Quick guide: Marketing

RobertBMarks · Aug '22

If this particular guide had a subtitle, I think it would be "How not to commit public relations seppuku." Unfortunately, this is something I am seeing again and again with some pretty large companies who used to know much better. It's so bad, in fact, that if it were any other decade, heads would be rolling for the many mistakes being made on properties like Star Wars, The Rings of Power, etc.

EDIT: It has been brought to my attention that the poisoning of the well with diversity marketing that I discuss here is not actually present on Tapas itself. This is a very good thing, and I was very happy to learn it. So, please keep in mind that when I talk about the pitfalls of diversity marketing here, I am referring to marketing to the general public.

So, what I want to do is talk about how one should actually present one's work to the public. And it begins by identifying the key selling point of your novel - the "hook" that will draw the reader into your story.

The Key Selling Point

There is something special about your novel, something that sets your work apart, or, even if it doesn't, is at least well enough executed to make the reader want to start reading and continue reading. The most important part of presenting it to the public is figuring out what this selling point is. This is the point you will emphasize over all others when you talk about your book on forums, write the blurb, etc.

Here, genre is a tremendous help - it points you to where you should be looking. So, if your work is a romance, then the key selling point will be the love story or something associated with it; if it is a fantasy, your key selling point will be something relating to the adventure; if it is a science fiction novel, you will be looking at either the adventure or the concept being explored, and so on.

Now that you know where to look, you have to pin down the key selling point. In the case of a romance, you can't just say that it's a love story, because that IS the definition of a romance. However, if it is a romance of forbidden love at a time of war or revolution, now you've got something to interest the reader. In a science fiction story, your key selling point isn't going to the presence of spaceships (it's science fiction - spaceships come with the territory), but a desperate escape from the gravitational pull of a black hole before time dilation kills everybody back home who the protagonist loves is a great hook for the reader.

Diversity is not a key selling point. I will discuss the problems with marketing based on it below, but for the time being just know that if the first thing that comes to mind is the diversity of your characters, you need to think harder.

Secondary Selling Points

With the key selling point you have hooked your reader, but you still have to draw them in. This is where the secondary selling points come in - these are what you present along with, but with less emphasis than, the key selling point. Now we are moving beyond the conceptual into things like the characters and the worldbuilding.

For characters, consider what makes them, well, them. What do they want? What challenges will they face? Is your protagonist a hard boiled detective who lost their faith long ago? Are they a former mobster looking for a new life? Are they running away from their secrets? Are they looking for love and enjoying life to its fullest?

(And here we have to talk about one of the problems of marketing based on diversity. It's very tempting to try to score points by talking about the diversity of your characters - the colour of their skin, their sexuality, etc.. But this is the most shallow aspect of your characters that exists, and it tells the potential reader next to nothing about them. "Black" is not a character - a black kid from the inner city trying to rescue his brother from a street gang IS. "Transgender" is not a character - a transgender woman struggling with their identity in the wake of a divorce IS. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't tell the potential reader that a character is black, gay, trans, etc. - it means that you have to tell them the rest as well. You need to sell them on the whole character, not just their most shallow attribute.)

For worldbuilding, consider what makes your story world special. Is it a world of realpolitik, or perhaps a world of magical wonder? Is it a world where nobody is as they seem, or a modern look at the classic fantasy tropes. A good way to identify this is to just think about a hypothetical conversation where you are telling somebody about your story's world. What is the first thing that you'd want to tell them? Most of the time, this will be your key worldbuilding selling point.

Putting it Together

You now have your primary and secondary selling points identified. What comes next is figuring out how to put it together (most often in the form of a blurb, telling people about it in a forum, etc.).

A blurb is often a bit counter-intuitive in that you will usually want to put your primary selling points AFTER your secondary selling points. You are using your characters and worldbuilding as a lead-in to telling the reader why they should REALLY be checking out your book (so, for example, the key selling point of Re:Apotheosis is a war between fictional characters in the real world - this is the second paragraph of the blurb). This is not universal, of course, but it does frequently gain best results.

When you are talking about your book on a forum or on social media, you will generally be leading with your key selling point, or a variation on it, and then following it with your secondary selling points. Think of it this way: if you were in a conversation and you were telling somebody about your book, you would start by saying "I wrote a book about [KEY SELLING POINT]," and then go on to talk about the details.

