- Joined
- Jan 3, 2017
The Puritanical urge never goes away; it just assumes new forms.
YABookgate
- Thread starter Puddleduck
- Start date
The Puritanical urge never goes away; it just assumes new forms.
- Joined
- Oct 21, 2019
This is a good start. The only fault is that it doesn't yet include every author known to mankind, as it should. For they all fall short of the glory of social justice and they must all be called out!
You can make a party game out of this. Name an author (any author!) and the group has to come up with arguments for why they are problematic.
They have "Virginia Wolf: spoke in gibberish to pass as a foreign dignitary" and "William S. Burroughs: Murderer" right next to each other, which is hilarious.
Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2016
Apparently Barnes & Noble is now slitting the throats of BIPOC authors and sticking their decapitated heads on pikes outside their retail outlets. Oh, wait, I mean not stocking a debut author nobody has heard of who has written a turgid, uninteresting woke sermon. Pretty much the same thing in the eyes of Twitter from what I'm reading. Reading through this Twitter shit-storm is like trying to drink the ocean. (Holy fuck, do these people tweet a lot.)
I can't really be assed to archive this shit, but here's a few samples:
What Is Going On With Barnes & Noble? (Article on BookRiot)
This fucking Tweet thread just reeks entitlement:
Blah, blah, blah.
4th installment in a series. B&N probably has a good idea what it will sell and has passed.
Blah, blah, blah - the sequel
This video was honestly not as bad as I expected. KF is being really wonky ATM so I can't attach it. You're not missing anything by not watching it.
Blah, blah, blah - the finale
As an aside, it is interesting that even a Big Five publishing contract is now no guarantee your book gets placed, I wonder if that's a new thing? Is it because the publishers can absorb the dead weight of publishing this nonsense but B&N can't afford to stock it? So much I'll never know for sure, alas.
Edit: Had to add this one, since it made me spit Sprite out my nose. What will all the "autistic Palestinian-Canadian[ S ]" do now, denied representation by B&N? Oh noes!
Autistic Palestinian Canadian books are the best books, haterz!
[/sneed]
I can't really be assed to archive this shit, but here's a few samples:
What Is Going On With Barnes & Noble? (Article on BookRiot)
This fucking Tweet thread just reeks entitlement:
Blah, blah, blah.
4th installment in a series. B&N probably has a good idea what it will sell and has passed.
Blah, blah, blah - the sequel
This video was honestly not as bad as I expected. KF is being really wonky ATM so I can't attach it. You're not missing anything by not watching it.
Blah, blah, blah - the finale
As an aside, it is interesting that even a Big Five publishing contract is now no guarantee your book gets placed, I wonder if that's a new thing? Is it because the publishers can absorb the dead weight of publishing this nonsense but B&N can't afford to stock it? So much I'll never know for sure, alas.
Edit: Had to add this one, since it made me spit Sprite out my nose. What will all the "autistic Palestinian-Canadian[ S ]" do now, denied representation by B&N? Oh noes!
Autistic Palestinian Canadian books are the best books, haterz!
[/sneed]
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- Joined
- Apr 13, 2021
Stocking must be absolutely eating them alive still sucks ass if youre a midlister. @Boston Brand care to comment?
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2019
It's basically that. Retail bookstore margins are dwindling real fast, and no publisher will bribe them enough to eat shelf space with anything that doesn't have a prospective sale rate good enough to make ends meet. They need to move inventory out of their physical stores or they're going to post losses, whereas Amazon can stock useless books on demand from the publisher for mail-order and the burden is on the publisher to eat the cost of printing trash.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2016
The question I'd pester him with are:
- Is B&N likely to float to the top of the fish tank any time soon?
- The waters are kind of muddied due to the whole being owned by a Russian hedge fund thing, but any information would be appreciated
- If B&N goes down, what happens to Ingram (if anything?)
- IIRC they're basically the last book distributor now that Baker & Taylor left the business
- Would independent bookstores be screwed if Ingram went under? Or can publishers now distribute directly?
- What's the relative market share for paper books in the USA. I have a vague sense it is:
- 50-60% Amazon (possibly approaching 70%)
- 20-30% B&N (probably closer to the 20% figure)
- 10-15% Big box stores (Wal-Mart/Target/Costco etc.)
- 5-10% Books-a-million (maybe less)
- 5-10% everything else (Independent bookstores, Christian bookstores, school book sales, etc.)
Not that I have any right or expectation to answers, of course. But I do wonder sometimes.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2016
Goddamn. Barnes and Noble is trending on Twitter now. Would love to see B&N double down, or at least ignore the on-going temper tantrum, but, yeah, bet they fold.
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2017
At 4300 tweets, it's only trending because Twitter wants it to trend. God I hate that hellsite.
Cobalt-60
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- May 1, 2021
Until like 2008, Barnes & Noble just used social security numbers for their employee IDs. They're complete idiots.
Barnes & Noble only stocking popular books isn't surprising since the company has been flailing for the past several years and is barely even a book store at this point, just merchandise hell. Toys R Us is dead so when you don't want to pay for Amazon same day shipping and you forgot to buy presents for your cousin's nerdy kids for the summer get together, dip into a Barnes & Noble and grab some board games and random crap.
Barnes & Noble only stocking popular books isn't surprising since the company has been flailing for the past several years and is barely even a book store at this point, just merchandise hell. Toys R Us is dead so when you don't want to pay for Amazon same day shipping and you forgot to buy presents for your cousin's nerdy kids for the summer get together, dip into a Barnes & Noble and grab some board games and random crap.
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2017
I'm honestly surprised they've managed to hold on this long after the disaster that was the Nook. I thought that was their death knell.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2021
Nearly any book that comes out in hardcover/hardback from a reputable publisher is followed up by the paperback edition in 6-12 months.
