Advice – Page 69 – Steven Savage

How We Might Turn Unoriginality To Our Advantage

November 30, 2012 by Steven Savage

Nearly two years ago I noted that every other book cover I saw looked like Twilight and wondered about an originality/unoriginality arms race.

Reporting from the front lines in pop culture, I’d like to report that now a lot of book covers look like “50 Shades of Gray,” so I think unoriginality is winning.

When you think about it, there is doubtlessly a lot of 50-Shades derived books out there. 50 Shades is hot and hip right now, so there’s going to be attempts to jump into the market. Sure all the covers look alike, but some of this is probably selling anyway. Even though I am thrilled to see fanfic become fic , the story itself disturbs me.

Kind of makes me wonder how many stories wouldn’t be noticed, got made just for this, or were revived to take advantage of the new 50 Shades related craze.

So this got me thinking for all my writing and media friends.

We know that there’s plenty of problems with media originality. It gets talked about a lot here at Fan To Pro. Well, ranted about, as we do since many of us are authors.

We know that media goes in cycles, ones that are often big, obvious, and kind of blatant. Twilight created one, 50 Shades another, but we know this goes back to the days of Star Wars and all it’s obvious ripoffs.

So instead of giving up on your great idea, or avoiding trends, why not embrace it and see what works you have work with current trends?

Any good author or artist has all sorts of ideas, potential projects, half-finished works, and more. You could try and time their release or development of one of your works to jump on the existing trends.

Yes, there’s the danger of looking derivative, or unoriginal, or getting ignored. But if you’re going to go with some of the big publishers, you’re facing enough challenges as it is. Being seen as unoriginal by some, getting a smaller part of a larger market share, etc. aren’t the worst risks you can face.

So, if we’re gonna be in this cycle of unoriginality for awhile, maybe we media procures can take advantage of it.

Worse things could happen. If nothing else maybe the book covers will all look the same differently . . .

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach. He blogs on careers at http://www.fantopro.com/, nerd and geek culture at http://www.nerdcaliber.com/, and does a site of creative tools at http://www.seventhsanctum.com/. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/.

Economic Common Sense Goes Derp

November 28, 2012 by Steven Savage

You know the story. We just don’t train people in manufacturing, and thus we’d have more people employed, but there’s just that skills gap, right?

Wrong. Turns out the problem is that manufacturing has changed, and employers paying the properly-educated people lousy wages means they’re not interested. The skills gap is made up – but in danger of becoming a real skills gap.

Or maybe that war stimulates the economy – which is usually based on the experience of World War II, which wasn’t what we thought and really doesn’t apply to today.

We can go through more of course. Remember when home investment was a great and unbeatable idea? That was one ruined economy ago. We could talk about the idea that certain degrees are always employable, or how MySpace was unbeatable, or . . . you get the idea.

It doesn’t take much work to dredge up economic myths. Just look at how the Freakonomics guys became famous with one simple book. Really I need to find a way to make money by telling people they’re full of it. Maybe it can be like the Monty Python argument sketch.

I treasure these stories, in fact I seek them out, because a lot of economic common sense is just plain wrong. A lot of us get taught many things are too good to be true, but it seems that when we dress it up with economic language, we somehow will believe anything.

We have to remember how much crap we believe, economically. A few things I’ve found help me stay aware of real economic issues:

You Need To be Informed: Follow economic news. Yes I harped on this for years, but trust me. I usually follow:

You Need To Be Hands On: Do as much of your own budget and financial planning as possible (but hire or ask for help when you need to). That visceral understanding is very helpful.

Economics Is A Religion: Like it or not a lot of people deal with economics as areas of unquestioning faith and overarching universal assumptions – and they’re often full of it. Don’t trust someone who doesn’t show sufficient explanation or skepticism.

Economics Has Plenty of Conmen: Merely look at Jim Cramer and why John Stewart took him apart. Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t have some credibility, puts on a crazy show, or sells out. There is money in selling people B.S.

It May Change: Much as Nate Silver’s poll analyses brought attention to how many pundits are full of it, I’m hoping the trend towards reality-intensive news and analysis continues. I’m not gonna hold my breath, but still, it’s promising.

We all believe plenty of economic myths because a lot of it is ideology, it is hope, it is information, and it is wrapped around a damned difficult science. But for the sake of our careers, we can try and disarm it.

Besides we’re geeks. We’re good at information and thinking out of the box.

– Steven Savage

Fan To Pro Promotion: New Media Rights

November 23, 2012 by Steven Savage

Here at Fan To Pro we want to help YOU become more aware of other projects out there for progeeks like yourself. Well just as we were discussing how to do this, New Media Rights fell into our lap. It’s legal assistance for gamers in convenient video form, and they’ve got a fundraiser campaign! Check it out below!