YABookgate

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Nothing to do with YA, but this made me laugh. You want a publishing contract at Random House? Maybe you should check what's upcoming on their list... Just be an empathetic deviant.

‘Sky Daddy’ Takes Airplane Fetishization to New Heights

https://archive.is/53UeH

Kate Folk sits in an observation lobby at SFO, watching planes glide gracefully skywards. An adjunct professor at the University of San Francisco, Folk has been thinking a lot about air travel lately. The main character of her forthcoming novel, Sky Daddy (April 8; Random House), is sexually attracted to planes.

By day, the book’s protagonist Linda earns peanuts as a content moderator for a tech company based in Menlo Park; by night, she ogles plane wreck footage and rides the AirTrain around SFO, cruising for new lovers.

Instead, the novel lends a gently empathetic ear to Linda’s taboo desires, which keep her at a melancholy remove from the rest of humankind.

Wonder how much the advance was?

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

MAKE IT YOUR OWN

How? Nothing any new writer can think up hasn't already been done by several someone else, and at least better by one. Also, asking someone from a western nation not to draw from Roman history, is like asking someone not to draw from the Bible or from Shakespeare. How can you create a fictional empire without drawing inspiration from the EMPIRE of western history? Would you accept a novel about space whaling that didn't even hint that the writer read Moby Dick? Or how about a messiah warrior-king figure that didn't make references to Dune? Why not also require them to eat a face full of buck shot at that point?

 

[Shaneequa]

Would you accept a novel about space whaling that didn't even hint that the writer read Moby Dick? Or how about a messiah warrior-king figure that didn't make references to Dune?

The fix to this is easy, just don't read.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

How? Nothing any new writer can think up hasn't already been done by several someone else, and at least better by one. Also, asking someone from a western nation not to draw from Roman history, is like asking someone not to draw from the Bible or from Shakespeare. How can you create a fictional empire without drawing inspiration from the EMPIRE of western history? Would you accept a novel about space whaling that didn't even hint that the writer read Moby Dick? Or how about a messiah warrior-king figure that didn't make references to Dune? Why not also require them to eat a face full of buck shot at that point?

It's easy you retard: CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE and DESCRIBE THE CONCEPT IN A DIFFERENT WAY. The problem I had is it's LITERALLY COPY AND PASTED. There are simply too much that DIRECTLY TAKES FROM DUNE that can't be explained away as a coincidence. The author would've been told by his editor and I've seen posts saying he had beta readers that would've told him, and he could've changed it up enough to not get the derivative label.

And for my problem with Space Rome is Ruocchio DIRECTLY USES THE SAME FUCKING WORDS FROM ANY ROMAN HISTORY BOOK. EVEN IF IT'S THE POINT OF THE STORY THAT THEYRE ROME LARPERS IT'S BAD PRACTICE. MAKE UP SOMETHING IT'S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO.

Herbert has an entire glossary of terms and words he uses for his concepts and organisations. He took from many sources and combined and corrupted them for himself. Ruocchio is clearly capable of doing the same because he's so creative with everything else in the story, so why shit the bed with Space Rome? Especially at the beginning of the series when he appears to just steal from another work without filing the serial number off. You can't fault anyone to have an issue with it.

 

[Bulk Bogan]

At least when Battletech did Space Rome they made them all Irish instead.

 

[Boston Brand]

I had a listen to the first chapter of Howling Dark. Holy crap is it an improvement. Much, much, much better and even despite not knowing who, what, when and why, I was engaged. I would have no problem if this had been the first book with the same prologue gist (but better written by being in line with this novel) and the story was some bloke was on his way to finding a diplomatic solution to a war that somehow results in killing his Emperor. I found it funny it started with a 'just woken up' trope.

Told you it got better.

YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN' YET, EITHER.

 

[Boston Brand]

LitRPG is to sword-and-sorcery what isekai is to classic portal fantasy.

An inferior take at a traditional fantasy subgenre, from illiterate people who mainlined bad anime instead of good books.

This is why if you want to write, read. If you don't learn anything about storytelling from reading Robert E. Howard, you aren't doing it right.

 

[Flexo]

Yeah I've noticed that once you're down that rabbit hole of being a publicly conservative culture warrior, intentionally or not, you're pretty much pigeon=holed into it.

James Lindsay commented on the right-wing ghetto in this video (timestamped)

And I agree with him that it's Jon Stewart's fault. (I can even tell our dear forum leader who admits to growing up a big Stewart fan lapsing into these default modes of thinking - it's a hard habit to break out of.)