Avoiding Seppuku

Remember to tell the potential reader what your book is about. A great example of how not to do this is the marketing for a Netflix series called First Kill. This was a show about vampires and detailed vampire politics, during which the two protagonists, a vampire and a vampire hunter, fall in love. Netflix decided that the most important thing to tell everybody about was that the two protagonists were female and that it was a lesbian love story. They focused on this to such an extent that they basically forgot to tell anybody that vampires were involved. As a result, the show failed to gain an audience.
Avoid being toxic with your readers. Never, EVER attack your readers or potential readers. Regardless of the separation between author and work, readers will judge your book based on your actions. If they look you up and see that you're mainly known on social media for calling people who don't like your work racists, they'll write you (and your book) off regardless of whether you were right or wrong. Now, it should be said that everybody makes mistakes (hell, I've made a mistake of this nature on these very forums with somebody who got under my skin) - if you do make a mistake of this nature, take responsibility for it and move on.
Never lead with emphasizing diversity. The problem with diversity marketing here is three-fold: First, it doesn't set your book apart - almost everybody has diverse casts of characters these days...so you need to focus on what everybody else DOESN'T have. Second, the toxicity of those who committed PR seppuku while calling fans of long-standing properties racist has poisoned the well - for most readers, diversity marketing is now associated with that toxicity, and leading with statements about the diversity of your characters associates you and your work with that toxicity. And, third, diversity in and of itself appeals to a woke/activist audience, but this is very small in comparison to the audience who likes, for example, adventure stories - so, by focusing on diversity first, you're appealing to a small group of potential readers while associating yourself and your book with toxicity to everybody else...it's a no-win scenario.

(Note: it should be stated that point #2 does NOT apply to somebody taking offense on social media. The problem with social media in the here and now is that many of the forms and methods of emotional and psychological abuse have been normalized on it. More often than not, apologizing to somebody who has taken offense to something in your story on social media does little more than allow them to get their hooks into you and start acting abusive towards you. You are far better off ignoring them and not engaging at all. You may take my word for it - I am a mental abuse survivor, and I've been on the receiving end of many of these things from those who abused me.)

To sum up: identify your key and secondary selling points, and concentrate on them. Do this, and you will increase your odds of finding the audience your book needs.

DokiDokiTsuna · Aug '22

...Ngl, and I really don't mean any offense by this, but all this railing against 'diversity' is starting to feel like...I mean it's kinda giving off "damn, who hurt you" vibes. ^^;
If this were a topic titled "The Problem with Diversity Marketing" it might be less uncomfortable to read, y'know, knowing that's the focus. And if you'd really like to talk in-depth about that, maybe you should make one. Because as it is, my mental dogwhistle alarms are going off and it's hard to ignore them...

Anyway (to get back on topic), I actually remember hearing about the demise of First Kill on Twitter, and although I wouldn't be interested in something like that anyway, I think another failure its marketing team might have made was not seeking out the kind of audience that would actually appreciate it.

Because I know for a fact that Tumblr users would have gone WILD for a show like that, even if it wasn't that good. People still talk about Supernatural over there, after all...on the other hand, I never saw even one mention of First Kill anywhere on the site. '_' So, either it was really, catastrophically, immensely bad-- which I doubt-- or they just missed their target audience completely.

You don't market 'lesbian vampires' to mainstream people; in my experience they read things like that as 'kink' and move on (or just watch without telling anyone...). You market to younger adults who are more open to urban fantasy, the teens in fandom who are really vocal and shameless about their niche interests, and will make sure everyone who inhabits that niche hears about it and tells their friends.
Niche audiences can be powerful, loyal, and profitable if you have the guts to seek them out (and conversely, stick by them if they happen to find you on their own).

...Although, now that media empires have gotten so big that finding an audience doesn't seem to be a priority anymore, this kind of discussion feels a little like spitting in the wind. ^^; And I think it might explain this:

I think heads don't roll anymore because no one actually cares. ^^; As we learned with the Batwoman movie fiasco, apparently making a movie and not even releasing it can bring in more profit than a potential lukewarm reception.

