This is the weekly NFL open thread
The state of publishing 2017
Larry Correia fisks a minor author who appears to be hell-bent on convincing herself that mainstream publishing is the only way to go despite having sold fewer books than every single Castalia House author:
I realized that Laurie wasn’t providing writing advice for people who actually want to make a decent living as writers. She is providing advice to people who want to be aloof artistes at dinner parties, before they go back to their day job at Starbucks.
As for what Laurie says about gatekeepers, it is all horse shit. She has no flipping idea what she’s talking about.
Publishers are the “gatekeepers”. If they like you, you’re in, and if they don’t like you, you’re out. Problem is, at best they only have so many publishing slots to fill every year, so they cater to some markets, and leave others to languish. And at worst, they are biased human beings, who often have their heads inserted into their own rectums.
Agents represent the author. Their job is to find stuff they think they can sell to a publisher, and then they keep 15%. So “good” is secondary to “Can I sell this to the gatekeepers?” And then we’re back to slots and rectums.
Editors try to make the author’s stuff better. Period. They aren’t gate keepers, because it is their job to make the stuff that got through the gate suck less (seriously, the HuffPo should hire one). Only self-published authors can hire editors too. Andy Weir hired Bryan Thomas Schmidt to edit the original self-published The Martian. Last I heard that book did okay.
“National and international reviewers” are on the wrong side of the gate, and I’m baffled why she included them. Reviewers come along after the fact, some are useful, but most aren’t. Even though I was ignored or despised by most of the big review places for most of my career, they haven’t made a lick of difference to my sales.
These gatekeepers are assessing whether or not your work is any good.
The problem is that “good” is subjective. What you personally think is “good” is irrelevant when there are a million consumers who disagree. I wouldn’t buy a copy of Twilight, but the author lives in a house made out of solid gold bars. “Good” is arbitrary. The real question is whether your product is sellable. (and yes, it is just a product, get over yourself)
Readers expect books to have passed through all the gates, to be vetted by professionals. This system doesn’t always work out perfectly, but it’s the best system we have.It was the only system we had before technology came along and upset their apple cart.
When only the gatekeepers could vet what was “good”, sometimes they were right, but since often the “professionals” were 20 something lit majors just out of college, or some clueless weasel who had spent his whole existence in the echo chamber of Manhattan publishing, often the system fed its own tastes and ignored vast swaths of the market.
And when you neglect a market, it will spend its entertainment dollars elsewhere. So in this case, competition is good. Because the real competition isn’t between traditional and indy publishing, it is between reading and movies and video games and streaming. Ultimately the market decides who wins, not some self-appointed gatekeeper.
As Larry correctly observes, her atttitude is that of an author who is more interested in personal validation than professional status. The viability of independent publishing doesn’t mean there isn’t some advantage to publishing with the Big Five, especially if your name happens to begin with MILO. But, as in so many other things, what works for Milo is very unlikely to work for you. He’s a genuine star. Regardless, even very successful independent writers who sell millions of copies don’t hit #1 on Amazon months before release.
Nor is print anywhere close to dead. It’s not really fair to compare our print sales to our digital sales, since less than one-third of our books are in print yet and we have even fewer audio books out, but the breakdown of Castalia’s 2016 book sales is as follows:
- 67.8% ebook
- 20.5% print edition
- 07.5% Kindle Unlimited
- 04.2% audiobook
That’s unexpected, since we originally assumed Castalia would be an ebook-only publisher. But the real game changer, where the mainstream publishers are concerned, is KU. They don’t play there and they can’t afford to play there. And since publishing is a negative sum game, every $12 million paid out per month by Amazon probably represents at least another $48 million in revenue lost to the major publishers plus around $10 million lost to the authors published by them. It’s my suspicion that Amazon tries to set the KU compensation so that an author will make roughly the same amount from a KU sale-equivalent that he’ll make from conventional publishing sale, rather than the same amount he’ll make from an ebook sale.
KU isn’t great for independent publishers even though some of our big books pay out more per book equivalent than we make per sale. For reference, the average KU payout per page was $0.004848 in 2016. But at least we can afford to be there.
Better deportations than bounties
Italy’s new government hasn’t waited to act on the migrant crisis:
Italy will seek to deport more migrants who have no right to be in the country and will open new detention centers to hold them before their expulsion, according to a written directive and a ministry source. Police chief Franco Gabrielli sent a two-page directive to stations across the country on Friday ordering them to increase efforts to identify and deport migrants a week after Berlin Christmas market attacker Anis Amri was shot dead near Milan.
