Welcome to a look inside how Symbolic Interactionalism relates to world of publishing and marketing a novel. The video you just watched is the shortened version of my cover reveal for my upcoming YA Fantasy novel “The Prophecy’s Daughter.”
The biggest goal of creating and releasing a video like this across my author social media platforms is to grab the attention of my target audience. As the attention span of the audience that mainly reads YA Fantasy, 12-17 year-olds, has gotten shorter and shorter throughout the years, the video is short and to the point. There is also not a massive amount of text, just enough to grab the attention of the viewer, and the graphics change throughout the video after roughly 6-8 seconds, which is just long enough to read the text. There is also music underlying the graphics to give an even more in-depth feel of the tone of the book.
Data is crucial to the writing process, even if as a creative person I don’t want to admit that yes I do look at data to where my audience is going to be sitting. This is ever changing, but a lot of data out there says the same thing when it comes to my target audience for YA Fantasy novels. An author that I respect in my field, Kristin Cast, author of bestselling books such as “House of Night” and “Escaped” series, has a mastery class out that I am taking, that devotes an entire section to understanding your target audience before you even put pen to paper.
According to Cast, (Cast, 2023), YA Fantasy audience demographics are teens and predominantly female, psychographics include interests in escapism and empowerment themes, and the tailored message that audience is looking for includes a strong female lead with high-stake magical worlds. This is the common theme for audience data for this genre of writing. My brain automatically comes up with ideas that lean toward the audience, but this data not only helps better develop my novel, but it helps with my website and social media targeting.
Now to the theory I would like to discuss that is helping me build my marketing strategies for my publishing career—Symbolic Interactionism. This is a theory of mass communication that examines how mass media, especially social media platforms, structure our perception of the world. In symbolic interactionism, there is a sharp focus on how the meaning of things, objects and processes in society are created through a process of social interaction.
Key take-a-ways from this theory are that communication relies on shared symbols and languages, which are interpreted by social interactions, and, that an individual’s self-concept is continuously constructed, changed, and shaped by social interactions.
For example, the way we present ourselves on social networking platforms (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc,) can be totally different from the persona we present in the real world. Our interactions with others on social media can lead us to develop this alternate persona, just as our interactions with people in the real world can lead us to develop an identity that we present when in front others.
I’m very knew to the TikTok scene and I rarely post, but when I do, I keep in mind my target audience. I know that my audience is teen girls, but I also know that as a reader of YA Fantasy myself, there are older readers as well. So, I try to range my video posts to more than one audience set.
These two videos have roughly the same amount of views and comments. One is very short, just a music background and only a slow pan video of snow falling. The other is extremely interactive, I do several clip shots that I edit together to tell a story, and I even ask a question to get the audience involved.
In both videos, as is looked at in Symbolic Interactionism, I take on a “performance” role—an alternate persona in presenting myself on camera. I try to be as honest to myself as possible, because I want my audience to know the real author behind my writing, but sometimes a little performance has to come out. Both videos received many likes, views and comments, for someone who does not have very many followers at this point. But, my author Facebook page also started with few likes, and has grown immensely.
Other take-a-ways from this theory are that people are not just influenced by society, but also have the ability to influence it right back. In symbolic interactionism, language and signs are crucial—through a process of negations, we assign meanings to words and symbols. While a lot of focus is on social interactions, this theory also acknowledges that we have interactions within ourself—thoughts. Another theme is the concept of ‘the self.’ ‘The self’ is a product of interaction, and continually evolves through experiences. Lastly, symbolic interactionism argues that individuals are both products and producers of society. External influences may shape us, but we can also influence society by pushing back against norms or even creating new ones (Symbolic interaction theory 2023).
This theory, originally formulated by George Herbert Mead, emphasizes that meaning is spread through language and symbols. Mead, (1863-1931), studied psychology and philosophy. He never published his work. After his death, his students edited four volumes from stenographic recordings and notes on his lectures and from unpublished papers: The Philosophy of the Present (1932); Mind, Self, and Society (1934); Movements of Thought in the Nineteenth Century (1936); and The Philosophy of the Act (1938) (Symbolic interaction theory 2023).
Let’s take a look at a timeline for symbolic interactionism starting in the digital age in just the last two decades, even though this theory was being built years before the launch of even Myspace, let alone Facebook and those platforms that quickly followed.
Myspace was launched all the way back in August of 2003. This was the first time (that I can recall) that people could create a completely different persona of themselves online and present it to the world and their “friends”—which I put in quotations because you don’t even have to personally know people you have on your social media pages. You could be whoever you wanted to be. You could create fun backgrounds and add music to your page, among other things. I had a Myspace page for about a minute, since I wasn’t allowed social media in high school, but when I went to college, Facebook was hitting the scene hard, it was made available to the public in 2006, and everyone transitioned. After this, we were bombarded with mass amounts of social platforms such as Instagram—2010, X (formally Twitter)—2006, and TikTok—2016, just to name a few.
