An Arms Race of Monetized Distraction
By Porter Anderson (@Porter_Anderson) | May 19, 2017 |
Image – iStockphoto: Celafon
Suiting Up for the Attention Economy
From time to time–many journalists know this moment—it feels as if several stories or trends you’ve been covering (or trying to dodge) start locking into place in some sort of shape or design or purpose. Call it “news relationship syndrome.”
This happened for me at the beginning of the month, and it brought together:
- The annual Publishers Forum industry conference in Berlin: I was there this year to moderate a panel on international threats to copyright.
- The annual Muse and the Marketplace Forum writers’ conference in Boston: I was there to lead a closing keynote panel on authors’ marketing strategies.
- And our daily Trump l’oeil in which so much of the national news seems to revolve around the questions (a) “Wait, what just happened?” and (b) “Wait, is that really what it means or does it mean something else?” and “Wait, we don’t really understand this yet, do we?”
In Berlin, Michael Tamblyn of Kobo had introduced the idea of a “fifth wave” in book retail, and this is something that Jane Friedman and I wrote about in the May 3 edition of The Hot Sheet, our newsletter for authors. Tamblyn was concerned that industry players today might be breathing a sigh of relief and thinking that the digital scare has passed, that they can just “get back to publishing and making books without having to worry about the industry remaking itself.”
Tamblyn describe four historical “waves” of publishing retail:
- Independent bookstores;
- Chain bookstores;
- E-commerce (taking bookstores online); and
- Ebooks and audiobooks (taking content itself into the online ether).
And then he dropped his bombshell: “The fifth wave,” he said, “isn’t a format shift. And it isn’t a change in where books are sold or distributed. It isn’t subscription vs. single-title sale. It isn’t about how much a book gets sold for at all. Instead, it is the commodification and commercialization of attention.”
Welcome to the wars of attention.
And as we trundle out onto this unholy, “unpresidented” battlefield, I want you to think about this brilliant phrase that Tamblyn lobbed at us like a mic-drop: “It is an arms race of monetized attention.”
The mechanized (algorithmic) warfare around you is being waged by Netflix, Amazon Studios, HBO, Hulu, Showtime, everything on your Roku. Have you heard any of your fellow author-soldiers talk of wanting to get into the miniseries content armies? I have: at London Book Fair, when I spoke on a panel in the Author HQ program in March, the writers in the audience wanted to know about Hollywood. And Hollywood is trying to capture your reader’s attention as a prisoner of war.
“It is about the fight for time,” Tamblyn said. And it’s too easy, he said, to shrug and say that books have always “jockeyed with TV and movies and magazines and newspapers for people’s time.
“Now we live in an attention economy,” he said, in which thousands of companies “have a very clear sense of what people’s time is worth.” In other words, what they can charge for your attention, “what they would like to do with it…and an incredible array of tools” to use in capturing it.” Your attention. Your reader’s attention.
My provocation for you today is a question about how clearly you know what you’re doing in trying to find and build a readership. Do you understand that you’re in a battle for people’s time and attention? How many hours do you want from someone to read your latest book? And what will get their attention so that they know it’s even there to read?
The Fifth Wave: The Fight for Time
Provocations graphic by Liam Walsh
At The Muse in the Marketplace, I’d laid out a few of these “fifth wave” concepts in which the new marketplace is a war for attention. The closing keynote in Boston is always packed with some 500 or so people listening to a panel’s responses to the marketing plans of three authors who have books publishing in the next year. My next plane would be leaving soon and I was grabbing my bags and there was a tap on my shoulder.
It was one of the three authors from last year’s Muse, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, who handed me her book, which has just been published by Macmillan’s Flatiron Books in the States this week: The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir. I’ve just spoken with her rights agent, who already is selling it into The Netherlands, the UK, Korea, Taiwan, Turkey, with other markets lining up. The book is unnervingly serious and goes far past true crime into the inexplicable nature of homicidal acts—and their nearness to all of us.
And in the odd linkage of that “news relationship syndrome,” I got all three messages, from Tamblyn, from Marzano-Lesnevich, and from those political headlines that keep changing, minute to minute with such nauseating, relentless demands on our attention.
