Retaining Loyal Customers in the World of Fiction

In case you're wondering what I have been doing in my non-GDP-contributing days (which has been a week or so - no one wants it to be longer, really), I've been reading a great deal. Which sort of perks me up since I don't get much spare time to even think about personal issues when I am busy at work. You must be a guilty culprit too, right?

Anyway in today's Life!, Maggie Cheung even admits to liking mundane housework to landing herself a fat role in Nanjing! Nanjing!, an upcoming movie to commemorate The Nanking Massacre. Well, I don't blame her - do you? I have spent all GDP-contributing weekends straddling between catching up on work, family time and housework. Now that I have all the time on my hands, I actually experience flow while doing housework! Can you believe it?! No wonder Maggie finds housework more rewarding than acting. Now who's going to be a feminist this time round?

Okay, back to what I am supposed to be talking in this entry. So yes, I am now a regular patron of NLB (NLB must thank me since they have recently lamented a drop in borrowings - and yes, I am a patron of good etiquette; I do not sit nor squat on the carpeted floors, and I do not fall asleep on armchairs with my mouth wide open). I borrow all genres and titles to sooth each need - I go to the business section to hone myself in that arena, I go to the design section to look for new home and interior ideas, and I go to the fiction section to kaypoh on others' lives (being fictional characters, that is). And I chanced upon Freya North and picked this up from the shelf:

I've got to admit the pretty combination of colours did help to catch my attention; so did the slightly embossed, serifs-inclined titled enticed my sense of touch. The power of packaging is just... Underestimated. I flipped through the pages. Seeing that the words were relatively less minute in comparison to others and hence do not pose a threat to my myopic condition (this only refers to my opthalmologic condition - to the rest of my current and future stakeholders, rest assure it is not in reference to my personal belief system nor decision-making skills), and having noticed the intriguing context set in art history, I decided to check it out, together with the other business titles.

Some of the people out there reading must be thinking: "Chey! I read this when I was in secondary school. Now then read, got a bit behind time or not?" Well, then blame it on me for not having to catch up with North during then as I was busy with Steel and Sheldon back in my school days (I know, very typical but... hey! I did learn many things out from there. Real stuff in life).

Fen is a simple story about, well, Fenella (hence Fen) having to choose between 2 men, battling her personal social mores and her obsession with a dead sculptor, Julius Fetherstone (Nope, no real guy in art history by the name of that, I've wiki-ed and google-ed it out). The story was good; North was constantly engaging and had used good vocabulary throughout the entire book - somewhat difficult to find in similar chic fiction titles. Well, saucy bits here and there, but it's ok right? And there were the other 2 McCabe sisters, Cat (Catriona) and Pip (Philippa), who had minor roles in this title (what names, btw). You know, giving the usual sisterly advice and all that. But a peep into North's website gave me greater insight - North had titles on the other 2 McCabe sisters as well!


At that point in time, I thought North was fantastic - she basically used just 1 family (read: one idea), had 3 titles based on the same family, and even reunites the sisters in her latest title!
(Note that the serifs are gone to suit the more pragmatic, less romanticized audience now. Bleah.)

If you rationalise this phenomenon out, North is one true-blue biz whiz. She uses the same family (i.e. one core business idea or intent) and spins each sister into 3 different books (i.e. 3 respective revenue generation points), and reunites them (i.e. strategic alliance) into 1 book! (and hence, a much stronger profit centre) I mean, is this amazing or what?! Who said authors were just airy-fairy people who concentrated on literary wonders and forgot about the rest! Bullshit!

Not only does she uses minimal resources to maximise revenue, by also spinning different tales by capitalising on the McCabe sisters, she has made a connection between her readers and the McCabe family - With each separate title, the reader feels more in touch with the sisters and can only gratiate themselves by borrowing more of North's titles (hence increased revenue). Because the reader wants - demands, even - to find out what happened to the other sister, who would have appeared in the other titles. And whoa, think about the title that reunites the 3 sisters - building on the strength of all the other titles - to dish out the "reunion" thing. Either way you look at it, you can always read the "reunion" title first before reading about each sister, or vice versa.

Talk about customer loyalty! This is one author that knows that it is 6 times more difficult to capture new customers than to retain a loyal customer (reader, in this context).

And now she has got this sucker who is well-ensconced in her sofa, starting to happily lap up the pages of Home Truths. And despite the lack of serifs in the new title.