"…well-known authors, who already had plenty of cachet, were the penny stocks of the fame market. Not only did they have a credible brand name—at least among “intellectual-spendy upper-middle-classers,” as Celeste called them—they also had what these companies really needed and wanted: creative capital whose best functions were language-based. With Nanü broker, these companies could hire authors to be the face (or voice, for the less attractive ones) of their company, or simply hire the authors to help reshape and rebrand their identity through text-based social media platforms."
A marketing company looking for a way to launch a revolution in the world of branding identifies one of the last remaining untapped sources of unfamous people left in the 21st century. Great writers who aren’t famous enough to earn a living solely on their writing income because their literary works don’t sell in the same numbers as a Kardashian guide to coral lip gloss. Not because the writing isn’t good, but because they aren’t spending more hours per day plugging themselves on social media than they spend actually writing. Although written as pure narrative prose, Casey is paraphrasing; the information she is conveying is actually being presented by her boss, Celeste Winter.
"Encore’s chief marketing officer happened to be a big fan of Mary London, and Celeste had managed to convince her that the solution for the rebranding dilemma was to employ a writer she already adored…The biggest selling point of this offer to Mary London, so far as I could tell, was that it meant she could quit her teaching job, which allegedly she hated."
Encore is the name of a company specializing in plus-sized clothing for women. Mary London is a respected woman who also happens to be the kind of full-figured woman who dresses with a more highly attuned fashion sense than the soccer moms making up Encore’s current demographic. In other words, Mary London is just the sort of customer that the company is looking to rebrand itself toward. These details situate the Encore/Mary London relationship as an iconic example of precisely what Casey and Celeste hope to achieve with their revolutionary new idea in branding. It is situated as a perfect example of the type of win/win situation for both sides that is the theoretical foundation. A company like Encore benefits twice over while the type of authors considered ideal for the business model finally get an opportunity—if only briefly—to devote themselves full time to doing what they do best. In theory, this fictional concept seems entirely applicable to real-world circumstances.
"Then, there were the writers. Oh, the writers! Flown in by their publishing houses, you could spot them right away, too: looking awkward and feral and stoop-shouldered, shuffling around with downward slopes to their mouths, clearly parched for solitude. Yet here they were, forced to be on display, asked to speak to, say, a blowsy gal named Mary Jo who ran an independent bookstore in Boise…"
Lots of really great ideas work in fiction. Almost as many as work theoretically. Putting them into practice in the real world is something else entirely. This quote is precisely the point where the whole concept falls apart. The actual creative process of writing—the type of quality writing that characterizes the literary output of the type of authors that ideally make a perfect fit for this revolution in branding—is done in isolation. Although some famous authors have been sidelined as raconteurs who become as famous for being talk show celebrities as they are for their books, the typical writer is exactly of the sort described in this quote. The contemplative introvert who would rather be home at his computer writing down the conversation going on inside his mind is just not the ideal choice for this revolutionary concept. And not even Celeste’s conviction that money solves all problems is enough to transform an introverted writer into a yapping influencer.
