But then again I’m sort of an unusual person, I know :)

Example: I was once in a small online critique group and one of the members quit in a huff, finishing her final message to us with “Watch the back of my Via Spigas.” It was an insult. None of the remaining members could afford Via Spigas. Product placement at its best.

I think the author should consider several things with brand placement:

Whether or not the character himself/herself would know the brand. For example – since Jane used Kate as an example, I’ll use her too – a woman wearing stilettos walks into Kate’s office. She might be wearing Via Spigas. But Kate wouldn’t know what Via Spiga is if it hit her on the noggin. All she can say is “her shoes made my calves ache.” It’s alright for a car enthusiast to identify a Mercedes as Silver Wraith, but a school teacher interested in gardening wouldn’t know it.

Whether there is too much brand names. Yes, they do make excellent tags. But there is a way to carry the tags to the extreme: He was short, bald, with hair on his knuckles, bowlegged, overweight, funny, light-skinned… Too much. The portrait of the person becomes more smudged the more adjectives are piled on. Just as well, if a writer names every single detail of the brand, the reader might start to wonder why all this name-dropping is important. And anything that detracts from the reader’s enjoyment of the story is bad. :P

And finally, I think the most important criteria is, is the brand placement integral to the story. If it can be cut and the narrative doesn’t suffer, then why have it at all?

It takes about 5 seconds to Google (sorry, look up in any internet search engine) a term one does not understand if one feels the lack of information is interfering with one’s reading experience.

Oh Kerry, that made me laugh! It reminds me of the “let them eat brioche” comment of M. Antoinette. I only wish everybody who reads a book automatically has internet access, but unfortunately that’s not the case.

But you’re right. If a writer plugs a term without a set-up (as per my original comment), and readers are comfortable looking up dissertations on baseball just to understand batting averages, then that’s entirely up to them. I’m just not one of them. But viva la difference!

But it may soon become so widespread that storytellers will have a tougher time making a living. If that happens, how will writers earn a living?
[/quote]

Probably not by writing books laden with product placement. You failed to address the concern of corporations looking to sell a product taking creative control. At what point does the work become an infomational?

How have artists ever learned a living? Alienating readers who want their art seperate doesn’t seem to be the way to do that.

The movie industry it also suffering from illegal downloads. They do put product placements in movies; however, the can of coke or whatever can sit unobtrusivly in the background where it can’t in a book. Consider the spectacular failure of the Cat in Hat if you want to talk about overdoing product placement. Comparing movies to books seems more logical than comparing books to music. An album track is not relient on the entire album whereas the chapter of a book is relient on the entire book.

Are there a lot of companies hungering for product placements in books? It seems rather foolish to pay for what you already get for free. Looking to your own book, the heroines name is a brand of liquor. Did Jack Daniels pay you for that? If they didn’t, did it stop you from using that name?

I will not buy a book that I know is being promoted by a company and I’m sure there are others like me. As for ads in the back, I’ll just skip over those. Which means I’ll also skip over the ads for the publisher’s other books.

Lastly, it might pay to consider that their are authors that make their living entirely on ebooks. They don’t seem to be suffering, and most of them could probably be termed midlist.

I love this recurring notion that writers get a kickback every time they use a brand name.

I don’t think I made such a sweeping inference. When Janet Evanovich mentions that Ranger uses Bulgari shower gel, for example, I don’t assume Bulgari’s paying her to include the product in the book. But in any case, I’m actually not averse, per se, to authors having some quid pro quo relationship with a brand manufacturer. BUT, where it gets distracting for me — and IMO bad for commercial fiction — is where the *commercial* aspect outweighs the *fiction* aspect. And yes, when brand name mentions start to look *first and foremost* like product placement rather than background specificity, I absolutely wonder whether authors are simply fulfilling (or soliciting) a commercial partnership with a brand manufacturer. And that pulls me out of a book more often than it draws me further into the world of the novel.

Tell that to Sony, who believed they would forever corner the market on portable music players, because CDs would NEVER be replaced.
Media will always be around. But the format media uses can, and often does, change.///

This argument doesn’t even address the same thing. The midlist is not a format. It is, as you know, a grouping of authors who have not been designated as “frontlist” by their publishers because of moderate to low sales. Arguing that “format media” will change or become obsolete in no way addresses how ebooks are the downfall of the midlist. It’s like arguing that because CD players are becoming obsolete then midlist bands will cease to exist. Apples – Oranges.

Have you done the numbers to determine how many ebooks you would need to sell to make your publisher the same amount of money as you need to sell in a print version? It’s much less.

