Apex Reviews has this in-depth interview up now at this link:
http://apexreviews.net/Above_The_Fold_-_9_4_13.html
The first bona fide Oscar-caliber female performance of the year is Cate Blanchett’s turn in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.” Probably based on the Bernie Madoff massive pyramid scheme scandal, the film examines what Mrs. Madoff may (or may not) be experiencing, now that she’s as poor as the rest of us.
There are several messages that come through loud and clear, including this one: “When Jasmine doesn’t want to know something, she’s got a habit of looking the other way.” As Jasmine’s step-son, Danny, asks her, “Did you not suspect anything, or did you not care.”
Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen’s “Blue Jasmine.”
When Hal French, the Bernie Madoff-like crook, played expertly by Alec Baldwin, is arrested and imprisoned, Jasmine (whose real name is Jeanette) loses it. Most of the film, we see Jasmine teetering on the brink of a complete breakdown. She even admits to having had some of “Edison’s medicine” (electro-shock treatments) and downs Xanax as though they are breath mints. Jasmine is a totally manufactured persona without an ounce of genuine sincerity in either her words or deeds.
After her husband’s arrest, Jasmine is so broke that she is forced to move in with her sister, Ginger (Sally Hawkins), a blue collar cashier at a grocery store. Jasmine tells Ginger, “I’m dead broke. I’m worse than tapped out,” but then reveals she flew from New York City to San Francisco (to move in with Jasmine) first class. When asked (by Ginger) how it is possible for Jasmine to be destitute and yet fly first class, Jasmine replies, “I don’t know. I just did,” which p sums up Jasmine’s general attitude towards spending money. (She quotes her dead husband, “As Hal said, it’s not the money, it’s the money.”)
Both girls were adopted and raised by the same family, but Ginger reveals that she ran away while Jasmine was the family favorite. Jasmine constantly references her short-lived college career in Anthropology at B.U. and spouts things to her two nephews like, “With wealth comes responsibility.” One of her small, noisy ADD nephews says, “Mom said you used to be okay and then you got crazy.” Jasmine replies, “There’s only so many traumas you can withstand before you take to the streets,” referencing her disconcerting habit of talking to herself in public places, as deranged mental patients often do. (Her seat mate on an airplane ride says, “She couldn’t stop babbling about her life.”)
Another underlying message is that Jasmine has brought all this on herself. She mentions this in a car ride with ostensible fiancé Dwight Westlake (Peter Saarsgard) and we see previous actions on Jasmine’s part that reinforce this point-of-view.
The consensus: Jasmine is a phoney, as was her husband and as was her entire ivory tower life of privilege. The “real” people in the film recognize this, and that includes Andrew Dice Clay as Ginger’s ex-husband, Augie; Chili (Bobby Cannavale of “Boardwalk Empire”), who intends to marry Ginger; and Jasmine’s own step-son, Danny (Alden Ehrenreich). Jasmine looks every bit the affluent Park Avenue socialite, with her Louis Vuitton luggage, her pearls, Chanel jacket and belt, Hermes bag and expensive Vivienne Westwood shoes. Ironically, she gives her young nephews a lecture about working hard and tipping big, when she, herself, is dead broke. At the same time she is talking a good game, she initially rejects a job as a dentist’s receptionist because it is “too menial.” Cate Blanchett’s Jasmine seems to be a direct descendant of Vivien Leigh’s character in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” who has always depended on the kindness of strangers and looked down upon the little people.
There are still the hilarious Woody Allen lines and funny situations in the film, despite its serious insights and subtext. (To Ginger, re Chili: “There’s a world of men out there who’d never think of ripping a phone out of the wall.”) Placing Jasmine in a world that she has not inhabited in years, populated by “the little people” who actually work for a living, is a recipe for humor.
