Category: Uncategorized

Big 6 now Big 4

The publishing world is under ever-tightening control. An agent explains why this is going to make things worse for authors and readers alike.

By 2022, we will be down to The Big 4 – Penguin Simon & Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Harper Collins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt  – plus a smattering of some mid-size but growing independents. And that’s it.This contraction significantly impacts writers an authors, and here’s why:

  • Merging companies always declare that the houses will be run separately. This was certainly the case when Random House bought Penguin more than five years ago. Now these “separate publishers” exist under the same roof, use the same publishing contract, and operate under merged accounting and royalty systems. It is, in essence, almost like one house even though agents can still submit separately.
  • When publishers merge, there are often new mandates regarding how those houses will participate in auctions and submit bids. Some houses stipulate that imprints can no longer bid against each other. So if several imprints are interested in acquiring a project, they communicate and form a “house bid” (which is where all imprints propose one bid to submit in the auction, and if it is the winning bid, then the author can choose which editor/imprint to work with). This removes competition from the auction and lowers advances, which translates to less money for the author.
  • The merging of publishers results in the must-acquire-blockbusters-only mentality. Tighter budgets means fewer books will be acquired, which makes editors less likely to take chances on unique, creative voices—authors with talent who might not break out until their fourth or fifth novel. In other words, there is less focus on building an author and more focus on acquiring the obvious “big” book—which limits the diversity of unique stories in the world.
  • Contraction squeezes out the mid-list author—the author who’s not a blockbuster but whose sales might be humming along nicely. How? Because it makes the publisher less likely to pick up their option material. This precludes the possibility that a mid-list author’s third or fourth book might have been the one to break out. Not to mention, if the agent must shop the author anew, the current house (and all those imprints) are off the submit list. That equals fewer outlets where an agent can place that author and relaunch that author’s career.
  • Contraction eliminates editorial positions. Smaller staff equals fewer editors equals less diversity and narrower taste in what gets acquired. Also, smaller staff equals fewer editors equals those editors getting way more submissions from agents. Editors are already strapped for reading time and inundated with submitted manuscripts. The sheer volume makes it hard for any debut project to stand out in the crush—reducing a new writer’s chances of getting a foot in the door.
  • Contraction equals less-author-friendly publishing contracts. Fewer houses at which to place a client means publishers have the upper hand when it comes to dictating the terms, and agents have less negotiation leverage. 

Fortunately, I left that world once and for all back in 2014. So as long as there are people interested in buying books from Castalia and Arkhaven, there will be options to the increasingly converged mainstream offerings.

And speaking of Castalia, we’ll be announcing a few things tomorrow. Nothing terribly crazy, just getting caught up on the regular business now that Arktoons has successfully launched and we can start keeping reasonably normal hours again.

Arktoons: 4 Sunday titles

Bounding Into Comics has the exclusive story:

Arkhaven Comics publisher and Lead Editor Vox Day announced four more series for the newly released digital comic platform, Arktoons.

Arktoons is a free-to-view digital comics platform that releases new episodes of comics every single day of the week. The platform is stylistically similar to Webtoons, where comics are read in a top down format.

It was launched this past Wednesday, and is already seeing success. Vox Day tells Bounding Into Comics, “We’re seeing some incredible engagement statistics on the site.”

He added, “Average session durations have climbed steadily from an average 5 minutes 48 seconds on launch day to 6 minutes 32 seconds. This shows that people are not only reading the new comics at Arktoons, but enjoying them.”

The four new series released on Sunday include Chicago Typewriter, AI Wars, Bovodar & The Bears, and Swan Knight Saga. They bring the total number of series on the platform up to 22.

In other comics-related news, Marvel continues to celebrate its converged death spiral, as the Devil Mouse’s main movie guy explains that it is a priority for Marvel to racewash and genderswap familiar characters.
Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige recently addressed why the upcoming Eternals movie decided to race and gender swap most of the characters from their origins in the comics.
A majority of The Eternals characters have been race and gender swapped. The only characters that look similar to their comic book iterations are Ikaris, Thena, and Phastos.
They changed Makkari to a black, female, deaf character. Kingo now appears Indian instead of appearing to be Japanese. Ajak is Hispanic, Lebanese, and female. Gilgamesh is now Asian, and Sprite is now female and a young girl….
If it wasn’t clear that this film might be the wokest of all of Marvel’s films so far, Feige pretty much confirmed it. He made it very clear they set out to race and gender swap the majority of the cast before they had even began searching for a director!
Not only that, but it shows where Marvel Studios and Feige’s priorities are. He clearly states the reason for the film being moved to the top of their list of films to make is purely because they could swap the characters’ races, genders, and sexualities.

