media

What Whitney Houston’s Death Teaches Us About Publishing

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I'm going to confess I'm a bit uncomfortably writing this story.  Whitney Houston's death was a troubling event, and among the love and sorrow I see over her passing are things that disturb me; snarky jokes, exploitation, disrespect for the dead.  So as I write this, if it's not the usual "Steve" please understand.

Also, admittedly, it's a bit personal; she's one of the distinct singers I grew up with.  It's a familiar voice, and it's gone, and even sadder as she had her personal demons to cope with.

Alan Cross notes an interesting phenomena in the wake of her death – fourteen books on her life appeared within seven hours of her death.  Fourteen.

Cross notes this is part of the larger trend of changes in media, and is much like what happened to music.  Those are very true words – publishing is being changed rapidly with technology, much as music was.  I recall how even a near-decade ago the rap scene was getting a lot of indie people with home studios who made a living with a small market – stuff that today comes cheaply or pre-installed.

Publishing of course is something computers have let us do for decades – it was just the publishing of a word processor and a printer.  Now technology is interlinked enough we can make books in what would seem to be an instant to an author of 20 or 30 years ago.

It's so fast that people can shovel out books the same day as an event.  I'm quite sure a lot of these are crap, but for all we know someone put out their near-finished personal work or some hidden gem of dedication.  Yeah, I doubt it, but . . . it's at least possible.

We're now in an age where book publishing and journalism/reporting (and yellow tabloidism) are on the same speed.

Think about that.  Me, I'm still a bit sad and I'm going to end this here.

– Steven Savage

Media and Fan Relationships: Zones Of Creativity

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A lot of us work in or want to produce media, including fiction.  For those of us writing fiction, or planning to film it, or whatever, there may be some concerns about how to deal with fanfic and the like.  Fans are why we're here and how we get paid, and their fanworks help promote our works and draw everyone into a community.  However fanworks can also accidentally "brand" your work, something creators don't always seek or like – as we've had discussed here by our own Rob Barba.

I'm pro-fanwork as long as there's mutual respect and understanding.  I also know some authors fear what happens when people begin "playing in their world," and it's not always irrational (i can immediately think of two series I avoided due to fanfic battles and fanwank that gave me the wrong impression).  For authors and creators who want the best of both worlds, I had an idea.

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Musings on Media Cycles: The Rich And The Distilled

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So, why do so many horror films, well . . . turn out not only kind of bad but are really just pseudo-snuff films?

This question came up on Twitter, and I responded with my theory – that when the killers of the slasher genre became stars, franchises, it meant horror turned into a body count factory.  Once the killer is just there to pile up bodies, yet is a star, there's not much to do.  Perhaps the ultimate distillation of this is the FInal Destination series where people who avoid death die creatively at the hands of a kind of "force of fate."

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