Yeah, you want to CORNHOLE!

Now, before anybody gets all in an uproar about my rather suggestive title for this blog, lemme do a little esplainin’. First, I thought this would be a good subject to post on April Fools Day. And while the word ‘cornhole’ may conjure up insidious images of Southern rednecks running through woods to the tune of dueling banjos, I want to make it perfectly clear that ‘cornhole’ is just a game – a backyard game suitable for the whole family to play. It consists of a palm-sized satchels filled with field corn kernels, and a slanted plywood platform with three holes cut it in. The object of the game is to toss the satchels into the holes of the platform to score the highest points. This is an old and dear game, also known as beanbag toss (when the satchels are filled with uncooked beans instead of corn).

A cottage industry has sprung up as a result of the reinvention of this game, and many manufacturers/distributors of the game kits will go to great lengths to customize them or otherwise make them seem worth the sometimes exorbitant prices they charge. This reinvention of old as new is one of the oldest marketing ploys around. And Cornhole isn’t new at all – it’s just beanbag toss renamed. But with the new name comes the fun of an inside joke. Now that you know what ‘cornhole’ refers to, you can go ask your friends, “Hey, ya wanna cornhole?” and get some really bizarre looks. Maybe even get slapped or punched. But once their disgust wears off, you can explain the term ‘cornhole’ and maybe even play a few rounds with your friends.

So what is my point in bringing this unsettling weird term, ‘cornhole’? The point is REINVENTING or even RECYCLING something well-known, to create new buzz for it. Specifically you can do this with your writing, as well as your marketing approach to your writing. For instance, the subject of vampires may seem to have been done to death (no pun intended), but if you can figure out a new way to get more mileage out of this paranormal subgenre, then you’ve got a whole book series ahead of you, which may still be salable in a saturated market. For instance, you could call your vampires some new bizarre name you’ve made up, and present them as bloodsuckers from outerspace. (Oh, wait. That’s been done before.) Or present them as another species of demonic creature. Or ... well, you get the idea. All you have to do is take the familiar and make some innovative changes to create a seemingly new product.

But why bother with ‘new’? Why bother with trying to reinvent the same ol’ same ol’? Well, look at car manufacturers. If they didn’t make model changes every year to render previous models as dated or obsolete, how would they convince anyone to buy a new car? The only people who would buy a car would be those that, for whatever reason, have to buy a new car. But a shiny new model with even more great features than its predecessor is sure to dazzle the eyes of many potential buyers. That’s what you sometimes need to do with your writing, especially if you’re writing in a genre with lots of offerings and lots of competition.

Another thing many writers who’ve been around for a while are doing now is RECYCLING back-listed out-of-print titles to which they’ve regained the copyrights. Now they can update these stories, maybe put a new twist on them, maybe give them a new title, and then reissue them to reach a whole new generation of readers. The same can be done with blog information or any other content you use in your self-marketing routine. Why constantly try to come up with new content when you can spiff up some already used articles, update them for a specific twist, and get new life out of them? If you look at the annual topics of magazines, you’ll find many of them have ‘seasonal’ content that gets regurgitated each year at the same time. Just because you used an article about developing characters once doesn’t mean you can’t use it again to guest blog on someone else’s blog, or submit to an online magazine – provided you retain the copyrights to it.

So, next time somebody asks you if you want to ‘cornhole,’ you tell ‘em, “Heck, yeah!” Cornholing your writing is the smart thing to do.

Dana Warryck

http://www.danawarryck.com

Crystal Clear: Storm Ryder
Lucifer’s Last Lover
The Protectorate: Patriarch
Coming soon - The Dead of Wynter