Blog-  5/30/10

 Copyright  ©  2010 – J. B. Drori

 Dear Readers,

  At times, life gets in the way of living.  Consequently, I missed two weeks of  posting my blog.  I hope you will enjoy the poem I’m posting today.

   Some of you may wonder what happened to my novel.  I’ve thus far posted only eleven chapters .  I’m now revisng my novel, ANCIENT STONES, in the style of metafiction.  It’s a lot more complicated than I had envisioned it.

Hope  to hear from you

J. B. Drori. 

HOPE

J. B.  Drori

 The wind in our sails is hope.

It blew on the rivers of Babel,

Along the ice floes of the Potomac,

And at Waterloo, Gettysburg, and Flanders

No cyclone can disperse it.

No mountain can block it.

No ocean can drown it.

And no serpent can poison it.

For we are of eternal matter

From the dust of exploded super-novas,

Ignited by the Master’s breath,

Forever renewed by the sun at dawn.

Yet death and destruction

Stalk our homes, kill our children,

Bring on wars between brothers.

Strife and corruption inhabit our cities.

Oh, Lord of Hosts,

Tranquility eludes us, peace betrays.

We beseech you.

Let hope die.  

Yet, to You, rose the anguished cry

Of our firefighters,

In the billowing flames

Of the Twin Towers,

And did You hear the terminal whimper

Of a three month old baby,

One of your children chosen for the

Special showers at Buchenwald?

Oh, Rock of Ages,

How much longer?

How many more millennia

Of suffering and depravations?

A sudden thunder shook the earth. 

The firmament turned a midnight black as

A golden fire kindled the horizon,

 And spread around the globe.

It formed fluorescent stars of giant letters.

They circled the globe as they lit up the sky,

In beat with a tympanic thunder, booming,

“You will suffer until you heed the mark of Cain.”

End

The Writing Business: Types of Pricing

Copyright © William Stong 2010

Last week my blog was about “prices”: at a very high level. A level so high there were no details at all. It was like being on Google Maps, using the satellite view, and looking down on a continent (your choice: North America, Asia, Europe, whichever). You can see the landmass, but if you’re looking for a street address it’s not going to help. Today’s blog is flying almost as high.

There are prices, and then there are prices.

What kinds of characteristics are attached to prices? Put another way, what would you want to know about a particular price?

Here are a couple of Pricing Continua:

From Suggested Retail Price              to Realized Price

From Premium Price                          to Distressed Goods Price

The first continuum, “Suggested-to-Realized.” zeros in on the characteristic of “what prices sellers would like to get” all the way through to “what prices buyers actually pay.”

The second continuum, “Premium-to-Distressed,” zeros in on the characteristic of “value” (actual or perceived) attached to a particular good. People will pay more for products and services that provide more value (at least in their estimation and according to some sort of value system), than for the same products and services with less perceived “bang for the buck.” This “value” continuum probably has several versions, depending on which aspect of value one considers. For example:

● Faddishness/the “In” thing/Everybody else has it

(e.g., what teenagers say)

● Tangible value

(e.g., air conditioner in a car vs. a-la-fresco)

● Appeal

(e.g., shape or color or size or some other fundamental aspect is supremely on-target or grotesquely out-of-kilter)

● Time

(e.g., the “best if used by” labels on produce would be on high fashion and youth clothing if the marketing departments of the designers and manufacturers had already thought of it…oops, I should probably delete that…)

Back to the first continuum. It’s sub-title might be “a funny thing happened on the way to making a sale.” When was the last time you paid full price for anything? In particular, a book? Shame on you—and you call yourself a writer!

This first continuum plots the array of possibilities of what a book eventually sells for. When the facts are plotted for this continuum, an ideal for the writer (and many others in the publishing food chain) is when:

Suggested Retail Price = Realized Price

Back to the second continuum. A sub-title might be “what loosens the purse strings?” Every once in awhile, products come along that command premium prices:

● Cabbage Patch Kids

(Hey! It was a doll.) (Double Hey! They’re still around!)

● The Prowler

(a production automobile that was serious eye-candy)

● Houses in California

(well, a few years ago, that is. Unfortunately, this commodity has shifted to the other end of this continuum)

This second continuum plots the price possibilities:

● from customers paying way more for a particular product or service

● to paying way less

Obviously, the ideal for the writer, et.al., is to be as far to the left on the continuum as possible.*

So,….

What are the drivers that support the highest price?

Value

In writing, what is value?

● Interest

● Topic

● Quality of writing

Key question: do people want to read your writing? Think of the possible continuum here. If people want to read your writing, is it:

a. “I’m bored out of my skull,..,whattaya have?”

