Browncoats Archives - David Mark Brown

Firefly: a New Conspiracy Theory

October 30, 2013November 4, 2013 by David Mark Brown

[This week I’m reviving a classic post from two years ago. Gosh darnit, it’s just so timely.] In case you are unaware, the best show on T.V. to never finish a single season is incontestably and unarguably Firefly. It aired and was cancelled in 2002. Many diehard, Firefly freekies will tell you the show was cancelled … Read more Firefly: a New Conspiracy Theory

The Gospel According to Mal

October 23, 2013October 23, 2013 by David Mark Brown

Malcolm Reynolds may very well be the most good-natured, and pure-hearted antihero ever to be imagined. He joins such bad boy favorites as Han Solo and the Duke boys on the pedestal of our hearts. (Mal owe much to the forerunner of the genre, Northwest Smith. But that’s for another post.)

Unlike Bo and Luke Duke, Malcolm Reynolds is driven to dark places of rumination through trauma, failure and vast disappointment. With the help of those few who Mal trusts, he emerges an immovable man built on a bedrock of beliefs. Those beliefs form his worldview. That worldview is the focus of this post.

I invite all those who sympathize with the cause of the Independents to read, ponder and debate.

Introducing Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Raised on a ranch on a world called Shadow by a mother figure and a few dozen ranch hands, little is known about Malcolm before his stint in the resistance. After unification, his ready association with the defeated Browncoats pushes Mal to the fringe of the civilized universe, otherwise known as the core planets. There he purchases a Firefly class space ship which he names Serenity. And the stage is set.

Writing Novels for Niche Audiences (Browncoats)

October 16, 2013October 16, 2013 by David Mark Brown

It isn’t a new concept. I’ve been reading posts about it for the last year. These posts usually say things like, “Learn to identify and leverage niche audiences in your novel.” What does that mean?

Well, if you’ve written a novel about an individual who overcomes an alien abduction and goes on to become a champion marathoner before saving the human race when the aliens invade, you would not only market your book to lovers of science fiction, but also to survivors of alien abduction and to people who enjoy running marathons.

Writing a Book for Millions of Readers is Bad

It turns out, writing a book for millions of readers is a bad idea nowadays. Writing a book for the 12,863 individuals who claim to have been abducted by aliens in the last 5 years is a much better one. Now that the modern marvel known as the internet (not the inner netting of men’s swimming trunks) allows writers to market to such specific clumps of people via Facebook, etc., it makes much more sense to narrow the target audience.

Being the proactive individual I am, I asked myself, “Self, if it is good to identify niche audiences within my novel after I’ve written it, wouldn’t it be better to write my novel with specific niche audiences in mind from the beginning?”