The Marketability Thread

In this thread, we'll bring up various aspects of our works and speculate on how this affects the ability to sell the work to a publisher and (assuming proper marketing) finding a wide audience to read it. Now, I know, some are going to protest "but surely, that means selling out to the man!" Well, guess what? The Beatles didn't get anywhere until they sold out and it compromised their creativity and quality so much, only four of Rolling Stone's top ten albums of all time were by them. Poor them.

But anyway, I have a Young Adult Urban Fantasy series in mind. It's based around a chosen hero fighting off demonic invaders in a shadow war. Tone will be very dark, punches won't be pulled in the depiction of violence, and it will involve a ton of genre defiance in favor of a gritty realism. Yeah, it's a maddeningly vague description, but what I want to talk about is the main character. Given the broad genre of the work, how large an audience will identify with and accept a protagonist with the following traits:

1. Female
2. 14-15 years old
3. Above-average intellect, but an academic underachiever.
4. Vaguely androgynous (does not strictly identify as either male or female and does not specifically follow social norms based only on gender)
5. Mildly asexual (largely uninterested in starting relationships, but not completely opposed to them), but bicurious (or, failing that, at least not homophobic). The work itself will almost certainly remain chase (no sex), so keep that in mind.
6. Big video game player. I don't mean Facebook or Kongregate, either. I mean consoles and PC games that require a proper graphics card. Within that realm, the lack of gender identity means she plays games regardless of "intended audience". She mostly favors stuff that has RPG elements and tactical thinking over twitch action.
7. Under-eater. Not necessarily anorexic, but she's underweight, forgets to eat, and doesn't understand nutrition. Tends to skip lunch a lot in favor of going to the computer lab and would probably skip breakfast and dinner if her family didn't have it as part of their routine. She's also not physically active. At all. Walking from class to class is the extent of her exercise.
8. Has Asperger's syndrome (ooh, boy...). This is not specifically called out as such by either the narrative or anybody within (although her homeroom class is special education in every which way but name). As a result of this, she:
   1. Is socially awkward and can't read people very well. However, the way I envision her, she's not completely lacking in empathy and social sense.
   2. Is very shy and uncomfortable around other people. Generally avoids people her age due to their tendency to manipulate and bully her.
   3. Hypersensitive and has trouble filtering out noise. Pen clicking, high-pitched television whines, flashing lights, and other stuff actually hurts her mentally. This plays a big role in why she's an isolationist.
   4. Has a logical mindset. Her love of video games ties heavily into a love for order and structure. They empower her because in a world with nebulous, contradictory rules that seems to conspire against her, she takes comfort in her mastery of video game worlds.
   5. Related to the above is her outrage and indignation at what she perceives to be infraction of this order that everybody should strive towards. Seeing people do things because they just don't care maddens her. Strong sense of justice.
9. Yes, all the above does, in fact, mean she would be considered a geek. She does not identify herself as such, though.
10. The reason she's the chosen one is because this blank slate is something that lends itself very well to the power and role she's given.

Think about each trait and how it would affect mass appeal. Would the average neurotypical be able to empathize with such a character? I do know that such a character isn't total market poison because of Stieg Larsson's success, but that's an adult audience rather than teen. Also, comparisons to other works are great (although my research doesn't really show much with protagonists like this). Thank you.

I don't think I've written anything that I could market to a publisher—my most "mainstream" attempt at a story ended with children getting machine-gunned.

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

If you're trying to make a character people will identify with as a reading point, you're doing it wrong.

To do that, you need to make an everyman/woman.

Instead, it's better to try and make the character hit a chord for those who DO identify, and still be an interesting person to those who DON'T.

Read my stories!

^ Escapism. Sometimes people more identify with a character who can do awesome things because the reader wants to do that (but otherwise can't for one reason or another).

To be brutally honest, the everyman setup is a failure of a method. Make your characters special and stand out! Take Superman for example, he's a wooden Flat Character with little depth (especially as Clark Kent) but he does things that people wish they could do like fly and jump stuff In a Single Bound and that's what makes readers identify with him and read the things even 80 years after his first ever appearance in fiction.

I'm honestly sick of seeing this everywhere.

This just made your idea a million times more tolerable. High five. If you didn't spill the fact that she's supposed to have Asperger Syndrome to me I probably would have no beef to pick with your idea at all.

