{"id":1128,"date":"2010-07-25T13:59:51","date_gmt":"2010-07-25T18:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/?p=1128"},"modified":"2010-07-25T13:59:51","modified_gmt":"2010-07-25T18:59:51","slug":"the-used-carmyrtle-beach-vacation-of-genres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/25\/the-used-carmyrtle-beach-vacation-of-genres\/","title":{"rendered":"The Used Car\/Myrtle Beach Vacation of Genres"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post may be a bit brief (for me) because we're editing the first part of Duke of Eden,<\/em> the serialized novel I'm going to publish\u00a0exclusively on Kindle for the amazingly low price of 99 cents per installment.\u00a0 I've still got to write the product description but, Yes Virginia - the man tittie cover will hit Kindle next week.\u00a0 Be sure to check out the book then!<\/p>\n

The serialized publication\/value price of Eden<\/em>\u00a0 actually relates to this post.\u00a0 As I was working on edits yesterday, I clicked over to Google News<\/a> - <\/em>my home page for Internet Explorer.\u00a0 I've customized my version to show certain types of stories, and yesterday up popped a Bloomberg Businessweek story of all things.\u00a0 Naturally, I got distracted from my work and had to read the piece right away.\u00a0\u00a0The romance genre meriting a piece on a prominant business site was worthy of notice, and its worthy of mention here.<\/p>\n

The piece was titled:\u00a0 Romance Fiction:\u00a0 Getting Dirty In Dutch Country<\/a>. It focused on\u00a0how romance fiction is - even in this Friday the 13th of economies - on the rise.\u00a0 The story mentioned\u00a0the writer's opinion that \u00a0the many\u00a0and varied categories of\u00a0romance, including Amish, knitting and paranormal specifically, helped keep romance climbing towards the top.\u00a0 I don't really disagree with the piece, I just don't think the writer attributed the rise to all the right factors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0According to the article, publishers say that book sales declined by 1.9 percent in 2009 after a 3 percent drop the previous year and books appear to be \"suffering a slow and\u00a0rather boring death.\"\u00a0 The article doesn't talk about ebooks, which have been undergoing dramatic growth<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The piece notes that despite declining sales in books overall, one genre has been experiencing \"steady and unusual growth.\"\u00a0 Yeah, that's right, ROMANCE.\u00a0 The Romance genre increased to $1.4 billion, up by $100 million, or 7.7% from the prior year.\u00a0 In a down market and a down economy people are buying more romances than ever.\u00a0 Well, duh.\u00a0 <\/em>When have we ever, ever needed to believe in happy endings more than today?<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Mysteries can get your mind working on a puzzle instead of the Citibank bill.\u00a0 Thrillers can tingle\u00a0your spine and make you forget the debt collectors who keep jingling your phone.\u00a0 Women's fiction can remind you that you should spend more time hugging your friends and less worrying about the bank balance that won't cover your bills.\u00a0 Nonfiction can teach you to love yourself\u00a0and to ignore\u00a0the wolf at the door.\u00a0 But only Romance can remind you that the heart matters more than the bottom line.\u00a0 Only Romance guarantees that you're plunking down those scarce dollars for\u00a0a happy ending.\u00a0 And more and more, if readers are going to spend money, they're going to do it for work that lets them curl up and take a trip that's going to end in a good way.\u00a0\u00a0There won't be a wierdo in a Freddy Kruger mask - unless the characters are into that sort of thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It all reminds me of a conversation I had with a cousin who is\u00a0a big used car dealer.\u00a0 He had recently sold the new car dealership and was\u00a0back to his real line of work.\u00a0 I asked if he was worried about business in the current economy.\u00a0 He tilted back in his chair and said, \"Slick (that was his nickname for me), when the economy is good, the used car business is good.\u00a0 And when the economy is bad, the used car business is\u00a0great.\"\u00a0<\/p>\n

