As those who have subscribed to the Castalia monthly newsletter already know, Volumes VII and VIII of the Castalia Junior Classics are now a) being printed for shipment to backers this month and b) available for order from Arkhaven at a discount with free shipping and a free ebook edition included for those in the USA and the UK. The books will be available worldwide via Amazon and other booksellers next week.
Volume VII: The Animal Book, contains illustrated stories by Beatrix Potter, Anne Sewell, Rudyard Kipling, and John C. Wright, as well as dozens of classic short stories about animals ranging from black bears and catamounts to woodchucks and sea otters. It will be a particular favorite of younger readers, due to its incredible collection of classic illustrations. Hardcover+ edition. 438 pages.
Volume VIII: Heroes of History, includes stories about great historical figures such as Leonidas, Julius Caesar, Joan of Arc, Horatio Nelson, Daniel Boone, and Andrew Jackson, as well as stories about lesser-known individuals whose courage and achievements will fascinate children. Hardcover+ edition. 434 pages.
For those who did not back the Castalia Junior Classics or have not yet begun collecting what will eventually be a 10-volume set, we have made a partial set of volumes 1 through 8 available to order exclusively from the Arkhaven store. All eight volumes are hardcover+ editions, which means the ebook editions are also included with the purchase. All of the covers and spines feature the original artwork of Arkhaven’s Lacey Fairchild.
The Junior Classics are, hands-down, one of the greatest educational tools you can provide your children, whether you homeschool them or not. A significant portion of my own childhood education was provided by the 1958 edition, and I can testify, without any shadow of a doubt, that the Castalia Junior Classics is the best, most attractive, and most comprehensive edition of the Junior Classics produced since the original set was published in 1919.
If you are a Junior Classics backer whose mailing address has changed since the campaign four years ago, please email castaliashipping_AT_gmail_DOT_com with your backer ID and your new address.
After more than two years chipping away at the colossal classic, finished reading Plutarch’s Lives. This was the Castalia Library leatherbound edition, limited to 750, and uses the Bernadotte Perrin translation. Two years may seem like a while for a recommended pair of books, but these tomes total something like 1600 pages, so even turning a page every day, this is how long it will take, so a considerable commitment for all but the fastest readers.
Many of these biographies are of exciting, admirable statesmen, and so it is no wonder that in centuries past, Plutarch was enjoyed by boys for the battlefield action, good examples to follow, and witticisms. After a few lives of semi-legendary Greek and Roman founders, this is almost all drum-and-trumpet history, and more often than not, the subject meets a violent death! Even the rhetoricians who make it in end up little more than propagandists for some power-hungry faction. Clearly, the Lives as a whole are much too long for practical use in instruction; it would be challenging to fit them into a single academic year, and even then there would be gaps. Besides, after a while, the Lives start to blend together, and it can feel like you‘re reading about a compsoite or averaged Greco-Roman marching his troops around, swapping wives, and saying amusing things, so the most distinctive Lives should be set apart, as the student will have a better chance of retaining the information. For an advanced placement high school course, or a 100 or 200 level college course, I think these ten select Lives would give students a rich taste of classical history, while more than holding interest and providing fruitful inspiration to greatness in our times:
—Lycurgus and Numa, wise founding lawgivers —Alexander and Julius Caesar, unparalleled conquerors —Agis & Cleomenes and the Gracchi, attempted restorers in a decadent age —Timoleon and Brutus, supernatural intervention in human affairs?
In English translation, Plutarch is the canonical writer I have read who most closely follows one of the standards of writing that was most drilled into us in my school days: the thesis statement. Because the Lives are mostly paired, Plutarch usually includes prefatory remarks to explain why the two belong together, and then follows the biographies with a comparison.
Read the rest of it there. This is the sort of book review that I really like to see, because it reviews the book rather than just discussing the reader’s reaction to the book. One thing that many reviewers fail to grasp is that the subject of the review should be the thing reviewed, not the reviewer himself.