How much do you believe a publisher profits on a mass market paperback? On a hardcover? I know how much. I don’t believe that you do, or you wouldn’t have said that.//

Um, that was my entire point. The margin on an ebook is much higher and should the ebook sales be comparable to print sales for a book, then you need to sell less ebooks.

When distribution and production costs are free, how will publishers make money? ///

Oh, I don’t know. On the higher margin of the sale of its product?

Would you pay $10 to watch an episode of LOST when the TV is showing it for free?//

Obviously some people are willing to pay for an episode at 1.99 on ITunes

Mr.Konrath – you seem to have a certain disdain for your readership.

LOL. By looking for answers rather than whining about the reality of the business? That’s disdain?//

No by suggesting that they are all stealing mongrels. I have checked out books, bought them at used bookstores but I also buy a lot of them new. Even if I could get them for free.

ITunes, and ALL online music sales combined, haven’t come CLOSE to making up for the losses the music industry has experienced for several consecutive years. Google is your friend. You can find the numbers.///

Now, who is being snarky. Yes, ITunes isn’t making up for “losses” but there are a whole host of other reasons that inhibits Itunes sales, one of the greatest is DRM. It is said that DRM free music sells at a rate of 10 to 1. I found that on Google the other day.

I find it interesting that in your long post you conveniently overlook the one argument that disputes your entire thesis that readers are a bunch of no good stealing peeps and that is the success of online epublishers whose content is primarily digital, whose content is probably easily pirated given the lack of DRM, yet people continue to buy them. and they continue to flourish.

Yes, I guess I do have a greater belief in my fellow reader than you and I am happy to have it. I think my fellow readers are great individuals who support the authors they love, take chances on new ones, and are always quick with a buy recommendation.

Tell that to Sony, who believed they would forever corner the market on portable music players, because CDs would NEVER be replaced.

And when MP3s came around, and Sony had a chance to invest in the new technology, they ignored it. And a COMPUTER company became the biggest name in music.

Do you remember LPs? And before that, 78s? Where’s vinyl now?

Do you remember Beta? How about VHS? What happened to them?

Media will always be around. But the format media uses can, and often does, change.

Have you done the numbers to determine how many ebooks you would need to sell to make your publisher the same amount of money as you need to sell in a print version? It’s much less.

How much do you believe a publisher profits on a mass market paperback? On a hardcover? After printing costs, shipping, distbribution, warehousing, returns, and the standard 40%-55% cut given to bookstores, not to mention paying the author, how much do you think a publisher profits?

I know how much. I don’t believe that you do, or you wouldn’t have said that.

Distribution is the key the success in media. Radio airplay and MTV still decide which songs are hits. The more markets a cable TV channel or newspaper appears in, the more they can sell advertising dollars for. NYT bestsellers are such because they sell more through the big box stores than bookstores.

The more widespread a media, the greater its chance for success.

When distribution and production costs are free, how will publishers make money?

Would you pay $10 to watch an episode of LOST when the TV is showing it for free?

Mr.Konrath – you seem to have a certain disdain for your readership.

LOL. By looking for answers rather than whining about the reality of the business? That’s disdain?

Information wants to be free. So does entertainment.

Have you ever gone to the library and checked out a book? Then you’ve read it for free, and the author didn’t make a royalty from you. Have you ever bought a used book? Have you ever borrowed a book from a friend? Ever rented a movie? Ever lent some CDs to your mom, or burned her a copy? Ever recorded a song off the radio? Tivoed a show and skipped the commercials?

Billions of people engage in those activities. That doesn’t make me a cynic. It makes me a realist.

Further, while there are pirates and there will always be pirates to assume that readers will only “steal" and not purchase is disproven already by the success of Itunes.

ITunes, and ALL online music sales combined, haven’t come CLOSE to making up for the losses the music industry has experienced for several consecutive years. Google is your friend. You can find the numbers.

I’m very happy you have faith in your fellow man. Ask the RIAA if they share your faith.

There’s a little phenomenon known as YouTube you might have heard of. Every day, millions of people upload copyrighted material and intellectual property to YouTube.com, sharing it with the world without giving royalties to the creators of the work.

These aren’t evil people, out to steal from writers. These are just average folks. Folks who use the library. Folks you lend their books to their friends.

Downloading and uploading aren’t going to stop. I’m trying to figure out how writers might survive this. You’d rather be snarky.

If you read my blog, you’d know my feelings about ebooks. I believe they should be free. I have two free ebooks on my website, and I’m releasing a backlist series title as a free download.

I don’t think that sharing media is a bad thing. I think it’s a good thing.

But it may soon become so widespread that storytellers will have a tougher time making a living. If that happens, how will writers earn a living?