And just this week, my boss and I were talking to a Claims Rep for one of our insurance companies, who was worried about a hotel owner\/insured.\u00a0 His business had been going through some tough times but my boss had talked to him and things were going better.\u00a0 That's true all over the Grand Strand region of South Carolina<\/a> this year.\u00a0 The Myrtle Beach International Airport has\u00a0said that just about each month this season has broken the record set the month before.\u00a0 I can\u00a0tell you that judging by traffic jams and lines at restaurants, business in Myrtle is booming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Our good fortune in Myrtle is partly due to the bad fortune of our brothers and sisters along the\u00a0Gulf\u00a0Coast.\u00a0 And I see license tags of many, many other states were I'd bet the folks would normally\u00a0be vacationing along the Gulf beaches.\u00a0 And we sympathize for the owners in those states that were already suffering and are now suffering more.\u00a0 But Myrtle's growth is due to much more than just fortunate geography.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Myrtle\u00a0Beach has always been one of the cheapest family friendly places to vacation.\u00a0 But even so, last year, business was down in Myrtle.\u00a0 I think its that after such a long stretch of stress, people need a break.\u00a0 They can't afford Vegas\u00a0or Atlantic City.\u00a0 The pricey beaches of Florida and the Mouse that requires a golden budget\u00a0or the rich folk areas\u00a0of Florida are beyond too many budgets.\u00a0 But a vacation in Myrtle?\u00a0 It's an affordable splurge.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Used cars do good in good years and great in bad years.\u00a0 Everyone has to have a car to get to work.\u00a0 In good years, many folks will trade the three year old car they bought new for another new car.\u00a0 In the present year, which is not just bad, but is the worst year I can ever, ever, recall, most people will\u00a0drive their car until it just won't go anymore.\u00a0 Then, they'll get the best deal they can on an older model in the best condition they can afford.<\/p>\n

But we'll all still look at the Mercedes, or the Ferrari or\u00a0the restored to cherry condition Vette or Mustang.\u00a0 And we'll\u00a0sometimes weave fantasies about the\u00a0guy driving that car.\u00a0 A\u00a0writer might build a whole book around those fantasies.\u00a0\u00a0 In other genres, the car might be\u00a0hot and police might be looking for the driver, who just killed his business partner.\u00a0 It might be driven by a man whose identity was just stolen as part of an elaborate plot\u00a0to overthrow the government or to control some imporant part of a big buisness.\u00a0 It might be driven by a killer who\u00a0washed away every trace of blood before he\u00a0garbed himself in a designer suit to look for his next\u00a0victim.<\/p>\n

But if the reader is very, very, lucky, the writer who spotted the bad ride was a romance novelist.\u00a0 Then the driver will be a\u00a0bad boy\u00a0billionaire<\/a> who can buy everything he could possibly need and most of what he wants.\u00a0 He believes he can buy everything but he's about to be taught\u00a0a lesson in love by......his secretary, or his ward, or his best friend's little sister.\u00a0 No matter what smart lady teaches the rogue that the one thing he can't live without doesn't have a price tag, the story WILL have a happy ending.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And just like Myrtle Beach's gain may be another resort's loss, the romance writer's gain is more and more another genre writer's loss.\u00a0 But that's okay.\u00a0 Romance writers are a friendly bunch and there's always room for new converts.\u00a0 The\u00a0Bloomberg piece<\/a> talked about suspense writer Kelly Irvin who's new book is..............yeah, you guessed it...........a Romance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In these bad times, the romance genre is the Myrtle Beach vacation\u00a0that more and more readers\u00a0are plunking down\u00a0their hard earned dollars for\u00a0and getting in their used car to drive to, but that's okay......... a happy ending is just around the corner!!!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post may be a bit brief (for me) because we're editing the first part of Duke of Eden, the serialized novel I'm going to publish\u00a0exclusively on Kindle for the amazingly low price of 99 cents per installment.\u00a0 I've still got to write the product description but, Yes Virginia - the man tittie cover will ...continue reading \"The Used Car\/Myrtle Beach Vacation of Genres\"<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,4,6,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1128"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1131,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1128\/revisions\/1131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quackingalone.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}