So I wouldn't be surprised to learn that there's corporate machinery in the works that incentivizes just...producing the content. Regardless of whether anyone watches it, or if anyone even wants to watch it, or if it's even worth watching.
I think we might be in an age where acquiring and retaining valuable IPs (without considering or caring about what made them valuable...) is held above all else, and in such an environment marketing is going to get a lot more confusing...if anyone else out there is reading this, it may be more worth your while to pattern your marketing strategies after smaller producers who are still in touch with reality. ^^;

darthmongoose · Aug '22

You're really insistent that selling based on offering diversity doesn't pay, but I'm not entirely sure the evidence is there to back you up on this one. I know you're a published writer out there in the print world, but here on Tapas, you have less than 50 subs in two and a half months of updating, in spite of being a professional-level writer, which is... I'm sorry, but honestly, that's pretty poor performance for somebody of your level, and I'm not sure you're in a place to advise people about marketing, even if your advice on writing craft is very good. Have you considered that a lot of webnovel and webcomic readers are from audiences print under-serves and that they're hungry for content about characters they can relate to? 'Cause I got a massive boost in readership by making it clear that my work contains queer characters, and the audience went wild when it was revealed a major character in my series is autistic.

Also, I have to ask... did you actually watch First Kill? It was one of the highest trending shows on Netflix, so clearly the marketing worked!... it was simply not a good show. It was sloppily storyboarded and edited, with poor sound mixing, a muddled sense of who it was focusing on or what the tone was meant to be. It was so amateurish, that as somebody who works in media, I was shocked it even got onto Netflix (I wouldn't have greenlit it, personally, without significant development work). Pitching it to a general audience without the LGBTQ+ angle would not have saved it. Honestly, I watched it as a lesbian who loved Buffy and Carmilla back in the day specifically because of the lesbian angle, and it didn't save the show for me, because unlike Buffy and Carmilla, it simply wasn't very good. It managed to be one of the top trending shows on Netflix while not even being a well-written or well-made show and having a really underbaked premise and you think it failed because of the marketing? Really?

Did marketing based on "wokeness" ruin Ms Marvel's chances? No, clearly not; that comic was hugely successful, and now it has a TV series that's been a big hit; especially among South Asian audiences who, hey, turns out were really excited to see a muslim desi girl as a superhero and the live action series actually focuses more on the stuff about her heritage and place in the muslim community than the original comic (which was made by a white muslim convert) did. I watched Ms Marvel with my Pakistani partner who was raised Muslim, and they loved it! What about Black Panther? No, that also did great, especially with black audiences!

Marketing a comic based on representing under-represented groups can work really well! It worked great for me! There's an audience out there who are hungry for good representation, and you can 100% make a living off making "It's like this popular thing, but the main characters are gay/black/autistic/insert other under-represented group here", so long as the quality of your work is high and your representation of marginalised people is sensitive, nuanced and feels authentic and relatable. The white cishet neurotypicals have million works in print media already; everyone else comes to webnovels and webcomics because they're where you can get the stuff publishers say "doesn't sell" (but it does).

The advice you're giving might well be good for print media, but honestly, this is the first one of your Quick Guides I'd actively flag as bad advice for success on Tapas. If somebody's looking for novels and comics on Tapas, a lot of the time, they're looking for something that popular published media isn't providing them. That could be formats or genres that aren't popular in their culture, like isekai, but it could also be representation of groups print media overlooks. There's really only so many times I can read and re-read Gideon the Ninth, Fingersmith, Lumberjanes etc. before I want more good stories about Lesbians. I want good stories about queer people, and Tapas is there for me with great titles like Soulmate, Magical Boy and Heartstopper. I mean, seriously, you're talking here about a platform where mlm romance got so popular a bunch of creators of cishet romance complained, and Tapas had to make an entire new genre category on the site and app called "BL" to put the mlm Romance, because it was so much more popular than the heterosexual romance that it was totally dominating the "Romance" genre.

DokiDokiTsuna · Aug '22

Shoot, I completely forgot that was one of the points I wanted to make! >_<

Anyway, 100% agree: diversity marketing DOES work, actually; only the key is (a) making sure you actually have something of value for the target demographic to see, and (b) using your advertising to highlight it specifically, so they know you're sincere.

