Tag: Castalia House

Debating Amazon

Joe Konrath hands Rob Spillman his head in a debate over Amazon:

“What I can’t understand is why you would cheer for Amazon in its fight against traditional publishers. Here comes one of my analogies that you love to pull apart – -it seems like rooting for the lions against the Roman prisoners in the Coliseum.”

I was a Roman prisoner in the Coliseum, being feasted on by lions. Those lions were big publishers. After 20 years, a million written words, and nine rejected novels, I finally landed a book contract. And I worked my ass off and published eight novels with legacy publishers, dozens of short stories with respected magazines, and went above and beyond everything that was required of me, in order to succeed.

And I got eaten. One-sided contracts, broken promises, lousy money. But it was the only game in town. If I wanted to make a living as a writer, I had no choice.

Then Amazon invented the Kindle.

I first self-pubbed in May of 2009. That first month I made $1,500, publishing books that New York rejected. Those same rejected books have earned me hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I cheer for Amazon because it saved me, and thousands of other authors, from the Coliseum. And I try to show others there is a way to make money from publishing where the terms are better, and the writer stays in control.

“My central argument is that if Amazon crushes us all, it will be able to dictate whatever terms to anyone using its massive platform. What if it suddenly decides to flip terms and only offer you 30 percent, or decide that your books really should be sold for 50 cents?”

Rob, that’s what the Big 5 already do. Except for an elite, tiny group of upper-tier authors, the Big 5 treat 99.9 percent of us badly. Keeping rights for term of copyright? Non-compete clauses? Twenty-five percent e-book royalty on net? I’ve had chapters cut by editors that I wanted to keep. I’ve had terrible cover art. I’ve had my titles forcibly changed. And my experience isn’t unique. I’m friends with hundreds of authors. A few were treated like kings. Most were screwed.

You worry that Amazon might someday offer 30 percent when publishers right now offer 17.5 percent? You must see how odd that is.

I was treated very well by Pocket Books. I have no complaints on that score. But my personal experience, which was mostly positive, doesn’t change the fact that mainstream publishing is extremely exploitative of authors; the feed-em-in-and-spit-em-out system is constantly churning and destroys the careers of the vast majority of authors who enter it.

And speaking of independent publishing, I’m pleased to say that we should be able to announce as many as FOUR new Castalia authors in the near future.

ON WAR and the CH newsletter

We are on the verge of releasing ON WAR: The collected columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009. It is a 915-page monster that is not to be missed by anyone with an interest in military history, military theory, or current events. Featuring a Foreword by noted Israeli strategist Martin van Creveld, this insightful collection of columns reads very much like today’s news, only written ten years ago.

As Lind himself notes, the value of any theory is in its ability to correctly anticipate events. By this measure, Lind’s 4th Generation War theory is very valuable indeed. ON WAR will first be available in two ebook formats for three days, beginning Friday, on the Castalia House store, to newsletter subscribers, at a price of $6.99. It will be available on Amazon on Monday, October 26th. Subscribers who purchase the book from Castalia in the first three days will also receive their choice of a free book from five options that will be specified in the newsletter. To subscribe to the newsletter, simply leave a comment on the Castalia House blog and check the box that says “Add me to Castalia’s New Book Release mailing list”.

Castalia audiobooks

I was very disappointed with my experience selling audiobooks through Audible. Not only did they control the prices and set them too high for a one hour forty-five minute audiobook, but whatever compression algorithm they used on the files caused the audio quality to seriously deteriorate. That was particularly annoying because I could hear what it was supposed to sound like on the original.

In any event, since we recovered the rights from Marcher Lord and we didn’t use ACX to produce the audio recordings, we are now able to make the audiobook for A MAGIC BROKEN available from the Castalia House store. We are also introducing a new policy, as the ebook is included with a purchase of the audiobook. We’ve also reduced the price and have improved the audio quality of the retail MP3 by using a variable bit rate to compress the file.

We are very interested in producing more ebooks, especially now that we’ve got more books from more authors to consider. And while we are quite happy with Nick Afka Thomas as the Official Voice of Selenoth, we are on the lookout for narrators to read stand-alone books such as AWAKE IN THE NIGHT LAND, CITY BEYOND TIME, as well as the QUANTUM MORTIS and THE STARS CAME BACK science fiction series. If you’re interested, please send us a three-minute sample MP3 of you reading a passage from the relevant book with NARRATOR in the subject.