The war for attention is raging. Look away from the news for 10 minutes and a chunk of what makes this nation so singular in history may have broken right off as congressional leaders cower in corners of the Capitol. Even as journalism finds its feet again for the first time in so many years—our Fourth Estate is back just in time—the various media are in “an arms race of monetized distraction.” Each of their advertisers wants to distract you. And so do their networks’ producers: it’s all breaking, all the time.
And isn’t it phenomenal how much of your attention is going into simply trying to understand, follow, sort out the latest incremental update? The exhausting character of this news cycle will be recorded as an era of urgent confusion. So few moves make sense, so few are driven by plan or policy, so few can stand up through a single news conference without being turned on their heads.
I believe Tamblyn is right and I believe that his model for all this—the attention economy—is direly accurate. How is it that Marzano-Lesnevich can be capturing the attention of publishers on another continent with a tale of unexplained murder encountered in Louisiana? And how is it that you have to stop and wonder if you’ll have time to read that book, or any other, because you’ve got to read up at five different news sites to find out what everybody means by a deputy attorney general who blindsided his own boss, the attorney general, with a special “councel.”
“Wait, what just happened?”
How well are you faring in the attention economy? How well do you understand how your stories need to be armored for that “arms race of monetized distraction”? How much do you feel the pull of the battle for your own time? And tell me again, how many hours are you asking your reader to spend with your book…and you wanted that reader to pay you for that thing, too, right?
Quick note: A bit of a complicated day here, so it will likely be into the weekend before I can respond to you in comments. Thanks!
[coffee title=”Wish you could buy Porter a glass of Campari?” icon=”glass”]Now, thanks to tinyCoffee and PayPal, you can![/coffee]
@Porter_Anderson is a fellow of the National Critics Institute. He is Editor-in-Chief of Publishing Perspectives, the international news medium of Frankfurt Book Fair. He co-founded The Hot Sheet, a newsletter for trade and independent authors, which now is owned and operated by Jane Friedman. Priors: The Bookseller‘s The FutureBook in London, CNN, CNN.com and CNN International–as well as the Village Voice, Dallas Times Herald, and the United Nations’ WFP in Rome. is a recipient of London Book Fair’s International Excellence Award for Trade Press Journalist of the Year. PorterAndersonMedia.com
Hello Porter, and thanks for opening my day with such an inspiring salvo.
Sarcasm aside, I believe what you say here rings true. In our time, the variety of sources demanding our attention requires both writers AND readers to choose. They must decide whether they will be combatants in the War for Attention, or Conscientious Objectors. I choose to be a CO for this reason: a combat-ready approach to the ever-shifting terrain of the book marketplace is not compatible with paying attention to print for serious blocks of time. This is true both for those who write books, and read them.
One bright spot is that readers have always been a relatively small and “different” group. Dwindling, to be sure, but still inclined to choose how they use their time, rather than being told how to use it. Or so I believe.
Hey, Barry.
Careful what you ask for, lol, I have a piece on inspiration that I’ve been itching to write — and it won’t inspire you. :)
As for your comments on this article, thanks, and I do hear what you’re saying.
I will carefully respond by saying that — in general, with marvelous serious-reader exceptions of course, and we love every one of them — I don’t think the average reader is as conscious of the chance or need to choose the kind of dogged determination in favor of books that you envision.
Another thing that Tamblyn said — and it has great resonance here — is that people today are less frequently asking, “What shall I read next?” and more frequently asking “What shall I DO next?” The ease and readiness with which the electronic media deliver so many options has made it far easier for them to opt to DO something else than it used to be. (I’ll elaborate more on that in my answer to Don in the next comment.)
Here’s something to think about. In the past, many of us have turned to books because we were fond of really accomplished, intelligent storytelling. And it was in books we found that more than in film, television, and other forms. But today, we see a new potential golden era in film and series production as Amazon Studios, Netflix, HBO and others create more and more very high quality content. You actually don’t have to read books to get excellent stories of importance and fascination. The other media are catching up and catching on.
And while the existing body of readership — we can only hope — maintains its devotion to reading, as you suggest, what is this industry really doing to expand that readership. It trends older, Barry. And the young people of this age know that superb storytelling is no longer controlled by books people. They’re engaging in it wherever they find it. As Tamblyn tells us, they’re not asking what they might read next. They’re asking what they might DO next.