Wait, what? Elaboration.

edited 3rd Jun '11 8:05:15 PM by annebeeche

Banned entirely for telling FE that he was being rude and not contributing to the discussion. I shall watch down from the goon heavens.

Well ITT about marketing the work...

I'm sure some people will be offended by my deliberate depiction of a badass foreign occupation. Yes a foreign occupation being depicted as something cool. It is mostly a catharsis thing. *

Don't worry it is only cruel towards La Résistance, with the rest of the civilian population at worse being encouraged to be law abiding citizens. So while there will be widows, widowers, and single parents, there won't be orphans (or dead kids).

Oh and the work also includes discussion of some very alien politics. For example, hardhearted gun-loving liberals. Wrap your head around that.

I thought this was going to be about that other kind of marketability...

I know I'd buy plushies of my work's Team Pets.

edited 3rd Jun '11 9:01:55 PM by FreezairForALimitedTime

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

I wouldn't do that lest I be called out on Misaimed Marketing.

I have a black teen comedy with a lot of sexual innuendos, Posmodernist observations, drug use and a very cartoonish style and looks...too inmature to be classifed as a work for adults, but too riské to make it for younger audiences without butchering a lot of the humor, so the audience would be pretty much a small niche between drug users and Comedy Central fans...

Forgotten Lore probably could get published. There's nothing inherently un-publishable about it, but on the other hand, it's a pretty generic mundane fantasy/adventure story so I doubt it would really catch a publisher's eye.

Zaran il Legion in it's current form probably couldn't get published. It's done more in a webcomic style. If I eighter only did short strips or started doing longer storylines, then it potentially could. I've actually always though Zaran il Legio would work better as an animation than as a comic, so if it would be published, it would probably be an animated adaption. I actually could see it as something shown on Cartoon Network or something. Altho I have to admit that Zaran is not exactly the most marketable character. I mean, what is the target audience of a show starring a maybe-teenage-equivalent daughter of a demon overlord who'd much rather be friends with everybody than do any overlordy things?

@annebeeche

While it's probably over-represented on this site if the stereotypes hold true, it gets almost no acknowledgment in anything but the blunt social issue books that only ever get read by the choir. The simple reality is that with an estimated birth rate of 1 in 100 and 1 in 70 boys, there really needs to be more entertainment out there that accepts it as a fact of life and humanizes them as regular (if quirky) people. No more of the Dustin Hoffman "subhuman meat calculator" stereotype.

As far as special education goes: the stereotypes associated with it as some kind of zoo of selfstimming bizarro retards wasting taxpayer dollars is pretty unfair. Plenty of schools have programs that aim to integrate the less affected students and have homeroom classes where the only real difference is a higher teacher to student ratio and training specifically for their faults. The people within these classes are, by and large, regular teenagers that might have difficulties learning in a traditional manner. An accurate portrayal of a class like this with teenagers acting like teenagers would be subversive in how it would not even register as "special education" to those who don't know what to look for. That's what I'm aiming for.

Major Tom

Your idea makes me think of the classic Life Of Brian scene where the rebel group lists just how much better life is with the Roman occupation, but that's hardly a direct analogue. Otherwise, your idea definitely does have an uphill battle to fight since regardless whether or not it's allegorical, it goes into that uncomfortable sphere of propaganda. I think a lot of effort would have to go into showing just how bad life was before the occupation, but it needs to be realistic. Go too far and it will come across as cartoonish propaganda.

Anthony H

I can envision such a work as a show on Adult Swim. On the other hand, book publishers are actually significantly more willing to risk pissing off the moral crusaders if the product is strong. There are plenty of young adult books and authors specifically marketed as such with vocabularies comparable to Quentin Tarantino. While it may not likely become a supermarket book, it doesn't mean a publisher won't touch it.

edited 4th Jun '11 7:05:22 AM by EtherealMutation

Major Tom: I am not reccomending an everyman, just that if you want to make a character whose main draw is being relatable, then that is what you want to go for.

Read my stories!

If you're writing Slice of Life and maybe romance.

