This statement put up on BuyZombie by the author of a number of Anti-Zombie books on their marketability and the influence of the Anti-Zombie craze on authorial choices was illuminating, if depressing:

When I started writing fiction seriously I never thought I’d end up a zombie writer. That’s not to say I am strictly a zombie writer now, I’m a multi-genre writer, but zombies have always been a passion of mine and my first novel, DEAD MECH, just happened to be my take on the zombie genre.

Then the zombie boom hit and I found myself with fans and followers clambering for more. Who am I to turn them down?

…

I guess this is what has drawn me to zombies most of all: The End Of The World!

Ah, the post-apocalyptic landscape is so refreshing to write in. It’s a way to strip things down, get back to basic survival without having to write historical fiction. You don’t need to research a futuristic wasteland, it can be whatever you want it to be!

…

However you like your zombies (fast or Slow) or like your setting (current apocalypse or futuristic wasteland) I will agree with you. I’m easy that way and really, when all is said and done, it’s the reader that decides what works. I just hope the story I put out there works for you. And if one doesn’t, just stay tuned, I’ll probably have the right mix for you soon.

Who am I to turn you down?

This really gets to the heart of what we’ve been talking about with our critiques of the ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ meme and the enormous surge in Anti-Zombie books of late, here at the ZRC blog. It’s become a vicious and self-reinforcing cycle; Anti-Zombie and Living Supremacist media feeds the hunger for more Anti-Zombie and Living Supremacist media. The market for these books, movies, videogames and such draws out ever more creative personalities who smell the blood in the water and jump right in with great enthusiasm; after all, a gig is a gig, right?

Well, no. Not when your ‘gig’ means defaming and dehumanizing an entire group of people for the amusement of the mob. That is not ok, and The Zombie Rights Campaign is here to tell you, the Zombie fiction authors of the world, that you are hurting the Undead Community when you succumb to this ugly and very lucrative peer pressure and turn out more stereotyped, prejudiced and unfair fiction targeting the Differently Animated.

Though at least some authors, like Jake Bible here, will admit to the monetary incentives to writing this material. It gives us a goal here at the ZRC; if we can help reduce the demand for such books, the Jake Bibles of the world would be happy to go on writing something different.

Let’s help them do that, shall we?

Tags: Anti-Zombie Products, Books

This entry was posted by John Sears on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 8:07 am and is filed under Zombie Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.