ve become far more ‘visually orientated’ than our parents generation. Now there has to be pictures as well.
Currently like a lot of people who blog I’m trying to sell something. I’m not too fussed about pushing a political philosophy or this weeks ‘must have’ brand of cosmetics, I’m just trying to sell my books.
But there are millions of blogs and books out there. Everyone and their dog are at it, and thanks to Facebook the dog’s probably got the edge provided he can get someone else to take the pictures.
So we wannabe celebrated authors have to be really tricksie. We’ve got to somehow grab your attention and to lure you in, to get you to at least look at the stuff we’re trying to sell.
Now then, the web is a wonderful tool for collecting feedback. Not only do I know what blog posts I’ve written, WordPress will tell me how many people read each blog and even what countries my readers come from. What is interesting is the difference between what I think is good and what people actually hunt down and read. So I may stick a post up on my blog and think to myself as I do so, “Now that’s a nice piece of work” only to discover that it’s read by a mere handful of people.
Just for the record the best read piece was ‘Horse Burgers and Hypocrisy.’ It was followed very closely and will doubtless be overtaken by ‘Marks and Spencer knicker adverts.’ It has to be said that ‘Four lesbians in a fast car’ is also climbing the charts steadily. Yet ‘A traveller in search of the exotic,’ which I thought rather good; is pretty well nowhere.
Yep, we want sex, drugs and ‘rock and roll’.

When the process of telling the world about the forthcoming release of the latest book, Justice 4.1

 

I had to post on facebook, promoting it

 

And what do I discover? That if the post is just words, a handful of people look at it, but if I include a picture, then the number of people who look at it increases massively. So I’m no mug, I need pictures.
Yet here we hit a problem. Tsarina is a long way away and in our future. Haldar Drom is an obliging sort of chap but even he struggles to get the pictures back through space and time. So what to do? Given that one underlying theme of the book is piracy; there is a certain irony that I’ve taken to ransacking the web for pictures to help promote the book.

To an extent there are openings here for us to help each other. Artists who have work that is sort of suitable and don’t mind it being hijacked (and credited) can get themselves more widely known and shared as they get incidentally promoted by the author, whose book is also incidentally promoted by the artist. We could take this sort of thing further. In Justice 4.1 I mention in passing the sultry chanteuse, Dwine Tillanvor and the song she made famous, ‘Dreams of Ancient Earth.’ If we have a chanteuse out there willing to sing such a song I’m not too proud to promote her video. Indeed I’m probably not too proud to edit the manuscript and change the name of the song.

One thing Facebook has taught me is that as a society we’ve moved beyond being happy to just read the words. We demand the titillation of pictures to attract our attention. What am I doing about it?
Well I’ve finally managed to work in a ‘cute cat’ picture as well. Shame? Me? In this matter I have none……….

Tagged: blockheads, Chuggers, cute cats, Facebook, Haldar Drom, local authority, Samuel Johnson, Tsarina