TGWTG Nostalgia Chick / Lindsay Ellis / TheDudette - aka Hotdogs in face girl

[Boston Brand]

@Boston Brand considering how Lindsay has mentioned that the three books published isn’t the end of her saga, is there any way to get her books out there besides the ego crush that is self publishing?

Not with her sales numbers, or at least not for this series.

It's not uncommon for an author who is dropped by one publisher to get picked up by another - for example, a longtime favorite of mine, Howard Andrew Jones, was one of the Midlisters at St. Martins they actually dropped to pick up Lindsay, and he was picked up at Baen Books, for his next series, which has done very well... but all his prior work at St. Martins stays there.

Usually it's a combination of rights issues and/or poor sales. An author can jump from publisher to publisher, but in all but the rarest of cases, it will be on a new three books deal or for a new series.

The logic is "Well that one didn't sell enough well for the last publisher to keep you, why would we sink money into it?"

If St. Martins is dropping Lindsay, this series is dead outside of self publishing. Even if another publisher is dumb enough to offer Lindsay a book deal - and from her sales numbers I doubt there will be a rush of offers - they would be for completely unrelated books.

 

[Random Internet Person]

Not with her sales numbers, or at least not for this series.

It's not uncommon for an author who is dropped by one publisher to get picked up by another - for example, a longtime favorite of mine, Howard Andrew Jones, was one of the Midlisters at St. Martins they actually dropped to pick up Lindsay, and he was picked up at Baen Books, for his next series, which has done very well... but all his prior work at St. Martins stays there.

Usually it's a combination of rights issues and/or poor sales. An author can jump from publisher to publisher, but in all but the rarest of cases, it will be on a new three books deal or for a new series.

The logic is "Well that one didn't sell enough well for the last publisher to keep you, why would we sink money into it?"

If St. Martins is dropping Lindsay, this series is dead outside of self publishing. Even if another publisher is dumb enough to offer Lindsay a book deal - and from her sales numbers I doubt there will be a rush of offers - they would be for completely unrelated books.

I have to wonder if this’ll lead to another woe is me Patreon post.

 

[Ninon42]

Not with her sales numbers, or at least not for this series.

It's not uncommon for an author who is dropped by one publisher to get picked up by another - for example, a longtime favorite of mine, Howard Andrew Jones, was one of the Midlisters at St. Martins they actually dropped to pick up Lindsay, and he was picked up at Baen Books, for his next series, which has done very well... but all his prior work at St. Martins stays there.

Usually it's a combination of rights issues and/or poor sales. An author can jump from publisher to publisher, but in all but the rarest of cases, it will be on a new three books deal or for a new series.

The logic is "Well that one didn't sell enough well for the last publisher to keep you, why would we sink money into it?"

If St. Martins is dropping Lindsay, this series is dead outside of self publishing. Even if another publisher is dumb enough to offer Lindsay a book deal - and from her sales numbers I doubt there will be a rush of offers - they would be for completely unrelated books.

Placing a bet that book 4 will be published as the debut of a Nebula publishing imprint, which is basically self-publishing but with the ego massage of Nebula backing. Enough of their content creators self-identify as writers/authors, documentarians, video essayists lol, anything but YouTubers. Some of their history people have done books already, and I could see Sarah Z or Olly Thorn getting a courtesy run of 500 books for their vanity projects. Not enough to qualify for any bestseller lists, but enough to hobnob at writer's awards.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

How is Lindsay going to spin self publishing into a thing where she wasn’t told to fuck off because her books were trash?

That's not actually that hard. Simply state that she is going into self-publishing because she can get a bigger cut per sale and have more creative control over the direction of the novels. Essentially spinning it from a left-wing socialist viewpoint of breaking away from the evils of large corporations.

Alternatively, she can get with a different smaller publisher with lower enough expectations to work with her, and if necessary also work to buy the penny priced rights to her series, to continue the series with them. As mentioned up thread this could be done by Nebula creating their own publishing label, but there's also the reality that somewhere there is always someone dumb enough to shove their dick in the blender and all she has to do is find them.