Mailvox: more curricula wanted

Rabbi B is interested in our future plans for more material for homeschooling and personal intellectual development:

I recently acquired the astronomy materials from Castalia House a few weeks ago, and from just a cursory review it is evident that the material is going to be rigorous, demanding, and a lot of fun.  I was wondering if you had any plans top expand this area of Castalia House in the future?

I thought it might be nice to make more material of comparable quality available.  It may be possible that more specialized subjects such as writing, rhetoric, Latin, logic, and economics would prove appealing.  In my experience, many home schoolers tend to be relatively weak in these areas, most especially writing and rhetoric.  The material wouldn’t have to be added all at once, but could be introduced gradually to assess interest and receptivity.  Perhaps there would be a way to gauge what topics would be of interest and provide material accordingly.

Even if materials couldn’t be made available, suggested reading lists for a variety of disciplines (literature, history, mathematics, sciences, philosophy, etc) and for different age groups could be posted, not unlike the reading lists on the VP site.  Obviously, you have a better grasp of what is marketable and worth your time and effort, but I for one would love to see more educational materials of comparable quality made available.

We do indeed intend to produce more material for the Castalia Homeschool line. At present, we are working on three curricula: Newtonian Physics, Military History, and Economics. The latter begins thus:

Economics is an intellectual discipline, a field of study, and a body of knowledge. It is not, however, a science, despite the best efforts of economists to establish it as one. While it has historically been called “the Dismal Science”, the truth is that economics could be more accurately described as “the Grand Illusion”.

Science is a process that requires testing, repetition, and the production of reliable, predictable, and testable results. But due to its dynamic complexity and its enormous scale, economics does not readily lend itself to either testing in a lab or repetition outside one. And because of the tremendous complications of all the human preferences and decisions necessarily involved, the predictions generated by economic models seldom prove to be even remotely reliable. Even on the rare occasions that they appear to be initially correct, economic theories often cease to hold up well over time.

Does this mean that economics is without value or that it is a waste of time to study it? Not in the least. Economics only provides us with a very limited ability to understand the chaotic complexities of human interaction, but even a faint glimmer of light is precious in a room that is otherwise pitch-black.

We actually hoped to have Physics and Economics out this fall, but events and ambitions conspired to thwart us. The problem is that Stickwick and I are both, in addition to being rather busy, more than a little iconoclastic. Which means that we’re not entirely comfortable with any of the basic textbooks available and therefore feel the need to write our own. Fortunately for me, Tom Woods has a fairly solid Austrian textbook which was released under a license that is essentially open source and will permit me to remix it to stress what I feel is important as well as to incorporate some additional elements, such as the important and groundbreaking work of Robert Prechter on social mood, Steve Keen on supply and demand, and Ian Fletcher on free trade.

Most of the homeschool curricula presently available rely upon works that were written more than fifty years ago and fail to take into account any of the lessons we have learned in recent decades about the effects of globalization, mass immigration, and credit bubbles. And the intrinsic problem of relying upon a book called Whatever Happened to Penny Candy should not be difficult to understand when even those of us who are middle-aged cannot remember a time when candy cost only one penny.

I don’t know exactly what Stickwick’s issue with the physics textbooks were, but I trust her judgment entirely in such matters and was quite happy to accept a delay in the release of the Physics curriciulum in exchange for an original textbook. It will, I am entirely certain, only improve the end result.

The Military History curriculum is being written by Dr. James Perry. A first look at the quality of his work can be seen in the forthcoming RIDING THE RED HORSE, as he has contributed a lengthy piece on Soviet strategy in Asia called “Make the Tigers Fight”. I was very impressed with the work that Dr. Perry did on the reasoning behind the strategies of WWII in the Pacific, as he pointed out some aspects that had previously eluded me despite my being a lifelong WWII enthusiast, and I am confident that his curriculum will be a solid one. Tom Kratman is an advisor on it, so I shall be very disappointed if there isn’t at least one lesson devoted to military occupations and the utility of crucifixion in pacifying defeated populations.

On the subject of Castalia House, we have a new author announcement today.

Kindle format at Castalia

It’s only Wednesday, but we’ve already had a busy week at Castalia House, as over 50 people signed up for the New Book Release mailing list, we finished getting all 4,500 pages of the nine-volume The Empire’s Corps series by Christopher G. Nuttall online, we acquired a new Associate, and we added a Kindle-compatible format, MOBI, to most of the books being sold at the Castalia Store. So, after making your purchase, you can choose between EPUB and MOBI format, which means that Kindle users now have the option to buy directly from Castalia as well as from Amazon.