I think that I've probably come to master the Publisher-Alienating Premise. Some examples, phrased as starkly (if unfairly) as possible:

1. Jacob's Mind: Guy hallucinates murdered imaginary friend, feebly hits on girl, and infrequently attempts suicide. Hilarity Ensues.
2. Hello!: The world is a magical realist TV show about some jerk and his roommates, perennially interrupted by really weird commercials. Also, some girl hits people with a baseball bat. Which she talks to.
3. Here Goes Nothing: A mockumentary about the failed making of a mockumentary about an indie rock band by a David Lynch expy who is slowly going insane.
4. Focal Point: Lonely old man finds time machine built by Eldritch Abominations and screws things up. Also, Dead Little Brother.

All of these pale, however, in comparison to my main work. Again, bluntly: It's a steampunk-inflected epic fantasy with a cast of anthropomorphic animals that turns turns out to be something way weirder, darker, and more complicated in fairly short order. Also, there's a praying mantis on a penny farthing.

edited 4th Jun '11 11:11:54 AM by JHM

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Please. You're taking yourself wayyy too seriously.

The book market is HUGE. The niches are there. They are everywhere.

If you're writing a book, and you write it well, chances are, you'll be able to find an audience.

Read my stories!

So, I'm not allowed to rag on the alienating qualities of my own work?

I full well understand that to everything there is a niche in nearly every medium; that said, finding one's niche can be a bit of an adventure...

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Yes, if it's written well enough that we get to feel what the world is like from the character's point of view. That is what makes for empathisability — not the audience having traits in common with the character. I myself am a 28-year-old male and have no problem enjoying reading — and writing — books with teenage female protagonists. As for characters with Asperger's, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time did pretty well and presumably most of its readers were neurotypical.

They all seem fine to me, to be honest.

edited 4th Jun '11 11:26:17 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

Ironically, I think I have a book written that's the opposite of an alienating premise. Everyone I've told about it thinks it sounds fantastic, but in my personal view, it's the most mediocre thing I've ever written.

Plot: A Southern Gentleman who owns a locally successful candy shop is suddenly attacked by a mysterious saboteur who seems to want the shop to fail. The combination of candy and intrigue makes everyone go "Yeah! Awesome!," but I personally think it turned out... meh.

"Proto-Indo-European makes the damnedest words related. It's great. It's the Kevin Bacon of etymology." ~Madrugada

Novel Duet #1

• Audience Grabbers:
  • Lesbians
  • An improbably beautiful, ridiculously young, and incredibly talented female soldier
  • Detailed Urban Fantasy Constructed World

• Audience Deterrents:
  • Greek Mythology. In the case of it being the most widely used mythology to the point of genre exhaustion. Also, the accuracy means that several of them are jerks while some of them are genuinely helpful, and no one will be satisfied with this interpretation.
  • The lesbians are too preoccupied with surviving to get intimate.
  • The improbably beautiful, ridiculously young, and incredibly talented female soldier has a temper—which she developed due to PTSD, and causes damn near everyone to think she's a bitch, except for three people. One is her sister, the other got to know her in-between relapses, and the last is her therapist.
  • One protagonist is middle aged with a son—meaning a reasonable age for a war veteran. And widowed.
  • Detailed Urban Fantasy Constructed World

Novel Duet #2

• Audience Grabbers:
  • Set in an analogue of Venice, meaning Italians.
  • Where there are Italians, there is the Mafia.
  • Cyberpunk Technology with a Steampunk aesthetic
  • The male protagonist is a handsome, charming young Englishman.
  • The female protagonist is a very pretty and determined young Italian woman.
  • Same highly detailed Urban Fantasy setting of the prior duet

• Audience Deterrents:
  • Most of the characters are Catholic Christians.
  • Including the protagonists.
  • Who are romantically involved. Admittedly they decide to wait until they're engaged rather than married, because youth and horniness, but the point stands.
  • THIS EXAMINATION OF RELIGION IS BEING WRITTEN BY AN ATHEIST AND IT TAKES PLACE IN AN URBAN FANTASY—alienating some Christians
  • THIS ATHEIST IS BETRAYING US BY WRITING ABOUT RELIGION AND NOT VILLIFYING IT—alienating some atheists

The second gets way more "HELL YEAHS!", but I haven't mentioned the Catholicism to any of them yet. So.

edited 4th Jun '11 7:52:34 PM by Leradny

Using Leradny's format.

My War Story

• Audience Grabber:
  • Gets an FPS videogame adaptation that isn't just another modern war shooter.
  • Fantasy in a modern age that isn't about The Masquerade or Paranormal Romance.
  • Exploration of the impact of many possible real world events at its most mundane.
  • Epic heroes and villains at its most fantastic.