No wonder they’re unhappy with the Arktoons initiative. Because they know what is likely to happen if they are wrong… and a growing mountain of evidence suggests they’re wrong. 

The US joins the graveyard of empires

 Afghanistan wins again:

Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan attacked and overran a key army base in southeastern Ghazni province Saturday, capturing dozens of soldiers and killing several others.

The latest attack came on a day when the United States and NATO partners formally began withdrawing their militaries from the country after almost 20 years of war.

Two senior provincial council members told VOA the Afghan army had stationed dozens of its forces at the base outside the provincial capital, also named Ghazni, before the pre-dawn insurgent attack.  Local media reports said the ensuing clashes had lasted several hours and killed at least 17 soldiers.

 Afghan army chief, Gen. Mohammad Yasin Zia, who is also the acting defense minister, confirmed to reporters in Kabul the fall of the security installation to insurgents, but he shared no further details.

20 years of totally pointless war ending in defeat. It’s yet another reminder that the US empire is in its early death throes, not unlike those of its predecessors in the graveyard.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier. 

Black privilege

Now that black men such as Deshaun Watson and Noel Clarke have been credibly accused of being sexual predators by literally dozens of women, suddenly SJWs are worried about due process, innocence until proven guilty, and the unfairness of trial by media:

Noel Clarke is facing the prospect of a police investigation after seven more women came forward to accuse the Bafta star of a campaign of sexual harassment and bullying.

With 27 women now saying they were sexually harassed or groped by the celebrated actor and director, Scotland Yard has said it is ‘assessing’ a specific allegation. The Met Police confirmed that a ‘third-party report’ was made on April 21 ‘relating to allegations of sexual offences committed by a male over a period of time’….

Meanwhile, it was reported that Bafta spent two weeks deciding how best to respond to allegations against Clarke prior to presenting him with one of its highest honours, the Outstanding British Contribution to Cinema Award.

In a statement, Bafta claimed it had acted ‘as quickly and supportively as we could, even though we had only received the most generic of claims and no actual first-hand information to investigate allegations which were potentially of a criminal nature’. 

The Guardian said senior figures within the film academy were worried about the potential reputational damage to the organisation over its handling of the claims against Clarke. 

Bafta chair Krishnendu Majumdar was reportedly aware there could be as many as 12 women making allegations against Clarke on the eve of the awards ceremony.

He sought to speak to anyone with first-hand experience of Clarke’s alleged misconduct and told an industry figure he was ‘trying to do something about’ the situation as it could ‘destroy’ Bafta ‘in the court of public opinion’, the newspaper said.

Majumdar is said to have described the allegations as a ‘desperately difficult situation for us’ as Bafta ‘cannot act as judge and jury’.

Let’s face it, a white quarterback might survive a single accusation, but the media storm would be relentless, as evidenced by the coverage of the Peyton Manning and Ben Rothlisberger situations. He’d be suspended proactively by the NFL by the time the third accusation was made. And can anyone imagine a white actor who was accused of sexual harassment by twelve women being presented a major cinematic award?

For all their incessant crying about racism, the simple fact is that blacks simply aren’t held to the same behavioral standards as others.

I have no doubt the film academy was worried about reputational damage if they didn’t give the 12x-accused (now 27x) sexual predator the award. The only thing they fear more than being called “racist” is being called “anti-semitic”. But it’s hard to see what the problem is. After all, if the Hellmouth didn’t give awards to sexual predators, they couldn’t give out awards.

UPDATE: This bit is classic. Notice how Clarke’s lawyers don’t even hesitate to completely lie about an easily-confirmed fact, then just keep producing excuses when they are caught red-handed.

Clarke’s lawyers said they did not dispute that such a scene had been shot, but said it was in the script and agreed in advance. Informed by the Guardian that there was no reference to a female performer straddling a male performer, or anything that could be interpreted as requiring that, Clarke’s lawyers queried which version of the script was being referred to and said there was “a degree of improvisation” that performers and crew were all comfortable with.

Social Justice Nazis impose flight ban

Thanks to the post-WWII mass deportation of the neoclowns from the USSR, Russia is now free and the USA is rapidly being transformed into the USSA. Pessimistic as I am about the prospects for the survival of the USA as a political entity, I didn’t expect this level of social control to be imposed on citizens so soon by the evil imperial elite:

“America First” host Nick Fuentes has been banned by all the usual Big Tech suspects, along with livestream service DLive, Coinbase, “and every payment processor” for his forceful advocacy of populism, an end to mass migration and protection of the nuclear family. He was scheduled to join Loomer, former Delaware GOP Senate candidate Lauren Witzke (banned from Twitter for calling a pedophilia-flirting transgender activist “demonic”), and me in Palm Beach Tuesday at a rally to push for loophole-free legislation holding Silicon Valley accountable for discriminatory deplatforming.