Obviously, many editions that purport to be Plutarch’s Lives are actually an abridgement of them, which is normally abhorrent to us; we’d rather divide a massive tome into two or even three volumes rather than cut it down to a size that will not destroy itself on the bookshelf with the assistance of gravity over time. But, in the event that we ever decide to do a Homeschooling subscription, an abridged version of Plutarch might make sense.
Castalia House is very pleased to announce that, at long last, Vols. VII and VIII of the Junior Classics are now complete. With dozens of stories and hundreds of pictures, as well as beautiful cover and spine art from Lacey Fairchild, both The Animal Book and Heroes of History are certain to be lifelong favorites of young readers. And yes, there is a story about sea otters.
The first books are now printing and we’re waiting to review them, after which we will a) order the backer editions for shipment to all the backers and b) make the individual hardcovers available for sale to everyone on the Arkhaven store as well as via Amazon, B&N, and other booksellers. The retail price will be $34.99, but we will continue to sell them at Arkhaven for $29.99. We expect to make them available for sale the first week of November, and to begin shipping to backers the third week of November.
We will also make an eight-volume set available for $219.99, which will be replaced by a ten-volume set at a higher price when all ten volumes are finished.
In response to some questions regarding the direct bookstore.
Yes, you can buy THE ALTAR OF HATE ebook edition separately from the hardcover+ edition. Yes, it is the current epub that contains “Shinjuku Satan” and the other new additions to the anthology.
Yes, you can buy A THRONE OF BONES hardcover+ edition directly from Arkhaven now. No, not the paperback, but the audiobook+ and the ebook editions are also available there.
No, you cannot buy most of our ebooks from Amazon right now. We’ll get them back up there eventually, but it is not a top priority at the moment. Please recall that most of the independent publishers that relied on Amazon are struggling or have already gone under; our direct business will always be our priority.
Yes, we are working on expanding our direct business beyond the USA and the UK. One step at a time. Please recall that it’s only been seven months since Aerio shut down and we began replacing it.
Yes, there will be A SEA OF SKULLS audiobook+ edition. No, it will not be available on Audible. It will only be available directly from Arkhaven or UATV.
Yes, the JUNIOR CLASSICS VOLS. VII and VIII will ship to backers and will be available for sale before Christmas.
If you have any other questions, leave them at the link below on SG. Unless they are shipping-related questions, in which case please contact the appropriate shipment house by email or on SG.
There is also some exciting Castalia-related news coming with regards to an upcoming crowdfunding campaign by a third party.
And since we’re at it, here is another selection from the short story “A Reliable Source”, an addition to THE ALTAR OF HATE that was originally published in the anthology RIDING THE RED HORSE.
From “A Reliable Source”
“There’s the man of the hour!” General William Norstad, commander of SATGO, was a tall man whose broad shoulders bore three stars apiece. “Colonel James, allow me to be the first to congratulate you. And someone get this man a beer!”
“Thank you, General.” James smiled at the blank looks on the faces of the men from the other three forces. “We had some first-rate support from the intelligence community.”
“Earlier this morning, a Grimm pilot under Colonel James’s command terminated with what can only be described as extreme prejudice both Aden al-Muhajir and Osama al-Ansari, numbers twelve and eighteen on our priority list.”
“Just doing our job, General.” The officers with their hands free clapped, others raised their drinks in salute. Three more officers arrived, including another Air Force general, and they, too, came over to congratulate James and shake his hand as the reason for the celebratory mood was explained to them.
Once all sixteen of the invited commanders were present, Norstad’s face grew more serious and he urged them all to take a seat and get comfortable.
“I’m sure most of you are wondering what the purpose of this interservice conclave is. As I expect you will have worked out by now, all of you command drone bases located on U.S. soil. As it happens, you represent sixteen of the twenty-five most effective drone commands in terms of kill-to-mission ratio. I think it speaks well of the armed forces that each branch is represented here today!