The directive, seen by Reuters, says police should take “extraordinary action” before the “growing migratory pressure in an international context marked by instability and threats” to “control and remove irregular foreigners.”
Interior Minister Marco Minniti plans to open several new detention centers that hold migrants prior to their expulsion, a ministry source said, in line with repeated requests by European Union partners.
The tougher migrant stance, which several Italian papers ran on their front pages on Saturday, is the first major policy change made by Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni’s government since it took power in mid-December, and comes on the heels of a record year of boat migrant arrivals.
It also comes less than a month after the Berlin truck attack by Amri that killed 12, including an Italian woman.
We’ll see how serious they are about this, but if the government doesn’t resolve the situation soon, the people are going to take care of it themselves. And the Sicilian Vespers will probably be the model, given that famous Italian temperance.
Traffic report 2016
Last year I mentioned that I believed 2016 was going to be “absolutely extraordinary”. And it turned out to be exactly that, as the God-Emperor Ascendant’s unexpected success in the early primary turned into a Super Tuesday victory that became a nomination and eventual election. More excellent authors joined Castalia House, Infogalactic and Gab were launched, I finally got some new Selenoth out the door, and Milo became the bestselling author on all of Amazon. Incredible.
In 2016, Vox Popoli had 25,817,343 pageviews and Alpha Game 5,332,285 for a total of 31,149,628
Google pageviews. The blogs are now running at a average rate of 85,341 daily pageviews, up from an average 56,923 last year. The running annual pageview totals are as follows:
2008: 3,496,757
2009: 4,414,801
2010: 4,827,183
2011: 5,969,066
2012: 7,774,074
2013: 13,111,695
2014: 15,693,622
2015: 20,776,969
2016: 31,149,628
I very much appreciate the part you have all played in making that happen. On Twitter, I picked up an additional 21,000 followers, but that has proved irrelevant since I stopped using it in favor of Gab, where I now have 14,006 followers. We’ve been making so many server-related changes at Infogalactic of late that the statistics are a bit wonky, but it already has average daily traffic in excess of 90,000 pageviews. The Burn Unit is now 173 subscribers strong and we’re hoping to increase that to 1,000 by the end of the year while making serious progress in Phase Two. Dark Lord Designs now features 11 different t-shirt and sweatshirt designs in a variety of colors.
Castalia House grew from 37 titles, including 5 in print and 1 in audiobook, to 65, with 19 titles in print and 8 in audiobook. Book sales increased 54 percent, with print now accounting for 21 percent of the total. The three new editors made a big difference, although we did not get three of the books out that I anticipated releasing this time last year. This year, we’re looking forward to publishing new fiction from John C. Wright, Nick Cole, B.V. Larson and David VanDyke, Peter Grant, Mojo Mori, Stefan Molyneux, and Martin van Creveld, as well as non-fiction from Jerry Pournelle, Jeffro Johnson, Mike Cernovich, Vox Day, and Martin van Creveld.
Yes, that’s correct. Castalia House will be publishing a novel by Martin van Creveld, which I believe will be his debut novel. I think I can guarantee that the subject matter will blow everyone’s minds. Think CS Lewis meets Robert Graves. We’ll also get the Eternal Warriors trilogy out this year, in ebook and in print, as well as the three volumes that comprise the Collected Columns from my WND days. I anticipate publishing two additional non-fiction books this year, plus the complete print edition of A Sea of Skulls.
Thanks to all of you who continue to support VP and all of its various endeavors. Thanks to the VFM for your mindless obedience and ever-burning hatred for the SJW enemy, thanks to the Dread Ilk for your awe-inspiring loyalty, thanks to the Brainstormers for your support and advice, thanks to the Original Galaxians, Techstars, Burn Unit and Phase 2 donators for making Infogalactic possible, thanks to the Rabid Puppies for your gleeful and wanton destruction, and thanks especially to the entire Castalia House team of authors, editors, proofreaders, and volunteers.
We may not be responsible for the God-Emperor’s ascension, but we are, without question, making a substantive difference in many people’s lives around the world. As good as 2016 was – and it was very good – I anticipate an even better 2017, as more Dread Ilk begin to spread their dark wings, launch their own initiatives, and begin rampaging across the land. In closing, I will note that it’s inspiring to see John Scalzi courageously keeping his nonexistent chin up despite another 11 percent decline in traffic at The Most Important Blog in Science Fiction Ever, a 38 percent decline from its 2012 peak that has brought it back to late-2009 levels of traffic. So brave. Thank you for this.
