The Ad Man Answers #78

Thursday + Gregory Huffstutter = The Ad Man Answers

Advertising Make-Over #2

This week, the Ad Man continues our Advertising Make-Over series –- open to anyone willing to submit a brief synopsis of their published or unpublished novel.  It’s not too late to enter, with the final name drawn on 3/17.  So if you’d like a change to get in on the final Make-Over, leave your synopsis and link to your homepage in the comments below.

Our latest “winner” is M.K. Hobson, who bills herself as a writer and “necrophilatelist” – which is either the study of dead stamp collectors or someone who clubs baby seals for charity.  In either case, M.K.’s debut novel THE NATIVE STAR will be released by Bantam Spectra in September 2010.  Here’s the skinny:

It’s 1876, and business is rotten for Emily Edwards, town witch of the tiny Sierra Nevada settlement of Lost Pine. With everyone buying patent magicks by mail-order, she’s faced with two equally desperate options. Starve ... or use a love spell to bewitch the town’s richest lumberman into marrying her.

When the love spell goes terribly wrong, Emily is forced to accept the aid of Dreadnought Stanton — a pompous and scholarly Warlock from New York — to set things right. Together, they travel from the seedy underbelly of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast, across the United States by train and biomechanical flying machine, to the highest halls of American magical power, only to find that love spells (and love) are far more complicated and dangerous than either of them could ever have imagined.

M.K. is already several steps ahead of the game with a well-designed, professional-looking author homepage.  For a debut novelist, she does a great job creating content depth with articles, podcasts, blog entries, social media links, and even a press kit.  Goes to show you don’t need to have a dozen hardcovers on the shelf in order to build an engaging website.

M.K. also has one of the most well-crafted bio’s I’ve ever encountered:

By night, I don a cape and mask and fight crime.

Actually, I don’t fight crime. But I do have a secret identity. I’m a writer. I write all the time—on the computer, in paper journals, on the backs of receipts, on the silky unscarred flesh of my many beautiful manslaves. When I’m not writing novels or short fiction, I relieve the almost unbearable pressure of words in my mind by blogging about my existence in minute detail.

By day, I put on the Clark Kent glasses and pretend to be a Creative Consultant. Apparently, I pretend pretty good, because I’ve helped produce award-winning campaigns for a variety of national and international clients. I have also owned a newspaper, driven night-shift taxi, read tarot professionally, and taught conversational English in Japan.

All while fighting crime.

(I’m also an unreliable narrator. I know, it’s maddening. Try walking a mile in my shoes before you judge me. My shiny, red, crime-fighting shoes.)

I live in the first city in the United States incorporated west of the Rockies in a 1916 Craftsman bungalow that I share with my husband, my daughter, and a bright blue fish two exceptionally vicious cats. And a beautiful puppy!

Take note, newbies… this is how you sell yourself.  Those 6 paragraphs crackle with personality, making me want to order her novel just to see if her writing is half as interesting as her bio.  (No surprise M.K. has a background in advertising/brand development.) 

My only small, niggling criticism of her website is that the design is a little flat.  This could be remedied with a few subtle additions.  For example, if every so often, the train on the home page could puff with smoke, which drifts into the shape of a skull.  Or on her bibliography page, ink occasionally runs down the pen, then disappears.  Or on the podcast page, the turntable skips, then poof, becomes a parrot.  From the synopsis of THE NATIVE STAR, the author has re-written the old west with a fantastical bent, so it’d be a nice touch to see the old-timey images scattered throughout M.K.’s website also do something unexpected.

As far as external advertising, M.K.’s biggest challenge will be overcoming the perceived limitations of her chosen genre.  As the author herself puts it, “Historical Fantasy is the Rodney Dangerfield of the fantasy world.  No respect!  Spec-fic pundits — notorious for their love of obsessively detailed categorization — can't even agree on whether it's deserving of being called a subgenre at all.” 

It’s a little like selling Noni juice to a consumer who’s unsure of the value of herbal remedies.  Legitimizing the entire category needs to be part of the message, instead of only relating features and benefits.

In the same “Rodney Dangerfield” commentary, M.K. makes a fine argument defending Historical Fantasy:

Some of the biggest hits of the past half-century have been squarely classifiable as historical fantasy: Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon, for example, which spent four months on the New York Times best seller list, has ranked among the top five trade paperbacks on the monthly Locus bestseller lists for almost four years. Diana Gabaldon's A Breath of Snow and Ashes (sixth book in her hugely popular Outlander series) debuted atop the New York Times best seller list. There's Naomi Novik's Temeraire series — recently optioned by Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson — and if it's critical acclaim you're interested in, how about Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which won both the Hugo and World Fantasy Awards for Best Novel, and was long-listed for the Booker Prize?

