Oh, Vampires! Oh, Oh, Oh!

[DavidDvorkin]

Because I've published two vampire novels (and there were supposed to be two more, sob!), and because I have an essay about vampires on my Web site, I get a fair number of hits via search engines (overwhelmingly Google, by the way) where the queries have the word "vampire" in them.

I tend to keep track of what search terms bring people to my site, and I've noticed a pattern in those vampire hits. I decided to take the time to filter out the hits from May that had "vampire" in the query. A few of them seem to be from people who think vampires are real and who also think that Google, which knows everything, will give you the real skinny on real vampires. Most of them, though, seem to fall into a very specific category. It's hard to detect. You'll have to apply all of your analytical skills. Hint: look for a certain word that appears along with "vampire" in most of the queries.

I was going to put the list here, but it's rather long. You can see it on my blog at

http://eyeblister.blogspot.com/2007/06/oh-vampires-oh-oh-oh.html

[Kagemusha]

1. So what's it like being a vampire novel author...?

I wanted to be an author at one time. Well, I still do but translation has proven to be my calling in the meantime. I figured if I was going to ever write something like a vampire novel, I should move further away from my roman catholic family first and not plan on any reunions. Heh. So I'm just curious about your experiences.

[DavidDvorkin]

2. I had a ball writing those two books

And I would have had a ball writing the next two, if the publisher had been willing to continue the series. (The vampire boom went bust, and my editor said he was ordered not to buy any more vamp novels.)

I'm a very ordinary looking fellow, and inevitably people act surprised when they hear about those novels, or the other horror novels I've published. They seem to think that authors' lives must have some relationship to their fictional subjects. I assure them that's not the case.

I don't tell them about my dreams of ripping out people's throats. Oops! That just slipped out!

[shadowknows69]

3. Can I have your agent's number?

Is he interested in fielding a publisher for a book on the War? lol. I'm such a whore.

[DavidDvorkin]

5. I'd give it to you if I had an agent

I did when I sold those vampire novels, but I don't now.

I'm working on a time-travel novel (chronicling progress on my blog, when I don't digress into subjects as the Web site hits involving the word "vampire") and plan to start looking for an agent when that's done.

[TygrBright]

15. Well, yer ed may think the boom is 'bust,' but...

...I gotta say, you couldn't tell it from the dumps and stacks at the Big Chain Bookstores. Cripes, there's undead allthehell over the place there. They're invading every genre! Werewolf detectives, vampire time travellers, cowboy incubi, heck, I swear to god I even saw a zombie on the romance shelves.

You wanna real chuckle? I was at the public library browsing the recent acquisition shelves a few weeks back and found "World War Z" shelved as NONFICTION!! Nonfiction military history! I kid you not!

So I brought it over to the desk and was ribbing the librarians about all of us 'sleeping through history,' and they thought it was pretty amusing and said they'd recatalogue it.

Last Saturday I was there again and, guess what? It reappeared in nonfiction! I took it up to the desk again and the same librarian was there and I set it down in front of him and he looked at it for a minute, picked it up, looked at it again, looked at me, and deadpanned "I swear it was dead a week ago."

I was starting to think the rest of us didn't have a chance if we were writing anything that featured actual live people as protagonists. Maybe if the boom is busted I should re-think it.

philosophically,
Bright

[DavidDvorkin]

16. This happened some years ago

The bust was real and not just in the editor's and his employers' imaginations.

It came back to life again, appropriately for vampires.

Genre trends always go through such cycles. The problem is, no one can predict when one will begin or end.

[uppityperson]

4. If people doing those searches think vampires are real, why include those phrases?

I thought that just wasn't part of it, except for the romanticized fictional stuff. Guess people must believe the romanticized fictional stuff?

[DavidDvorkin]

6. Which phrases?

If someone searches on can vampires have sex? then I assume they think vampires are real. If they search on hot vampire sex grunt ooh, then I assume they're looking for fiction. :)

[uppityperson]

7. any sex stuff. Of course, I am assuming that they can't have sex by my readings of fiction.

So I guess it is all the same, except I am right. :sarcasm: for the last bit.

Meaning: I presume from most everything I have heard/read/etc that vampires lose sexual abilities/desire when they become vampires. Of course others read other stuff, which makes me wonder about my thoughts of them "romanitcizing" vampirehood since, after all, if they are fiction it doesn't matter and if they are real, it probably doesn't matter either except to them and those coming into contact with them. Painted myself into another corner.

Are vampires real? More importantly, do they have sex?