What a shameless hypocrite
Angela Merkel has got to be the most shameless hypocrite in the world today.
Angela Merkel has told German citizens that the biggest challenge the country is facing is from Islamist terrorism. In her New Year message she tells Germans that their country is stronger than terrorism and the government will do everything to ensure ‘security in freedom’.
In her annual televised message, which is being broadcast today, chancellor Mrs Merkel says 2016 has been ‘a year of severe tests’, the toughest of them Islamic extremist terror. But she adds, however, that she is ‘confident for Germany’.
‘It is particularly bitter and sickening when terror attacks are committed by people who claim to seek protection in our country,’ Mrs Merkel, who has faced criticism for allowing large numbers of migrants into Germany in 2015, says in her address. But ‘in going about our life and our work, we are telling the terrorists: you are murderers full of hatred but you will not determine how we live and want to live’.
‘We are free, considerate and open,’ she adds.
What Germans are is sitting ducks, helpless and restrained from defending themselves, their nation, and their culture, as long as this horrible, hypocritical woman is in power.
On cherishing extremists
People have asked me, repeatedly, if I am not violating my stated tactic of “protect and cherish your extremists” when I criticize those on the right for doing what I consider to be objectively stupid things. The answer is both simple and obvious: no.
You protect an extremist by refusing to criticize him when he does something extreme to the enemy in the interest of the cause. You protect an extremist by refusing to criticize the excessive tactics he utilizes in taking the battle to the other side. You do not protect an idiot by refusing to criticize him when he a) acts like a moderate and attacks someone on your side, b) does something idiotic and irrelevant, c) serves the interests of the other side by dancing for the media.
The latter really isn’t that hard to understand. Look at how the media actually went so far as to pay for the KKK’s wood and fuel just so they could create evidence to support their “stupid white people is raciss” narrative.
TIJAT producers went so far as to orchestrate more than one cross-burning ceremony in Pulaski, though it is presented in the documentary as if the KKK is actually hosting the event. “We’ve been allowed special access to film this secret induction,” reads a title card that precedes one of the cross-burning scenes.
“It was the producers who told me they wanted a cross-lighting,” recounted Nichols. “In fact they made two cross-lightings cause they wanted to reshoot some scenes. They bought everything—the wood, the burlap to wrap around the wood, the diesel and kerosene for my cross lighting. They even brought all the food for everyone.”
If you’re dressed in a monkey suit and dancing for the media, you’re not “playing 4d chess”, you’re not “mocking the media”, you’re not an extremist who merits defending, you’re just a dancing monkey being used by ruthless hypocrites on the other side.
“They kept asking me, wanting me, to use the word ‘nigger,’” said Nichols, who alleged he was paid $600 per day by producers to participate. “I was sitting down being filmed and interviewed with the lights and the backdrop set up, and I said something and used the word ‘blacks.’ Then the producer interrupted me and said ‘No, no, no. We want him to use the word “nigger!”’’’
There is always demand for idiots who will play media patsy. And while there are people who can go boldly into the lion’s den and make the lions do tricks, if your name is not “Donald Trump” or “Milo Yiannopoulos”, you are not one of them. Trust me on this. I am smarter than you, I am better-educated than you, and as a three-time nationally syndicated columnist, I have far more media experience than you. And yet, even I can’t do it reliably. That’s why I limit my contact with the media to written questions, and that’s why they don’t run my answers when they interview me. I don’t serve their narrative.
Turn your guns on allies and sympathizers instead of the enemy, and you lose all right to any cover or assistance or regard. I don’t have much tolerance for idiots and I don’t have any for those who attack my friends and allies. If you’re going to attack Mike and Milo and Stefan and Roosh, you won’t do it here and you will go immediately on my “ignore that idiot” list.
Told ya
Remember when Ronda Rousey claimed she was good enough to not only fight Floyd Mayweather, but beat him? That was every bit as dumb as everyone who knows anything about women’s martial arts capabilities said it was at the time:
Ronda Rousey was once again pummeled by a striker and lost her second consecutive bout. The former women’s bantamweight champion was completely outclassed in the striking game by Amanda Nunes, who stopped Rousey at 48 seconds of the first round to retain her women’s bantamweight championship in the main event of UFC 207 at T-Mobile Arena.
Nunes landed a big right just seconds into the fight that clearly hurt Rousey, who was fighting for the first time since a stunning defeat at the hands of Holly Holm on Nov. 14, 2015.