With Ms. Marvel in particular, I was actually a little stunned with how much they did with Kamala's heritage. Whether you think the show was well-written or not, you can't deny that it's a far cry from the "My immigrant family is weird and my native culture is weird and I just want to be NORMAL" that I grew up seeing. ^^;

Plus, including topics specific to that demographic's worldview can in itself become a marketing tactic, just by virtue of being unfamiliar to the 'mainstream' viewers. When Twitter was blowing up about the Partition (which I didn't learn about in school either) I bet a lot of people who would not otherwise have heard of Ms. Marvel gave it a look that day.

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

Gotta say it's a complement and it can aid to the story, but it's not the WHOLE hook of the story.
Some people dig representation, but they want it to be INTERESTING instead of being used as a cheap marketing gimmick.

darthmongoose · Aug '22

Yeah, agree. I think there's this tendency for people to express a sentiment like:

"Diversity marketing doesn't work any more 'cause look at how Disney vaguely hinted that LeFeu is gay by having him dance with a man at one point in that live action Beauty and the Beast movie! EVERY film has gay characters now so it's not a big deal!"

While missing that like... a weak token gesture in one movie (that can be easily removed so it can be sold to countries that don't like it) really isn't the same as experiencing well-made media where somebody like you is the hero and it's told in a way that feels real, authentic and respectful.

Sure, we have a few decent series and movies now about queer characters, but it's still nothing compared to the absolute feast of content a cishet audience has in every genre. I devoured Gideon the Ninth because I was so excited to read something that's a dark Fantasy with rich worldbuilding like Gormenghast or Warhammer 40k... but about queer women. It was the first and only time I'd ever seen that! I imagine it's the same for PoC too. It's not that a South Asian can't enjoy Iron Man (my partner loves Iron Man) it's just that I saw their face light up at that bit in Moon Night where the Egyptian Lady got to be an awesome superhero, and whenever the south asian cultural stuff came up in Ms Marvel. Somebody they could relate to got to be a superhero, and it was so much bigger than like... some poorly researched or stereotyped side character being in the background for a few frames.

There are millions of people out there who yeah, might have seen one comic in one genre starring somebody like them, but haven't seen... just literally every other genre of that and might like to, and millions more who might actually enjoy a glimpse into another culture or at least wouldn't be put off by it. Don't get scared to promote to the people who'd be most excited for a rare work catering to them just because cishet white media is so over-saturated that works can only be marketed based on things like brand or author name recognition, elevator pitch, or publisher endorsement and creators of that stuff want to force those rules on everyone else 'cause they think it's unfair or whatever. In the end, if you're building an audience, you're building an audience; there's no wrong way to do it.

RobertBMarks · Aug '22

That's not really what I'm saying, though - I'm saying that selling ONLY based on offering diversity doesn't get best results. You are correct that I tend to think in terms of larger markets, and I am a traditionalist, it's true. But...if you actually take a close look at what you're doing, I think you're going to find that you're following what I outlined here, believe it or not.

Well, context is important. I've been a non-fiction writer for most of my career due to my fiction career being destroyed by the Lord of the Rings glut back around 2002. I have next to no social media presence to work with (I'm a very private person, and having to change my cell phone number due to my abuser harassing me on it while forgetting to update the double-factor authentication has permanently locked me out of any Facebook presence thanks to Facebook being, well, Facebook), and my novel concept is incredibly niche. And yet...my numbers are about average for a novel here despite these problems. So, you may see underperformance in comparison to a webcomic with a less niche concept, but I'm watching my fiction readership rebuild for the first time in 20 years, and I'm pretty damned stoked about that.

Now, onto this:

I don't doubt that it helped you find that audience. Here's the thing, though...this is your blurb:

Rekki has always dreamed of being a magical knight and giving demons the smackdown, but when Excalibur is drawn and this simple childhood wish comes true, her adult life as a celebrated monster-slaying hero throws her into a complex world of politics that tears a rift between her and her best friend.

Errant is a colourful action comic about power, responsibility, justice, love and friendship with LGBTQIA+ themes, big magical monster fights and lots of relationship drama.

