Tag: books

Reading List 2016

I was so busy in 2016 that the number of books I read in their entirety declined from 63 to 52. Of the books I read last year, the one I enjoyed most was South of the Border, West of the Sun, a novel about a jazz club owner by Haruki Murakami. The novel I most enjoyed was Nick Cole’s Ctrl-Alt-Revolt!, I find it hard to imagine the game designer or serious gamer who would not enjoy it. Dance Dance Dance was very good, but Murakami did not quite bring his A-game in that one.

The worst books I read this year were Simon Hawke’s clumsy attempts to turn Shakespeare into a detective, a fictional trend that I despise, and although he is a pop-SF writer with a historical bent whom I normally enjoy reading, I gave up on the Shakespeare & Smythe series after reading the first three books in it. They weren’t horrible, though, and I did not read a single book I considered to be a one-star book this year.

On the non-fiction side, I read a number of truly excellent books from Hallpike, Oman, Huntington and Turchin. We managed to acquire the Hallpike for Castalia House, we tried and failed to do the same with the Turchin books. One for three isn’t bad. The best non-fiction book was Underground, Haruki Murakami’s fascinating and incredibly in-depth investigation into the perpetrators and the survivors of Aum Shinrikyo’s sarin attack on the Tokyo subway.

Keep in mind these ratings are not necessarily statements about a book’s significance or its literary quality, they are merely casual observations of my personal tastes and how much I happened to enjoy reading the book at the time. A five-star book is one that I recommend without any reservations, while any three-star or above is likely going to be worth your while. As always, I have read parts of more books than are on this list, but I only rate books that I have read cover to cover.


FIVE STARS

Underground, Haruki Murakami
South of the Border, West of the Sun, Haruki Murakami
Do We Need God to be Good, C.R. Hallpike
CTRL ALT Revolt!, Nick Cole
A History of the Peninsular War, Vol. I, Charles Oman
The Clash of Civilizations, Sam Huntington
Ages of Discord, Peter Turchin

FOUR STARS

Belief or Nonbelief: A Confrontation, Umberto Eco
Dance Dance Dance, Haruki Murakami
Iron Chamber of Memory, John C. Wright
There Will Be War Vol. IX, Jerry Pournelle
Red Rising, Pierce Brown
Golden Sun, Pierce Brown
Morning Star, Pierce Brown
Son of the Black Sword, Larry Correia
Kokoro, Natsume Soseki
The Charterhouse of Parma, Stendahl
Why We Read the Classics, Italo Calvino
The End of the World as We Knew It, Nick Cole
The Origins of Political Order, Vol. 1, Francis Fukuyama
Clio & Me: An Intellectual Biography, Martin van Creveld
The God of Atheists, Stefan Molyneux
An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity, J. Mulrooney

THREE STARS

The Majipoor Chronicles, Robert Silverberg
Agent of the Imperium, Marc Miller
The Red and the Black, Stendahl
War to the Knife, Peter Grant
Forge a New Blade, Peter Grant
Inventing the Enemy, Umberto Eco
Five Moral Pieces, Umberto Eco
Free Speech Isn’t Free, RooshV
The Old Man and the Wasteland, Nick Cole
The Eden Plague, David VanDyke
Reaper’s Run, David VanDyke
Skull’s Shadows, David VanDyke
Penric’s Demon, Lois McMaster Bujold
The Castle of Crossed Destinies, Italo Calvino
Soda Pop Soldier, Nick Cole
Valentine Pontifex, Robert Silverberg
Sorcerers of Majipoor, Robert Silverberg
Ultrasociety, Peter Turchin
The Savage Boy, Nick Cole
The Road is a River, Nick Cole
Stoke the Flames Higher, Peter Grant

TWO STARS

The Aeronaut’s Windlass, Jim Butcher
Fight the Rooster, Nick Cole
A Mystery of Errors, Simon Hawke
The Slaying of the Shrew, Simon Hawke
Much Ado About Murder, Simon Hawke
The Khyber Connection, Simon Hawke
The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller
Uprooted, Naomi Novik

ROCKY MOUNTAIN RETRIBUTION

In the post-Civil War West, the railroads are expanding, the big money men are moving in, and the politicians they are buying make it difficult for a man to stand alone on his own. So, Walt Ames moves his wife, his home and his business from Denver to Pueblo. The railroads are bringing new opportunities to Colorado Territory, and he’s going to take full advantage of them.


Ambushed on their way south, Walt and his men uncover a web of corruption and crime to rival anything in the big city. And rough justice, Western-style, sparks a private war between Walt and some of the most dangerous killers he’s ever encountered, a deadly war in which neither friends nor family are spared.


Across the mountains and valleys of the southern Rocky Mountains, Walt and his men hunt for the ruthless man at the center of the web. Retribution won’t be long delayed… and it cannot be denied.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN RETRIBUTION is the second book in The Ames Archives, the classic Western series that began with BRINGS THE LIGHTNING. Author Peter Grant is a military veteran, a retired pastor, and the author of The Maxwell Saga and The Laredo Trilogy.

DRM-free. Also available in EPUB format from the Castalia House bookstore. From the reviews:

  • the story feels startlingly real. It’s crystal clear that the author knows what he is speaking of when he describes the joy of love, the pain of loss, and the sting of battle.
  • If you like Louis L’Amour or Zane Grey, you’ll enjoy these. Grant is one of the best story tellers I know, and I’ve enjoyed his westerns more than anything else he’s written. I definitely recommend Rocky Mountain Retribution to anyone who enjoys adventure, honor, and grit.
  • Peter Grant’s research is impeccable. His study of the weaponry, business, demographics, and customs of the Old West offer surprisingly insights and keeps his work from being just another paint-by-number spaghetti Western. I was especially impressed by the business analysis, showing how Walt makes his decisions to go and do what he does.

So laughing, so NOT AT ALL butthurt

One cannot help but reflect upon the truth of the Third Law of SJW when presented with this emotionally incontinent confessional that passes for a “book review” by one Jon Milne. Note that we are told this is not the first time Mr. Milne has felt the need to “review” a book by Castalia House, even though there are no other reviews listed by anyone of that name.

It’s fascinating to see that SJWs are so confident that the relevant authority will prove amenable, or at least indifferent, that they are willing to so openly admit their violations of the review guidelines as well as their intentions of attempting to manipulate Community Content.

A massive inferiority and insecurity complex dooms this book to failure from the start
By Jon Milne on March 28, 2017

Much like with my review for “SJWs Always Lie” – inexplicably not subtitled “My Inability To Somehow Not Notice Two Chapter 5s During My Awesome Editing Skills” – I am delighted to admit I did not read “The Corroding Empire”. I did not need to. It was not the cover itself that convinced me of giving it a 1 star review, but rather the attitude and motivations the publisher had in creating the cover that provides all the justification I need.

Consider an alternate scenario: Castalia House releases this book, with the real name of the author (Harry Seldon) on the cover, as well as not having the identical artwork, fonts, and positioning of the words as an other considerably higher selling book. In other words, the book by Mr Seldon would be allowed to stand on it’s own two feet and attract judgment purely for it’s literary merits, or lack thereof, and then attract those who want to read it into buying and scoring the publisher some bucks. It stands to reason that if the book was of high quality, then people would buy it, and the would not need to rely on any cheap publicity stunts based on trying to score political points.

And yet it is precisely this desperation on the part of Vox Day – a guy who seriously holds the hilariously stupid view of “White Genocide” that mixed race babies will totally cause the destruction of Earth – that leaves a permanent black mark on this book and completely strips it of whatever credibility it might have as a literary work. Because no matter what Mr Beale may insist about how totally awesome he thinks this book is, it’s quite evident that he was clearly not confident in the ability of this literary work to sell without saddling it with a spectacularly lame gimmick as part of a great big amount of bitterness he has in relation to the success of John Scalzi.

It’s truly amazing how much sour grapes old Theodore is full of that Mr Scalzi has a highly lucrative book deal worth millions of dollars, something which Beale is nowhere close to ever achieving. Other “highlights” of Beale’s obsession with Scalzi include the Hugo Awards of 2015 and 2016, wherein Beale thought-policed his mindless drones, uh, I mean, followers into voting specific works dictated by a slate onto the ballots, all for the self-entitled purpose of winning awards they somehow feel entitled to, and to stick it to the so-called “SJWs” and “CHORFs” who are totally working behind the scenes to steal the whole science fiction genre from “TrueFans(tm) like Voxy and his Dread Milk minions. I mean, they never exactly elaborate how this conspiracy actually works, but still…

This is the mindset behind the “Corroding Empire’s” publication. Not one motivated purely by a desire to please fans and for the love of writing, but by petty squabbles fuelled by inferiority and insecurity complexes on Theodore Beale’s part, as well as a ridiculous obsession with needing vindication from awards. Perhaps Beale should research some of the most highly regarded movies of all time, many of which did not ever win or even get nominated for Oscars, and do the same for music albums and TV shows and video games etc and their equivalent awards which they never won, and then he could maybe reach a much-needed epiphany about whatever “vindication” he so desperately craves.

In closing, I present a contrast of an author who used and still uses a pseudonym for her writing with far more dignity and grace, even if her real name ended up getting leaked. I talk of course of the highly successful J.K. Rowling, currently writing as Robert Galbraith for the Cormoron Strike series of crime novels, all of them highly rated and highly selling. And of course, one can’t forget that according to TheRabidPuppiesDotCom, Hugo Award Nominee and perhaps the world’s greatest author Chuck Tingle has a counter going for how each book is doing: Scalzi’s “Collapsing Empire” has an Amazon Best-seller’s Rank of #235, where as “Corroding Empire” by Harry Telson is ranked #1671. Add another notch of failure to Castalia House’s marketing strategy.

Now comes the part where I get an outraged phone call from Castalia House decrying me for my “WrongThink”. I could definitely use a laugh.

I’m sure Tor Books is ever so relieved that the first book in its big bet on John Scalzi has managed to outsell an ebook from an independent publisher. No doubt that was their metric for success. As for my supposed sour grapes, I note I signed my first million-dollar contract was when I was 27 and it was not the most recent one. I very much doubt that anyone who has read a reasonable portion of both our collected works would believe for a second that I would ever wish to trade my bibliography for his. And, quite to the contrary of SJW assumptions, I sincerely wish Scalzi’s contract had been ten times bigger in monetary terms; Tor delenda est is the point, after all, as Scalzi is little more than Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s creation. Even Scalzi’s first unprovoked attack on me in 2005 was inspired by PNH, the corrupt, beating heart of all that is wormwood and rotten in science fiction.

As for the “failure” of Corrosion, those reviewers who have, unlike Mr. Milne, troubled to actually read the novel, have almost uniformly been pleasantly surprised to discover that it is actually a solid science fiction novel in its own right. Castalia House does not publish Tor-like trash, not even when we are gleefully sowing chaos and havoc. From the latest reviews of the first book of The Corroding Empire:

  • Did not know what to expect. Was very pleasantly surprised to discover a first rate SciFy novel. An involved tale of what can go wrong when dimly understood digital algorithms developed by aware AI machine intelligences tightly control the galaxy. Until they don’t. Then, the fun starts.
  • I was reading very late at night. I finished an intense chapter detailing a farmer in a life and death fight with systemic wide algo-decay, and went to sleep.  A few hours later I was awakened by the sound of our electricity going off, I drowsily thought to myself, ‘oh, drat, more algo-decay.’ and then woke up more fully into my own world.  Kind of cool when a book does world building that well, isn’t it?
  • I read “Foundation” and it’s sequel 50+ years ago and remember them as about a 4 star duo. Enjoyed the Main character, a robot who goes through many changes. The idea of “corrosion” due to basic algorithms over centuries is good. The science ideas are fascinating,, so I enjoyed the book.
  • I remember Foundation as having a general optimistic tone, where the viewpoint characters overcome the challenges of their day guided by the all-knowing ghost of Hari Seldon. There was a sense of inevitability that was only punctured in later books. Corrosion takes an almost opposite track, illustrating a decaying galaxy where chaos reigns and even the far-sighted seer dedicated to restoration is stymied by events and very human reactions. Without going into spoilers, the world of the Corroding Empire is a darker place than the world of Foundation. Yet this darker world also makes the bright spots of the story all the more hopeful and rewarding.
  • I know this book is based on Asimov’s Foundation, which is a book I found amusing but not terribly compelling. I actually found this book to be much more interesting, not least because A) the premise was comparatively much more novel and B) it actually had characters I cared about. If you are too dim or humorless to get the obvious joke, this really says a lot more about you than the author or seller. I find it incredibly impressive that this was written essentially on a dare and turned out as well as it did.

The simple fact is that Book One of The Corroding Empire: Corrosion, by Johan Kalsi, was an absolutely smashing success in the eyes of everyone involved, as the fake review by Mr. Milne so beautifully demonstrates. It was a fantastic performance by the highly efficient Castalia House team, wonderfully supported by the ever-loyal Castalia House readers, and after a bit of confusion at the start, even our new friends at Amazon came through in the end.

Seriously, though, why do SJWs always pretend they are laughing, even when you can see they are shaking with rage?

They’re big science fiction fans too. In addition to not reading the books they review, SF-SJWs aren’t even familiar with the classic SF canon:

EDIT: My bad on the “Harry Seldon” thing. An honest mistake. I’ve never read any Asimov novels, the closest exposure I’ve had being the “I, Robot” movie released in the mid-2000s, which I remember liking. Nothing a trip to my local library can’t fix. Duly changed those references in my review anyway.

In fairness, I very much doubt John Scalzi has read very many Asimov novels either. I doubt he’s even finished the original Foundation trilogy.

Dear, oh dear

And you see, even if I wasn’t opposed to fake reviews, the following is why, in this case, they are not only wrong and deceptive, but redundant. There will be no shortage of legitimate one-star reviews by Scalzi fans who feel let down by his latest effort, particularly since it is the result of nearly two years of groundless hype.

Half a novel. Don’t bother.
March 25, 2017
Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase

I’ve enjoyed Scalzi’s work enough that I pre-ordered this novel. Having read it (and enjoyed what there was of it) I feel profoundly cheated.

The problem has nothing to do with length — plenty of excellent complete novels have been written in fewer pages. Here though, critical elements of the story are left undeveloped at the end of the novel. I don’t want to spoil what there is of the plot, so suffice it to say that there are no meaningufl resolutions of conflicts facing any of the main characters except, I suppose, for the one who dies and another relatively minor villian. The resolution of the only interesting plot question that is revealed is blindingly obvious half way through the book. So no payoff there either.

I have no objection to setting a plot line that sets up a sequel. The series seems to be almost an imperative in sci-sfi publishing these days. But that’s quite different from a novel that basically ends with a “to be continued” on all fronts that anyone cares about.

As for the fake good reviews, why, the more the better! The more people who fall for the deception and buy the shlockfest, the more disgusted Scalzi-haters there will be. Remember, even I once fell for “the new Heinlein” hype too.

The problem Tor Books faces is simple. Sooner or later, the truth will out. And the truth is that John Scalzi is a mediocre and derivative midlister who has only reached “major” status in science fiction as a result of his own deceptive self-marketing combined with the extraordinary marketing efforts made on his behalf by Patrick Nielsen Hayden. Scalzi has a legitimate fan base, but it is much smaller than Larry Correia’s; imagine how many books Larry would sell if he was being featured in Audible advertising, having fake New York Times bestseller slots arranged for him, and talked up by Tor-published contributors at the Guardian, then featured in puff pieces in the New York Times, and NPR.

Pity poor Brandon Sanderson, who actually is a major SF author and outsells Scalzi by a significant margin, but doesn’t get one-tenth the attention or support from his publisher that Scalzi does. That’s the price of working with an SJW-converged publisher. They will always put their political agenda ahead of their professional responsibilities.

Anyhow, I’d assumed Scalzi would need to “restructure” his contract after delivering the fourth book. In light of this disaster, he’s probably going to have to do so after he fails to deliver the second book on time and Macmillan finally discovers that PNH has sold them a midlister in major’s clothing.

In any event, Johan Kalsi and I would like to thank you all for making his debut with Castalia House such an unforgettable one. ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED? Mr. Kalsi is already hard at work on the sequel to Corrosion, which will be entitled Corrosion and Empire, and eagerly awaits the announcement from Tor Books concerning the direction of his next new series. And I have to say, perhaps the most amusing thing in all this, to me, is the angry, upset SF-SJWs who are unaware that this little stunt is literally nothing new in the science fiction world; it should hardly surprise anyone that the current publisher of There Will Be War would be aware of the various, perfectly legitimate, marketing possibilities in this regard.

There is more at Castalia House. Including, but not limited, to this video commentary.

We. Are. Amused.

Meanwhile, The Collapsing Empire on Kindle is falling while Corrosion: The Corroding Empire is climbing. 194 to 918 830 748 683 666. Make it happen. You know you want to see it happen. It’s also telling that most of the 5-star reviews for Collapsing and all of the 1-star reviews for Corrosion are from people who haven’t even pretended to read the book “reviewed”. This is a good sign, as this kind of engagement is a certain sign that SF-SJWs have been successfully triggered.

Here is the thing: the more people that actually read Corrosion, the higher the good/bad review ratio will increase. The reverse is true for The Collapsing Empire. It’s terrible and word from inside Tor Books is that everyone involved with the book knew it even before it was released.

Meanwhile, Allan Davis proposes a solution to solve the terrible problem of racism and discrimination and excessive white maleness in science fiction:

I propose a tax on science fiction novels, to level the playing field in the same fashion that carbon taxes are designed to punish those who use more resources than their fair share.

Call it the “Bergeron Tax.”

Those authors writing for any mainstream international science fiction publishers have obviously been profiting from this industry-wide discrimination, so the structure of the Bergeron Tax should be arranged like this:

For each novel the author has previously published (with one of the big mainstream publishers), add 10% to the cost of the book.

Add on 5% for each Hugo or Nebula award the author has already won.

If the author is white, add an additional 10%.

If the author is male, add another 10%.

Finally, if the author has a beard, add on an additional 5%.

The windfall proceeds from this tax should then be shared among authors and publishers who have not been part of this industry-wide and genre-wide discrimination.

I don’t know. If you look at Tor’s prices, it looks like they’re already implementing this tax. $13 for a 300-page Kindle book would be a ripoff even if book was any good.

Also, on a completely unrelated subject, I’m delighted to announce that thanks to the Dread Ilk, we will have Dark Lords! Autaruch sent out the following notice to the backers of its latest kickstarter.

Thanks to all of our backers for the tremendous outpouring of support. Since we started we’ve seen huge contributions come in from our first Patron Diety-level backer, Jeff Binder, from five Emperor-level backers, and from a legion of backers that really, really want to see a a Dark Lord class (and, yes, it has been funded and will be added to the book).

Back with a vengeance

As we suspected, there appear to have been internal shenanigans taking place at Amazon, as one or more SJWs appear to have abused their positions to interfere with our ability to sell THE CORRODING EMPIRE.

We’re still working with Amazon to sort out exactly who was responsible for precisely what, and to establish what, if anything, legitimately needed to be changed according to their guidelines. This should all be nailed down by the end of the day, but in the meantime, you can now order the book and post reviews again.

Thank you for your support and for holding fire while we sorted out who was, and who was not, responsible for the removal of THE CORRODING EMPIRE. The very helpful KDP representative to whom I spoke said that he did not believe there was anything improper or misleading about the title, the name, or the cover, but we’re going to wait to get explicit permission on all three elements before settling on a final edition that will see print.

Mr. Amazon SJW just blocked it again. Unsigned, of course. SJWs always double down.


We’re writing to let you know that readers have reported a problem in your book. The error significantly impacts the readability of your book. We have temporarily removed it from sale so that more readers don’t experience the same problem in your book


Error Category: Wrong_Content; Comments: The content of your book is a different edition than what the detail page indicates. Because this could be a serious issue for many customers, we have had to temporarily block your book from sale. Please correct the image so that we can make it available for sale again.

UPDATE: Another phone call and we’re back up again.

UPDATE: And blocked again, albeit this time UNDER REVIEW, not memory-holed.

UPDATE: Finally got to speak to a supervisor. She’s not only escalated the matter to legal, but has assured me that the book will be unblocked, stay unblocked, and that the matter will be fully investigated. It’s not just the three blocks, the culprit(s) also put the book on the Excluded list for Amazon Associates, which prevents others from being paid when someone buys the book.

UPDATE: The book is live, and is now locked for a fourth time. SJWs really do double down.

Amazon pulls THE CORRODING EMPIRE

Fascinating. We just received an email from Amazon informing us that the title, cover, and author of THE CORRODING EMPIRE were “misleading”. This is rather amusing, of course, considering that Tor Books and John Scalzi have devoted an entire career to ripping off everyone from Heinlein to Star Trek.

In any event, we will have CORROSION by Harry Seldon, complete with a new cover, back up soon. It’s not like we aren’t in the habit of anticipating enemy action, after all.

Sadly for Tor Books, there will be no similarly easy fix for the disaster that is THE COLLAPSING EMPIRE.

The funny thing is that McRapey is dumb enough to actually brag about it. He has NO idea how this makes him look to normal readers. Note that this is actually the second time he’s gone running to Amazon to ban a book.

John Scalzi‏ @scalzi
Also, a few minutes ago got confirmation of a very cool thing involving Empire that I can’t yet tell you about, he said, entirely unsubtly.

Yeah, so, about that…. this is now publishing.

Amusement intensifies.

Nick Siekierski‏ @ResearchTeacher
@scalzi Reading The Corroding Empire now, love it!

John Scalzi @scalzi
@ResearchTeacher Tell that to the actual author. I’m sure they would appreciate the feedback.

I have to admit, I prefer the replacement title and cover myself. Tor really just blows from A to Z. It’s really rather remarkable how they’ve gone from Ender’s Game to this.

THE CORRODING EMPIRE

Galactic society is ruled by algorithms. From interstellar travel and planetary terraforming to artificial intelligence and agriculture, every human endeavor has become completely dependent upon the hypercomplex equations that optimize the activities making life possible across hundreds of inhabited worlds. Throughout the galaxy, Man has become dependent upon the reliable operation of ten million different automated systems. 


 And when things begin to go wrong and mysterious accidents begin to happen no one has any idea what is happening, except for a sentient medical drone and the First Technocrat of Continox. But their ability to even begin to try fixing the unthinkably complicated problem of galaxy-wide algorithmic decay is made considerably more difficult by the fact the former is an outlaw and the latter is facing a death sentence. 


Johan Kalsi is Finland’s hottest science fiction author. An accomplished geneticist as well as a 6’3″ ex-Finnish Marine, in THE CORRODING EMPIRE, Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimovian than Asimov himself.

From the reviews:

  • This was a very surprising and compelling read. Clearly modeled on Asimov’s Foundation, this book does a much better and more interesting job of making that world seem real and possible. Part thriller, some hard-ish sci-fi, and part dystopian novel, The Corroding Empire was strikes a very resonant tone…. Growing up on Asimov and having a special place in my heart for Foundation, I found this to be a fantastic book and homage, of sorts, to Asimov. It’s well worth the time and a first-rate addition to the genre.
  • The Amazon blurb brags that, “Kalsi shows himself to be more Asimovian than Asimov himself.” I wouldn’t go quite that far. The Corroding Empire fails as an Asimov pastiche in a few ways. The characters aren’t wooden cutouts, they are real, sympathetic, and relatable. The underlying theme of this book isn’t that everything would be so much better if only the technocrats were in charge instead of those lousy politicians – technocrats like the author, you know? This book doesn’t possess a strong undercurrent of contempt for the common man and all his problems, it sympathizes with the little guys who suffer whenever the managerial class screw up their five-year plans, as they so often do…. And in that way, this isn’t Asimov. It’s something far better.
  • A truly thought-provoking book of where man’s hubris may take us. A new type of apocalypse book. Mr. Kalsi takes us through a detailed tale of how the arrogance of man, the religion of science, the infallibility of man and how the system can control and predict everything leads to disaster.
  • I thought it was going to be largely tongue-in-cheek humor. Instead it’s a pretty strong straight sci-fi story, told as a series of vignettes over an expansive period of time. The comparisons to Asimov’s Foundation are apt but I would say it nods in Asimov’s direction rather than ripping him off.
  • Surprisingly brilliant. A taut, imaginative, superbly crafted tale in the finest traditions of Isaac Asimov.
  • As a re-telling of Foundation, as out-Asimoving Asimov, it deserves five stars. Heck, for having a MUCH better protagonist in Servo than Asimov had in Hari Seldon, I’d assign seven stars if I could.
THE CORRODING EMPIRE is $4.99 and DRM-free. Also, if you bought it and you subscribe to the New Release newsletter, you will probably want to check your email in order to take advantage of the free ebook offer.

The decline proceeds apace

The influence of the gatekeepers of Big Publishing continues to decline in a precipitous manner. As we are demonstrating with the apples-to-apples comparison of The Corroding Empire with The Collapsing Empire, there is simply nothing that the Big Five Publishers can do that small and medium publishers can’t do better, except for buying endcaps in increasingly empty bookstores and purchasing slots on fake bestseller lists for PR.

As the chart shows, whereas the initial ebook boom most favored indy writers, now that the market is maturing a bit and it is getting harder to make a name, the trend is favoring small to medium publishers who can offer branding and force multiplication efforts to the Indy authors who a) are not a top 100 author in a major category or b) snapped up by Amazon itself.

One big reason for the fact that the Small/Medium Publisher category outperforms in Gross $ Sales versus units (33 percent vs 17 percent) is that they tend to maintain a higher price point. Looking at the per-unit Indy revenue average, there is no reason for any of those independents, no matter how successful they are, not to go with a Small/Medium Publisher on average. Even if they don’t sell more units to make up for the publisher’s cut, they’ll make the same amount of money or more per unit anyhow due to the ability of the S/MPs to maintain higher price points.

How is that possible? Esssentially, S/MPs are delivering Big Five quality, or better, at prices that are twice Indy levels but less than half the price of the Big Five. It’s a value sweet spot and Castalia is just part of the much larger trend here. I think the reputation of S/MP publishers is only going to increase, because it is the reader’s perception of quality that is essential to our very reason for existence. The success metric is simple: deliver reliable quality harmonious with your brand or see your readers abandon you for Indies and the bestsellers that Amazon has skimmed off everyone else.