Hobbies, Fiction, Marketing, and Chucky #IWSG

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One last bit of Halloween humor, from "SEED OF CHUCKY," where murder is a hobby.

Because I don't know how best to answer this anymore. I've had several other creative pursuits over the years, but I mostly just watch tv and movies with my husband now. I don't do most of the other activities I enjoyed when my body functioned better. Sorry. I barely give a damn.

I do go on useless rants on social media from time to time. Since this one is about books, I'll share it in this post.

 

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/CR7NAfFACnY3Rzgy/

🙋‍♀️ Hi, excuse me... I'd like to add to the question, please.

We have NA, YA, teen, middle-grade, ... seriously, the first 20 years of life all have their own little subgroups. 

Where's elder fiction?

And no, Captain Sarcasm (who always appers when I ask this), I do NOT just mean "large print." 

I mean novels with protagonists over age 65. 

And no, I also don't mean the history or political fiction sections, even in the years when nearly all of Congress and higher were people over age 65. 

( 🤔 One would really think life quality would be better for seniors, especially when they were the most represented group in the highest US Federal Government... but no, shockingly the representation didn't actually improve the situations.) 

If there's a story with a detective🕵

- mystery subgenre

- if that's a woman 🕵‍♀️, now it's "chick lit mystery"

- if it's a 17yo teen girl, now it's "YA chick lit mystery" 

- 🧛‍♀️ give her fangs, now it's "YA fantasy chick lit mystery" 

- she falls in love with 🧝‍♂️ an elf, now it's "YA paranormal romance"

(And all romance is automatically for women, even when it's 👨‍❤️‍👨 guys... 🤔🤔🤔🫣🤨🤨😶‍🌫️)

Seriously, bookstores like Barnes & Noble would take a main character and break categories down to the smallest niche. And Amazon is even worse, if you go to the site on a computer and scroll down to look. 

BUT

Over age 21 is adult. And that's it. 

As if a main character over a certain age couldn't have additional internal struggles? Or extra life experience and wisdom. 

Reimagine, for a moment, Twilight but Bella was Betty White. 

"Edward, you're too young for me."

"We were born nearly the same year. Actually, you're still older than I am."

"Yeah, but I mastered makeup years ago, so I know how to conceal reflective, sparkling skin. Honey, I can't commit to someone who hasn't figured out how to apply foundation. You've gone to high school and college over and over, and not once gotten makeup tips? Never took a cosmology class? Hon, you're an idiot." 

Ohhh... but there's no market for THAT book. Because we don't have a space for fiction with elder main characters. 

Wait... we do on tv. 🕵‍♀️ "Murder, She Wrote" had an inadvertent female detective elder, and look how well that show did. And elder male detective shows? Also had tv spots.

But as books? 

🕸*tumbleweeds*🕸

Okay, they probably exist.

And Goodreads probably has a list. Created by READERS, not publishers. Because we don't market reading or entertainment to seniors... just medication, diapers, and reverse mortgage scams. As if audiobooks couldn't be big sellers with older adults? 

It's a marketing HOLE. 

And that, by the way, IS THE ANSWER TO YOUR QUESTION.

There's no men's fiction because then they'd have to market to men. Sorry, advertising people have ruled that men can only purchase tech, alcohol, cigars, sports, and cars. Men don't read. 

These are the same advertising geniuses who won't market video games to females. Even when Halo Online revealed that half the players were, in fact, the females they refuse to market to because women don't play video games. 

Ad executives keep deciding on rules, but they are totally daft at actual market research. They keep telling people that THEY decide what sells and to whom... 

And social media has proven they are WRONG. 

So, one last rant from the soapbox...

All these politicians begging for money (I get at least 3 texts a day, I don't know about you) because they can't WIN without money...

Those same fool advertising people are telling them that! 

Get online. Social media campaigns have higher results and positive interactions, when done well. Stop wasting money on what an ad agency says. 

Oh, and no one wants to read a book about some astronaut geologist who is left behind on Mars. 

Except for all the people who bought The Martian from Andy Weir. And that Matt Damon guy, who played thr character in a blockbuster movie. Just another example of advertising people being proven wrong. Indie books can sell, and get big Hollywood deals. 

---

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

The real problem is indifference. 

Whatever happens next will be because of people who just 🤷 shrugged it off and were indifferent about what could occur. 

Don't blame the scorpion. 🦂 It is going to sting, because that's what a scorpion does. 

🐢🐸 The turtle (or frog, depending which version you've heard- same story) is always gonna get stung for letting the scorpion get on their back.