She is forced to fend off the unwanted advances of ordinary males like Eddie (Max Casella), a friend of Chili’s, who gets great lines like: “You get a bad clam, you’ll wish you’d never been born,” and “I had a friend that used to do that (stare into space), but there was something wrong with him. Epileptic, I think.” As she attempts to cope with the rigors of a real job, Jasmine has one elderly dental patient who rejects the appointment time offered saying, “That’s my colonoscopy prep day, and it’s always very special” with a dreamy expression on her face. You can’t help but smile. The expressions on Blanchett’s face in fending off the advances of ordinary suitors who are not wealthy is priceless. (Comedian Louis C.K. plays one such ordinary suitor seeking her sister Ginger’s affections, Al Munsinger.)
All of the supporting players are spot-on. It’s refreshing to see Andrew Dice Clay articulate “the common man’s” emotions at being swindled of their hard-earned money, saying, “Some people, they don’t put things behind so easily.” Peter Saarsgard as a promising suitor who is with the State Department is equally good in the part of the white knight Jasmine thinks might rescue her from her new reality.
Sally Hawkins, Alec Baldwin, Bobby Cannavale, Andrew Dice Clay, Louis C.K.—all are perfect in their parts. But the actor who seems to have a lock on an Oscar nomination is Cate Blanchett’s unhinged socialite-turned-pauper. She may well have brought all this upon herself, but her totally convincing turn as a woman on the brink of a breakdown (or trying to recover from one) is Oscar-worthy.
In the opening scene of “Jobs,” the resemblance of star Ashton Kutcher to the ailing Steve Jobs was so great that I thought it was archival film footage–-until the camera moved in for a close-up and we heard Kutcher’s voice. Dressed in the “uniform” that Jobs almost always wore (a black long-sleeved Issey Muyake mock turtleneck, Levi’s 501 blue jeans and New Balance 991 sneakers) Kutcher captures the physical man, including his odd walking gait, as he stepped onstage in 2001 to introduce the Ipod . Say what you will about the over-long movie (2 hours, 20 mins.), this is Kutcher’s finest hour as an actor. He does a great job with material that may—or may not—-be totally historically accurate.
Steve Wozniak weighed in regarding Jobs on the blog Gizmodo on August 16, 2013:
“I saw the (Jobs) movie tonight. I thought the acting throughout was good. I was attentive and entertained, but not greatly enough to recommend the movie. One friend who is in the movie said he didn’t want to watch fiction so he wasn’t interested in seeing it.
I suspect a lot of what was wrong with the film came from Ashton’s own image of Jobs. Ashton made some disingenuous and wrong statements about me recently (including my supposedly having said that the movie was bad, which was probably Ashton believing pop press headlines) and that I didn’t like the movie because I’m paid to consult on another one. These are examples of Ashton still being in character. Either film would have paid me to consult, but the Jobs one already had a script written. I can’t take that creative leadership from someone else. And I was turned off by the Jobs script. But I still hoped for a great movie.
As to compromising principles for money, I will add one detail left out of the film. When Apple decided not to reward early friends who helped, I gave them large blocks of my own stock. Because it was right. And I made it possible for 80 other employees to get some stock prior to the IPO so they could participate in the wealth. I felt bad for many people I know well who were portrayed wrongly in their interactions with Jobs and the company. The movie ends pretty much where the great Jobs finally found product success (the iPod) and changed so many of our lives. I’m grateful to Steve for his excellence in the I-era, and his contribution to my own life of enjoying great products, but this movie portrays him having had those skills in earlier times.”
Steve Wozniak is portrayed by Josh Gad (“The Book of Mormon”). Gad also does a stellar job portraying the idiosyncratic partner to the hard-driving Jobs. The scene where Woz (quoted above) tearfully tells Jobs he is leaving the company they built together is as fine a piece of supporting actor work as Noah Hill’s Oscar-nominated turn opposite Brad Pitt in “Moneyball.” (“Not everyone has an agenda, Steve. It’s about yourself. You’re the beginning and the end of your own world and it’s gotta’ be sad and lonely.”)
The film makes it clear that Woz was the technical computing genius and Jobs the marketing guru. In fact, Apple executive Bud Tribble even coined a term for the Jobs magic in 1981: the “reality distortion field.”