Rousey tried to throw punches with Nunes, but she had nothing to offer. Nunes was blistering her with combinations, hitting her with virtually everything she threw.
As I said at the time, Rousey not only couldn’t last a round with Floyd, she couldn’t last a round with me. Even trained women are weaker than 13 year-old-boys, they’re much slower than 13-year-old boys, and they don’t take punches as well.
Remember that. Every time you talk about how the latest female fighter du jour can take on a champion boxer or whoever, you’re essentially claiming that a really tough 11-year-old can beat the man. It’s not merely wrong to do so, it’s stupid and dangerous.
And notice that Nunes landed 23 of 35 strikes on a largely defenseless Rousey, but still didn’t put her down.
It’s Milo’s world
We’re all just living in it. This is hugely amusing, because I was informed that some SF-SJWs were doing their usual narrative-spinning about how Milo’s $250k book contract really wasn’t that big, and tended to indicate that he wasn’t really all that famous or important.
Then I noticed that SJWAL sales were spiking and I wondered why. This is why.
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Threshold Editions (March 14, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1501173081
ISBN-13: 978-1501173080
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Censorship
#1 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Political
#1 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Specific Topics > Commentary & Opinion
So, congratulations, Milo, for hitting #1 on Amazon. And, well, thanks! Apparently it’s not at all a bad thing to have the best-selling author in the world write the Foreword to your own little book.
Love the title. It quite suits him. He is dangerous, Ice…man.
An illegitimate government
The Swedish government can no longer be considered legitimate:
Five Afghan teenagers have been convicted of gang-raping a boy in Sweden – but none of them will be deported because their homeland is ‘too dangerous’, it has emerged.
The victim, who is under 15, was filmed during the attack, which happened in woodland in Uppsala, south east Sweden. He was beaten and dragged out to the forest at knife-point before being subjected to an ordeal lasting more than an hour, prosecutors say.
After a trial, the teenagers were found guilty of aggravated rape – but despite requests by prosecutors, they will not be expelled from Sweden because of their age and the dangers they would face in their homeland.
Who gives a damn about either their age or the state of their homeland? The Afghan teenagers should either be a) repatriated, or failing that, b) executed. There is no place for them in any civilized Western society.
The first function of government is to protect the nation it governs. Any government that cannot, or will not, do that first and foremost, is illegitimate.
WTF happened to the Vikings? Why do they tolerate this? All all Swedish males now men without balls or backbones?
The myth of the Cold War
Paul Craig Roberts addresses the common misconception that Ronald Reagan sought to break the Soviet Union and win the Cold War rather than end it.
The myth is widespread that President Reagan won the cold war by breaking the Soviet Union financially with an arms race. As one who was involved in Reagan’s effort to end the cold war, I find myself yet again correcting the record.
Reagan never spoke of winning the cold war. He spoke of ending it. Other officials in his government have said the same thing, and Pat Buchanan can verify it.
Reagan wanted to end the Cold War, not win it. He spoke of those “godawful” nuclear weapons. He thought the Soviet economy was in too much difficulty to compete in an arms race. He thought that if he could first cure the stagflation that afflicted the US economy, he could force the Soviets to the negotiating table by going through the motion of launching an arms race. “Star wars” was mainly hype. (Whether or nor the Soviets believed the arms race threat, the American leftwing clearly did and has never got over it.)
Reagan had no intention of dominating the Soviet Union or collapsing it. Unlike Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama, he was not controlled by neoconservatives. Reagan fired and prosecuted the neoconservatives in his administration when they operated behind his back and broke the law.
The Soviet Union did not collapse because of Reagan’s determination to end the Cold War. The Soviet collapse was the work of hardline communists, who believed that Gorbachev was loosening the Communist Party’s hold so quickly that Gorbachev was a threat to the existence of the Soviet Union and placed him under house arrest. It was the hardline communist coup against Gorbachev that led to the rise of Yeltsin. No one expected the collapse of the Soviet Union.
The US military/security complex did not want Reagan to end the Cold War, as the Cold War was the foundation of profit and power for the complex. The CIA told Reagan that if he renewed the arms race, the Soviets would win, because the Soviets controlled investment and could allocate a larger share of the economy to the military than Reagan could.
Reagan did not believe the CIA’s claim that the Soviet Union could prevail in an arms race. He formed a secret committee and gave the committee the power to investigate the CIA’s claim that the US would lose an arms race with the Soviet Union. The committee concluded that the CIA was protecting its prerogatives. I know this because I was a member of the committee.
It’s kind of hard to argue with an eyewitness in the bureaucratic inner circle.