They honestly don't sell that much, being up to twice as expensive as a regular book. (But there's more profit for publishers royalties for the authors though, which helps) They look nice, but are really only for diehards and collectors)
They can take up 10% more space on a shelf too, and weigh a shit tone more for the stock per item which is why physical boksellers don't love them.
They honestly don't sell that much, being up to twice as expensive as a regular book. (But there's more profit for publishers royalties for the authors though, which helps) They look nice, but are really only for diehards and collectors)
They can take up 10% more space on a shelf too, and weigh a shit tone more for the stock per item which is why physical boksellers don't love them.
- Joined
- Mar 11, 2020
LOL, this is great. Possibly the greatest Twitter thread of all time.John Green and Sarah J. Maas are secretly alt-right racist hatey mchaters. I never knew.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Abookishdiaries/status/1560078912658427905
Archive: https://archive.ph/YLQk0
Unroll: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1560078912658427905.html
View attachment 3615098
Spoiler, the list:
edit: muh autism forced me to correctly order the list.
This list makes these authors sound way more awesome than they sadly are.
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2019
If they fold they're going to go out of business buying unsellable inventory. Not that they won't already, but my guess is they say absolutely nothing and continue barely scraping by.
Puddleduck
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 9, 2017
I'm surprised they haven't been crossed together to make the Nancy Boys.
thyme's up
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2020
Having your book in hardback used to be the end goal, not the debut goal. I don't know when it changed, but for years it was like this. I find it interesting that they stopped publishers paying for placement. I wonder if it's because they wanted individual stores to have more freedom promoting what sells in a certain store or region.
Don't discount Walmart being a key player, either. They've made buying adjustments in certain categories in their book sections, and for people who live in rural areas, WM is the only place to buy books, with the exception of online and maybe a tiny indie bookstore fifty something miles away.
Still slack jawed at these twenty-something debut writers getting bent because they're not getting hardcover or prime spots without a proven track record. It's not personal, it's business.
Don't discount Walmart being a key player, either. They've made buying adjustments in certain categories in their book sections, and for people who live in rural areas, WM is the only place to buy books, with the exception of online and maybe a tiny indie bookstore fifty something miles away.
Still slack jawed at these twenty-something debut writers getting bent because they're not getting hardcover or prime spots without a proven track record. It's not personal, it's business.
Kiwisee
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2021
I am confused by the allegations against Sarah J Maas. She’s just a Jew who writes fairy porn if I recall correctly.LOL, this is great. Possibly the greatest Twitter thread of all time.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Abookishdiaries/status/1560078912658427905
Archive: https://archive.ph/YLQk0
Unroll: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1560078912658427905.html
View attachment 3615098
Spoiler, the list:
edit: muh autism forced me to correctly order the list.
But if she really said feminism is toxic, then I’ll gladly buy her books.
Edit: I just noticed that Mercedes Lackey is on the list and LMAO. Her books are filled to the brim with woke stuff; which goes to show that the shrill harpies are never satisfied.
Onto the B&N stuff;
Has it ever occurred to the Twitterites that demand influences whether or not a book gets re-stocked into a store?
That these stores only take in these debut books for a limited time just to shut their investors up, regardless of the book’s quality?
That simply being non white isn’t enough to determine the quality of your book?
At the end of the day, B&N is a business who will stock products that have proven to sell well. As I mentioned in this thread a long time ago, a lot of debut books written with social Justice in mind don’t usually sell well.
Take your grievances up with the B&N customers who’d much rather purchase escapist fantasy books over being told how horrible they are for merely existing.
Funny how people will choose fun stories over race grifting any day
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- Joined
- Nov 15, 2016
I'm guessing that goes back to the most recent deplatforming, the one where she did literally nothing and the weasels turned on her anyway. I'm not even sure what the slur was, Samuel R. Delany didn't give a shit -- he specifically said so --, but deplatformed she was. (I'd probably get deplatformed for calling Delany a degenerate pedo groomer and meaning it, but she said nothing of the sort.)
Mercedes Lackey Removed From Nebula Conference
Besides in the 1990s she wrote stupid fun novels like this, which would doubtless give the SJWs of today an attack of the vapors.
- Joined
- Apr 13, 2021
Thats a really cool concept its so fucking dumb but i love it
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2018
What Virginia Woolf did was also objectively hilarious, because she and her friends trolled the Royal Navy by pretending to be diplomats from Abyssinia (Ethiopia) so that they could get a guided tour of the battleship Dreadnought, all because one of them knew an officer on another ship who thought Dreadnought's officers were a little too full of themselves and needed knocking down a peg. They went around speaking in a mix of Latin and Greek and yelling "Bunga Bunga" when they saw something impressive, and absolutely no one caught on, not even Woolf's cousin who was an officer on the ship. The Navy was a laughingstock when the news got out, and they couldn't even punish the group because they hadn't broken any laws.
For context, this would be like someone today tricking the US Navy into letting them tour one of their newest aircraft carriers by pretending to be a delegation from someplace like Kyrgyzstan while speaking Spanish and French the entire time. That's how absurd the whole thing was.
But yeah, pranking the Royal Navy in blackface is definitely as bad as killing someone or raping kids and of course she should be blacklisted forever. The lack of perspective these people have is stunning.
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2016
Me, too. I've never read her, so I have no idea what any of this is about. I wonder if it is just jealousy. She literally has her own section on her publisher's website.
I'm assuming this means she's hugely popular? I guess Bloomsbury is kind of a boutique publisher, but none of their other authors have anything remotely like this on the website. In fact, a couple don't even have photographs.