What does that mean? It refers to the ability to convince himself and others to believe almost anything is possible, using charm, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, marketing savvy, appeasement and persistence. Jobs was the consummate salesman, but he was also a visionary. Back in 1995, eighteen years ago, in an interview with David Morrow of the Computerworld Smithsonian-Awards Program (April 20, 1995) Jobs said: “The Internet is the one bright spot of hope in the computer industry for some serious innovation to happen at a rapid pace…It is going to radically change the way goods and services are discovered, sold, and delivered not only in this country, but around the world.”
The real Steve Jobs (left) and Ashton Kutcher as Jobs (right).
The film opens with Jobs introducing the Apple Ipod at a 2001 Apple Town Hall meeting, then flashes back to 1974, portraying Jobs’ days as a drop-out on campus at Reed College. He’s still hanging around taking classes that interest him, such as a calligraphy class. He tells a dean, played by James Woods, that “higher education comes at the expense of experience” and he and a friend travel to India for seven months.
But Steve Jobs sees the future of personal computers and announces to the few who work with him at first to create this new device, “We’re working in a market that doesn’t even exist yet.”
Jobs and Woz design computer boards in his father’s garage and Jobs finds a small businessman willing to purchase 400 units for $500 per unit. It isn’t until Mike Markaloe (Dermot Mulroney) gives the small start-up group $90,000 in seed money that things really take off, however, and at that moment we see that Jobs can be a shrewd negotiator. In fact, he is portrayed as money-grubbing when he calls Steve Wozniak in to help him with the technical challenge of meeting a deadline for the computer, telling him that the pay is $700 when it is really $5,000. With the task complete, Jobs gives the accommodating Wozniak $350 and quietly pockets the lion’s share himself. Jobs never joined in the Bill Gates/Warren Buffett pledge to donate their fortunes to charity after their death, and was supposedly worth $8.3 billion in 2010, the 42nd wealthiest American and #17 on Forbes’ magazine World’s Most Powerful People.
From their humble beginnings in his father’s garage (the original Jobs home in Palo Alto was used for filming), the Jobs film recycles truths from the master like these: “If we wanna’ be great, we gotta’ risk it, too. I would rather gamble on our mission than on a ‘Me, too’ product.” He says at one point, “In your life, you only get to do so many things, and we’ve chosen to do this, so let’s make it great.” Later: “We’re selling it (the Apple) as a tool for the mind. The belief in the possible, the limitless. Come with me and change the world.”
The chintzy side of Jobs is portrayed and his egomaniacal streak is clearly visible. He is temperamental and fires people seemingly at random. The project manager for the Macintosh, Jeff Raskin, said of him, “He would have made a good King of France.” He is told by his board, “You are your own worst enemy and this company’s.” Jobs wanted to “create something useful that you care about.” His drive and passion for excellence, however, are not shared under CEO John Scully (formerly of Pepsi) and he is forced out in a power play. Jobs went on to start a smaller company called NeXt. It would be eleven years— (especially rocky years for the company he co-founded) —before then CEO Gil Amelio (Kevin Dunn) would come calling to lure Jobs back to Apple as a consultant.
Steve returns to the company he founded, but ultimately forces out both Amelio and his first initial investor/ backer, Mike Markaloe (Dermot Mulroney), an act of revenge for not backing Jobs in the coup that ousted him from the company he founded eleven years earlier. Steve Jobs’ mentality: “You’re either with me or against me.”
Jobs’ personal life is largely ignored in this bio-pic. There is a passing reference to his being given up at birth for adoption , but it’s very casual, pictured as a small remark made in passing to his girlfriend while dropping acid (“Who has a baby and then throws it away like it’s nothing?”) In real life, Jobs found he had a biological sister and became close to her later in life, but he remained estranged from his biological father even when his father tried to seek him out, and there is no mention of his father or his sister in the film.
The remark regarding throwing away a child seems ironic in the context of the film’s revelation that for years Jobs denied his own biological daughter, Lisa–-conceived with his first girlfriend. (Later, Lisa lives with Jobs and his wife Laurene Powell Jobs (Abby Brammell).
