There's a field called mental accounting. Wikipedia, the free, on-line encyclopedia describes it this way:
The way a person subjectively frames a transaction in their mind will determine the utility they receive or expect. Acquisition value is the money that one is ready to part with for physically acquiring some good. Transaction value is the value one attaches to having a good deal. If the price that one is paying is equal to the mental reference price for the good, the transaction value is zero. If the price is lower than the reference price, the transaction utility is positive.What's this got to do with writing? Everything. When a reader considers buying a book, he or she looks how much hard money he or she is going to have to put down. But they also look at the value to them of getting something more than worth the money. You have to give them that if you them to buy your book. Sometimes we get so lost in story and character and exposition and narrative we forget why we are publishing.
If you find this interesting post a comment, download it, or buy a copy of it. Christmas is coming up. Wouldn't it be a good gift for someone who loves mysteries?
Writing for me is entrepreneurial. If you want to read my entrepreneurship course, go to www.hatman2.blogspot.com. For real estate to www.yourstopforrealestate.com/blog.
Ian Kearney, the director of the Kearney Music School, an elite musical training school in Philadelphia, dies after a fall from a balcony during a recital. World-famous cellist, Henry Harrier, recently forced from the faculty, returns to investigate Ian's death when his prized former student is arrested. Henry shows through his brilliant and single-minded pursuit of the truth that, as usual, they have it all wrong. This Sherlock Holmes-type mystery leads the reader through the world of classical music and lays bare the conflicts which dominate the lives of talented adolescents when placed under the pressure of studying for a demanding, stressful, and often elusive career as a classical music performer. Henry Harrier is part John Le Carre's George Smiley, part Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes, and part Orlando Cole the beloved teacher, renowned chamber musician, and until his own retirement, the premier cellist of the Curtis Institute.
Tim was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on January 30, 1946. In 1951 he moved with his family to Schenectady, New York, where he lived through high school. He attended Baldwin-Wallace College, Berea, Ohio, from 1964 to 1968. He graduated in 1968 with a B.A. in history and philosophy. He received his Ph. D. in history in U.S. history in 1980 from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after spending 2.5 years in the U. S. Army. Most of his army service was completed in Wuerzburg, Germany, from 1969-1971. In 1972 he returned to Madison to complete his doctoral study. His dissertation, Those Who Moved; Internal Migrants in American 1607-1840, combined the statistical analysis of genealogical and biographical data with the study of traditional literary diaries, letters, and journals.