It really depends on how much of an ego hit she is willing to take. No matter what she does to somehow get this series finished it will be an ego hit. How much of an ego hit each option would be completely depends on how good of a cope she can come up with for each one. I suspect the lowest ego hit would be somehow getting Nebula to somehow make their own publishing label just so that she can claim that she left St. Martin's for them as well as feel good about herself for being the cause of them publishing books in the first place. The middle ground for an ego hit would be moving to a smaller publisher than St. Martin's since at least she is still in traditional publishing. Self-publishing would be devastating to her unless she could come up with some kind of cope where it is more noble and impressive to do it solo and convince herself of it.

ETA: It's also worth remembering that she might decide that it is less of an ego hit to not finish the series. That once again depends on which copes she can come up with to swallow the pill that she is a published author who never finished their series.

 

[Boston Brand]

On paper, if Lindsay truly cared about finishing this series, she has a few options. Issue is, I don't think she cares about that as much as her ego and being able to claim she's a published author with a major publisher. She's not in this for love of the game, she's in it for clout.

Not much clout in self publishing your alien space chicken erotica.

I could see the Nebula thing, but my impression of Nebula's finances is they aren't exactly swimming in cash.

Publishing is expensive - thus the old joke.

"How do you make a small fortune in publishing?

Start with a large fortune."

Are they really willing to burn hundreds of thousands of dollars at least to satisfy the ego of Lindsay Ellis?

 

[The Hardest R]

Nebula would be stupid enough to bet the farm on publishing Lindsay’s next book despite her trilogy being a sales failure. I agree though @Boston Brand I don’t think Lindsay has ever really cared about this story to ever consider self-publishing. I find the chances of her going that route highly unlikely. A vanity publisher like potentially Nebula, sure. Lindsay is unambitious enough to start her own business.

 

[grapeshark77]

Yeah, Lindsay could definitely spin self-publishing to her audience (saying she's getting more of the money, or doesn't have to get "notes", or whatever). But she can't spin it to herself - she wanted books put out by a real publisher. Not just books, but novels that have nothing to do with her Youtube career. Sort of like how her Nebula deal lets her pretend she's not just making Youtube videos even though she is.

I'm surprised she didn't try to make a short film through Nebula, considering that the CEO is willing to throw whatever money he has directly in the trash. Maybe even she knew that it was not exactly prestigious.

 

[Disco Snake]

I'm surprised she didn't try to make a short film through Nebula, considering that the CEO is willing to throw whatever money he has directly in the trash. Maybe even she knew that it was not exactly prestigious.

I think Lindsay's real hope for the series was to leverage it for a streaming deal. It's not too far fetched of a plan considering how many IPs are being flipped now a days.

It wouldn't surprise if Nebula publishes the rest of the series to build hype and attention. If they managed to snag a streaming deal, they could use it to get writing, producing, and even acting credits for their stable of lolcows.

I can practically see the sales pitch now.

"Do you want to cash in to 2000's nostalgia like Stranger Things did for 80's nostalgia? Well I have the script for you. Everyone loves first contact stories! Look how well the 3 Body Problem tv show is doing, and the Arrival movie before it. There's even a built in internet audience for it like the Amazing Digital Circus and Hasbin Hotel! Lindsay Ellis can pull a million hits on any video she publishes. Can your marketing team do that? It even has a Latina protagonist to met the diversity quota! Just cast a more dark skin actress for the role."

Lindsay's publisher fell for a similar pitch. Will a production company do the same?

Spoiler: Sperging about the Marketing of Lindsay's Book

I think the best description of Lindsay's book series is MIB x Transformers approached in the fashion of the Three Body Problem. In other words giving low art the high art treatment. It fits Lindsay's brand as a pop culture critic as well.

Of course, Lindsay fails at this spectacularly, but the reader wouldn't know that until they finished the book.