There is no limit to how we can create a perception of ourselves in today’s social settings—both online and in-person. There’s also no limit on how much power, we, as individuals, have over what happens in the world around us.
According to an article written by the Director of SEO at Moving Traffic Media, Sam Hollingsworth, eye catching visuals captivate us. Visuals are at the center of branding and marketing. Hollingsworth states that people hold things that are most attractive, such as products, in high regards (Hollingsworth, 2023).
Web content with images and videos tend to perform better, averaging 94% more views.
People are visual creatures. Short attention spans tend to lean toward video, animation and imagery over text. People also gravitate toward visuals because we “can obtain and retain this information fast, better, and for longer” (Hollingsworth, 2023).
Before I dive into why I rejected this first attempt of a cover design from my publisher, let’s take a look how Symbolic Interactionism looks at symbols. This theory sees society as the product of shared symbols (Griffin et al., 2023). Individuals attach strong emotions to symbols, so you see something at a young age that frightens you, when you see it again as an adult, subconsciously, you may start to feel anxious as well.
The goal with a book cover is draw into emotions from the symbols on the front of the book that make the potential reader want to grab it off the shelf and take it home. Now this first attempted cover, did not do that for me at all and I wrote the book.
My first impression of this cover was that it felt extremely amateurish and like cookie-cutter art, like copy and paste images found on Google color for kids. I did not like any of the elements on the cover—from the white background, to the girl (who is supposed to be my main character: a powerful witch) who looks like a teen ‘model’ from a Target ad, to the sticker-like feel of the elements that surround her.
There is no magic/witchy feel from this cover at all. This cover did not draw any emotions besides failure from me. I sent it along to a friend who is a reader of my work and she also did not get any feelings of magical elements from this cover. Needless to say, this cover was sent back with my feedback on what the cover should look like.
I envisioned opening up a box of my author copies to find a dark (gray/black) background with a centered oval picture of a brunette, teen witch from the bust up, in a red dress and a black cloak, half covering her face. Behind her in the oval picture is a wooden scenery with a couple of falling leaves. This should be of quality that draws the eye of the reader toward my main character Nessa, who is an extremely powerful, young witch, and thus should be portrayed in the image. Next, aligned in a pentagon around the above listed oval image, should be the elements of Fire, Spirit, Air, Water and Earth.
At the top of the pentagon is Spirit—this image/art should portray a fantasy feel that portrays the character’s ability to control this element. Next, moving to page right, would be the element Air then Earth then Water then Fire (which brings us back to the top with Spirit, which should resemble a pentagon by connecting these elements with a bold, thick, orange line.)
Symbolic Interactionism is a theory that focuses on how individuals interact with the images they are presented with (Griffin et al., 2023). It argues that people's actions are based on the meanings they assign to things.
Eight weeks later I was given a new version of the cover and I feel like it is a much better success. From the darker background, the witchy feel from the character in the center, and the mystical elements that surround her, I got the eerie, magical, mysterious vibe I was searching for the first time. As Griffin stated with this theory, I assigned meanings to the images I saw on the cover and it pulled the right emotions out of me. This cover makes me want to pick up the book and the goal is that potential readers feel the same way.
Images from a recent social media campaign.
Take a moment to think of how the symbols on the book covers make you feel.
From Mead to Griffin to Sam Hollingsworth, to my own personal experience on how people react to my visuals as an author, I’ve learned that adding visuals to my creative content makes it more likely to resonate with my target audience over time. Audiences retain visual information much better, clear and longer than if the information was text based only.
Symbolic Interactionism is just one of many mass media communication theories. This theory goes all the way back to simply showing an audience an image and telling a story with it, to today’s visually driven society. These theories address the relationship between media content (such as my cover reveals, social media content, website, etc.) and audience interpretation.
References
Cast, K. (2023.). https://www.kcastauthor.com/products/first-draft-mastery-the-step-by-step- framework-for-completing-your-first-draft/categories/2153678256/posts/2170857381
Griffin, E. A., Ledbetter, A., Sparks, G. G., Cooper, K. R., & Hill, T. E. (2023). A first look at communication theory. McGraw Hill.
Hollingsworth, S. (2023, April 29). 7 reasons why content needs amazing images, videos & visuals. Search Engine Journal. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/why-content-needs-amazing- images-videos-visuals/268911/#close
Symbolic interaction theory. RSS. (2023). https://www.structural-learning.com/post/symbolic-interaction-theory
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