Most of the lines in the film are taken from interviews and statements by Jobs himself and were woven into a screenplay by screenwriter Matt Whiteley. The film was directed by Joshua Michael Stern.
It’s a fascinating character study of a man whom students between the ages of 16 and 26, (asked in a survey to name the greatest innovator of all time), ranked second only to Thomas Edison. And it may serve to repair Ashton Kutcher’s image in the same way that Ben Affleck finally distanced himself from flops like “Gigli” and “Pearl Harbor” by directing and starring in “The Town” and this year’s Best Picture,
Elmore Leonard’s Ten Rules of Writing:
1. Never open a book with weather.
2. Avoid prologues.
3. Never use a verb other than “said” to carry dialogue.
4. Never use an adverb to modify the verb “said”…he admonished gravely.
5. Keep your exclamation points under control. You are allowed no more than two or three per 100,000 words of prose.
6. Never use the words “suddenly” or “all hell broke loose.”
7. Use regional dialect, patois, sparingly.
8. Avoid detailed descriptions of characters.
9. Don’t go into great detail describing places and things.
10. Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip.
My most important rule is one that sums up the 10. If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.
OPENING SCENE
The opening sequence in “Paranoia” is promising: the hero (Liam Hemsworth as Adam Cassidy) running down an alley. That’s about as much action, tension and “paranoia” as you’re going to get in this film, so enjoy it There are interminable scenes of computer uploads. Technological babble fouls the air at every turn. You can almost feel time passing, never to return. (That’s an hour and 40 minutes of my life I’ll never get back.)
The plot of “Paranoia,” (based on the excellent Joseph Finder novel), has Hemsworth (Adam Cassidy), blackmailed by the villainous Gary Oldman (Nicholas Wyatt) into spying on his former business partner Harrison Ford (Jock Goddard) and stealing his arch enemy’s plans for a revolutionary new electronic device. It’s all about the world of high-tech big corporations and espionage—spying at the highest levels of power.
WHERE’s WALDO? Or WHERE’S/WHO’S THE HERO?
Top to right, clockwise: Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman, Amber Heard and Liam Hemsworth in “Paranoia.”
Why is “Paranoia,” the new movie based on Joseph Finder’s excellent plot so lifeless? There are long sequences that plod along as though expert EMTs are working hard to resuscitate the victim. Finally, the frustrated EMTs shake their heads and pull the sheet over the deceased’s face, acknowledging that this one didn’t make it. Dead-on-arrival.
Scene to illustrate: Adam Cassidy (Liam Hemsworth) tries to use a bogus latex fingerprint to gain access to the 38th floor’s top-secret vault in order to steal the heavily-guarded prototype. He tries to enter with the fingerprint identification gadget three times.
I hoped Liam would quit after one try. I was rooting for him to go home, take off his shirt, go for another dip in the pool, and then aimlessly walk around in a towel some more. [I also doubt if any top-secret object is stored in a vault and displayed exactly this way; I saw the Secret Service drag “the Red Phone” into a restaurant during a presidential campaign in a plain black box, and THAT object could have started a nuclear war!]
THE SCRIPT VERSUS THE ACTING
Liam Hemsworth in “Paranoia.”
Liam Hemsworth in “Paranoia.”
I can’t fault the acting (although others have), with but two exceptions: Josh Holloway’s FBI Agent Gamble was weak and Julian McMahon’s (“Nip/Tuck”) hired hitman Miles Meachum was laughable. The music was not my favorite film score, but the sets were appropriately high-tech (although Philadelphia represents midtown Manhattan at some points), the costuming was okay and there were some killer cars.
EYE CANDY
Liam Hemsworth’s acting has been most often singled out for criticism, with comparisons to the vapid blankness of Taylor Lautner or Keanu Reeves. I disagree. My problem with Hemsworth’s role involved the inordinate number of times he is required to appear sans clothing, in bed or elsewhere. He’s a hunky guy; no doubt about it. But does the plot really require him to stroll about in a towel or hit the pool that often, even if he IS eye candy?