But Fuentes never got off the ground, because two airlines and Joe Biden’s TSA informed him that he didn’t have “clearance” to fly. He has been charged with no crimes and was blocked from exercising his First Amendment rights to free speech and peaceable assembly.

“The United States is now a country that persecutes its own citizens for political dissent. My placement on the no-fly list constitutes a grave escalation by the federal government against American conservatives,” Fuentes told me. It’s “all the more reason why our Republican representatives in state and federal government must get serious and pass strong legislation that protects the civil liberties of the 75 million people that voted for Donald Trump.”

Note that a US citizen who has not even been accused of a crime is being denied the right to travel within the country due to nothing more than the fact that a small number of evil and influential Jews are afraid of the popularity of his opinions. The idea that “it’s a free country” is no longer even remotely applicable to the USA, because the United States is no longer a republic and it is no longer ruled by American Christians. It is now ruled by foreigners and women, which you may recall is defined as a curse by the Bible.

If you fear to even identify the wicked, then you have submitted to them and their father the Devil. And your silence will not protect you. To the contrary, they are absolutely counting on it. They don’t deplatform people like Nick Fuentes out of strength, but rather, out of sheer terror, and for the very same reason they are trying to disarm you.

Asking for trouble

Very, very serious trouble:

United States will work with Ukraine to ensure that it meets the criteria for NATO membership, says the US Department of State just days before US Secretary of State’s visit to the country.

President Trump’s greatest accomplishment was keeping the USA out of the war with Russia that was in the cards if Hillary Clinton had been elected. Clinton had made it clear that she was going to invite Ukraine to join NATO, which was why there were Russian troops on the border prepared to render that a moot point before the invitation could be issued.

The Biden Not-Administration backed down two weeks ago when Putin ordered a similar mobilization, but now the neoclowns who run it are still attempting to push the issue. It’s a very, very bad idea, because Russia will not permit Ukraine to join NATO, and will make sure that there is no Ukraine to join it if necessary.

Four more titles at Arktoons

 Bounding Into Comics reports on the latest additions at Arktoons:

Arktoons continues to roll out new titles at Arkhaven.com with four new titles coming out every Saturday beginning today.

These four new titles join 14 other titles that were rolled out beginning on Wednesday, bringing the total series on the digital comics platform up to 18.

If you haven’t been following our Arktoons coverage, it is a free-to-view digital comics platform that releases new episodes of comics every single week day…. Saturday will feature Chuck Dixon Presents: Comedy, Clockwork Dancer, Quantum Dancer, and Seasons.

Read the whole thing there. Then visit Arktoons. 

The Not-Vaxx increases your risk

Karl Denninger explains the science to those who are too slow to understand that being injected by the not-vaccine actually increases your risk of health problems:

There is a reason science is a process and until you understand something you should keep your ******ned mouth shut.

Especially when all you have against 40+ years of hard science is computer models.

Massssskss was one of them.  I warned early on that physics said masks could not work if the virus was in aerosols or transmitted in feces, no matter whether the feces were manually spread or through aerosols.  We knew this was virtually certain when a mass-spread event happened twice in Wuhan and Hong Kong in apartments on the same vertical drain stack where there were no P-traps; the people infected did not know each other and thus any other form of transmission other than through fecal aerosol was wildly improbable.  That was ignored.  We then had the German meatpacking plant where everyone was wearing masks and yet a huge outbreak took place across tens of feet, a claimed impossibility.  Yet it happened and was proved by RNA sequencing; the researchers were able to identify the index and daughter cases and thus conclusively prove that the infections happened in that plant via that route, despite masks.

Now MIT has weighed in and said the same thing. They try to sidestep the mask issue in their “research” but fail; nothing less than an N95, which is not a mask but rather a respirator, stops aerosols, and source control does not work even with N95s because when you exhale the positive pressure escapes around the edges and for aerosols goes right through the gaps.  Workplaces and airlines have banned N95s with exhaust valves which preserve the seal on your face and thus are the only ones that will provide protection for you against inhaling said aerosol.  Non-valved respirators repeatedly break said seal and thus render it ineffective within minutes.  Don’t believe me?  Put on an N95 without a valve and do some sanding where there’s lots of dust, when you take it off let me know what you find around the edges where the respirator used to be.  This is why you want the ones with a valve and why the ones I have for such work have a valve.