Or is it,

b. “Give that to me right now and I’ll have your baby.” (or gender-equivalent expression)

Which swings back around to you as a writer:

● What is your writing product?

● Who is your reading audience?

(okay, we haven’t covered this yet)

Which leads us straight to the bottom line:

Does your writing product have the interest and quality to create demand from your audience?

Bill

Written Words: Visible Thoughts ^TM

Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com

PHW # 53

Copyright © William A. Stong 2010

*: Diction, diction, diction. Context, context, context. In this sentence, the phrase “…as far to the left…” is not to be confused with the political arena. Different meanings in different contexts is one of the beauties of writing.

Icons/Photos:

1. Chrysler Prowler

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%2701-%2702_Chrysler_Prowler_(Orange_Julep).JPG

Licensing

The Writing Business: Price

Copyright © William Stong 2010

Continuing the series on the business of writing, today’s focus is on “price”: which is the first step toward revenue; which, once you begin receiving it, is income. *¹

So far in the series, we’ve touched on:

● The product and how to produce one (or more)

● Economics, including the interplay between supply (you) and demand (your readers)

Which sort of leaves a writer with the whole supply/demand imbalance. One way to address that is to create demand. And although the main driver there is the quality and appeal of your product, price is not totally inconsequential. It is part of the loop.

Here are some home-spun definitions of price:

Price: the value at which a product (or service) is offered for sale. In a post-industrial society, price is normally denominated in units of currency (e.g., U.S. dollars).

Realized Price: the dollar amount (or whatever value the price was set in) actually paid by the buyer for the product

What impacts price?              Demand

What drives demand?

Need: a person needs things critical to survival

Want: once a certain level of survival is reached, there are lots of things a person would like to have

I need air and food. I want to read.

There are mountains of studies on humans needs. A famous one is Maslow. Writers need to be aware of where their products fit in the range of human needs. Generally it’s not toward the critical, absolutely-must-have end of the need-continuum.* ²

What else impacts price?      Supply

What drives supply?

The amount of products (or services) produced and offered for sale.

And what drives the amount of products people are willing to produce and offer to the market?

In a normal business, people are willing to create the amount of product with which they will be able to make a net-profit. And, in a normal business world, it isn’t good enough to generate any old positive net-profit. It needs to be one large enough to survive on—at a minimum. I suspect, however, that most of us would prefer a net-profit that allows us and our families to graduate from merely surviving, perhaps even beyond the hunter-gatherer stage of life…maybe even into one where an occasional luxury could be enjoyed.

Assuming you already have your writing product, how do you get there?

One starts with price. Next week we will look at different types of prices. In the meantime, some questions to mull over:

How much are people willing to pay for your product?

Said another way, what value does your product have for people?

How many people see that value and are willing to pay that price?

Bill

Written Words: Visible Thoughts ^TM

Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com

PHW # 52

Copyright © William A. Stong 2010

*1: And “revenue” should never be confused with profit (a.k.a. net-profit, net-income)

*2: Unless, of course, you’re selling the wiring schematic for a nuclear weapon’s trigger mechanism…to a fellow handcuffed to a nuclear device that has already started counting down.

Even then, though, think about it. Which would the fellow pay more for?  Your manual or the key to the handcuffs?

Sort of depends on how much time is left…whether he’s on foot…

Icons/Photos:

1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg

Licensing

5/9/10 – Blog –

Copyright ©   2010 – J. B. Drori

 Dedicated to my friend, Tom McHale.

DON”T  LEAVE

J. B. Drori

Don’t leave, not yet,”

My young friend

Said to me

Yesterday morning.

His words arrived

One by one,

Hanging in mid air

Between us.

We locked hands

And searched our hearts

 In each other’s eyes,

Our souls set a trembling.

We hovered

Above an invisible ravine

At our feet,

Stretched to the end of time.

Our silent bond grew,

Transcending heaven’s barriers,

Unveiling the meaning

Of our presence. 

Time paused,

Looked back

And knocked on the

Celestial crucible,

Where “ all beginnings

Are endings,

And all endings

Are beginnings.” *

“Don’t leave us,

 We need you,”

He said again,

His voice cracking.

“So do I.

We all do.”

He looked up and said,

“We all need each other,”

I leaned forward,

Kissed his brow

And turned away

To hide my tears.

______

*   With apologies to T. S.  Eliot_______

A Writer’s Mother Day

Copyright © William Stong 2010

Everybody has a mother. Well, unless you’re an amoeba. Or similar creature (but, then, does that make you your own mother?).

Today is the day set aside to honor mothers, as well as motherhood in general. Most of us will honor our mother today, especially if we have the good fortune of being able to spend time with them. If she has moved on to greener pastures, we can at least reflect on her and what she meant to us.

