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SF-LIT  October 1996

SF-LIT October 1996

Subject:

Re: The Future of Science Fiction

From:

Anny Middon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Science Fiction and Fantasy Listserv <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Tue, 22 Oct 1996 00:11:34 -0400

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (61 lines)

In a message dated 96-10-20 09:22:58 EDT, [log in to unmask] (Umberto
Rossi) wrote:

> What I wanted to say is:  do you really believe that marketing policies are
>  so rational?  These strategies are usually presented as if they were
>  rational, and the marketing experts who advertize them always say that the
>  ultimate proof of their rationality is the fact that you make money with
>  them.

The marketing policies are by and large rational in that the decision to
undertake them is made on the expectation that doing so will increase
profits.  Of course, that expectation does not always come true.

I admit that occasionally marketing decisions are made for other reasons.
 One of the best-run companies I know recently made a marketing decision
viewed by most of its middle-managers as silly.  The reason behind the
decision was essentially what's vulgarly called a pissing contest between two
senior executives.  OTOH, silly as it was they did make money off it.  Go
figure.

> But my experience in social research tells me that many marketing
>  techniques are not so rational as they seem, i.e. they allow you to make
>  money for some time, then they simply destroy the thing you sell, some way
>  or other.

Yes, this happens sometimes.  The lure of short-term profits even if at the
possible expense of the organization's long-term viability is sometimes hard
to resist.  But remember too that it's harder to predict consequences further
in the future.  In some instances, the long-term impact of '"destroying the
thing you sell" was unforeseen.

> It's much like when a corporation, which is usually governed by
>  finance experts, buys a firm with good performances.  Often they simply
>  destroy it to take all the money they can get from it, and to re-invest it
>  in other areas.

Yes, sometimes this happens.  In most such cases the buying organization
views running the company into the ground the best way for them to make
money, given their available resources (including managerial talent).  The
employees and sometimes the community and the consumers suffer, while the
shareholders of the buying company prosper.

>  As for the SF, here in Italy we have something similar to what I have seen
>  in the US during my trips there, and what I can reconstruct by some
articles
>  and your e-mails: put less books and more trash (PKD would say kipple) on
>  the shelves.  The difference is that our publishing houses do not have a
>  marketing policy for SF of their own;  they simply ape what big US
>  publishing houses do in your country.  The result is that they are
>  destroying SF, BOTH as a literary genre AND as a sellable (does this exist
>  in English?) good.  But they tell you:  "that's what they do in the US, it
>  must be good marketing!"

In other words, they are doing it because they expect to see increased
profits from it.  I would ask whether their profits from the kipple is
greater than the profits they earned from the books the kipple replaced on
their shelves.

Anny
[log in to unmask]

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