Pay attention to this paper folks and note its publication date, January 2021.  Nobody has paid any attention to it at all yet it is peer-reviewed in Nature, one of the “better” medical publications.  I will start right here with what you do not want to read, but you damn well should before you take the shots.

This T cell-mediated immune response is even more important as studies on humoral immunity to SARS-CoV-1 provided evidence that antibody responses are short-lived and can even cause or aggravate virus-associated lung pathology

Note that when you get the shot the first thing you get is antibodies; you may get a T-cell reaction.  This pre-existing knowledge, from SARS (CoV-1) entirely explains why people who just got vaccinated often get hammered by the virus and frequently end up in the hospital or die.  It marks the premise of attempting to vaccinate out of a pandemic where transmission is actively occurring as stupid.

You go get the shot.  Five days later you get the virus.  You have not yet developed immunity and the partial expression makes it worse.

You would have been better off, by far, taking the same infection straight up front.  It likely would have harmed you less.

The Covid Flu is a moderately serious flu, but it doesn’t pose a significant danger to anyone who is even moderately healthy. But the Not-Vaxx turns it into a more serious danger to everyone, including those who are young and healthy. 

Read the whole thing. It’s important, and it explains why more vaccinated than unvaccinated are dying in places like Israel, where a high percentage of the population is vaccinated.

Basecamp doesn’t quite get it

One of the Basecamp founders explains why they bought out their SJW employees:

This was the second such discussion in a few months that had to be closed out following an acrimonious devolution that pitted employees against each other, and stressed these complicated power dynamics between managers and reports, all on a company-wide stage that invariably pulled everyone into the spectacle.

Together with other acrimonious debates and inappropriate discussions with roots in societal politics on our internal communication systems, this formed the context that led to the recently announced changes. After going through repeated, worsening incidents like this, we took a hard look at why we kept doing this, and kept getting the same unproductive, unhealthy results.

I’ve read some opinions on all of this that charge that facilitating these kinds of discussions, however acrimonious or uncomfortable or unresolved, is actually good, because a lot of life right now is acrimonious, uncomfortable, and unresolved, so work should reflect that. I can’t get behind those arguments. As I wrote in the segment posted from our internal announcement of the changes, all of that, inasmuch as it does not directly relate to the business, is already so much of everyone’s lives all the time on Twitter, Facebook, or wherever. Demanding that it also has to play out in our shared workspaces isn’t going to lead anywhere good, in my opinion.

But more so than just whether I think that’s productive or healthy, a significant contingency of Basecamp employees had been raising private flags about this as well. Finding the discussions to be exactly acrimonious, uncomfortable, unresolved. Yet feeling unable to speak up out of fear that they’d have an accusatory label affixed to their person for refusing to accept the predominant framing of the issues presented by other more vocal employees.

Which gets to the root of the dilemma. If you do indeed strive to have a diverse workforce both ideologically and identity wise, you’re not going to find unison on all these difficult, contentious issues. If you did, you’d both be revealing an intellectual monoculture and we wouldn’t be having these acrimonious debates.

So if that is something you want, I continue to believe that a diverse workforce _should_ be something that you want, you have to consider what guardrails to put on the internal discourse. My belief is that the key to working with other people of different ideological persuasions is to find common cause in the work, in the relations with customers, in the good we can do in the industry. Not to repeatedly seek out all the hard edges where we differ. Those explorations are better left to the smaller groups, to discussions outside of the company-wide stage, and between willing participants.

It’s a good start. But it’s not sufficient. The problem is that a diverse workforce is at the very least inefficient and less productive, no matter what sort of lipstick you attempt to put on the pig. And it will eventually become a disaster if you aren’t prepared to actively screen out the infestants determined to converge your company. 

Of course, it’s much better to maintain professional standards that attempt to keep SJW employees in line, but sooner or later, it will become clear that doing so simply isn’t possible. Especially if you haven’t gotten rid of your HR department.

Clearing house

Basecamp has managed to purge its SJWs en masse. Twitter completely fails to grasp that this will prove to be a massive benefit to the company:

  • About one-third of Basecamp employees accepted buyouts today after a contentious all-hands meeting. I’m told more are coming.
  • wow, lost 20 of their 60 employees?
  • And had to pay them out. That’s gotta be a huge chunk of their profits
  • The entire iOS team is out, Head of Design and one of the oldest hires is out of the team and the Rails Core Team as well.
Prediction: Basecamp will be thriving one year from now as a result of the SJW purge. And no one in the tech world will understand why.