 

[Random Internet Person]

I think Lindsay's real hope for the series was to leverage it for a streaming deal. It's not too far fetched of a plan considering how many IPs are being flipped now a days.

It wouldn't surprise if Nebula publishes the rest of the series to build hype and attention. If they managed to snag a streaming deal, they could use it to get writing, producing, and even acting credits for their stable of lolcows.

I can practically see the sales pitch now.



Lindsay's publisher fell for a similar pitch. The question is will a production company do the same?

Spoiler: Sperging about the Marketing of Lindsay's Book

I think the best description of Lindsay's book series is MIB x Transformers approached in the fashion of the Three Body Problem. In other words giving low art the high art treatment. It fits Lindsay's brand as a pop culture critic as well.

Of course, Lindsay fails at this spectacularly, but the reader wouldn't know that until they finished the book.

I’d say that the pitch you provided sounds like something that could work, but I think that the cold hard numbers leaving a lot to be desired would keep folks from bringing Lindsay into the fold. I have to believe word had to have gotten around, so folks will have to heard how Lindsay failed to reach projected sales, Lindsay’s ways to promote her book leaving much to be desired, and maybe even her Raya controversy (maybe @Boston Brand knows something I don’t about whether or not people in publishing talk about the numbers and who to check out and who to avoid, along with the talk of who to sell rights to in terms of movies and streaming.)

As for Nebula, I really doubt they have the capacity or pull to make something out of Lindsay’s work unless they have somebody willing to just throw money around, or if it’s the vanity project of the person making it. It’s a bit like The Daily Wire making movies, but left wing, and I assume less money to put toward a budget (unless they crowdfund).

At some point, I have to assume that even for something as political at the BreadTube sphere, at some point somebody will come in and say “this isn’t making money. Let’s end this once the contract runs out before get even more fucked and burned by sunk cost fallacy.”

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

Howard Andrew Jones, was one of the Midlisters at St. Martins they actually dropped to pick up Lindsay, and he was picked up at Baen Books, for his next series, which has done very well...

I'm sure whoever made that stellar business decision has been upgraded to janitorial duties at St. Martin for their keen business acumen.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

I'm sure whoever made that stellar business decision has been upgraded to janitorial duties at St. Martin for their keen business acumen.

I'm now imagining a world where unironically people must be promoted to janitorial duties to be able to get into the higher paying roles. I think the world would have less issues if every person in a management position at some point was scrubbing toilets.

 

[The Hardest R]

I'm sure whoever made that stellar business decision has been upgraded to janitorial duties at St. Martin for their keen business acumen.

Publishers have been releasing a nonstop caravan of sales bombs because of DEI and their desire to publish novels and shit from “melanated voices.” Lindsay’s bombs are pretty well in line with how things have been going these last several years.

 

[Birthright]

Okay, so. I met Lindsay last weekend at a book-tour-thing at a library in Las Vegas. That sounds incredibly similar to the Ryan Gosling copypasta but I digress. Anyway after reading the thread I guess I can contribute. Some lefty bullshit did seep in but it was mostly teenage girls asking Lindsay about her book surprisingly enough. She mentioned that the planned books 4 and 5 are on hold because she's been in some sort of legal battle with her publisher for the last year. (maybe some of you can educate me on its how they promised her X amount of books and are dropping her after poor sales or something) Anyway, she mentioned having two kids, for the turbo autists who insist she's some sort of abort happy perma-spinster. I didn't own her book (lol) so I had her sign the flier. I sperged out a bit and told her it was really cool to meet her as someone who's been watching since middle school and now has two children and how surreal it was that someone I've watched and kept up with for so long was now at my local library. It honestly was very surreal to have a casual conversation with her and have a question answered by her during the Q&A portion. No I didn't get a good whiff of her hair.

 

[Birthright]

I think Lindsay's real hope for the series was to leverage it for a streaming deal. It's not too far fetched of a plan considering how many IPs are being flipped now a days.