We have also created an Astronomy Homeschool Bundle, which includes all four books for the Astronomy & Astrophysics course as well as the Castalia Classic novel First on the Moon, for the price of $49.99. This is not only one of the best homeschooling curricula available, it is is arguably the best homeschooling deal you will find anywhere. Unfortunately, we can’t offer a complete Selenoth or Quantum Mortis bundle yet, due to Amazon’s Kindle Select policies, but we may do so in the future.

There is still a lot to do, as we still have yet to get the various translations on the Castalia Store and figure out how to transform the Chinese translation of QM:AMD into a recognizable ebook format. (If you have any ideas about this, do share them.) As for the image above, it is by our newest artist, and as you have probably already surmised, it will be featured on one of our forthcoming 4GW-related books.

As for our new Associate, we are pleased to be able to offer Sci Phi Journal #1 for sale on the Castalia Store. Among other things, it features a new John C. Wright novelette entitled The Ideal Machine. A complete review of the new journal by Daniel Enness can be found here.

Castalia mailing list

I’ve tended to assume in the past that whatever I post here will reach all of Castalia House’s readers, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that this is no longer the case. So, it’s been suggested that we start a mailing list which will let people know whenever we have a new release out.

I was a little hesitant about the idea, because I often find myself added to mailing lists in which I have no interest, so I didn’t want to do it unless we could offer some material benefit to those on the mailing list. After some consultation with a few of our Authors and Associates, I believe we have come up with a reasonable solution of potential benefit to everyone involved.

Here is the plan. We will email the entire list when we have a new release. This may be what we consider to be a major release such as SOMEWHITHER by John C. Wright, or a minor release, such as a new Castalia Classic, a new foreign language translation, or a new set of Associate works.

In the case of a minor release, it’s just a notification. But when we have a major release, anyone from the mailing list who buys the new release within three days of the email announcement will, in addition to the book purchased, receive a second book of his choice free from the list of five books that are on offer for that particular new release. So, if you’re on the mailing list, you’ll receive two books for the price of one if you buy a new book upon release.

If you’ve purchased a book directly from the Castalia Store, then you’re already on the mailing list, which is good to go. (We will, of course, provide an unsubscribe option for those customers who don’t want to be on it.) If you haven’t bought a book directly from the Castalia Store but would like to be on the mailing list, please send me an email with LIST in the subject. We’re not going to spam anyone or sell the list, just announce new releases. Keep in mind that the Castalia Store sells books in DRM-free EPUB format, so if your primary ereader is Kindle and you don’t know how to convert ebook formats, or don’t want to bother, you should continue buying your books from Amazon. Of course, that doesn’t mean you can’t be on the list if you simply want to be informed whenever we have a new release out.

If you have any suggestions for improving this mailing list, please feel free to share your ideas here.

Since we’re on the subject of Castalia House, the blog now features a short interview that I did as part of a college student’s research paper, JartStar offers observations on cover design, Jeffro continues his literary spelunking into Appendix N with a book that might make for a great Castalia Classic, and Mascaro reviews the first book in THE THEOGONY by one of Castalia’s Associates.

Before the end of the year, we expect to publish at least four more books, two by William S. Lind, one by John C. Wright, and the aforementioned anthology of military science fiction.

Dark portents of things to come

I had a very interesting conversation with a retired general today. (No, not the former USMC general of whom you’re probably thinking.) We were discussing how William Lind and his 4GW seminar had seen ISIS, or some reasonable facsimile therein, coming more than ten years ago. I thought it was interesting that the general, too, had picked up on this.

As I was editing Lind’s collection of columns that we will be publishing this fall, a few passages leaped out at me. Consider:

The current phase of the war in Iraq is driven by three different elements: chaos, a war of national liberation (which is inflicting most of the casualties) and 4th Generation War. In time, the 4th Generation elements will come to predominate, as they fill the vacuum created by the destruction of the Iraqi state.

That was written back in 2003. And that is exactly what has happened, as the non-state elements have replaced the Ba’athist national elements. Here is one that indicated, very early on, the likelihood that the resistance was not an amateur operation.

More significant than the destruction of two American tanks is the fact that Iraqi guerrillas are attacking tanks. This is an indicator that the guerilla war is developing significantly more rapidly than reports in Washington suggest. With the second stage of the Iraq war just six months old, one would expect the guerillas to be attacking only weak, vulnerable targets, such as supply columns. The fact that they are going after the most difficult of all ground targets, heavy tanks, is surprising. It means they lack neither confidence nor skill.

And finally, an early observation of the transnational nature of the developing 4GW forces.

One other indicator. A friend recently noted to me that the rapidly improving techniques we see from the Iraqi guerrillas bear a striking resemblance to those used by the Chechen guerrillas against the Russians. Might it be that we are not the only ones to have a coalition in Iraq?

ON WAR is going to be a monster of around 750 pages. Spanning six years of war, it is a treasure trove of military theory being formulated and refined in real time. If you have any interest in mil-SF, military history, or understanding the shape of the 21st century, it is a book you’ll almost surely want to read.

A cover update

We had a bit more trouble getting John C. Wright’s latest masterpiece out the door than usual due to the cover artist being temporarily knocked out of commission. Since the book was already late, JartStar stepped in and colorized the low-res greyscale comp that we had, which was why the initial cover was not quite up to our usual standard. Fortunately, the artist is back up to speed and last week he sent us the final image, which has now been incorporated into the ebooks on both the Castalia store and Amazon. If you wish to update your ebook accordingly, I believe Amazon does it automatically if your Kindle is set to permit it, while if you have purchased ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM from the Castalia store, you already have the ability to download it again via the original download link provided. If, for some reason, it doesn’t work, email me from the same email you used to purchase it and I’ll send it to you.

ONE BRIGHT STAR TO GUIDE THEM has been getting some excellent reviews, such as this one, which caused the author to note that he is the sort of reader for whom the author is writing:

Mr. Wright takes us on the most bizarre of hero’s quests: the one that takes place AFTER the quest, and that takes place in the “real world.” In so doing, he brings back a bit of the magic of Narnia and – much like Lewis’ Chronicles were a parable to point the young reader to Jesus – One Bright Star reminds us that there is hope when youth has faded, innocence lost, and the black-and-white morality of a child seems but a memory. There is hope that a man can find “childlike faith” and find again the magic and joy of belief. That restoration of faith and hope is why I marked the book 5 stars; because it took me back to my First Love and reminded me of that otherworldly joy I felt when reading Lewis’ timeless novels.

Another reviewer added:

Simply enchantingly beautiful. It is rare praise to give to a novel these days, but, Mister Wright’s One Bright Star to Guide Them deserves this praise. I would highly recommend anyone take it up and read. It is simple because everything in the story is straightforwardly told with a wealth lying behind each paragraph. It is beautiful because it is true. The character, their actions, and their reasons all strike the reader as what those character truly would do or say. One Bright Star to Guide Them is, at its heart, a story of good and evil and the consequences of accepting each.

But let’s not forget about his excellent CITY BEYOND TIME either:

John C. Wright at his mind-twisting best. Excellent. Gripping, well-told story that build slowly to a pretty cool payoff. Highly recommended.

If you haven’t kept up with our new releases, I recommend that you do so now, because the good news is that we expect to publish one more new work by the SF grandmaster before the end of the year. We are also on schedule to publish RIDING THE RED HORSE, the new MIL-SF anthology series with contributions from Eric S. Raymond, William S. Lind, Tom Kratman, Christopher G. Nuttall, Chris Kennedy, and Steve Rzasa & Vox Day, among others, in November.

Announcing Castalia Associates

You may have noticed there is a change to the left sidebar. In the place of the RECOMMENDED books, there is now a selection of books that are self-published by authors acquainted with Castalia House who have made their books available through Castalia’s online store. We are listing these books on the store under the category CASTALIA ASSOCIATES.

We’re pleased to announce the first two Castalia Associates are Chris Kennedy, the bestselling author of the mil-SF series THE THEOGONY, and Christopher G. Nuttall, the bestselling author of ARK ROYAL and the mil-SF series THE EMPIRE’S CORPS. Their books are being sold in the same DRM-free EPUB format that Castalia House books are sold. Additional Castalia Associates will be announced in the weeks to come; please do not contact us to request participation at the moment as we have our hands full with getting our forthcoming works ready for publication.

We’re also very pleased to be able to say that both Chris Kennedy and Christopher G. Nuttall are contributing short stories to the first volume of the Tom Kratman-edited mil-SF anthology series, RIDING THE RED HORSE. And while we’re on the topic of Castalia House, you surely won’t want to miss the Appendix N retrospective that many of us have been anticipating, as Jeffro addresses the Zelazny classic, NINE PRINCES IN AMBER.