Life being what it is, there will be some who, as much as they crave a different situation, have mothers who have precious little to honor. Even in these tragic cases, perhaps what might have been, what should have been, can be the focus of quiet reflection today.

It is a universal day. What are mothers the world over renowned for?

● Life

● Nurture

● Protection

● Empathy

● Healing

● Feeding

● Teaching

● Cleaning

● Encouraging

● And so much more…

Especially encouraging. Who has ever been a better advocate of you than your mother? She listens to you. Cares about your deepest feelings and your darkest secrets. She always wants the best for you. As much as you may resist it, she even helps figure out what it is that would be best for you. Gently she helps you let go of dreams that would never graduate to reality. Solidly, she helps you have faith in dreams that will turn into fact.

Guess what? As a writer, you are your book’s (or article, short story, play, poem, essay, screen play and so much more) mother. You’re the one who gives it life. You help your writing get through the “terrible twos,” those times when it’s hard to put two words together that make any sense.

As your work grows, you feed, clean, cloth, and nurture it. You struggle with it through adolescence (the outline) and, somehow, you get through puberty: there she is, The First Draft. It might be shy. It might be full of bravado. But it’s there, your child; not yet finished, but the shape and nature of the adult is clearly visible.

It might not want your help. At least not in front of other First Drafts, or older published works. Late at night, when no one else is around, however, it still listens to you and appreciates the help you so selflessly give.

When your book gets an infection, like a character who just doesn’t belong, you will heal it; or if your book becomes confused and disoriented, like flopping around between different Points of View, or the tense is all over the place, you will patiently sit down with it and work through the confusion until the right path is found again. If your book gets depressed and wants to quit because it feels worthless and unwanted, you will be right there to help it weather the crisis. You will build its confidence back up, until it once again sees what it can become.

If your book is attacked, you will protect it. Maybe not like a mother-grizzly would, but you will seek out advice, and find as many helpful friends as you can.

And no matter what happens after your book grows up and leaves the nest, it will always be your book. Even when it comes back to live in the garage during temporary tough times.

Even if it’s a book only a mother could love.

Bill

Written Words: Visible Thoughts ^TM

Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com

PHW # 51

Copyright © William A. Stong 2010

The Writing Business: What’s a writer to do?

Copyright © William Stong 2010

This question is in reference to the whole supply/demand thing in the world of writing.

Well, a writer could sit down on a curb and moan about how unfair the world is

(won’t get too much sympathy from the wildebeest who’s being pulled under the water by the croc; or the zebra who’s just had a lioness land on her back)

Or a writer could tick off a list of everybody who’s at fault

(September 1, 1939: the Poles didn’t have time for that; on Apollo 13, it wasn’t the first thing on the Lovell, Swigert & Haise’s minds as they transmitted “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”)

Or a writer could reel off all the reasons that his/her product deserves to be a huge success

(won’t get much sympathy from wax cylinder recordings or Betamax)

Or a writer could hole up somewhere, declare the world a vindictive, artless, ungrateful cesspool. And then, to make sure there is no misunderstanding, let that putrid world know that you’re not going to share your thoughts, wit, wisdom, and writing until there’s an attitude adjustment. That’s right, borrowing lyrics from Santana, you tell the world:

“You’ve got to change your evil ways,…” *¹

(Sorry. No recorded examples of last case. The world isn’t aware it has a problem)

Yep. Writers could react in any of those ways.

However, since this is a series about “business,” and businesses are never started with an initial idea of failing and quitting, there are more productive responses:

● Create demand

Demand for your work is that people want to read what you have written. Period. It’s that simple. One way to get people to want to read your work is to work on the craft of writing all the time and make sure that your writing is the very best it can be.

● Learn from the best: to paraphrase the Marines, your writing needs to “Be all that it can be.”

● Listen to, internalize, and then act on the wisdom of others:

“Practice makes perfect.”

A Saying

“At no time am I a quick thinker or writer: whatever I have done in science has solely been by long pondering, patience and industry.” *²

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) *²

“All my writings may be considered tasks imposed from within, their source was a fateful compulsion. What I wrote were things that assailed me from within myself. I permitted the spirit that moved me to speak out.”

Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) *³

And, above all:

● Know your audience

● Know your work

● Know you!

Bill

Written Words: Visible Thoughts ^TM

Email: william.a.stong@gmail.com

PHW # 50

Copyright © William A. Stong 2010

Footnotes:

*1: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Ways

*2: Leonard Roy Frank, ed, “Quotationary” (New York: Random House, 2001) 159.

*3: Frank, 160.