[shadowknows69]

8. There are psychic vampires

most of them don't know it.

[DavidDvorkin]

10. That kind of vampire is just depressing and disturbing

Nothing titillating about them.

[DavidDvorkin]

9. I hope vampires are not real

Not only because they'd be so scary and dangerous if they existed, but also because that would limit writers, who would no longer be able to make up whatever they wanted about vampires.

For example, the vampires in my novels can have sex and do so as often as possible, because they have mighty appetites of all kinds and observe no moral limitations of any kinds. Not to mention super enhanced sense and stamina. In short, a very nice existence except for the thing about sunlight and the pesky need to tear out throats every now and then.

I added the twist (I think this is unique in my books) that a vampire makes a victim into a vampire by biting the victim and draining all of his or her blood during sex, while they're having simultaneous orgasms.

[shadowknows69]

11. I think I saw a porn movie in the 80's with that plot lol

j/k, actually true but I'm sure your story has better dialogue.

Edit to add: I believe however that it was a fluid other than blood that got drained lol.

[Kagemusha]

14. I've had a couple of discussions about the Anne Rice variety...

The subject needs no introduction to you. The whole thing is just very amusing. I hardly blame you for taking a more forward attitude; I have thought about what'd happen with authors who did well, pretty much what you did with your stuff.

Answer: Fall off a cliff when the vampire boom ended. Heh..

But anyway, interesting to have your take on the ah, issue.

[IdaBriggs]

12. I'm a tad bored, so here are some stats for you...

You have 88 different search terms searched 226 total times.

The top 7 terms represent 45.1% (or 102 of the 226) of all your search terms.

Those top seven terms are:

1 vampire sexuality (18 times) 8.0% Overall; 8.0% Running Total
2 vampires sex (18 times) 8.0% Overall; 15.9% Running Total
3 vampire rules (17 times) 7.5% Overall; 23.5% Running Total
4 vampires having sex (14 times) 6.2% Overall; 29.6% Running Total
5 vampire sexual (13 times) 5.8% Overall; 35.4% Running Total
6 vampire sex (12 times) 5.3% Overall; 40.7% Running Total
7 vampires and sex (10 times) 4.4% Overall; 45.1% Running Total

Of the 88 terms, 48 (or 54.5%) of them either have the words "sex" or "erotic" in them.

Those 48 terms are used 143 times (or 63.3% of all of your searches).

The remaining 40 search terms can be broken down into five categories:

Rules (10 Terms) 28 Times or 12.4% of Total Search Terms
Modern (7 Terms) 20 Times or 8.8% of Total Search Terms
Literature (9 Terms) 19 Times or 8.4% of Total Search Terms
Appeal (9 Terms) 11 Times or 4.9% of Total Search Terms
General (5 Terms) 5 Times or 2.2% of Total Search Terms

I'm going to bed! :)

[shadowknows69]

13. Glad the internets are being used for important stuff.

How would I have lived a full life, or unlife lol, if I didn't know this lol.

[DavidDvorkin]

17. Wow!

It might be interesting to put that in Excel and do charts.

I have the same data stored by month, going back for years. I could accumulate it and show trends over time.

Some time in the future, some graduate student desperate for a thesis or dissertation subject might possibly discover those charts and thank me.

[Solon]

18. Weird, I don't look for that stuff myself, even though I could be considered a "vampire" of sorts...

Not in a freaky way, well not really, but I have slightly enlarged canine teeth, that are wicked sharp. They aren't modified, just natural, I even had the dentist, back when I was in my teens, file them down, and they GREW BACK! The reason why I had them filed was because, if I wasn't careful when eating, I'd poke holes in my lips. When they grew back, I basically said fuck it, and now chew food carefully.

Even then I sometimes fuck up, just two days ago I sliced the inside of my bottom lip on my lower canine tooth, right side, that fucking stung like hell. Believe me, being a vampire sucks. By the way, what the fuck is up with those movies? If vampires are supposed to have enlarged canines to begin with, why the fuck is it always placed in the wrong spot, my canines are the THIRD tooth from the centerline, or however dentists define it, not the second tooth.

The only good thing about my teeth is that I can play a vampire every year, I just have to smile big, and make sure my teeth are whitened enough.

[DavidDvorkin]

19. My vampires don't have fangs

They use their ordinary teeth.

I never understood the movie fang thing, especially having them suddenly extrude. Often, the actors have trouble talking clearly while they're wearing them. I find that distracting and amusing, which ruins the mood of the movie.