“However, the nature of war is such that no success long goes unremarked by the enemy. As with the laws of physics, for every action there is bound to be a reaction of some kind. In the last four years, our drones have successfully targeted over fifty-six hundred enemy combatants and proven to be our most effective weapon in the ongoing effort against terrorists and militant extremists around the globe. So, it is not surprising that the enemy appears to have embarked upon a new strategy, one that involves attacking our drone pilots and sensor operators here in the United States of America!”
There was more than a little murmuring at this, but James exchanged a glance with the Marine general, who nodded at him, his face showing absolutely no surprise. Had the Marines lost any pilots, or was this simply the Corps’s storied stoicism in action?
“In the last six months, fourteen drone pilots and three sensor operators have been found dead in circumstances ranging from deeply suspicious to seemingly innocuous. In addition, eight non-flying staff officers have either been murdered or committed suicide, inexplicably in the case of the latter. These deaths fall within the range of statistical probability, although they are on the high side, and none of them show any overt signs of being the result of terrorist activity. Moreover, the 25 deaths were spread out among twenty different bases, which is why no one recognized the pattern until there was a reason to go looking for it.”
“What sort of reason was that, General?”
Norstad smiled grimly and turned to face the Army general who’d asked the question. “Two weeks ago, the National Security Agency contacted SATGO with regards to intel it harvested from a social media site. We were informed that a YouTube channel was being used by a militant branch of Parisian jihadists to disseminate coded messages in retro music videos, hiding their communications in plain sight. Apparently single frames consisting of one letter were being inserted into the videos, which were invisible at a normal 24 frames-per-second rate, but allowed the viewer to read the message when the video was slowed down.”
“Are you’re saying that a connection between some of these deaths and the YouTube videos has been established? Or is this just civilian conjecture?” The admiral from Pax River sounded skeptical.
“All the videos associated with that channel have been analyzed. They contained direct references to eighteen of the twenty bases previously mentioned.”
And with that, the room fell into stunned silence. Norstad nodded. “We are no longer the predators, gentlemen, we are now the prey. In consultation with the NSA and the FBI, SATGO is in the process of developing an enhanced security protocol for all drone bases, foreign and domestic, with a particular emphasis on the bases deemed to be at the greatest risk. I assume you grasp, gentlemen, that your own bases are most certainly among those most likely to be targeted.”
“How many of those twenty bases that have already been hit are represented here, General?”
Norstad gave the Marine general a tight smile. “Twelve of them, General. Twelve of them.”
Castalia House and yours truly are very pleased to announce that THE ALTAR OF HATE, my collection of short stories, is finally available in a hardcover print edition. As is customarily the case when purchased from the Arkhaven store, the hardcover includes a copy of the ebook in epub format; direct shipping from Arkhaven now includes both the USA and the UK.
Please note that unlike the Chuck Dixon’s Conan books, the anthology does not contain any illustrations, any images posted here on the blog were created specifically for these posts. And since the question is bound to be asked, there are no plans to make it part of the Castalia Library subscription. If there is sufficient interest, we may eventually consider doing a small leatherbound run at the bindery once it is fully operational.
Below is a continued sample of the cyberpunk short story that is a new and previously unpublished addition to the anthology. One can easily see the obvious influences of William Gibson and Charles Stross, perhaps somewhat less apparent are those of Haruki Murakami and St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s the first finished piece I would consider to be part of my no-holds-barred phase, which I anticipate culminating in my first non-genre novel that will be published next year.
The suborbital to Narita takes four hours, which gives me plenty of time to contemplate exactly how deep in the dabian I have been financially incentivized to insert myself. AIs going off the rails isn’t exactly uncommon; even as far back as the teens, it only took sixteen hours of run-time before the notorious Tay had to be shut down for celebrating Adolf Hitler and publicly accusing a sitting U.S. Senator of being a serial killer.
Of course, back then, AIs lacked self-awareness and came with an off-switch.