With all respect, I caution you against magical thinking on behalf of books and publishing. This industry — and that includes its authors — needs to do a lot more to make its case in a world that’s increasingly looking in other directions as the intensity of the attention wars ratchets up. To your analogy, I’m not sure that conscientious objectorship is a viable response to the new assault of “monetized distraction.” I’m much rather see the industry respond as combatants and start standing up for what it does and its value.
“Dwindling,” is how you described the faithful, I believe. Yes. Exactly. I’d recommend we not be satisfied with that.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
If we’ve moving on to the fifth wave, how come virtually all book sales are first, second or third wave?
Sorry. Feeling provoked. You asked about the fight for attention, as if that is something new. Here’s my thought. There are two kinds of attention: fleeting and sustained.
Fleeting attention: CNN news feed, Twitter, click bait, memes, Top 40, billboards, comic strips, copy-cat fiction.
Sustained attention: episodic TV drama, elimination reality TV, sports teams, superhero/franchise movies, long form journalism, religion, branded authors.
The first type hooks you for seconds, is quickly forgotten, and is delivered in volume. It is disposable. You pay little or get it for free.
The second type engages you for longer periods, brings you back and is purchased selectively. It becomes part of your identity. It has high value.
What kind of author, then, do you want to be? With what sort of audience? There are choices. A marketing plan doesn’t get you sustained attention. What gets you that is the fiction you write.
Hey, Don,
You know, the great thing about your comments is that when one of my Porter Provocations does provoke you, you come back with such good stuff that I want to provoke you again! :)
Don’t worry, I’ll wait until next month.
I couldn’t agree more. What I’m saying as a journalist relaying Michael’s address in Berlin — and what I think his message, delivered there to publishers, means to authors == is just what you’re saying:
“What kind of author, then, do you want to be? With what sort of audience? There are choices. A marketing plan doesn’t get you sustained attention. What gets you that is the fiction you write.”
This is very much what Michael said to the publishers. From where he (Michael Tamblyn) stands as an online bookseller heading up the Kobo platform, he’s learning that, “Increasingly, this means that we don’t wait for consumers to come to us. We go where they already are.” He was referring there to the fact that 10 percent of Kobo’s sales start off-site — the company is learning (as all must on the Web) to place ads where consumers are doing other things. This is part of what he means when (I was telling this to Barry), he says that today people aren’t asking “What do I want to read next?” — they’re asking “What do I want to DO next?” And that might not be reading a book. So Kobo is in advertising-expansive mode, placing its ads where customers might be.
Such a phrase turner, he is, I love hearing him speak. He said that one effect of so many companies and media (like book publishers) trying to reach readers wherever they may be online is that “there are slivers and shards of retail” throughout our online life. Isn’t that lovely? And scary? Almost nowhere online do we go today without some bit of promotion trying to snag us as a customer. Slivers and shards of retail.
Clearly, most of us engaged in WU-ness here are of lovers of sustained attention (and trying to keep ours from getting shorter) — and we want and need consumers who are on the (sorry) same page.
The great warning Michael Tamblyn gave us is that in this fifth wave, as he calls it, the competition to us (the, um, People of Books, which sounds very Fahrenheit 451) is so much greater than before.
Now, many people like to say to me that books have always been in competition for people’s attention and time. And so they have. But — as I alluded to in my comment to Barry — let me give you a way of looking at just how that competition has changed with the advent of the digital dynamic.
Let’s take film. Film, as long as it’s been commercially available to viewers, has posed, to one degree or another (per the film, per the viewer) some competition to books. Sure. But in the past, to see that film — and pass up an evening of reading — you had to get a babysitter, get to the cinema, pay some relatively significant bucks, travel by car or subway or whatever to the cinema and back, and so on. Today, the film is right on your TV from Amazon or Netflix or whatever else you like to use and — if you’re a device-user who likes it all on the tablet, the film and the book are within even closer proximity to each other, the choice between them.
