Serving Your Audience

A kinda-sorta mission statement

Dec 15, 2024

In the last month or so, I have written pitches for two short book projects. Neither is officially a “go” yet, but if they are — and at least one is incredibly likely to be — they will be official companions to a pop culture thing. Both are fairly niche properties, but it would be far from fair to say that neither has a significant fan base…and that got me thinking about why I do what I do.

There are a few answers. One is simple: my whole life, one of the only things I’ve ever really been good at is writing. It’s the one thing that I can contribute to society, that society has decided has monetary value. That’s not exactly an exciting or inspiring answer, but it’s true.

The other two answers are separate, but interrelated. First, the specific kinds of things I write…well, it’s just what I’m interested in. From writing about comic books for Wizard in college to writing books about “extremely niche pop culture,” as I like to call my ECV Analog work, I find things that I’m passionate about, and I try to tell the broader world what’s so exciting about those things.

The third thing is that I’m writing to serve an audience — and in many cases, to serve an audience who is otherwise under-served.

My first book was Best Movie Ever: An Oral History of Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont’s Josie and the Pussycats. Ever since the book came out — and even before that, when I announced I was working on it — I have been tagged on social media in nearly every major story about Josie and the Pussycats. If there’s a screening on film, I know about it. If Rolling Stone lists one of the songs on a Best-Of list, fans make sure to tell me. The Josie fans have welcomed me into their little online community with excitement and warmth.

Part of that is likely because Josie and the Pussycats is a movie that’s full of heart and goodwill. It isn’t the kind of movie to generate an especially negative or toxic fandom. But another part is almost certainly that, after 20 years with basically nothing new to talk about, I gave that audience a whole-ass book!

Granted, it’s self-serving. Even before people in the fandom knew who I was, I was already a part of their group; I loved the film not only before I wrote the book, but even before it got its long-overdue critical reappraisal. Nevertheless, the Josie experience became kind of a guiding light for what I have done, and hope to do going forward, at ECV Analog.

Here are some of the projects that I’ve got coming up in the next few years:

An oral history of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow;
A follow-up book about Josie and the Pussycats to celebrate the movie’s 25th anniversary;
An oral history of the two VelociPastor movies;
A collection of stories about lostwave songs;
An oral history of The CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths;
And a documentary film about a niche comic book topic.

Part of the reason I self-publish is that many of my projects would be a difficult sell anywhere else. As long as I break even, I can consider the fact that these books exist a “win,” because they’re things I want to exist, and they serve an audience who otherwise would probably never get to hear these stories.

I have a few potential projects on my list that might have a more “mainstream” appeal — famously, I once pitched the idea of a book that would try to get to the bottom of what actually happened during the making of Justice League — but those always feel less urgent, less interesting to me than the ones that I know will serve a small, passionate audience. Writing about things like Savage Dragon and the Arrowverse is way more fulfilling for me, because I’m not just writing for myself, but for people like me. I am well-versed in being part of a fandom that’s totally devoid of official merchandise, and it always feels good when I can bring a group like that some good news.

A personal note…

I don’t think I’m allowed to say what the deal is just yet, but I’ve got a couple of new freelance gigs coming up. I’m still focused on ECV Analog for next year, so don’t expect new entries here to dry up, but for the first couple of weeks that I’m working with a new pair of teams, I might end up distracted and slow to reply.

As soon as I can tell you who I’ll be working with, I will. So far since my layoff, I have published work with both KSite and Comic Book Club, and I’m delighted to say I still plan to continue working with both of those sites (but those aren’t the deals I’m talking about).

Oh, and one more thing…!

Since I’ve been very bad about doing this before now, here’s a batch of links to my existing books, which presumably make great holiday gifts if you are lucky enough to know somebody in one of these niche fandoms: