The Original Cyberpunk misses the obvious analogy whilst contemplating Twain and the bygone lecture tour:
It’s an interesting synergism. The lectures drove sales of the books; the books in turn expanded the audience for the lectures. Sadly, the lecture tour was a 19th century phenomenon and I doubt we will ever see its likes again. As far as I can tell a Twain lecture was a combination of one-man stage show (if you haven’t seen Hal Holbrook in Mark Twain Tonight!, you really should find a copy and watch it), two-hour standup comedy routine, and socio/political monologue.
I keep casting about for a contemporary analogue, and the closest I can come is talk radio. But even Twain didn’t have to come up with a different two-hour show five days a week! And somehow, I find it hard to believe that 60 years from now, some well-respected actor is going to be touring with “Rush Limbaugh Tonight!”
I would say that the contemporary analogue is the modern preacher/televangelist/self-actualization guru. Sure, the preachers accept “love offerings” instead of ticket sales and the more successful ones broadcast instead of travelling from city to city, but the basic feedback loop remains the same.
I don’t see how this will translate very well for the average fiction writer, but it helps explain the otherwise mysterious success of the Left Behind books, especially in light of the failure of other Christian fiction – including my own – to hit the bestseller lists. It’s interesting to note that an unusually high percentage of bestselling Christian books are penned by pastors to whom this feedback loop is applicable, while the pure writers like Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker seldom crack the top ten.
The answer, quite obviously, is for the OC to form a new cybertronic religion and begin selling books at his travelling “Release Your Inner Robot” symposium. Hey, it worked for Tony Robbins and L. Ron Hubbard.