So, here's the thing: you've done everything on my list. You've identified your primary selling point ("her adult life as a celebrated monster-slaying hero throws her into a complex world of politics that tears a rift between her and her best friend."), you've told us who the protagonist is ("Rekki has always dreamed of being a magical knight and giving demons the smackdown, but when Excalibur is drawn and this simple childhood wish comes true"), and your secondary selling points are clear. You outline your main themes ("Errant is a colourful action comic about power, responsibility, justice, love and friendship"), and all of this is done BEFORE you ever mention diversity issues. The reader thus knows that there's a great story to be had here, and some diverse characters on top of that.

I identified three forms of PR seppuku: Forgetting to tell the reader what the book is about, being toxic, and leading with diversity issues, and you avoided every single one. Furthermore, I said that to sell a character from a marginalized group, you have to sell the whole character, and not just their skin colour, sexuality, etc., and you do that perfectly for Rekki.

(Compare this to the recent PR for The Rings of Power, where one of the actors who plays a black elf was mainly just talking about the fact that his character was black...and we learn NOTHING else about the character: https://ew.com/tv/the-lord-of-the-rings-the-rings-of-power-cover-story/?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=entertainmentweekly_ew%20&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_content=%20link&utm_term=202208021)

So, you might take issue with how I've worded this, and that's fine. There's plenty of people who have a knee jerk reaction to a character of colour showing up that amounts to "Black person! WOKENESS!", and they drive me crazy too - I'm a centrist...I take issues with both sides of the political spectrum. I can understand why you might be concerned. However, I do have to point out that the concepts I'm outlining are solid...and you're using them to succeed.

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

I agree that dismissing all the plot points and focussing almost exclusively on diversity in the marketing undersells the premise. People will notice the lesbians, but if they only mentions their lesbianism and dismissing other aspects that can make their romance interesting (or the vampire politics), they will be underselling their product.

Guilt tripping folks into liking one's work will not attract readers. And while some may feel the need of calling out users online for their behavior, this can be a double edged weapon, specially if the author is heavily involved in debating controversial topics.

RobertBMarks:

Never lead with emphasizing diversity. The problem with diversity marketing here is three-fold: First, it doesn't set your book apart - almost everybody has diverse casts of characters these days...so you need to focus on what everybody else DOESN'T have. Second, the toxicity of those who committed PR seppuku while calling fans of long-standing properties racist has poisoned the well - for most readers, diversity marketing is now associated with that toxicity, and leading with statements about the diversity of your characters associates you and your work with that toxicity. And, third, diversity in and of itself appeals to a woke/activist audience, but this is very small in comparison to the audience who likes, for example, adventure stories - so, by focusing on diversity first, you're appealing to a small group of potential readers while associating yourself and your book with toxicity to everybody else...it's a no-win scenario.

reminds me of high guardian spice's advertising.......The ultimate PR suicide move.

They could have made a bigger emphasis on the cast, the world, the plot, anything, but the studio made it all about themselves.

Diversity is not a bad thing, and can even help, but it can't be one's ONLY selling point.

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

Ms. Marvel also have other elements like a likeable cast and a story about a superhero with comming of age elements. Learning more about Kamala's culture is cool, but that is not the ONLY selling point.

The problem in marketing happens when diversity is used as a pandering gimmick and people forget to communicate what their story is about.

NickRowler · Aug '22

I like diversity in stories. I don't think I am a woke person but then again what does the term even mean? I feel like people call everything woke nowadays.

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

i think it comes to those who use diversity as a crutch and dismissing other characterization, marketing and sttorytelling elements.

Diversity is like salt in a dish. It makes the food tastier, but people will not eat a dish that is only salt.

Just like that, diversity can make a story better, but if the story is solid it will not be ALL there is to the story.

NickRowler · Aug '22

When I looked up the definition of woke, it was a post-Civil Rights movement term used among Black people to tell each other to stay aware of social issues. I guess with the mindset that even though the Civil Rights movement is over, that doesn't mean racism is gone.

OK, so why are people calling Baymax woke???

It just feels like a word that had important meaning which people turned into a political buzzword for anything they don't like.

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

yeah, woke is often used as a buzzword to dismiss content or people as virtue signalers/folks who wanna play savior, just like sometimes diversity is used as one to try to sell stuff.....

completely confused about this too.