One critic actually suggested that cutting Hemsworth totally out of the movie might have made for a better film, as we could enjoy the two old lions (Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman) battling it out onscreen as they last did in 1997’s “Air Force One.” This would gut Joseph Finder’s complicated plot. The point is that too much experienced talent is wasted. [My suggestion: read the book.]
GARY OLDMAN, HARRISON FORD & RICHARD DREYFUSS
Oldman and Ford don’t have that many good lines or much to do; therefore, they mainly chew the scenery. The acting from Dreyfuss is actually more engaging, especially in the touching scene when Hemsworth, sitting on the front stoop with the sick old guy (emphysema) who badly needs a haircut, insensitively says he doesn’t want to turn out like his old man. Dreyfuss’ face conveys the hurt he feels without any dialogue. Looking at Dreyfuss and Hemsworth, side by side, you feel that, in addition to a haircut, Dreyfuss needs a Maury Povich paternity test.
COMPUTER NERDS RULE
I’m also growing impatient with the trope in movies where gigantic corporations apparently employ only the dimmest programmers in the world. The big corporations never hire the best and brightest. Some nerdy outcast (Lucas Till playing Kevin, this time), using a computer he may have made out of a paper cup, string and tin foil, is WAAY smarter than anybody the big company employs. The plucky upstart (Lisbeth Salander, anyone?) outwits them all. [Oh, really? Then, why is Kevin unemployed and looking for work for most of the film?]
PLOT POINTS THAT FAIL
That plot point aside, many have pointed out that when an employee is terminated, his credit card from the company is immediately de-activated, which would play hell with a scene set in a New York City nightclub where a disgruntled Adam leads his team on a $16,000 drinking binge on the company’s dime. This party was a big change from the book, where Adam is doing a “good deed” in throwing a retirement party for Jonesie, a loading dock guy, so that this sub-set of workers, who never get to enjoy “the good life” at the top, can have a night to remember.
The book’s original motivations for young Adam (Hemsworth) were slightly more admirable. His actions were more in keeping with the necessary “good guy” image of a hero, rather than having Adam simply go rogue in a fit of pique. In the novel, Adam’s going off the reservation—while impulsive and certain to cause dire repercussions— seem generous and less criminal. In the movie, Adam’s actions just come off as wrong and petty.
But, of course, watching Adam’s “team” of handsome young people dancing and popping champagne corks was probably deemed cinematically superior to watching a bunch of old farts (Jonesie has a wife of 42 years, Esther) get down to a Jamaican reggae group, as per the book’s opening chapter. The trouble may have started with scripted changes like that, because Adam’s actions, although wrong in either case, now paint him in an entirely different light as a spoiled brat angry that the Big Boss (Gary Oldman) didn’t like or carefully listen to his sales pitch. He’s a small child petulantly giving the finger to the boss and saying, “I’ll show you!” not the good guy throwing a nice going-away party for a deserving retiree.
THE O.J. FACTOR
For me, the film fails to deliver, in part, because of the O.J. Factor. The O.J. Factor defined: Remember when the prosecution introduced massive amounts of DNA evidence in the O.J. Simpson murder trial, causing the jury to zone out? After so many monologues or dialogues about computer chips (blah, blah, blah), the audience’s eyes begin to glaze and we lose interest. [This is especially true if you can’t even add a new number to your fancy cell phone, but even tech savvy youngsters, especially those who are pining for a car crash per second, will find the droning on about technology a bit much].
Never has technology and industrial espionage seemed so dull. Films like Tom Cruise’s 2002 “The Minority Report” illustrate crisper, more interesting ways to illustrate the wonders of technology. When one company ruthlessly murders programmers, the audience gets to see none of that exciting stuff. We get a quick peek at a black-and-white photo of a corpse with a sheet over the body. (And this particular character actually had a small speaking part earlier!) Why not show us some of THAT action (i.e., how the poor sap met his end) rather than miring us in miasma?
DIRECTOR ROBERT LUKETIC
Is the director the problem? The film is directed by Robert Luketic. Luketic’s best previous film was “Legally Blonde,” a Reese Witherspoon vehicle. He also directed “Monster-in-Law.” One critic wondered what the film might have been like if director Brian DePalma had been hired to build the tension that doesn’t seem to exist—even in what are supposed to be thrilling moments. There were opportunities, but they were not seized. As you sit in the theater, it feels as though you are caught in a time warp. The film is often static, with little conflict beyond Oldman’s ranting in a thick British accent about hotter water for his tea. The onscreen chemistry between Hemsworth and Heard is non-existent. Hardly riveting stuff.
TIMELY TOPICS
The revelation of the NSA wiretapping and data gathering of innocent civilians, as well as the sub-plot involving expensive health care in the U.S. and how it is unaffordable to the average American (especially young >Americans) should have been home runs for the screenwriters to integrate into the script. Lord knows, they tried, using Frank Cassidy’s (Richard Dreyfuss’) emphysema as the entrée to the health care/excessive cost debate.
The film has been a work-in-progress for some time; the recent and still-ongoing NSA flap should have been as timely as the meltdown at Three Mile Island was for “The China Syndrome” in 1979. Alas, even this helpful confluence of fact and fiction did not resonate.
CONCLUSION
Amber Heard’s character says, at one point, “The expectation is so high that I can’t ever really succeed.” For me, (having read Joseph Finder’s ingeniously plotted and well-written novel), I was disappointed that this movie didn’t succeed, despite heroic and expensive efforts to infuse life into “Paranoia.” Past the opening sequence, the film is on life support. Somebody or something either tripped over or pulled the plug.
Last 3 days have been busy.
First, the Nina and the Pinta, replica ships, visited Davenport, Iowa on the Mississippi River. I felt obligated to take some pictures of same, which I will share with you here.
Phillip Phillips
Then, we arrived in Chicago for the John Mayer/Phillip Phillips concert at Tingley Park (Midwest Bank Amphitheater), which was tonight, August 9th. Video will be available on YouTube at
http://youtu.be/xGOi6V-9rm8
Phillip Phillips
John Mayer
However, there are some still shots I can share with you here.
Tomorrow, the Tall Ships at Navy Pier.
5%
Just to let fans know, the second book in THE COLOR OF EVIL series (www.TheColorOfEvil.com) entitled RED IS FOR RAGE will be FREE as part of the Kindle KDP free give-away program (and for the first time) August 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, which is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
The book picks up where THE COLOR OF EVIL left off and continues to a cliff-hanging ending which will lead to book #3 in the series, KHAKI = KILLER, which is complete and awaiting cover art from Vincent Chong of the UK. Some of you may know that Vincent Chong is an award-winning artist who did Stephen King’s cover for 11/22/1963.
It would really help me out if you’d download Ri4R, as this causes the book to jump in the listings. The book has won awards, including the NABE (National Association of Book Entrepreneurs) Pinnacle award for 2013 in the Thriller category. If you live in the Quad Cities and prefer a “real” book, it can be purchased at Book World within South Park Mall or at the Book Rack and can be ordered from Amazon. It will not be available through Barnes & Noble until the Kindle promotion ends, at which point it will once again be able to be ordered via B&N.
Each book has a dedicated website where you can read more about the book and read reviews. (www.TheColorOfEvil.com; www.RedIsforRage.com). You can also consult Amazon, where the book has been reviewed by readers.
Bingo, the movie.
The Rise of Bingo Films on the Silver Screen mirrors the increasing popularity of the game worldwide.
The popularity of bingo has grown by leaps and bounds since the creation of the card game in the 1500’s. The ever-growing craze of bingo is widespread. Bingo has acquired a large number of devoted players around the globe.
Because of the upsurge of the game in many parts of the world, the card game has exerted a strong influence on its players. There have been several documentaries chronicling the continuous steady rise of this famous social game.