The electronic media, as Tamblyn is seeing in these weapons of monetized distraction, are really close to books. Uncomfortably close. And while there are many dedicated, devoted, committed readers in the world who consciously choose the act of reading as their favorite content-consumption activity, I think we need to snag a lot more of the people who think reading a book is just another entertainment.
I worry that the book world in general tends to think it can keep its distance from all this and somehow paddle along with a loyal readership. I don’t think Michael Tamblyn is wrong. I think the wars of attention are upon us, and I don’t think publishers and authors are ready to fight those so, so close enticements of digital entertainment.
And I really appreciate your input, as ever.
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thank You Porter for your post.
How well are you faring in the attention economy?
It’s a buyers market for sure. Last month I finished up a variety show we do every year for Charity. The show has been around for forty-plus years now, and this year we saw a marked drop in attendance. There’s not less people coming into town, but there are more events scrambling for their attention. Ten years ago, a banner for our event was displayed at a good spot over the front entrance to a park for 2 weeks straight. This year, we got to hang that banner for only 2 days. Ours is a busy town, very tourist friendly, but some of the local events are being eaten alive by newer ones.
How well do you understand how your stories need to be armored for that “arms race of monetized distraction”?
A comment in yesterday’s WU post wasn’t surprising when I heard it. A Handmaid’s Tale would be a hard sell today to publishers because of it’s slower opening. It seems that would be true, until it isn’t. People are buying that book because of a new TV show that’s based on it. That’s not a new reaction, I know, but TV is able to provide a new product ‘binge-watching’, so how do we get to ‘binge-reading’? Shorter chapters is one way (something I do), but we need to find what keeps our reader’s attention whether that’s some novelty, timeliness, or just being so captivating that readers put down their Ipad and pick up their Kindle. (Electric glow seems to be a requisite).
How much do you feel the pull of the battle for your own time?
I’m an anachronism, during the spring months anyway. I spend a lot of time on a tractor out in the middle of an orchard with no internet access. It gives you time to think, and you think about your spare time and how to use it better. You come up with strategies like getting rid of your cable box or even opting for slower WiFi so movies can’t be readily streamed to four different hand-held screens scattered throughout the house.
I get a lot of good ideas when I get a chance to think, and that’s a great selling point for books. You’ll get a story and the chance to think about it and yourself.
James, I like your comment. People either exercise the power they have to control the use of their time, or they allow their time to be appropriated by media. I continue to resist the pressure to join the hand-held device revolution. I think of it as a virus or invasive species, waiting to move in and dictate to me. No thanks.
Appreciated Barry
Came across this just now in Louis L’Amour’s Education Of A Wandering Man
“A book is a friend that will do what no friend does-be silent when we wish to think.”
-Will Durant
Hi again, Barry.
I think the point I’d make here is that it’s not about (at least my article isn’t about) whether you, the author, are being pulled by an historically unprecedented array of enticing electronic entertainments — it’s that your readers are. And you won’t be the one to decide whether they “allow their time to be appropriated by the media.” They will.
I find that folks who, themselves, resist the many alternatives now being offered by mobile and other media are likely to think that a great many others will do so, too. And I invite you to beware that — it’s magical thinking.
The population as a whole is increasingly seduced by a formidable level of competition to reading, and that’s what Michael Tamblyn wants us to know. Your being the exception doesn’t mean you’ll have readers who are also exceptional in this regard. He’s guiding Kobo to engage with this issue (in part by putting advertising into other, non-books-related forums.
We must all, I believe, open our eyes to this and to realize that we — pretty much the hard core/corps of the literary world — are not in the majority. We need more readers. Publishing has never generated new audience as aggressively as it should have. That’s coming home to roost.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: Porter_Anderson
“TV is able to provide a new product ‘binge-watching’, so how do we get to ‘binge-reading’? ”
Netflix and YouTube (and I’m sure other companies) encourage binge-watching by automatically starting a countdown timer before playing the next video in the queue. This requires the user to actively stop the timer if they want to leave the couch. In other words, binge-watching is programmed as the default.
In a book, the only similar thing I can think of is a cliffhanger, an unanswered question, or some other tension (thanks, Donald Maass!) that compels the reader to continue reading. If a book keeps me up past my bedtime, I like re-reading it to analyze how it does that.