Spoiler: pull from the transcript

I do blame Jon Stewart for this uh overwhelmingly because also we were conditioned through the 90s and early 2000s The Daily Show in particular with this idea very broadly conditioned culturally that right-wing talking points whether for legitimate reasons or not looking back at Fox News which was his typical Target of his jokes was something to be made fun of it was something embarrassing to a spouse it was something embarrassing to be associated with and kind of the cultural hip set especially of younger people no matter where they fell on the political Spectrum was that which is believed by Fox News or Fox News viewers is um risable it's something literally to be made fun of which creates a story with being with a spec you know being associated with those views and this has created the cultural condition that is really if you ask me you know what is the one thing that's enabled woke to flourish to the degree that it has it's this it's this cultural condition that being associated with anything that might show up on Fox News which isn't even that far right frankly uh and is just another tool of the regime frankly but anything that would show up on Fox that that is a instantaneously disqualifying thing so for example when The Grieving studies Affair came out we got calls from everybody and their mother to go on TV to be interviewed whatever and so Dr Carlson's people called us asked us to come on Laura Ingram's people called us asked us to go on and we said no to those invitations which I at this point regret but I remember talking with our friend Brett Weinstein about it at the time and his advice was sagacious it was because he had done with Evergreen he had gone on Tucker Carlson he had gone on Fox News and discussed it and he said it's up to you it's a balance you know how bread is it's a balance it's a trade-off you have to make your decision and you have to think it through you have to do what you think is best but what you do need to understand is at least at the 2018 cultural moment if you go on there there's no Bridge home that's the way he phrased it there is no Bridge home once you get that association association disappearing on Tucker Collison is the death note that you're forever discarded if you've ever that's right you will never get another invitation to a left-wing platform so either you go as they would put it full right-wing grifter or your career is over and then they will use that against you the second you appear on anything right wing

She released a follow up video and gets real sassy about half way through which made my heart skip and my dick twitch. While she only goes through her YT comments, it would've been nice if she'd seen the book thread on /snow/ specifically complaining she's a 'pick me' appealing to 'moids' who 'don't read for fun' and 'can't visualise while reading'.

FYI she has a substack.

https://substack.com/@fictionalinfluence?

 

[Rezza]

Wonder how much the advance was?

Somewhat unrelated and at the same time related, what is the current average rate for a debut novel advance? I've been wondering about this for a while since I was curious about the cost of publishing novels

 

[Hirbowedge]

LitRPG is to sword-and-sorcery what isekai is to classic portal fantasy.

An inferior take at a traditional fantasy subgenre, from illiterate people who mainlined bad anime instead of good books.

This is why if you want to write, read. If you don't learn anything about storytelling from reading Robert E. Howard, you aren't doing it right.

The question is, how you take people who read this slop, and make them read something better. And maybe make some cashola doing it.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

Somewhat unrelated and at the same time related, what is the current average rate for a debut novel advance? I've been wondering about this for a while since I was curious about the cost of publishing novels

I hear numbers, but they all tend to be based on different metrics.

Average for Big 5 is reported here and backed up by other sites UNDER $60K

So remember this figure comes as including all the million-dollar advances you hear of, and the $5K bog-standard contract.

** $20-50K as an average is another figure.


** 15% gets eaten by agent fees (20% if the publisher is in a different country from the agent),


** Then of that 5% if you don't reside in the same country as your agent - the agents country wants a slice of the pie.


** Then of THAT about 30% goes to the tax man of your home country.


** Think of the author receiving HALF the advance, in 4-5 portions, over three years.


** So a $100K advance works out to about $15k per year. Royalties are roughly $1 per book, and increase if your book sells more. You'll only get them if you pay off the advance.


As for the cost of publishing, a book that sells a LOT of copies will cost the publisher less in printing and distribution. Most contracts have escalator clauses - ie: if you sell more than 20K copies, you'll get $1.10 per book sold. This is not gratitude, the publisher is passing on the cheap production costs.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

Would it be possible to forgo an advance for better royalties? Has anyone done that?

 

[Boston Brand]

The question is, how you take people who read this slop, and make them read something better. And maybe make some cashola doing it.

Better coverage and more attention to the classics and works faithful to them is one critical one. There's a reason I hype up GOOD authors as much as shit on bad ones.

How many people here took part in hate reading Manhunt, or crapping on Pat Tomlinson, as opposed to reading Christopher Ruocchio or Howard Andrew Jones, who wrote the best works of fantasy and science fiction I read last year?

Another is a publishing industry that actually bothers selling to boys again. Both these imitator genres, and to a lesson extent, manga, bank on filling that void.