It wouldn't surprise if Nebula publishes the rest of the series to build hype and attention. If they managed to snag a streaming deal, they could use it to get writing, producing, and even acting credits for their stable of lolcows.

I can practically see the sales pitch now.



Lindsay's publisher fell for a similar pitch. Will a production company do the same?

Spoiler: Sperging about the Marketing of Lindsay's Book

I think the best description of Lindsay's book series is MIB x Transformers approached in the fashion of the Three Body Problem. In other words giving low art the high art treatment. It fits Lindsay's brand as a pop culture critic as well.

Of course, Lindsay fails at this spectacularly, but the reader wouldn't know that until they finished the book.

its funny you say the "low art high art" thing because i distinctly remember her explaining the series as such pretty much verbatim at the event

 

[Arthur Morgan]

its funny you say the "low art high art" thing because i distinctly remember her explaining the series as such pretty much verbatim at the event

She's made fun of the books in the past, talking about them just being dumb sci-fi books, but from things that slip out, plus the fact that she bought a Hugo for herself, makes it clear she wanted them to be taken seriously. She thought she was making something special, and then no one was interested or impressed by it.

From what I've seen of them, they're schlock. For Lindsay and her simps on the other hand, they're the new gospel.

 

[Ninon42]

She mentioned that the planned books 4 and 5 are on hold because she's been in some sort of legal battle with her publisher for the last year. (maybe some of you can educate me on its how they promised her X amount of books and are dropping her after poor sales or something)

Lindsay's contract with St Martins was only for 3 books. They underperformed. She decided she wanted a 5 book series despite that.

Anyway, she mentioned having two kids, for the turbo autists who insist she's some sort of abort happy perma-spinster.

Her having two girls, one husband and one cuck is well documented in the thread.

 

[Mordecai "3 Finger" Brown]

Her having two girls, one husband and one cuck is well documented in the thread.

Who is the cuck? ToddintheShadows?

 

[Random Internet Person]

Who is the cuck? ToddintheShadows?

If you go by how Kiwis talk about him, then yes. Honestly, all he ever did was promote her on Nebula.

 

[Boston Brand]

Okay, so. I met Lindsay last weekend at a book-tour-thing at a library in Las Vegas. That sounds incredibly similar to the Ryan Gosling copypasta but I digress. Anyway after reading the thread I guess I can contribute. Some lefty bullshit did seep in but it was mostly teenage girls asking Lindsay about her book surprisingly enough. She mentioned that the planned books 4 and 5 are on hold because she's been in some sort of legal battle with her publisher for the last year. (maybe some of you can educate me on its how they promised her X amount of books and are dropping her after poor sales or something) Anyway, she mentioned having two kids, for the turbo autists who insist she's some sort of abort happy perma-spinster. I didn't own her book (lol) so I had her sign the flier. I sperged out a bit and told her it was really cool to meet her as someone who's been watching since middle school and now has two children and how surreal it was that someone I've watched and kept up with for so long was now at my local library. It honestly was very surreal to have a casual conversation with her and have a question answered by her during the Q&A portion. No I didn't get a good whiff of her hair.View attachment 6608538View attachment 6608542

Another point in the column of "St. Martins took one look at her sales and said hit the bricks" for book 4.

Legal issues though... she may be trying to get them to give her the rights to the series so she can shop it around. Some publishers hold onto them, even if the series flops.

I'm guessing if she got a massive advance she has yet to earn out, St. Martins might make her pay it back before they sign the rights away.

 

[AngryTreeRat]

Another point in the column of "St. Martins took one look at her sales and said hit the bricks" for book 4.

Legal issues though... she may be trying to get them to give her the rights to the series so she can shop it around. Some publishers hold onto them, even if the series flops.

I'm guessing if she got a massive advance she has yet to earn out, St. Martins might make her pay it back before they sign the rights away.

This is my theory as well. Why I think she might try to get Nebula to assist her on this.