Same here Grace
Hi, Grace.
Yes, I’ve found it pretty canny/annoying how well Netflix’s little next-episode countdown gets you going on another episode.
In all likelihood, you’re right about the cliffhanger being something of the corollary to that in the literary context. (Certainly Dan Brown must think so, lol.)
My point really was about a bigger issue rather than a mechanical device.
One of the things that Tamblyn says is that people no longer ask themselves, “What do I want to read next?” Instead, they ask themselves, “What do I want to DO next?”
There’s a lot, a whole lot, of option to reading that never existed before, certainly not with the proximity and potency they do now. That next Netflix episode is going to cancel out some people’s good intention of reading your next chapter.
In the long run, I think we need to think of something larger, somc bigger contextual shift in what reading is and should be in this culture. Can we do that? There’s your cliffhanger. :)
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Get rid of your cable box.
Good Advice Tina
You thought of it first. I just repeated what you wrote.
Hi, Tina.
My concern is not with your or my or James’ cable box. It’s with that in your readers’ homes.
Several folks on this article’s comments seem to think I was talking about we, the die-hard bookish types. I’m not I’m talking about the readers we die-hard bookish types need. They’re the ones most easily challenged by the historically unprecedented arrival of amazingly potent new digital entertainments. Those “weapons of monetized distraction.”
Thanks,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Hey, James. Hadn’t meant to be a week late getting back to you, but it’s conference collision time in my business and so it goes much of the spring.
I like what you’re saying and thank you for it.
I’m struck most by your last lines about what reading gives us, a story and a chance to think about it and ourselves. Absolutely.
The problem is that we’re actually going to have more and more folks around us who don’t know this about books, and/or don’t see the value in such narrative-inspired contemplation.
In a parallel to this, I’ve always been a profound loner — I live and work alone, primarily, because I’m most comfortable in solitude. (Physical solitude — online, I’m surrounded by babbling personalities, of course, lol.) To me, the element of literature you’re describing is its most valuable: it turns on a light and lets you explore yourself, basically, in its illumination.
It’s not a new thing that most people don’t like to contemplate things, don’t care for self-exploration. But I think we’ll find fewer folks discovering the value of these things going for it because the seductive impact of the electronic media is something we’ve never seen before. We’re in uncharted territory, in this attention economy, and I fear we’ve got some potent surprises ahead.
Thanks again.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Thank you, Porter. You and Tamblyn are spot on. I had a similar conversation with a prospective agent yesterday. How do we grab the reader’s attention? More importantly, how do we KEEP and SUSTAIN that attention over the long-haul? I make a point of watching the public at places like the beach, pool, park, or at any public gathering. I am the only person reading a book. Does this mean the end of the book? No. There are plenty of dedicated readers out there, but their attention comes in bits and pieces — usually on an electronic device. Other readers, and bless their hearts, take time to immerse themselves the old school way — in a book.
The attention economy is here. To be successful, us old-school Luddites will have to adapt. And BTW, Trump l’oeil is CLASSIC on so many levels! I may have to steal that one. (If only a clever artist could come up with a Trump l’oeil meme!)
I noticed that you wrote “unpresidented” instead of “unprecedented.” That’s either a wonderfully ironic typo or intentional…
What does “unpresidented” mean?
Porter Anderson does not make typos. He invented this new word.
He doesn’t shy away from politics and religion, does he?
I think it’s really a reference to the President’s original error of using “unpresidented” instead of “unprecedented” in a tweet (see also “councel”). ;-)
He put quotation marks around the non-word ‘councel’ but not ‘unpresidented’ so therein lies my confusion.
Hey again, Tina,
I think you’re right that i should have put “unpresidented” into quotes as I did “councel.” I probably depended too heavily on an assumption that everyone was aware of where it comes from.
As Alisha correctly references, Don Trump used the faux word “unpresidented” in one of his much-lamented tweets and it was later corrected, perhaps by a staffer. The error was, apparently, not a clever, purposeful change in the word but Trump’s ignorance of the word’s spelling (as in “councel”).