Advertising is a possibility.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to pour myself a Diet Coke, grab a bag of Frito-Lay Brand corn chips, and go for a ride in my Mazda RX8 to go shopping for a new Apple iPod MP3 player with video capability.

We cannot scrub all cultural references from stories without causing them to become anonymous and homogenized. It takes about 5 seconds to Google (sorry, look up in any internet search engine) a term one does not understand if one feels the lack of information is interfering with one’s reading experience. Get those 1 billion people who don’t understand a reference to actually buy the book, and then we’ll discuss writers compromising their artistic integrity to satisfy their fanbase. (Except that practice is also widely viewed with contempt… Oh, hell, just find a writer and beat her with a stick. It’s a lot quicker than itemizing The Writers’ List of Sins.)

[quote comment="25878"]…draws me into a place where I’m actually wondering if it’s more about the author getting paid than about writing the characters. [/quote]

I love this recurring notion that writers get a kickback every time they use a brand name. That’s hysterical. That would certainly take some of the sting out of the pennies per copy an author makes on a sale, though, so I’m all for the idea. Sign me up.

Have you done the numbers to determine how many ebooks you would need to sell to make your publisher the same amount of money as you need to sell in a print version? It’s much less.

Further, while there are pirates and there will always be pirates to assume that readers will only “steal” and not purchase is disproven already by the success of Itunes.

Simply the existence of digital books or even a movement toward digital books being sold at a comparable rate of paper books will not, in and of itself, lead to the downfall of the midlist.

If anything, because of the reduced costs of manufacturing ebooks, a larger number of authors can make a living off of writing. In fact, there are several ellora’s cave, samhain authors who are selling well enough to do just that despite the majority of its sales are digital and sold without DRM making piracy more easy.

I guess I have more belief in my fellow reader than you that mass digitization will simply lead to more stolen books versus purchased books.

In the near future, the book industry is going to mimic the current state of the music industry. Music lovers download and trade songs for free. The artists, and the record companies, are losing money. CD sales are dropping, because consumers are stealing content.

Books will be stolen in a similar way. All the ebook world needs is the ereader equivilant of an iPod. Once someone creates a cheap, easy to use ebook reader, print books could suffer the same fate that CDs are suffering now.

When that happens, the midlist will disappear. Authors who once sold 5k-20k books per print run will find their readers downloading books for free. Smaller sales. Smaller royalties.

So how will authors make money?

Advertising is what pays for television, and newspapers, and Google.

It may soon pay for books as well, whether you like it or not.

I also remember when you couldn’t pick up a sff book without two or three cards offering a membership to the sfbc falling out.

Then there is the perfume ads in Vanity Fair. I usually don’t mind them until I get one that has an ingredient I am allergic to in it.

My main character in “Karma Girl” plays with Rubik’s Cubes all the time. I thought the cubes would be something that everybody would know as well as communicate that a) my character likes puzzles and b) she’s pretty smart since she can solve them in a few minutes.

I make up a lot of my own brands/stores too, like Oodles ‘o Stuff. But that’s just for fun. *grin*

we start seeing industry tie-ins like the Nascar deal, I’m not so concerned with all of the name dropping as I am the restrictions that could result in some pretty boring books.

I still don’t really see this as a problem. These books aren’t being marketed to the average or fanatical romance reader, they’re being marketed to NASCAR fans and once they get bit by the romance bug, maybe they’ll branch out into more of the genre.[/quote]

And that would be a good thing. I don’t disagree with those who’ve pointed out that there’s really nothing wrong with the Nascar/Harl. pairing. And perhaps there’s an age gap at work here. I’m 50 and I find it dismaying that every available surface is being sucked into some sort of machine that spits it back out with a product/logo on it. Even TV shows have little ads that pop up on the bottom of the screen. But maybe those of you who are younger than I am are better able to tune out the incessant advertising that surrounds us. Or maybe I’m ADD. Whatever, it’s everywhere and I’m paying for it whether I want to be or not.

I’m not big on name dropping in my books, that’s one thing that bothers me about the BDB.

But you are right that it could go overboard…and end up with five pages of ads in the back of books…but as a reader I can always skip those pages. Just like I do in magazines.

This is the problem with product placement. I don’t think overall it’s a bad idea, if the products are limited (ie one or two). But when the product owner starts determining what goes in a book, then you have to wonder who the writer is writing for.

I am cautioning against product placement for pay because I feel that it trends toward losing artistic control.

It seems to me if someone’s willing to take payment for ad placement they’re probably not too worried about “losing artistic control.” I also think it depends on the product placement and who they’re ultimately being marketed to. (I’m playing devils advocate here–I lean more towards agreeing with you than not. :) )