Hello there, good citizen! This blog exists to promote my works but the experts say 'selling your work' (on it's own merit) is the WRONG way to go about it. They suggest that you promote your work on the basis of its 'benefit' to you, the reader.
Um, great advice for 'self-help/how-to' books but how do you accomplish that when you write 'speculative fiction'? I write about things as they might be (often in a technology gone wrong vein.) So what does this do for the reader except to broaden their horizons?
I'll take it one step further because my 'customer base', the number of people capable of thinking 'outside the box' is small and getting smaller with the media's LCD and dumbing down projects long underway.
At a time when 90 percent of the population got their news from printed sources it was estimated that the average IQ was 100. This also occurred at a time when people discussed the issues of the day among one anohter, reaching a kind of 'consensus'. Now that the majority of population gets its information via visual (and not necessarily 'factual') media, that IQ has dropped considerably. Worse, discussion of the issues of the day has virtually disappeared, we have a consensus about nothing.
We complain our kids are poorly socialized when we adults are just as guilty. Either we nod along as the village blow-hard raves incoherently about the latest talking point the media spouts intended to outrage just such personality types (in the old days nobody would pay attention to such whackos because everybody knew they just liked to hear themselves talk...and that they didn't even make sense to themselves by the time their rant was through.)
Which is to opine that people today do a lot less thinking for themselves, something the media knows and takes maximum advantage of.
It is especially obvious in the presidential election cycle is in season, the whoppers get bigger and bigger and the non-issues are draged front and center while the tone deaf media wails in misery about the 'shrinking' middle class while totally ignoring the working class.
Worse, the punditry fails to point this out, making them just as ignorant as the poor fools who 'think' they are part of the much abused 'middle'.
You can fool yourself all you want but if you aren't a degreed professional using that degree to make your living then you're not 'middle class'. Chances are you're working class and, if you're like most of us, you're also part of the largest segment of the working class, the 'working poor'.
Where's my proof? The US census. It provides us with data on the true 'median wage'...which is why most 24/7 Wall Street lists use the far more nebulous 'household wage' in their surveys of all things best and brightest.
Did you know the labor participation rate is lower than it was during WWII (and our working aged population has doubled since then?) How about the fact that the median wage is still hovering in the $25,000 a year rage...and remember, that means half of all workers make more and half MAKE LESS...and $25k is barely enough to keep a roof over your head or wheels under your backside (never mind insuring either one!)
DO you find these facts 'interesting'? Then perhaps you would enjoy reading my works...
Just saying, ya know.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
Um, great advice for 'self-help/how-to' books but how do you accomplish that when you write 'speculative fiction'? I write about things as they might be (often in a technology gone wrong vein.) So what does this do for the reader except to broaden their horizons?
I'll take it one step further because my 'customer base', the number of people capable of thinking 'outside the box' is small and getting smaller with the media's LCD and dumbing down projects long underway.
At a time when 90 percent of the population got their news from printed sources it was estimated that the average IQ was 100. This also occurred at a time when people discussed the issues of the day among one anohter, reaching a kind of 'consensus'. Now that the majority of population gets its information via visual (and not necessarily 'factual') media, that IQ has dropped considerably. Worse, discussion of the issues of the day has virtually disappeared, we have a consensus about nothing.
We complain our kids are poorly socialized when we adults are just as guilty. Either we nod along as the village blow-hard raves incoherently about the latest talking point the media spouts intended to outrage just such personality types (in the old days nobody would pay attention to such whackos because everybody knew they just liked to hear themselves talk...and that they didn't even make sense to themselves by the time their rant was through.)
Which is to opine that people today do a lot less thinking for themselves, something the media knows and takes maximum advantage of.
It is especially obvious in the presidential election cycle is in season, the whoppers get bigger and bigger and the non-issues are draged front and center while the tone deaf media wails in misery about the 'shrinking' middle class while totally ignoring the working class.
Worse, the punditry fails to point this out, making them just as ignorant as the poor fools who 'think' they are part of the much abused 'middle'.
You can fool yourself all you want but if you aren't a degreed professional using that degree to make your living then you're not 'middle class'. Chances are you're working class and, if you're like most of us, you're also part of the largest segment of the working class, the 'working poor'.
Where's my proof? The US census. It provides us with data on the true 'median wage'...which is why most 24/7 Wall Street lists use the far more nebulous 'household wage' in their surveys of all things best and brightest.
Did you know the labor participation rate is lower than it was during WWII (and our working aged population has doubled since then?) How about the fact that the median wage is still hovering in the $25,000 a year rage...and remember, that means half of all workers make more and half MAKE LESS...and $25k is barely enough to keep a roof over your head or wheels under your backside (never mind insuring either one!)
DO you find these facts 'interesting'? Then perhaps you would enjoy reading my works...
Just saying, ya know.
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