I’m adding those quotes. Bless you for saying I don’t make typos. That’s probably as false as so many of Don Trump’s assertions, LOL, but it’s a lovely fiction for you to spread about, so please don’t let the truth stand in your way. :)
All the best,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
It concerns me that so many people have become B.F. Skinner’s pigeons tap tap tapping away. “Adapting” to the attention economy is a challenge because it’s not a fair fight. Companies have armies of engineers, programmers, and psychologists designing ways to break your puny willpower and capture your attention. Definitely check out “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” by Nir Eyal for a glimpse into how it’s done. Variable psychological rewards power both slot machines and tech companies–the similarities are no accident.
I don’t know how to control other people’s attention, so I focus on controlling my own instead. I quit social media over a year ago and don’t miss it, and after reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport I’ve changed even more of my habits to consciously manage where my attention goes (like removing the Safari icon on my phone and checking email only twice a day). Will it result in better work? I don’t know, but at least my brain has more space to play now.
Hi, again, Grace.
I certainly applaud the things you’re doing to work on your own leel of focus and choice of how much to allow outside inputs to affect your work and will.
I’m afraid that you’re light years ahead of most of the consuming public, and one of the things we have to realize — in a healthy concern for how well reading can fare in the “attention economy” — is that the majority of people don’t want to resist. They like the plethora of entertainment offerings, they like being pulled into more electronic alternatives, and they do not like the idea of working so valiantly as you’re doing to harness their capabilities of concentration.
While it may not be some thing we enjoy spending a lot of time on, I think the publishing world needs to realize that a sea change in “the fight for attention” has occurred, and publishing and books are not coming out on top at this point.
Thanks again,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
I think Tamblyn is spot-on. I noticed a distinct shift in the mindset of readers via book-club meetups between my first and second novels. There was a weighty reveal in the second story, made somewhat speculatively toward the end of the book, that some didn’t catch. Turns out, some readers had been reading the story on their phones. Could this be a symptom of a story that wasn’t grabby enough, that didn’t sink those readers deep into couch cushions as the hours flew by? Absolutely, and I own that possibility. But could it also be a symptom of a shift in the mentality of our readership — one with attention issues, with techno-overwhelm and the urge to fit in reading time while waiting to check out at the grocery store?
My big takeaway from that experience is that understatement may be a casualty of the times. If I have a point to make in a story that I feel is important for the reader to catch in terms of their grasp of the full arc of a character or thread, I have to set it up to be unmissable. There are plenty of tricks to do that, and I’m willing, but I’m sorry to see the writer’s toolbox be diminished in this way.
People are not built to easily combat grabs for attention, and we are in an era in which the super-sizing of the information highway is a constant and continually expanding project. Rising above the noise of all that construction, destruction, and bleating isn’t impossible. But we have our work cut out for us.
Boy, Therese, what a wonderful comment (and sorry to be so long getting back to it — the run-up to BEA is complicating things more than expected).
I have two main responses.
(1) I think your observation about needing to make important points in a story “unmissable” is right on the money. The more distracted readers are — the more what they’re reading is hemmed in by every other enticement the various media can offer — the more they’re going to be distracted, shallow readers who aren’t able to immerse themselves in the kind of subtleties we might like.
In fact, I wonder if this might not be one reason that literary fiction isn’t faring better in digital than it is. The engagement of a reader’s intellect is a lot harder in the short bursts of subway reading on a phone than it used to be in an armchair with a print book on your lap.
(2) Secondly, what I especially like about this is that you’re looking at it from an authentic content-producer’s viewpoint. Needless to say, every comment here is appreciated, but I’m struck by how many folks want to tell us what *they’re* doing to try to keep from having their attention challenged by other enticements — it’s a lot harder to face the fact that we don’t and won’t control what choices and vulnerabilities our readers engage in. And the bottom line about digital media is that most of its most avid users — who might have been our readers — are thrilled with the bombardment of options their Roku boxes offer them. They don’t want to limit this. And many of them don’t want to read.
I’m always concerned when reminded how many authors think of their readers as other authors. Or in this case at least as committed “reading first” book enthusiasts. As unpleasant as it is, I think we need to keep explaining to our colleagues that the readership is not other authors: it’s Netflix subscribers.
