If you have a spare hour from 1-2 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time) on Tuesday, June 29, register for Dan Zarrella’s free webinar about marketing on Facebook. Here are some of the topics he will discuss.

• The behavior of demographic groups on Facebook
• The sociology of the Facebook community
• The difference between men’s and women’s interactions on Facebook
• How to get your content shared on Facebook

One thing that I find both interesting and scary about Facebook is that its audience isn’t gathered around a single interest (like a political site) or even a group of interests (like DeviantArt).  If you’re interested in marketing a book online but aren’t web-savvy enough to make your own site, I’d highly recommend giving this a look.

2. If you do use a pseudonym, please write something like “[YOUR REAL NAME], WRITING AS RODDY BARBER” on your title page. For tax reasons, the publisher has to know your real name. (Otherwise, the IRS will get surly and then everybody is screwed).

3. Do not assume that a pseudonym will keep you anonymous. For example, if you base your novel on people you know in real life, people may find out it’s you even though you used a pen name. For example, Joe Klein got outed as the author of Primary Colors even though he wrote as Anonymous. Additionally, pseudonyms will not give you ANY cover against lawsuits (for libel, copyright infringement or whatever). Remember, the IRS knows who you are.

4. Do you have a good reason to use a pseudonym?

• YES: You share a name with a celebrity, particularly an author. In fact, if you want to write a novel and you happen to be named something like Anne Rice or Joe Biden, your publisher will probably make you take a pseudonym or use your initials. For example, an author writing as A.D. Rice probably wouldn’t be confused with Anne Rice.
• YES: You’ve written in other genres and want to keep your audiences separate.
• SADLY, YES: You’re writing in a genre where readers are mostly of the other gender.  For example, if you’re a guy writing romance or chick lit or a lady writing action (particularly military action), few publishers would fault you for using your initials or a gender-neutral pseudonym.  According to Wikipedia, Joanne Rowling’s publisher asked her to write as “J.K. Rowling” to keep guys on board, even though the audience for fantasy is disproportionately female.  If you’re considering a genderless pseudonym, here’s a list of unisex names.
• PROBABLY: Your name doesn’t fit your work and/or target audience. If your name is Lexington Faraday III and you were writing a history of polo, your given name would be fine.  If you’re writing “Straight Up West Side: A Gangsta’s Knee-Capping Journey,” not so much.
• MAYBE: Your writing would conflict with your professional reputation. For example, if you’re trying to write comic books even though you’re an English professor up for tenure, you might not want your comic books to show up if somebody Googles your name. I understand that concern. One potential problem is that it may sound like you’re not proud of your fiction or that you look down on the publisher. Every publisher–even comic book houses–wants creators that are proud to be on the team.
• THINK IT THROUGH: You think your name doesn’t sound cool enough. A name meant to sound cool frequently ends up making the author sound like a goof.  Especially if you’ve always dreamed of being named Hunter McSlaughter.  If this is your main motivation for a name change, I’d recommend submitting under your given name and then speaking to your editor about using a pen name after you get published.

In contrast, male wish-fulfillment tends to involve badass characters doing badass things (superhero stories, military action, James Bond, cops-and-robbers, etc).  Also, I don’t think that men find vampiric qualities very romantic.

All of this is probably an overgeneralization, but I think there’s some degree of truth to it.  What do you think?

But what began with Harry and Hogwarts has grown into something more. Teen literature is hot. Estimates suggest the category will generate $744.3 million in revenues for U.S. publishers this year, up 13% from $659.1 million in 2008. In comparison, book retailing in general is slumping, with revenue expected to fall nearly 5% from a year ago.

Instead of trying to grab kids’ eyes as they rush past the book stacks toward the movies and music, Borders is creating an in-store boutique called Borders Ink, featuring graphic novels, manga (Japan’s homegrown style of comics), vampires, and, of course, wizards. It hopes to have as many as 90% of its superstores featuring the teen reading section by the end of the month.

This is encouraging. First, more readers generally means that publishers will have more room to take on more authors in this field. Second, diversifying comic book sales beyond comic-book stores is extremely important.  That’s especially true if you want to write for demographics that are far more likely to visit a bookstore than a comic-book store– like women, children/parents, first-time comic book readers, etc.

I think black superheroes tend to fail because they get typecast as persecuted heroes. Even the article confuses two very separate ideas.

1. The article’s first sentence: “Would Spider-Man be the box-office juggernaut he is today if he had been created as an African-American character?” All other things being equal, would a successful hero become unsuccessful if he is made black?
2. The article’s second sentence: “What if Peter Parker had had to deal with the problems of being black in America in addition to adjusting to his powers when he was first introduced in 1962?” Would a successful hero become unsuccessful if white-on-black persecution were inserted into his plotline?