• Audience Deterrents:
  • FPS game might require constant tweaking.
  • Everyone will write angry letters of how I defamed their religion and/or political views
  • Depiction of foreign occupation and the slaughter of resistance as being badass.
  • Assault rifles and wizardry? Seriously, how much of that really gets the spotlight? It is either like Warcraft or Tom Clancy, but not both.

edited 4th Jun '11 9:18:55 PM by Worlder

Well, maybe the higher ups at whatever publisher Stuck ends up with'll probably play the "written by a teenager" card (cough cough Eragon), but I hope that's not the main focus of it.

To put it roughly, Stuck's about Tre (read: sort-of me, but not entirely), who is itching to break out of his shell and be awesome, but stays inside that shell until he gets into a shopping cart accident and inadvertently traps himself in a mall. There's also a group of teens there who actually are pretty awesome, and a crazed night guard who wants all of them gone.

After that, their adventures continue at their school, where they get in trouble with their classmates, the teachers and each other, and the group breaks up for a while due to their constant arguments about whether a classmate of theirs is evil or not. Once they find out he is, though, that's when the trouble really starts.

Soon enough the group finds themselves in solitary confinement due to the night guard from before's grudge that continued once he became an actual police officer, and when they break out they're branded as fugitives. I have the rest planned out but I'm not gonna spoil anything just for art's sake.

...

Yeah, I think I made a trilogy of movie ideas and turned it into a book. Odd, yeah, but whatever.

oh, that's why I need this binary mind // ⌘

There are plenty of fantasy novels that don't vilify religion, although admittedly it's usually more "Crystal Dragon Jesus is cool!" than "actual Jesus is cool!" Still, I don't think it's anywhere near as shocking as you make it out to be. If it were science fiction, though, that would be a bit unusual.

Also, to the person who mentioned "demon overlord's daughter who doesn't want to be overlord-y" as being an unmarketable premise, I suggest you go look at Anti Anti Christ (which she might not literally be, but it's close). It's more common than you seem to think.

Thanks. But, well... we write this stuff. We don't publish it or try to market it. Something can sound really cool in concept, but promoting it to the right niche can be a real pain in the backside. So I'm still not sure.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

Okay. I'm deciding between two novel ideas to start. I don't want to go with the wrong one, since one is meant to be mainstream and the other not.

Idea One: Manifestation Files:

• Genre: Young Adult Urban Fantasy
• Tag: A normal high schooler follows an exchange student as he exorcises manifestations of human anxiety.
• Summary: Brendan is a sophmore in high school who lives in Memphis/Chicago/St. Louis that has less than an ideal outlook at life. To his annoyance, his family decides to participate in a student exchange program. As a result, a British exchange student with a wiry smile named Finn is to stay at his house for one whole semester.

Just briefly after school starts, Brendan is dragged into the physic plane and is ambushed by a spirit created by ones fear of rats. Finn arrives and exorcises it with physic powers. He explains to Brendan how he is actually a member of an organization of espers dedicated to vanishing Manifestations, created when someone experiences great emotion or anxiety. And due to Brendan's exposure to the physic plane, he won't be left alone.

But when Brendan starts to develop powers of his own, he attracts the attention of other esper organizations. Will he be able to lead a normal life, or will someone—or something—end it?

Idea Two: The Cosmic Cantina

• Genre: Speculative Genre Roulette Story Collection
• Tag: In an inn in the center of the multi-verse, several people from different worlds tell their story.
• Summary: Cathy is the enigmatic owner of an inn called the Cosmic Cantina, which is accessible from every universe by anyone who happens to stumble through a doorway in the right circumstances. Among the staff members is a snarky batender, a hyperactive cook, and a quirky maid.

Regulars of the inn includes a normal person from a world similar to yours, a dragon-like humanoid, an astronaut, a pirate, a magician, a cowboy with a cybernetic arm, a zeppelin driver, among others. They are allowed a great discount if they tell a story from their life. Cathy is willing to listen, and also willing to help with leading them the right direction.

---

Which one seems better? How can I improve on both of them? Want any elaboration? What's the proper genre for the second one, and does it have a niche?

edited 5th Jun '11 1:36:36 PM by chihuahua0