Category: what’s lit

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what's lit

‘Younger’ TV Review: Post Truth

Younger / TV Land

TV Land’s Younger is a sophisticated dramedy about a 40-year-old recently divorced single mom who returns to the workforce to realize entry-level book publishing jobs are going to millennials, so she becomes one — by docking 14 years to become 26. This week was the summer series’ fourth season, and Liza has been lying about her age all this time but finally ’fessed up to her boss, 26-year-old Kelsey, as they head the Millennial imprint. But now that Liza is technically not a millennial, they have to collaborate amid the drama to make the public believe Liza can represent the brand.

The takeaway from the episode is the self-branding. Though Liza is not a writer, more of a writer hunter, she has to be attractive online for writers to find her. Her imprint signs millennial writers, so after one who’s an entertainment reporter discovered last season that Liza wasn’t honest about her age, she threatened to blackmail her — with forcing Liza to buy her novel told from the point-of-view of her labradoodle. Yeah, Kelsey turned that one down, but Liza saw her dream job slipping if her secret got out.

To throw other millennial writer sleuths off their trail of fabrication, Kelsey concocted a plan to create Liza’s online brand. She didn’t have one, which wouldn’t sit right with the average millennial. 

It’s the same way for writers to find book publishers and agents. We have to up our social media game in our obsessively connected world to find each other and get a feel for a personality through a screen. As Liza’s secret unravels, it’ll be interesting this season to see how it will impact the Empirical publishing house as a whole and the budding imprint for youngish writers. And if any self-branding mishaps ensue, writers should take note.

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what's lit

‘Jane the Virgin’ TV Review: Chapter Sixty

Tyler Golden / The CW

After a weekslong break in the sultry telenovela spoof, Jane the Virgin returned with another author dilemma that agents and publishers just recently started talking about: social media.

Jane’s romance novel finally comes out to the tune of 10,000 units. This makes Jane nervous since, like most new authors, she assumed more books would be published. With the underwhelming number of books available, she worries about the marketing.

The marketing team tells her she needs to get book buyers with unveiling her dramatic life — from being accidentally inseminated with a hotelier’s sperm by the hotelier’s ob-gyn sister while a virgin to losing her police officer husband in a twisted drug ring scheme associated with the hotel. These events and more — as you can imagine — were documented in the local news, therefore her notoriety could attract readers. It’s not the classy way Jane wants to find an audience. 

Though Jane doesn’t want to share her life, her publisher tells her she needs to do just that through social media to get 20,000 followers to qualify for the Miami book festival. Yes, that many to talk at a book festival. And her social media channels are lacking, but luckily her father, a telenovela superstar with thousands upon thousands of followers, plans to help her. The romance department opens up for Jane with her father’s younger hot co-star actually getting her the followers by faking a public breakup.   

The episode ends happily with Jane chatting about her life on stage with her favorite author, Maria Semple of Where’d You Go, Bernadette, autographing three books, and having 5,000 more books published.

Again, Jane’s novelist life comes together so well with some real-life hiccups. When I heard the advice from literary agents about upping social media to market your book last year at the Los Angeles Times book festival, I couldn’t believe the added amount of work to be an author. It’s a new phenomenon to use social media to fetch book sales, even before there’s a book. Modern technology makes life harder sometimes. Now, back to Twitter to see if my latest post attracted any followers. 

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what's lit

‘Jane the Virgin’ TV Review: Chapter Fifty-Six

Scott Everett White / The CW

The CW’s “Jane the Virgin” is one of my fave TV series about an aspiring novelist. In its third season, main character Jane Villanueva had a normal trajectory to novelhood with being a student then a teacher then a literary agent assistant while mostly being a hotel waitress. Magically, last week after finishing her romance novel based on her dead husband, she gets a book deal. Now, her career really sounds like made for TV. 

Within one episode, she turned her work into an author showcase and received a book deal totaling $50,000. What she does wrong seems like a teachable moment: Don’t quit your day job until you cash every check.

Despite her luck, Jane doesn’t seek consultation about the financial side of the deal and quits her job with the demanding literary agent she’s been working with only for a few episodes, or technically a span of three years. When the publishing house sends the contract of the breakdown of the money, she learns it’s not all in one check but in increments over time until the book is published. 

Crisis mode. She needs her job back. Cycling with her ex-boss and making the extravagant promise of luring an author back to the firm doesn’t work. In the end, she’s back to waitressing at the Marbella hotel. It’s an easy fallback choice with familial connections, but she had a desirable position for a budding novelist. She messed up. Or the effect of her error may melt away once the book is published in a year, or at the end of the season this spring in TV time. 

The telenovela-inspired show likes to factor frantic moments into Jane’s life, so this book deal may see more dings before blossoming into her dream.