Trad publishers will drag thier feet on that, so that's up to mid majors and independents. Which comes to the BIGGEST problem.

Amazon.

Not only have the imitators genres built themselves on hacking the Amazon algorithm in a way most publishers and authors only dream of, but Amazon's own rankings and searches are a mess.

Take a firm subgenre like sword & sorcery. Wanna take a guess what books fill the rankings of the subgenre?

Dragonporn Romantasy. You don't actually get a non Romantasy book until #20, with The Two Towers. AKA The Lord of the Rings, godfather of epic fantasy.

In fact, in the top 100, aside from MAYBE John Gwyne, there isn't a single work of what one could recognize as sword-and-sorcery. Romatasy, epic fantasy, Tolkien, Sanderson, LitRPG and Progression Fantasy... but not one work of Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, or even modern authors like Jonathan Maberry, Larry Correia, or Howard Andrew Jones.

And why would Amazon bother fixing it? What are people going to do, buy books elsewhere?

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

authors like Jonathan Maberry, Larry Correia, or Howard Andrew Jones.

The one book by Maberry I started I didn't like and dropped it shortly after I started, something about zombies in Colorado.

Beyond that, the only Howard Jones I know is the '80s pop star, beyond what I've read in this thread. I'll have to look up Howard Andrew Jones. Sad he is deceased.

Would it be possible to forgo an advance for better royalties? Has anyone done that?

Since you can typically only get in the door at the Big 4 and a half if you have an agent and the agent is the one who negotiates with them...I guess this is in theory possible but pretty unlikely given it means they would have to defer their 25%-ish cut. Plus, most books don't come close to earning out their advance, from what I understand. So maybe they never get it. Especially if you're pushing airplane fetish bean flicking or something similar (see above).

Literary agents are like home inspectors of new construction. They're supposed to put you first, but you're typically no higher than third on their priority list: (1) Themselves, (2) Publishers/Builders and (3) author/home buyer. Probably agents have some sort of DEI checklist in front of (3) at this point, dropping the author to (4), even for those who check most of the boxes, but not all of them. e.g. a black female who is a devout Christian, etc.

For no reason I can fathom (a) YouTube started suggesting this guy's videos to me and (b) watching them is weirdly addictive. (He's been dragged before his state professional board at least once and threatened with lawsuits multiple times. Pity I doubt you'd ever see a literary agent equivalent. Would be funny if it happened.)

 

[World Famous Quasi Payer]

It's easy you retard: CALL IT SOMETHING ELSE and DESCRIBE THE CONCEPT IN A DIFFERENT WAY. The problem I had is it's LITERALLY COPY AND PASTED. There are simply too much that DIRECTLY TAKES FROM DUNE that can't be explained away as a coincidence. The author would've been told by his editor and I've seen posts saying he had beta readers that would've told him, and he could've changed it up enough to not get the derivative label.

And for my problem with Space Rome is Ruocchio DIRECTLY USES THE SAME FUCKING WORDS FROM ANY ROMAN HISTORY BOOK. EVEN IF IT'S THE POINT OF THE STORY THAT THEYRE ROME LARPERS IT'S BAD PRACTICE. MAKE UP SOMETHING IT'S THE LEAST YOU CAN DO.

Herbert has an entire glossary of terms and words he uses for his concepts and organisations. He took from many sources and combined and corrupted them for himself. Ruocchio is clearly capable of doing the same because he's so creative with everything else in the story, so why shit the bed with Space Rome? Especially at the beginning of the series when he appears to just steal from another work without filing the serial number off. You can't fault anyone to have an issue with it.

Just simply coping and pasting Rome because you are writing rome larpers sounds far more interesting, and original than doing NOT-ROME.

The question is, how you take people who read this slop, and make them read something better. And maybe make some cashola doing it.

Word of mouth is probably the best anyone person is going to get.

 

[BlankSpaceBaby]

Would it be possible to forgo an advance for better royalties? Has anyone done that?

If you don't mind the DIY you have to do, just put your finished book up on Kindle Unlimited. No DEI, quotas, or insufferable editors to deal with!

 

[Dick Johnson]

The incessant identity politics, pronoun bullshit, and Scalzi make me wonder: Does anyone know of any public source in which a publishing professional has actually confirmed the rumors that many agents and publishers have policies of turning down debuts from white guys?

I'm aware of a few articles in which writers provide hearsay to that effect, but I don't know of any insiders actually letting it slip or just outright admitting it.