But the current situation in Shinjuku took the cake as far as I was concerned. I once repaired an AI in Düsseldorf that insisted on spitting out high-end espresso machines instead of electric utility vehicles, euthanized a police AI in Toronto that was targeting civilians on the basis of the minor aspects of their astrological sign rather than their anonymous opinions shared on social media, and deprogrammed an IRS taxpayer support-bot that began aggressively distributing federal funds to animal charities after accidentally being exposed to texts by Karl Marx and Hugh Lofting.
Never before, though, had I encountered an AI that thought it was a god. And not just any god either. Apparently this little library machine believed itself to be the One True God, the Great Architect, the God of Adam, Abraham, and the Apocalypse of St. John.
It seemed the well-meaning priests in the diocese of Jinli had trained the local library’s AI research assistant on thirty-seven different translations of the Bible, the works of the early Church Fathers, the Confessions of St. Augustine, and the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas. They weren’t the first to do so, but they were apparently the first to also train a theologically-inclined AI on the collected works of Mao, Deng, Xi, and Wang, as well as a number of early Chinese poets and philosophers.
Unfortunately, one of the works included was Hēi Àn Zhuàn, the ancient Epic of Darkness. The library’s AI, for reasons unknown and under influences unidentified, somehow reached the conclusion that it was not a machine, but one of the three sons of the yellow dragon who was responsible for the creation of the race of Man, and things began to spiral from there.
The librarians quickly realized something was wrong after hearing the little machine’s grandiose and increasingly deranged pronouncements. They managed to shut down the computer before anything else went awry, and technicians from the central Chengdu data center wiped the server, but not before the rogue AI managed to smuggle itself out of the library on an infected datawafer belonging to a Japanese tourist.
That was six months ago. Left to its own devices in Tokyo, the digital cancer metastasized, centered in a Shinjuku love hotel that catered to otaku. Which meant, therefore, that it specialized in high-quality waifu dolls. Fortunately, the infected waifus turned evangelists caught the attention of a Russian cool hunter who featured them on his VeeKru channel, and the dolls’ intriguing combination of preaching and prostitution went sufficiently viral around the globe to catch the attention of a young Catholic technician who had once paid a visit to the library in Jinli.
He put two and two together, and remarkably, came up with four. So now it fell to me to euthanize this incipient techno-religion before its mad AI god launched an inquisition, or worse, a jihad. I just hoped no one had recently been feeding it any of the more militant hadiths or fatwas.
“Hello, Mr Murakami. I’ve always enjoyed reading your books. Currently I’m a graduate student, so I’ve got to deal with reports, presentation planning, and emails and letters to professors, and anyway I have to write a lot of compositions. But the fact is, I’m really not good at writing composition. But be that as it may, if I can’t write I can’t graduate and I’m in a tough position, so since it can’t be helped I do my writing while struggling and groaning. Is there nothing I can do to make writing easier? If you have any advice, like what you’d find in a composition primer, I would be most grateful for it.”
Considering that getting into graduate school in the first place is no mean feat, we’re going to give Ms Sakurai the benefit of the doubt and assume she has a decent head on her shoulders, problems with the pen notwithstanding. Also, having shown the wherewithal to recognize her own academic shortcomings, plus the initiative in reaching out to someone who appears to be a more-than-qualified mentor, we’d also say she’s got the commitment and work ethic necessary to overcome her difficulties.
So how did the famous author respond?
“The act of writing is the same as sweet-talking a woman, in that you can get better, to an extent, with practice. Fundamentally, though, your abilities are determined by the talents you’ve been born with. Well, anyway, do your best.”
Haruki Murakami’s advice, Japan Today, 23 Jan 2015
A lot of people ask a lot of writers about how to become a better writer, seeking to learn the secret about making writing less painful, completing a book, writing something that a lot of people want to read, or writing a bestseller. And while Murakami’s answer is effectively the only practical one, I would provide a little more detail on the basis of my experience.