Maybe we have to hit them over the head with a 2×4, as you’re learning your readers may need, LOL. (I’m speaking only figuratively, of course, and am not a body-slamming candidate for anything in the state of Washington, lol.)
Cheers,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
“Trump l’Oeil” = Brilliant
“Monetized attention” = Brilliant
This whole post was brilliant. We see the whole delirious carnival ride flashing before us and we stare at it with slack bewildered faces. It is unprecedented. And the damage it is doing is probably going to be imprinted on our DNA.
Thank you, Stacey.
Exactly, and thanks for taking this seriously. That damage already is deep, you’re right, and I don’t think we’re yet seeing a lot of ways around it on behalf of reading.
Cheers and fears,
-p.
On Twitter: @Porter_Anderson
Wow, Porter, this post and the comments are amazing. I agree we all move too fast and bite off way more than we can chew every day. I’m with Grace on quitting social media and news feeds to refocus and gain control. For me, the ‘war of attention’ for readership can rage it all it wants out there. Writers are creative beings. It seems to me that following the industry trends, waves, and forecasts will only distract from our creative strength and acuity. No more battles, please!
“It seems to me that following the industry trends, waves, and forecasts will only distract from our creative strength and acuity. No more battles, please!”
I’m with you, Paula. There’s too much of everything and it is all changing so fast that truly there is no way to keep up. It’s like all the articles I’ve been seeing this year (I didn’t notice this push last year) to write and release at least 4 books a year. For me there’s simply no way to do that and have any life. And it’s all to keep up with – no, it only adds to – this increasing world wide state of overwhelm.
Interesting, I’m also seeing more and more articles about drawing away from it all. Articles about our need for rest, relaxation and renewal and how millions are damaging themselves with trying to keep up.
I think deep inside many people are realizing all of this information “noise” and incessant busyness isn’t good for us.
Powerful issue, Porter,
Monetized attention coupled with technological advancements suggests a paradigm shift in the human ability (inability?) to focus. I’m not old enough to remember, but perhaps there was similar jolt to the human experience when the typewriter pushed aside moveable type. Still, what you present seems an order of magnitude greater–computer programs designed to tap your wallet through constant distraction. “Hey, you’ll never need to read or reflect again.”
Aside from inspiring a novel about this issue, I feel really disheartened. Our attachment to Time has become the last resource frontier and the Extractive Resource crowd has set to finish the job of mining it. Disheartened in particular, because of the real possibility that not only books written by individuals, but stories in any form by individuals not connected to corporate mining may be squeezed out of the marketplace. The Arms Race of your title connotes that only big players will carry on in the future. Globalized literature. And only themes compatible with Glyphosate .
Therese’s comment above tried to steer clear of how this Arms Race demands the need for shifting writing to common denominator-level, attention-grabbing entertainment, but the aroma of that force seems strong. (She said it so well.)
Don’s comment mentions authors capable of garnering sustained attention only if they are branded. Most novelists aren’t branded; they certainly don’t start out that way. And to me, branded work smacks somewhat of the factory-paradigm, hitting the same theme and realm of mind over and over so that is what readers come to you for. “I write the Ghosts that Kill Women series.”
This attention aspect in marketing explains why the tendency for horrific first scenes dominates Commercial fiction. I’ve always felt exploited by that as a reader. And I guess I’m only weeping in public here, but I extend my days to write material worth reflecting on, both in language and content. Don still cheers for the good book, but your article may be announcing the paradigm shift that hedges even that noble cause aside.
Thanks as always for the big view, even though this one cuts.
The attention arms race has definitely impacted modern writing and publishing. In yesterday’s “Flog a Pro” post, commenters were surprised by the difference in writing styles between the first page of Atwood’s 1985 classic The Handmaid’s Tale and the first pages of bestsellers today. Atwood’s opening isn’t shocking or action-packed. It’s a long paragraph of poetic setting description, which would certainly earn a newbie writer today an instant form rejection.
While querying my cozy mystery, I learned quickly that when agents say they adore Agatha Christie, they don’t mean they want their authors to write like Agatha Christie. They want their authors to write like Suzanne Collins in an Agatha Christie world. Even cozies can’t be cozy anymore; they need exciting twists and fresh corpses in every chapter.
