Midnight is not just for the New Year

There was a time when books weren't printed by the masses, and manuscripts were written by hand. There was a time before celebrities wrote their own stories about life, troubles and successes. There was a time when books had pages and had to be read. It was before such things as Kindle and Jim Dale. There was a time not so long ago before Harry Potter, Twilight and so many others that have followed it. Books about our favorite boy wizard, a passionate loving vampire, or symbologist adventurer have brought out flocks of readers. These readers come out in full colors, dressed in fanlore lining up along bookstore walls armed with caffeine and excitement.

The midnight parties celebrating releases of the printed word, the creative process put to page are fairly new. In our modern world we have as a society made reading cool again, pages and pages have captivated our existence. I remember walking around the day after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released and at every street corner, on every mall bench, at every park there was clumps of people all with their noses pressed into a copy of their book. Its been fascinating to watch this new social culture evolve.

As a college student, I took a class on Entertainment Marketing. One of the core focuses of the course was brand culture and idea that society fixates on buying brands to belong. The cool young and hip all own Apple products, the ambitious sport driven all wear Nike, and so on with so many brand communities that now exist in our world. Reading has become something of the new frontier, its the new market to exploit and bring to life for the consumer. Communities are formed through stories and through the characters we relate to on each page. Reading has gained the sexy modern edge of being marketed, creating hype, and giving the audience anticipation. I wrote a final paper about the idea that books begin a marketing campaign that captivates the modern audience by using new venues, different techniques. I shared ideas of creating hype and attachment prior to releases by copying movies and giving small tastes of stories through book trailers. I envision giving audiences a chance to connect to characters by creating facebook groups and a fan world based online. In the last few years I have seen how those very marketing strategies have come to pass.

Most recently I discovered the book trailers that Rick Riordan created for the last two books in his Percy in the Olympians series. Upon that discovery was the first time I realized that my final paper was coming into play and it was wonderful to be able to watch it unfold. The most recent example of the new marketing frontier is a little book called Bran Hambric: The Farfield Curse. Bran Hambric is a book by Kaleb Nation, the Twilight Guy for anyone who might be familiar with that fandom. Kaleb Nation is young, twenty to be exact, so possibly the young see the potential/ or need of creating a visual, interactive foundation for a book? The book comes out September 9th of 2009, classic a date to be remembered 9-9-09? Now book releases are even coming out on days of importance, lest can we forget that Harry's last adventure was like a birthday present he gave to us on his day of birth? But the website is a fantastic tale of what's to come, with a brilliant trailer and vivid pictures. The trailer even comes with music, composed by Kaleb based on his characters and the action of his story. Here we see the beauty of our age, the connection of all arts together to make one story stronger.

This won't be my last time looking at Bram Hambric, I'm sure I will have more to say as I come to met and know him and his world. But I do know that my first impression was strong, and I have high hopes for this story and its author's ability to craft his tale. My musing is how all elements of art, all forms of story telling can and sometimes must be merge for us to truly become engulfed. A story must have a voice, an identity, an essence to attach to for all members of its audience. Art inspires art, stories inspires more stories, so tonight the muse was showing me how to inspire by being inspired.