Films Featuring Bingo:
If you are an ardent bingo player and have been educating yourself about the game, you may have seen a movie featuring bingo. The documentary Bingo, released in 1999, is familiar to bingo enthusiasts. That film is considered to be the best movie illustrating the elaborate history of bingo
.
The film highlights the influence of bingo in various cultures around the world and illustrates its role in the formation of a society. Regular bingo players, fanatics, and gaming hall employees were interviewed,all testifying that bingo is a card game which has been played by people of varied backgrounds for centuries. The presentation of details debunks the old perspective of the game as restricted merely to housewives or old ladies.
Other bingo-themed movies, such as The King of Bingo Game in 2008 and Jackpot in 2009, illustrated different perspectives towards bingo. Both films showed how every bingo player interviewed was deeply engrossed in the game, dreaming and hoping that the next number called out would change his or her life forever.
These and other bingo-themed movies have extended beyond the four corners of the bingo hall. The unstoppable bingo fad transcended the walls of brick-and-mortal bingo halls and reached the growing online bingo scene, such as cheekybingo. Other online bingo providers have acquired a vast number of participants.
[*I used the Grammarly service grammar check (http://www.grammarly.com) to double-check this interview for grammar errors because I thought Grammarly was my husband’s Great Grandmother, Lee, and I was trying to be diplomatic. (It was only later that I learned that Nanna Lee shuffled off this mortal coil in 1969. By then, it was too late. As Rick Perry would say, “Oops!”)]
I caught up with Best-Selling author Jon Land at International Thriller Writers Conference in New York City from July 10-14 and asked him some questions that all struggling authors want to have answered. Jon, whose E-book “Pandora’s Temple” was nominated for Best E-book of the Year, was Vice President of Marketing for ITW until recently turning over the post to Joseph Finder (“Company Man,” “Paranoia.”) His Caitlin Strong Texas Ranger series is just one of Jon’s many accomplishments as an author.
1) “What marketing tips do you have for wannabee writers?”
Author Jon Land (“Pandora’s Temple”) prepares to moderate a panel on “the hybrid author.”
Well, the best marketing tip I have for wannabee writers is to write a great book. I know that may sound like a cop-out, but the social media craze currently infecting our industry has too many of us spending our time figuring out how to sell something instead of focusing on making it truly worthy to be sold. The simple fact of the matter is the one thing that hasn’t changed in the crazy publishing business is that the surest route to success is writing a book that works, where fabulous characters find themselves struggling along a wondrous quest. The thing about marketing is you have to be careful about how best to budget your time so you’re not tilting at mythical sales windmills. With the Caitlin Strong series growing more firmly entrenched in the reading public’s mind with each new entry, I’ve taken to focusing my efforts on landing as many reviews as I can anywhere and doing as many interviews as I can for bloggers specializing in books. Those interviews, posts, and reviews seem to work well for helping spread word of mouth, leading to the kind of steady build that is a more realistic and attainable goal these days.
2) What are the challenges of writing a series, as opposed to a stand-alone book? (i.e., how much do you go back and fill in the reader on what went on in the previous book or books?)
That’s a great question and the simple answer is assuring that the characters enjoy emotional growth from book to book, while not necessitating that the reader cover them in order. That’s a very fine line to walk, but walk it we must, because nothing in my mind renders a series dull and impotent faster than characters that never change, grow or, sometimes, even age. Another fine line is knowing exactly how much back story to fill the reader in on from book to book. In my mind, you want to include as little of that as possible to avoid making the reader think he or she has missed something. And the best way to achieve that is to prioritize making the lead characters the only ones who reoccur. Bringing villains back creates the notion of a long story, instead of separate and distinct tales. Basically the mark of any good series is to be able to begin it anywhere and not realize it’s a series at all. Every book needs to work as a standalone or you risk losing your reader before you’ve even had a chance to grab them.
3) What do you think makes a”good cover,” for a book? Give some specifics of your thoughts on what makes a good cover for a book.