These two questions are very different! The second implicitly assumes that a black hero must face white-on-black persecution, which probably makes less sense now than it did in 1962. And, regardless of whether it is plausible that every black is persecuted by whites, persecution stories are usually depressing (particularly when the persecution is based on real-life events, rather than hating mutants or Muggles). Making the hero the victim of persecution changes the tone of the plot far more than just making him black.

Do black heroes have to be persecuted? I don’t think so. Most young people, especially, haven’t lived with the intense and highly visible racism of the 1960s, but the comics industry doesn’t seem to have caught on to that. Plot elements that were commonplace (or at least plausible) fifty years ago, like racial violence and particularly caustic racist remarks, often seem outlandishly cynical now.

If you do focus on racism, I recommend using elements of racism that are likelier to resonate with your readers circa now. People might step away in hallways and elevators or sit at different tables in cafeterias—I think that most readers would agree that’s how racism manifests right now more than, say, burning crosses and even racial slurs. More provocatively, someone might suggest that a minority has gotten where he is because of affirmative action or that affirmative action hires as a whole are less qualified than other employees. Bank guards might get antsy. Etc. (For some more manifestations of modern racism, please see the footnotes).

The point is that modern racism has become subconscious—I suspect that most racists genuinely believe that they aren’t— and that portraying racism as in-your-face, 1960s slurs will likely feel out of touch and preachy to your readers.

When I watched Crash, I laughed so hard when a car crash caused people to immediately start screaming slurs. Wouldn’t you, uhh, want to get their insurance information first? NO CUZ KKKALIFORNIA IZ RACIST. Crash wants to Make A Point and comes off as totally cartoonish.

Freedom Writers portrays a racially balkanized community much more plausibly.

If you feel the need to include intense racism in your work—something that will significantly affect the tone and marketability of your piece—Freedom Writers offers a pretty good model. It treats racism more seriously.

1. FW is set in a school district with some really poor areas. Meeting basic, everyday needs is a struggle.
2. Gangs and ghettos form as an attempt to form communities to meet those needs.
3. Intense, Hobbesian struggles and racism arise as the communities clash.

FW suggests that racism arises from economics*. That offers FW’s world a sort of grim, perverse logic. FW’s world is deep—you see where the racism came from and why it is so damn hard to overcome. Readers understand economic motives and how much money matters, especially if you have very little. Readers won’t sympathize with race-based gangs, but they will appreciate that tolerance is a harder choice than they thought. That raises the stakes and makes the heroes larger-than-life.

In Crash, racism just sprouted from nowhere and persists despite economic concerns. Insulting someone rather than getting their insurance information is irrational. Furthermore, the story offers no explanation why the characters would think it’s rational. Why are characters intolerant? Because they’re emotional, maybe. That seems flimsy and unsatisfying. It also gives the story an arbitrary feel– the characters couldn’t overcome racism at the story’s start, so how are they able to at the end? It would feel much more logical if we knew why racism was a problem at the start.

Footnotes

*Although some sociologists do agree with Freedom Writers that racism is primarily rooted in economics, they’re in the minority. But that doesn’t matter– Freedom Writers feels coherent and plausible anyway.  99% of your audience has no idea what most sociologists think, so it’s the feeling that matters.

More modern racism

For the purposes of helping you write, I’ll broadly define racism as anything that might create discomfort or division along racial lines.

1) Affirmative action. I actually already mentioned this before, but I think it’s particularly useful because blacks and whites often strongly disagree not only about AA but about which statements/opinions about AA are socially acceptable. For example, in one class a white student discussing AA made the (not extremely controversial?) assertion that race influences faculty hiring decisions. This offended the black professor, who may have thought that the white was insinuating he was less qualified. The professor asked, “do you think I was hired because I’m black?” The white was taken aback by that point-black, personal question about what he probably perceived to be an impersonal, general statement. He said that he thinks that the professor’s being black was a factor.

As the author, you could paint this a few ways. Maybe the student is wrong to treat the issue impersonally, maybe the professor was being oversensitive, or that there’s just a gap in understanding between the white and the black that doesn’t suggest anything negative about either.

2) Whites saying “sup” to black peers. In terms of awkward hilarity, this is one of my favorites. Whites often feel pressured to act differently with blacks. You might chalk this up to insensitivity and/or oversensitivity. Saying “sup” probably isn’t sinister, but it may create tension because the black knows that the white is acting differently because he’s talking to a black. In a related example (one I can hopefully offer without making a political point), Hillary Clinton once adopted a painfully bad drawl when speaking before a black audience.

3) Subways, trains and buses. I’ve noticed that people (including nonwhites) strongly prefer to sit by people of the same race. Visual media, like comic books, have some fantastic opportunities for some grim humor by showing a black (or white?) sitting alone in a crowded bus like he has leprosy or something. However, I’ve never seen anyone change seats to specifically move away from someone of a different race.

4) The assumption that whites and blacks have substantially different skills, traits or tastes.