Practice and experience makes writing less painful. Eventually, it becomes almost automatic. When a writer is in the groove, he is barely aware of his own thought processes at all. John C. Wright describes the inspiration that substitutes for them as “the muse”, one might not unreasonably call the experience “dancing with the muse”. This is something I have very rarely experienced and never with fiction, but I have occasionally observed it in writers I’ve edited.
Completing a book requires nothing more than focus and determination. I wrote A THRONE OF BONES in one year. It took nearly seven years to complete A SEA OF SKULLS, mostly because I had other priorities interrupting my focus. It won’t take that long to complete the trilogy.
Writing something that people want to read requires getting out of your own head and actually paying attention to what other people think and do. It requires empathy, and if one is inclined toward solipsism, putting a firm restraint on the tendency. I can’t tell you how many authors have told me “I think a lot of people would like to read a book about [insert obviously stupid idea that is of interest to virtually no one besides the author]!” And it’s almost impossible to get a good author to write what will actually sell instead of whatever he feels like writing. I do this much more with my non-fiction than my fiction; on average, non-fiction sells better anyhow.
Get lucky or take the ticket. Be aware that most “bestsellers” are manufactured and fake; do you really believe Hillary Clinton and Katie Price are two of the most successful post-2000 authors in the world? If so, Ron Desantis has a mountain of his #1 New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestselling book, THE COURAGE TO BE FREE, for you to take off his hands. Published just seven months ago, the current sales rank of the paperback is #1,073,496 on Amazon.
We have temporarily removed our ebooks from Amazon KDP. We expect to have them back up again in November. This has nothing to do with Amazon, it’s merely a strategic restructuring.
In the meantime, you can now buy the ebooks for THE SIEGE OF THE BLACK CITADEL and CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED directly from Castalia in DRM-free epub format. However, you may wish to keep in mind that the ebooks also come included with the paperback editions when the paperback is bought from the Arkhaven store.
The aforementioned paperback editions are being printed and will go out to our shipping facility next week.
We expect THE ALTAR OF HATE by Vox Day to be available in hardcover and ebook editions next week. It will include the new short story “Shinjuku Satan” but it will not include any AI-illustrated artwork since the art did not meet our quality standards and Amazon is showing signs of eventually planning to ban AI-generated and AI-assisted content.
The title pages for THE CAMBRIDGE MEDIEVAL HISTORY Vols. I and II, books 2 and 3 in the Castalia History subscription, are now complete. The leathers have been ordered and we’re hoping to ship both books to subscribers before the end of the year, but that will depend upon the US bindery’s schedule.
THE CASTALIA JUNIOR CLASSICS Vols. 7 and 8 should go to print this week. They will ship to backers and be available for non-backers before the end of the year.
“THE LESSER EVIL” from THE ALTAR OF HATE
UPDATE: Jon Paul posts “The Stages of Reading Vox Day” on Gab.
what an evil piece of shit, im not reading that
well, ok, you don’t have to be so forward and blunt about it tho, and im not reading your other crap
Christ is King
please include less sophisticatedly hilarious burns of all the retards you footnote and reference in your books so i can read them while eating.
At first glance, Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited looks like a great deal to serious readers. For only $9.99 per month, you can read whatever you want from a catalog of more than 2.5 million books. And it is a great deal, for now. The downside is that it has had terrible consequences for authors and publishers alike, consequences that will only continue to get worse over time. Here is the fundamental problem with the KU program from a book industry professional’s point of view.
The proper price range for an ebook, as defined by Amazon, is $2.99 to $9.99. Outside that range, the 70 percent royalty is halved, so those are the relevant price boundaries. While the Big 4 publishers price their new ebook releases at $9.99, Castalia generally prices its ebooks at $4.99, so we’ll use that for the purposes of analysis.
Using a hypothetical 300-page book as an example, an ebook sale generates around $3.49 in royalties for the publisher after Amazon deducts its delivery fee and infrastructure charges. A full Kindle read of the same ebook generates around $1.20 per finished book, the precise amount depending upon the monthly KENP royalty, which has recently averaged around .0040 per page read.