A while back I clicked on the link to a published story that someone had in their signature (on a writing forum, not KF). I read the story on the Apex Magazine website, enjoyed it, and then told the user this. They (well, she) told me that Apex was a good place to submit.

I checked out some of the other stories there, some of which I didn't think were particularly good, and I started noticing that the majority of authors were women - like 2/3-3/4. Of the men that had stories, all but one was nonwhite, and many of the stories somehow pertained to identity.

The only white guy out of like 15-20 authors I saw was using they/them pronouns.

So you’re telling me that if I want to get published, I should just change my name to ”Miguel Sanchez”, pretend to be a really high-caste Mexican, and act super effeminate? Hmmm...

Or call yourself 'nonbinary', that'll add a diversity point or two.

 

[Three Gorillion Dollars]

Would it be possible to forgo an advance for better royalties? Has anyone done that?

It can happen. But the advice I've always heard is to take the biggest advance simply because you may not ever earn out any advance you're given, even a small one.

 

[asceticHedonist]

Better coverage and more attention to the classics and works faithful to them is one critical one. There's a reason I hype up GOOD authors as much as shit on bad ones.

How many people here took part in hate reading Manhunt, or crapping on Pat Tomlinson, as opposed to reading Christopher Ruocchio or Howard Andrew Jones, who wrote the best works of fantasy and science fiction I read last year?

Another is a publishing industry that actually bothers selling to boys again. Both these imitator genres, and to a lesson extent, manga, bank on filling that void.

Trad publishers will drag thier feet on that, so that's up to mid majors and independents. Which comes to the BIGGEST problem.

Amazon.

Not only have the imitators genres built themselves on hacking the Amazon algorithm in a way most publishers and authors only dream of, but Amazon's own rankings and searches are a mess.

Take a firm subgenre like sword & sorcery. Wanna take a guess what books fill the rankings of the subgenre?

Dragonporn Romantasy. You don't actually get a non Romantasy book until #20, with The Two Towers. AKA The Lord of the Rings, godfather of epic fantasy.

In fact, in the top 100, aside from MAYBE John Gwyne, there isn't a single work of what one could recognize as sword-and-sorcery. Romatasy, epic fantasy, Tolkien, Sanderson, LitRPG and Progression Fantasy... but not one work of Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, or even modern authors like Jonathan Maberry, Larry Correia, or Howard Andrew Jones.

And why would Amazon bother fixing it? What are people going to do, buy books elsewhere?

Yes, Amazon is highly manipulable. It's common practice to simply throw a book into whatever sub-categories require the least sales to hit #1, because hitting the top of a sub-category/category supposedly gives a book a boost in the algorithm.

Are you publishing a dog-shit haremlit/LitRPG? Does it have absolutely nothing in common with Sword & Sorcery, but Sword & Sorcery happens to be a favorable sub-category at the moment? No problem! Stick it there, anyway! Amazon doesn't care so long as customers don't complain.

I've been self-publishing on and off for years. I've talked a lot with some popular independents in the LitRPG genre about what makes that genre attractive to readers, and it's depressing:

• the male protagonist cannot appear weak or incompetent at any point
• if he does get outmatched or fail, it must only be due to unforeseeable circumstances which he will eventually master
• paragraphs should be short, ideally not more than three sentences
• sentences should be simple, compound, or not too complex; think bad Hemingway imitation.

In the very closely related "haremlit" genre, the women are:

• all virgins (until the hero fucks them at which point they invariably never bleed or even feel discomfort)
• never jealous
• eagerly encourage the hero to fuck other women
• never upstage the hero but are always helpful and encouraging
• irresistably attracted to the hero just because
• oh! and the hero always has something better to do than fuck.

In haremlit, you can even find fans of the genre debating over whether the women in the books should be allowed to have sex amongst themselves without the hero present. These are genres that appeal to illiterate virgins and men who've never made a woman orgasm.

Of course, on the opposite side of the coin, you've got the romance novels that dominate Amazon's bestseller list in which men with perpetual single-digit body fat, no concern for diet, no familiarity with exercise behave like utter sociopaths in relation to everyone except the main character. And these sociopathic übermenschen all have the social and emotional behavior patterns of women.

 

[Commissar Fuklaw]

• the male protagonist cannot appear weak or incompetent at any point

Even Conan got captured once because he was too drunk and ran head first into a door frame.

LitRPG and Haremlit (and other original Jap genres) truly are infantile (feminine) and because there's no struggle or growth are boring as hell. It's like that mountain analogy explaining the difference between men and women. Men want to climb the mountain, women want the mountain to move.