Since M.K. is able to clearly articulate the merits of her chosen subgenre, I propose her advertising campaign attacks the issue head-on.  It would be similar to VW’s original Bug campaign, which didn’t shy away from the car’s unique shape and diminutive size, using verbiage previously taboo in auto advertising, like “Lemon” and “Think Small.”

The author and Bantam Publishing could declare August 31, 2010 –- the official release date of THE NATIVE STAR –- “Genre Bending Day.”  This could be celebrated by bumper stickers, mugs, or T-shirts for order on CafePress, with slogans like:

“Bend your Genre.  Bend your Mind.”

Or:  “Go ahead, mix Paranormal with your Romance.”

Or to use a slogan from M.K.’s website: “The old west meets the new weird.”

I also see this campaign accompanied by a low-budget video, documentary style, shot in a support-group meeting room:

Jerry:  “Hi, my name’s Jerry, and I’m…  Bi-curious.”

Entire Group:  “Hi, Jerry!”

Jerry:  “It started with Harry Potter.  I kept thinking to myself… what this book really needs is a cattle drive.  Why can’t I just be satisfied with straight fantasy?  Why does the narrative also have to be grounded in historical fact?”

Man #1:  “Don’t beat yourself up, kid, we’ve all been there.”

Woman #1:  “Ursula Le Guin ruined me!”

Moderator:  “It’s OK, people.  ‘Mists of Avalon’ spent 4 months on the NY Times’ best-seller list, so there’s no shame about being bi-curious about your literary genres.”

Woman #1:  “Tell that to my book club!”

Jerry:  “I just ordered M.K. Hobson’s ‘The Native Star.’  It’s set in the old west, right, but it's got warlocks and love potions…”

This video and “Genre Bending Day” paraphernalia could be sent to sales reps and booksellers to get them fired up for the release.  Additionally, for external consumer advertising, I’d propose online banners designed to reach general readers.  I wouldn’t limit this campaign to solely Historical Fantasy fans, as there weren’t enough hard-core aficionados to keep ‘The Magazine of Speculative and Historical Fiction' alive.

For this banner campaign, I see something that looks like the cryptex from Da Vinci Code.  But instead of letters, when it spins, it mixes and matches titles from different genres.  So one spin could land with:

“It’s like LONESOME DOVE meets LADYHAWKE.” 

Another spin.  “It’s like THE PRINCESS BRIDE meets 3:10 TO YUMA”

Another spin.  “It’s like UNFORGIVEN meets ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN.”

Then the cryptex dissolves to:  “Bend your genre.  Bend your mind.  THE NATIVE STAR.”

Now that’s an advertising campaign worthy of a necrophilatelist… whatever that is exactly.

Gregory Huffstutter has been punching Ad Agency timecards for over a dozen years, working on accounts like McDonald's, KIA Motors, Suzuki Automotive, and the San Diego Padres. His first mystery, KATZ CRADLE is on submission while he's working on the sequel. The first 100 pages of his novel are linked here. For general advertising questions, leave a comment or send e-mail to katz @ gregoryhuffstutter dot com with 'Ask The Ad Man' in the subject line.

Comments

[M.J. Rose]

That's really a great makeover! And a great idea. (Authorbuzz.com could help out spreading the word:)

[M.K. Hobson]

Thank you so much for your feedback, Gregory. What great ideas! I'm already thinking about how best to implement them.

Yours,
M.K.

[Harv Griffin]

Thank you, Mr. Huffstutter, for making it clear to me that I need a Synopsis. I have a 3-page Outline for my new SF novel, but I see it isn't enough. Thanks. Harv Griffin

[Harv Griffin]

Hey, Mr. Huffstutter!

I'm probably too late for your 3/17 drawing. No matter, I'm still a winner: The Ad Man Answers #78 page got me to finally write a synopsis. Thanks to you, I have a new tool in my hunt for a publisher:

Time traveler in trouble, Jack Kronos, is rescued by astronaut Aeromancer and computer hacker Kali, 16,000-years in the future, who think they are midwifing the birth of Goddess Kronos. (Due to terrorism concerns, this future space-based civilization had long since subordinated and then completely eliminated the male sex. Boys. Just can’t trust ’em.)

But Goddess Kronos is a boy! No boy babies have been allowed to be born for thousands of years. One astronaut tries to kill him. Aeromancer takes him to bed.

But while the Queen and the FemorRhoids are arranging for Jack’s public execution, powerful Alien beings have invaded on a pest control mission to kill all life in our Solar System. The fact of Jack’s travel through time and Aeromancer’s love may be huwomanity’s strongest defense.

Thanks again.

Harv Griffin

[gregory huffstutter]

Harv,
You just got it in under the wire. I'll pull final winner from comments and readers who have contacted me directly. Will post last make-over 3/25.