My aim, as an author, is to get people to read my books to be able to influence policy towards a more sustainable society. Unfortunately that does not put me on the best-seller list. I have contemplated attempting to make sustainability sexy writing a racy erotic book under the title of ‘50 shades of green’ with sustainability inserted between the bedroom scenes, but would it work? Should I be sleeping with the enemy? Perhaps I should be sleeping with the family dog for my book sales to really take off (we don’t have a dog so that won’t work).
How do we get sustainability noticed and get more people engaged with sustainability? I dipped my pen into the horror genre with my book Victim of Success: Civilisation at Risk but only the first part of the book was a horror story. For most of the book I let my natural optimism shine through in explaining how we can change direction and prevent the horror story from becoming reality. Perhaps my problem was not to embrace the genre enough; I should have provided full-on horror. Perhaps people prefer snuff movies and want to wait for the news stories when the damage is real and the situation is grave.
So why is Waterstones embracing the e-reader in its stores? The reason is that Watestones is listening to its customers. People are increasingly buying e-books and it is not a trend you can buck. Waterstones have to work how to secure their future in a changing world. Book shops may no longer sell books but become meeting places to gather with other readers, to meet authors, and to help decide which e-book to download. As a proponents of sustainability we should also be listening to our ‘customers’.
The lesson for those of us wanting to sell sustainability to an indifferent and sceptical public is to give them what they want. They want to hear how to improve society, how to secure their future and how to have a better quality of life. This is the message that must come out of sustainability: get into bed and seduce our opponents.
The communicative aspect of sustainability is something I am currently studying, and this is a problem I am continually struggling with. How to "sell" sustainability, specifically in my case, at a private American university campus. Already, my odds of reaching like-minded people are higher than compared to the general population. However, people are often content with living in their little bubbles. For my particular audience then, much of the message with sustainability regards to living within one's means, and raising awareness and becoming environmentally conscious.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I find that the message of sustainability somewhat conflicts with the typically mainstream apathy found in the general public. How can we get someone to care about something that might not have an instant effect on their lives? Granted, the long-term effects are clearly serious, but they don't sell as effectively.