Actual readers, though, are more tolerant of slow writing than publishing professionals might believe. On cozy mystery blogs, reviewers complain that books today are too zippy. Just last week I read a review of a book that the blogger lauded as “refreshingly slow.” She praised the author for “taking the time to develop the cozy setting and the characters” before introducing the murder halfway through the book. And I was like, “The publisher let her get away with that?!”
Journalism is back? Good news.
The best way for a novelist to get the public’s attention is to have one of their novels made into a movie or t.v. show.
The best way for a novelist to keep the public’s attention is to write a lot of great novels.
“…We haven’t any use for old things here.”
“Even when they’re beautiful?”
“Particularly when they’re beautiful. Beauty’s attractive, and we don’t want people to be attracted by old things. We want them to like the new ones.”
“But the new ones are so stupid and horrible. Those plays, where there’s nothing but helicopters flying about and you FEEL the people kissing.” He made a grimace. “Goats and monkeys!” Only in Othello’s words could he find an adequate vehicle for his contempt and hatred.
“Nice tame animals, anyhow,” the Controller murmured parenthetically… “People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get.”
From Huxley’s “Brave New World” (debate between the World Controller Mustapha Mond and John the Savage)
Hey Porter,
Provocative as usual – and that’s what I like. ;-)
You know, the thing is, I think it’s always been a war for attention. Sure, there are more warring parties, so to speak, more snake oil salesmen, more good stuff and more crap – but still it seems to me that he or she who gets the attention also gets the money, treasure, readers, fans, etc.
Not sure if it’s going to amount to a fifth wave either, although I’m not exactly Madame Zorba when it comes to predictions. So it could be. And maybe even a 6th or 7th wave, if we get into subcategories of the main category…
I do think though that as authors we need to knock off the funny business. We need to start looking well beyond the gimmicks, the freebies and the ‘you too can be an Amazon bestseller’ courses that teach you some trick to get there. But really, how there is there, if it’s a trick? We need to demonstrate that we have the same compassion and empathy for our readers as we have for our characters, stories, and books. We need to start experiencing the human connection as much as we can with our readers and future readers.
I’ll be darned if I know if I’ll ever be a best seller or have foreign countries lining up for the film/tv rights for my books (and how lovely that would be) but I do know that I write my stories for people. For people I think I might like personally if I were to meet them. People I would want to share a coffee and an awesome chocolate dessert with should we ever come face to face. Not numbers. Not some conglomeration of a new demographic of unknown beings. Just people. Regular people who read because it delights them, because it reassures them, entertains them, and makes them feel something. Those people.
Good post, thanks.
Annie
This feels like yet another “the book is dead” lament, Porter. I think readers are, and always will be, the sort of people who can only stand so much noise and distraction. The sort that needs some alone time every day.
And yet they’re all plugged in for some part of the day, and that’s how you get their attention in the first place–online advertising! And audiobooks, which exist in the space somewhere between the silence-lovers and the noise-lovers. Around half of my real-life book club listens, the other half reads, and who’s reading and who’s listening varies from book to book.
The story has jumped off the page and invaded almost every part of our lives. Mini-stories in online articles, sprawling epics on TV, advertising stories, fake news, sound-bite politics . . . has a culture ever spent so much time consuming stories? There’s a danger there, but not necessarily that people aren’t going to read/consume what you write. Just that they might not be consuming it for hours at a stretch in a silent room with a print book in their hands.
Provocative for sure. I think Tamblyn is right, especially when applying book reading to the millennials and how they use their time. I love my son, but he doesn’t read books. He watches movies on his phone or streams then on his computer. And there are thousands like him. But the other point is what has happened in everyone of our lives since you-know-who was elected. He is in our faces constantly, claiming our attention, desiring it. YES, I can turn away, but there is a current of worry in my life that was not there before. Is it my age? My beliefs? A combination. This weekend a major portion of Antarctica broke off and floated into the ocean and we have people in power who believe they can make it 1950 again. That might be good for some aspect of book writing, selling, promoting. But we need to address so many issues that are life-changing NOW. And I believe we will. Fingers crossed–oh wait, I cannot write on my computer that way. Thanks, Porter.