RobertBMarks · Aug '22

Sadly, I am an abuse survivor, so there is a pretty heartbreaking answer to the "damn, who hurt you" thing (and no, I'm not going to go into any further details). It's not directly related to this. It does, however, keep me off of a lot of social media, because the normalization of abusiveness makes things like Twitter REALLY bad places for somebody like me to be, and it makes me pretty aware of when somebody in a PR department starts gaslighting the public (because I've had my share of gaslighting inflicted on me).

The thing is that you're not wrong - diversity has become something that causes a knee-jerk reaction on both sides of the aisle. But, I don't think it's enough to just say "here's the problem with how it is being done," even though you are right that I wrote this quick guide because I saw one more piece of PR seppuku and I had just had enough - you have to say how to do it right. You have to walk people through how to think out their selling points and prioritize them. There are people here telling stories about amazing, diverse characters, and the last thing they need is to be dismissed as woke trash when they try to bring their work to the greater public (and make no mistake, I hope they will bring their work to the greater public some day).

(Hell, I'm a Russian Jew - I'm from a marginalized group, one that even the woke hate, and I can count on one hand the number of Biblical epics I've seen about the Old Testament that felt like they could have come from my religion - Noah and Gods and Kings...that's all that comes to mind. Everybody else Christianizes God. So, I know what it's like to see people supposedly represent you and get it wrong.)

The subject can't be talked about unless somebody...well...TALKS about it. And yeah, there are people who are going to have knee-jerk reactions, and who can blame them? You've got one side calling out anybody who objects as a racist, and the other calling out anybody who isn't a white heterosexual character as woke. There's no winning.

I stand by everything I wrote in this - and I will clarify, novellists, please DO talk about your diverse characters! But don't reduce them in your marketing to their skin colour or sexuality - they're so much more than that, and the full tapestry of who they are is what readers will fall in love with and want to see. DO talk about the diversity of your cast and your themes, but don't forget that they are part of a larger picture, and not even the most important part. Sell ALL the important aspects of your work, not just a tiny sliver.

I'm pretty sure they didn't make any money off that - they booked at least a $100 million loss from what I understand. That said, there's actually a really interesting video about why the PR has become this bad by a former network executive. The short version is that new university graduates cost a lot less than experienced professionals with years of proven experience, and a bunch of places like Amazon and Disney started hiring people right out of university to do PR who didn't really know what they were doing. The video is right here:

Why so Woke? Amazon's Rings of Power.

RobertBMarks · Aug '22

From what I've been able to gather, the road to where we are now with the word has a few more steps. I can't claim complete accuracy with this timeline - it's just based on what I've observed as a Canadian looking at the American political and pop culture scene from the outside.

It was co-opted at one point by the activist left and for a while came to refer to anybody who was ware of social issues, rather than just those in a particular group (such as the African-American community). The meaning was still fairly benign at that point. But, there were two moments that seemed to really radicalize the two sides of the political aisle, and those were the election of Barrack Obama for the American right, and the election of Donald Trump for the American left.

I think it would be wrong to depict these as inciting incidents. The real inciting incident, as far as I can tell, was the 2008 Financial Crisis. What seemed to happen after that was that the discontent with the system manifested in a radicalization on the right (mainly the Tea Party) along with pushback forcing the other side farther left, and then the election of Donald Trump just pushed the left the rest of the way. And, by the time Trump was elected, this had started manifesting in a full blown culture war. I've spent a lot of my career covering pop culture, and there was a distinct increase in hostility after 2008.

(And even Donald Trump really seemed to me to be more of a molotov cocktail thrown at Washington than an actual serious attempt to elect a workable president. Watching the Republican primaries was FASCINATING - the Republicans did NOT want that man as their candidate, and I remember a couple of articles about the RNC considering changing their primaries rules so that Trump wouldn't win. This was a massive populist "F--- you!" sent to the people in power.)

So, there has been this entrenchment of the two sides that I've seen over the last 14 years, and the way this has manifested on the activist left (and I am using this term to differentiate it from the rest of the left) has been this tendency towards championing things like diversity in a way that is reductionist to the point of absurdity (all black people = victims, all white people = oppressors, etc.) frequently not associated with any actual concrete action, and attempting to silence anybody who dissents (which is now known as cancel culture). The word "woke" has come to be associated with this.