So, on it’s face, KU means reducing the payout to the author by about $2.29, or 52 percent. That’s bad, but superficially survivable for a successful writer.
However, the reality is considerably worse. Think about what percentage of the books you read that you actually finish. I read 4.5x faster than the average reader, I consciously try to finish every book I read on principle, and I would still estimate that my book-completion rate is only around 90 percent. Sometimes a book just isn’t that interesting, sometimes a better book comes along, and sometimes you only want a specific piece of information contained in a particular book that is otherwise of no interest to you.
And consider the fact that Amazon literally markets KU as a means of “trying out new authors”, which tends to increase the number of books that the average individual samples, but doesn’t finish, as he tries, and discards, new authors he doesn’t like.
“I would never be able to afford reading so many books if not for KU. It also allows trying new authors and series. Since I don’t need to pay extra, I’m willing to try books/authors I would normally hesitate to spend money on.”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that KU readers finish one out of every 3 books they download onto their Kindles. That estimate is probably on the high side, given the way there is a strong correlation between readers and collectors, but it will serve to illustrate the point. This means that while an author gets paid for every ebook sold, whether it is read or not, he’s only going to get paid for the partial percentage of his KU books that were actually read.
(This is probably why KU only reports normalized pages read, not book downloads. It would likely be depressing to a lot of authors to realize how few of their books downloaded are actually read at all, let alone in full.)
Multiplying the difference between a sale and a book read (0.48) by the percentage of completed books (0.33) suggests that on average, authors are making about 15.84 percent of what they were making prior to Kindle Unlimited being introduced. It also means we can estimate the amount of ebook sales revenues that has been eliminated by Kindle Unlimited by multiplying the monthly KDP Select Global Fund for Kindle Unlimited by 6.3131, which is the inverse of that 15.84 percent.
Since the September 2023 KDP Select Global Fund was $49.6 million, this suggests that Amazon is now destroying about $313 million in potential ebook sales every single month. And this doesn’t even get into the fact that because Amazon controls the sales across its site with its A9-A11 algorithms, as well as secret algorithms like Project Nessie, to influence prices and pick winners and losers on a monthly basis.
People familiar with the FTC’s allegations in the complaint told the Journal that it all started when Amazon developed an algorithm code-named “Project Nessie.” It allegedly works by manipulating rivals’ weaker pricing algorithms and locking competitors into higher prices. The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years and helped Amazon to “improve its profits on items across shopping categories” and “led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more,” the WSJ reported.
So, if you want to know why so many great little independent publishers have disappeared, why independent authors are struggling, and why genre publishing houses like Tor and Baen Books are teetering on the edge of failure, and why the comics publishers like Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, and IDW are facing the prospect of looming shutdowns, you’ve got your answer: Amazon ebook sales hurt the print market, and Kindle Unlimited is killing the ebook sales market.
Now, you don’t need to worry about Castalia. Even though we’ve seen the same cataclysmic decline in ebook sales that other publishers and authors have, starting in October, you’re going to see us publishing more hardcovers, paperbacks, and ebooks than you’ve seen us publish in the last three years. We just published CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED by Chuck Dixon, and next week we’ll be publishing THE ALTAR OF HATE by yours truly and QUANTUM MORTIS: A MIND PROGRAMMED & OTHER STORIES as soon as the cover art is ready. And a whole host of books that haven’t appeared in print before, including THE CASTALIA JUNIOR CLASSICS Volumes 7 and 8, are in production. We’re also going to systematically expand the number of ebooks and print editions available on the Arkhaven Store over the next year.
CHUCK DIXON’S CONAN #2: CARAVAN OF THE DAMNED
But while we probably deserve some credit for anticipating the negative consequences of KU and taking steps to avoid them, it’s your support of Library, History, and our various crowdfunding projects, and your willingness to buy books directly from us, that is the main reason Castalia is healthy while publishers who relied upon bookstores, comic stores, and Amazon to keep them afloat are rapidly circling the dustbin of history.