Another great question! I’m convinced that the best covers capture both the tone and subject of the book, while also working as a great sales tool. Let me use the cover of my latest, STRONG RAIN FALLING, as a prime example, in large measure because I feel it’s the most effective so far of any in my five-book Caitlin Strong series. The dominant graphic of a lightning bolt striking a desolate road suggests both the storm of violence that’s coming and Caitlin’s lonely quest to stop it. And I love the presence of the lightning branching off in several directions, suggesting the far-reaching effects of the evil plot about to descend on America. That, along with the gathering storm clouds in the background, forms as effective a thriller cover as I’ve ever seen.
4) What do you think the future of E-books (with Amazon now the owner of Goodreads) will be?
I kind of look at E-books as a snowball rolling downhill, gathering size and speed as it goes. So I see the impact of Amazon’s purchase of GoodReads to have only a negligible effect on this sector of the industry. Look, the problem we have right now in publishing is that there are bestsellers and then there is everything else. We’ve essentially lost the middle and writers both new and old are scrambling to figure out how to break through this dome that’s tougher to crack than the one envisioned by Stephen King in the book and hit CBS series. So we intend to fixate on labels and the ever-shrinking window of opportunities new and independent writers have to build and/or expand their audiences. There are a thousand challenges to that process and Amazon buying Goodreads is just one of them.
5) “To trailer or not to trailer (a book), that is the question.”
Book trailers work in conjunction with a larger campaign to increase an author’s and book’s visibility. It’s the same thing with social media; everything works best for authors who are already established and normally not as well for authors who aren’t. You want to know the most important thing to maximize the opportunities for success? Get display space in bookstores and get featured on Amazon. Unfortunately, both those are far easier said than done, but without them, no matter what we do, we’re pushing a boulder up the hill. The key thing this whole selling side presents is looking at each book as another step in the process. If each one you do does better than the one that preceded it, you’re on the right track because you’re making a case for yourself and for either getting a publisher or making your existing publisher do more promotion along with you. Too many writers do a single book and then spend the next year promoting it instead of writing their next book. Because here’s the thing: successive titles, building a backlist, is the best promotional tool of all!
6) What method or methods do you think work “best” in promotion of a new book?
I’ve pretty much covered that above but let me try to go at it from an angle I haven’t hit yet, and that’s the author himself or herself. There is that particular area of expertise or experience the authors bring to the fashioning of their books that will lend it enough relevance to make people want to pick it up. For instance, if the hero of a book is tortured by a past riddled with abuse, it would really help the author’s cause if he or she was writing from that kind of painful experience. Promoting yourself by opening up, by sharing, is probably the most effective strategy of all, because it vests readers in the author, not just what they’ve created. The alternative to that is writing about something you’re expert in. Promoting a book based on that may not have as visceral a response as something intrinsically personal, but it will definitely make people pay attention to what you’re writing.
While I was in New York City attending International Thriller Writers convention, a New York paper had a story on a public school that put out a list of recommended reading for summer. Unfortunately, the secretary was not very proficient, and apparently had never heard of the titles she was typing up. This led to some merriment, when titles like “The Great Gypsy” showed up.
In thinking about this article, the following list represents what a truly incompetent secretary might have recommended as literature to be read over the summer:
1) Madame Ovary
2) The Lovely Bone
3) The Great Gypsy
4) David Copafeel
5) For Whom the Bed Tolls
6) Harry Potted
7) The Fart Is A Lonely Hunter
8) Warren Pease
9) Stand Under Me
10) Our Mutual Fiend
11) The Turd Man
12) The Big Sleet
13) Winderella
14) A Tale of Two Titties
15) Beauty and the Breast
16) Jason and the Golden Fleas
17) Peter Pain
18) The Brothers Caramello
19) Bride and Prejudice
20) War and Peas
21) Lady Loverly’s Chatter
22) Children of a Lesser Cod
23) Keen Leer
24) Crimea and Punishment
25) The Marcia Chronicles
26) Prude and Prejudice
27) Skeleton Key