(The far right is pretty nuts too, just in case anybody is worried that I'm picking sides, but the question is the development of the word "woke" into the negative connotations that it has right now, which means talking about what happened on the far left.)

Speaking personally, I gave up on serious pop culture commentary a couple of years ago because of the toxicity. I'd been involved in it to some degree or another since 2000, when I wrote one of the first online video games issues columns in the English language. There was a time when a female Counterstrike player came out and talked about her experience with sexism in the online community, and the general reaction from the community could be summarized as "I had no idea - thank you for sharing this!" That is unimaginable today. I don't actually know if a true marketplace of ideas in the discourse is possible anymore - nobody seems to want to build bridges. Back during the "Puppy wars" I saw members of the supposedly morally upright science fiction community making unironic voter suppression comments that would have been on the wrong side of the civil rights struggle - it was horrifying.

The thing is that OUTSIDE of the discourse, most of the actual population are not members of the far left or far right - they're moderates. One can only hope that one day they regain their voice, but there's a lot of fear out there of cancellation, which I think is one of the reasons this has gone on as long and gotten as bad as it has.

So, sorry to be a downer, but that's what I saw looking in from Canada as a centrist.

NickRowler · Aug '22

Don't know why you are ranting about American politics, I'm not a Republican or a Democrat or anything. Not sure why telling people who like diversity in media or lesbian vampire shows that they are "too woke" has anything to do with that stuff.

If I wrote a story about a trans person to be read by other transpeople and allies, would that make me woke?

DiegoPalacios · Aug '22

Here you are hitting an interesting point......audience.

Different stories have different targets in mind, what appeals to a certain group may alienate others. And while some audiences have common interests with other niches, that's not always the case.

Seeking an audience with whom your story can resonate is often a solid strategy that can lead to a profitable and loyal following when it's done in a genuine manner. (and if the niche is big enough to pay the bills)

Here the key word is being genuine, not like Disney's clumsy half assed attempts of the thousands "first gay X"

IndigoShirtProd · Aug '22

I wanted to ask this earlier after reading through this thread, but decided against it thinking it wasn't a fair question. I have to ask, in this general advice thread about marking, why did you specifically bring up using inclusivity and diversity as a way to market. It just seems like an, to be fair, not entirely unrelated by marginally removed, opinion tacked on to "uncontroversial" advice. Why not just talk about how to market media in one thread and then discuss your issues with diversity marketing in a different thread? It just kind of distracts from what the supposed point of the thread was. I wanted to read some advice about marketing, not have to get into the geopolitical aspects of why I've mentioned the race of a character when I talk about on social media, but that's how I felt walking into this thread.

RobertBMarks · Aug '22

Well, you wanted to know why the word changed into something with negative connotations - that's the road I saw, and it went through American politics and the culture wars they caused. I physically can't chart that path without talking about them. My view was from the outside looking in - somebody from the United States might have a different view.

Damned if I know without actually reading the story.

If it was a story in which the protagonist is nothing more than a caricature whose main point of characterization is their sexuality, and every single other character is a caricature whose characterization is based solely on their skin colour or sexuality, with next to no exploration of their lives or the complexities of the issues they face, then I would say that falls under the negative connotation of "woke" that right now exists (and, I imagine the people you were writing it for wouldn't enjoy it much either - something I've noticed about the works that meet that negative connotation is that the only people they please are the far left activists).

And if it's not that, I don't see how it could meet the definition of the negative connotation of "woke".

But that's just me and what I've been able to ferret out about it. I've seen a number of characters and stories that I wouldn't define as "negative connotation of woke" in a hundred years condemned for being just that.

NickRowler · Aug '22

Why would you (someone who is not trans) need to be the one who decides if my story that I wrote as a transperson about a transperson for transpeople is OK by your standards to be classified not by a negative term?

Same goes for media made by black people or anyone outside your identity. It's such a fucked up way to look at media. That is why all this woke labeling makes no sense to me.

2	https://tapas.io/series/ReApotheosis/info
1	Inside The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power \| EW.com ew.com
1	Interest In Superhero Movies Drops, Poll Finds—Worrisome Trend For Disney Amid Marvel... forbes.com
0	‘Craig of the Creek’: Kids Gone Wild! animationmagazine.net
0	Why ‘Eternals’ underperformed—and what it means for Marvel fastcompany.com

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