Recently, I was reminded of a book series I started a while ago called Strong Hearts Are Mandatory by Teelia Pelletier. The first book, Heart of Glass, tells the tale of three felines named Radio, Pictures and Video and their journey to find the shards of an artifact scattered across the sentient-animal-dominated land of Media, all whilst foiling the plans of a magical spider monkey known only as The Jester. What sets this book apart from other animal-based high fantasy, however, is the way it was marketed to its audience of mostly teenage online creative writers. Being somewhat in the intended demographic, I decided to discuss and analyze how the book’s social presence markets itself and appeals to its intended audience.
One of the things that fascinated me about this book’s social presentation was how the author connected with her audience, using her established presence with the online creative writing community to connect to her fans and therefore market her book series. Upon visiting one of her many social media accounts, one is immediately bombarded with various colorful animations and digital art pieces depicting scenes and characters from her writing and roleplaying. The book’s cover is also self-illustrated, a collective drawing of all the characters surrounding the heart-shaped artifact that is the catalyst for the plot. The art style is also very stylized and reminiscent of modern cartoons, appealing to the interests of younger audiences.. Considering the overlap between the online creative writing, roleplaying, and amateur digital art communities due to many writers also self-illustrating their stories, this display of art on social media serves as an advertisement by appealing to the innate human need for social connection and unity – by showing how Pelletier is a part of this community, the audience is immediately able to relate and therefore more likely to view the book positively.
Another important cause of the book’s positive reception by its intended audience was the author’s own background and how it influenced the audience. Pelletier was at the unusually young age of 18 when Heart of Glass was published, and also chose to self-publish instead of using an existing publishing house. Her social framework and decision to self-publish creates a “do-it-yourself,” independent background that fits the societal role of a trailblazer. As I mentioned previously in my post regarding epics and the monomyth, society has certain themes that it perpetuates and capitalizes on as a way to inspire its members to promote its progression; through her unusually young age, amateur background, and decision to self-publish, Pelletier sets an example for the aspiring authors that form the online creative writing community for them to advance themselves into professional territory, thus making the community – essentially a miniature society – more likely to become prominent in the public consciousness.
Overall, Strong Hearts Are Mandatory shows how a book’s social presentation strongly influences the audience’s perception of it and subsequently how well-received it is, regardless of its actual content. As creative writing, especially fiction geared towards the Middle-Grade and Young Adult audiences, becomes more and more commercialized, publishers and authors may use marketing tactics and social appeals to market and sway the audience towards books that are of low quality; therefore, one must be aware of how social influence affects how works of fiction are received and reviewed by others in order to judge the literary worth of fiction accurately.
- Jade Li
This sounds really interesting! I've never heard of a book quite like this!
ReplyDeleteI really like how you offer a perspective to books that I wouldn't normally think about, which is the marketing and presentation aspect of a book rather than its content. I agree that appealing to a certain audience is important for a book to get attention, since we as readers are more likely to want to read books when the characters or topic relate to us. You did a good job explaining this, your post is really well written!
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