THE POSITIVE MESSAGE OF NEW AMERICAN ART AND LITERATURE

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The Turned Herd

There’s no mileage for young underground writers in following the current Herd. At best, they can get in at the back of it (see Noah Cicero), and anyway, the Herd is heading off a cliff. Their ideas and their art are made out of tissue paper.

Construct a Counter Herd traveling in the opposite direction. This is what the ULA did, but we didn’t push our movement, the radicalism of the movement, nearly far enough.

98% of all writers are followers. They’ll follow perceived strength. There are ways to construct the impression—and the fact—of unstoppable artistic strength backed  by the force of new art and unbeatable ideas.

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Finding an Open Position

To think only in the terms of the mainstream doesn’t work in an-already super-crowded field. If it’s too late to get with the dominant trend, an alternative is to do the direct opposite—to anticipate the inevitable reaction to the trend.

I see two areas right now where mainstream literati, including the acknowledged best and brightest, are following a poor strategy. My branding of my ebooks over the next few months will go in the opposite direction. In fact, I’ll vocally oppose the dominant narrative. Will it work?

My leeriness toward academy-trained writers is simply because they’re congenitally incapable of thinking outside the box. They are the herd.

The Beatles Effect

Abby Wambach and Hope Solo of the U.S. Womens Soccer team have become household names within the time frame of little over a week. It won’t last, because there’ll be no follow-up, but it demonstrates that the Beatle Effect remains possible. To think only in terms of fragmented markets and micro-niches is a loser strategy.