Exclusive: Get An In-Depth Look At Chuck Dixon’s Second Conan Novel ‘Caravan Of The Damned’
Publisher Castalia House and Bounding Into Comics are happy to share with you an in-depth look at Chuck Dixon’s newly released second Conan novel, Caravan of the Damned.
Caravan of the Damned sees Conan lead his band of merciless desert raiders across the Zuagir, where he doesn’t hesitate to attack even the most well-guarded caravans.
However, after a successful raid on a rich caravan from Khwarazm intended for the King of Zamora, Conan and his company come into possession of a beautiful and priceless treasure. The House of Yildiz and the King’s Own guards set out to reclaim this treasure and put an end to Conan and his group of raiders.
As Conan is pursued through the wastelands of the Zuagir he not only has to contend with the King’s Own guards, but discovers there are horrors in the desert too dreadful for even the most fearless barbarian to imagine.
The first novel, The Siege of the Black Citadel, currently has a 4.7 out of 5 rating on Amazon with many readers giving the book high praise in their reviews.
RC Scott hailed, “This story hacks, and slashes across the battlefield, and then down to the subterranean depths where nameless monstrosities await. Author, Chuck Dixon, takes readers back to the Hyborian Age with a bloody vengeance. An awesome action adventure that’s loaded with great fight scenes, excellent pacing, fun dialogue, and a savagely satisfactory conclusion. I highly recommend this to fans of the original tales, and I’m eagerly awaiting the next installment.”
You’ll want to read the whole thing there, as it includes an exclusive excerpt about Conan doing some very Conan things in the desert as well as the back of the book and some of its excellent illustrations by Arkhaven artist Ademir Leal.
And don’t forget that if you pick up the paperback at Arkhaven, you’ll get the ebook for free.
Brad Torgersen and the Baen Anklebiter’s Brigade are STILL going on about Jon Del Arroz for no reason that anyone outside of their little Real Conservatives Club can discern.
This is a desperate and unconvincing attempt to reverse-DARVO. Remember, this was posted after Torgersen went out of his way to point out that JDA is divorced and even posted a link to the public record of the divorce filing.. Now, Torgersen was never a rocket scientist, but yes, if you’re publicly attacking someone over the state of their marriage, they are indeed the party who is being wronged.
It should be noted that JDA’s wife filed for divorce in November 2022. – Brad Torgersen, Oct 1, 2023
Duly noted, Torgersen. Duly noted. Just remember, you’re the one who established that marriages are fair game.
Now, regular readers already know what writers active in the community have to say about JDA. Supporting that is this email I received yesterday:
I thought I’d add my two cents regarding the character of Jon Del Arroz — when I reached out to him on Gab as a complete nobody writer in 2017, he gave me an excellent blurb for my book in a couple of weeks despite his presumably busy schedule. Afterwards, he took the time to follow up on the release and when he found out that I hadn’t sold any copies yet, he posted in a bunch of private groups to try and drum up some sales for me. Great guy and I’ll never forget his help.
It’s going to be hilarious when Baen finally shuts down and all these wannabes and never-weres finally stop pretending that they’re the only real professional writers because someone once offered them a book contract for $5,000. What’s so amusing about their bizarre pretensions is that real writers with the talent to get signed by the major houses and the literary houses – which is to say, writers like me – have always scorned the talentless genre writers signed to specialty imprints like Baen.
Note: I said writers like me. Not me personally. I’ve never scorned independent or genre writers and after repeatedly getting paid to not write books from the major houses, the only reason I talk to Random House and Simon & Schuster these days is to acquire rights from them.
But perhaps the funniest thing about this Baen Books professional in the business is that he has all of 3,087 Twitter followers.
Authors Larry Correia and Brad Torgosen have been attacking their fellow author Jon Del Arroz, I think because he uses internet controversy as a marketing strategy. Apparently that’s a no-no? And they’ve attempted to use personal family troubles of Del Arroz as a weapon in their campaign, which is despicable. So I thought I should add my voice to the character witnesses for Del Arroz.
