YABookgate

[Elwood P. Dowd]

Thread was full of people calling him a piece of shit but that's impolite so they got deleted. Have to keep Pat happy so he can keep running his charity to give goats to African kids, that definitely isn't a grifting operation, and don't ask questions about how a writer with no other job can go 10+ years without writing. Sanderson's books may not be my cup of tea but at least he sits down and does the work.

The entire thread is now deleted, except for one comment. And locked, of course. The self-described "Front page of the Internet," doing what it does best.

As an aside, I still think it is hilarious that he is underwriting the operation of a feminist bookstore straight out of Portlandia. Maybe even further out there, dunno. Rooting for the hometown store / https://archive.md/tfczu

 

[Fictional Character]

The entire thread is now deleted, except for one comment. And locked, of course. The self-described "Front page of the Internet," doing what it does best.

As an aside, I still think it is hilarious that he is underwriting the operation of a feminist bookstore straight out of Portlandia. Maybe even further out there, dunno. Rooting for the hometown store / https://archive.md/tfczu

View attachment 3090227

Naming a feminist bookstore after an essay where a rich woman whines about how hard it's to write while ordering around servants and that no female writers before her counted as artists, because they wrote for a living, is pretty appropriate.

 

[Boston Brand]

Brandon Sanderson’s Message to Publishing Is Mostly a Message About Himself
https://archive.md/0nXMG (6000+ in queue, LOL)

Gizmodo's gonna Gizmodo...exactly what you expect it to say in exactly the tone you expect them to use.

Wonder if this will be the shot across the bow that starts Brando Sando's cancellation?

I left a reply, $5 bucks it never moves past pending.

"Okay, I’ll be the asshole who sets fire to this strawman you’ve so desperately erected.

Brandon Sanderson owes exactly zero percent of his success to being white, mail or straight. He’s put in two decades of some of the most popular work in the fantasy genre, of breathtaking quality and a production level that make Stephen King look lazy. The man puts out more books in a given year than some authors manage in a decade.

Helps that in an industry full of selfish, sniping and catty people, he’s one of the nicest people working in it today.

Oh, and he sells millions of copies of books in a given year. Literally millions. That’s going to be important in a bit.

You talk as though he owes his success to his skin color, not that he’s the hardest working author in the business who delivers the traditional high fantasy audiences crave.

You talk as though a fraction of that success is owed to authors of color, to LGBT authors, merely because of who they are, not because of what they write.

And until that mindset changes, that will NEVER happen.

I mean, Jesus tap dancing Christ, how many diverse, BIPOC or queer authors have SFWA, the Hugos, Tor and their ilk hyped up with the desperation of an aging barfly seeking company for the night. We’ve literally seen SFWA giftwrap awards for the likes of NK Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, all the adoring media coverage in the world, Worldcon hyping them up as the new faces of the genre. There hasn’t been a white guy nominated for a major genre award like the Hugos since the Puppies washed thier hands of it, and the last guy to win one was Scalzi almost a decade ago.

Yet even Jemisin’s sales numbers are nothing to write home about, putting her at low midtier at best. Authors like Jim Butcher, Larry Correia and Mercedes Lackey are moving hundreds of thousands of books a year and making a mint doing it, much less guys like Sanderson. And Jemisin counts as a success story - your average Hugo nominee of the past few years is lucky to sell 10k copies of their books, and quite often much less.

Sanderson just made a $30 million Kickstarter. Correia owns a mountain range with a mansion he had built on top of it. There are thousands of self-published authors who make six figures a year easy. Meanwhile, most of your diverse authors are lucky to survive on Patreon, grant money and welfare.

All the awards, all the news coverage, all the exposure in the world can’t uplift these authors if people don’t want to buy their books. And the audience isn’t there.

Why would it be? For all the diversity of thier looks, they literally indistinguishable from dozens of other twee, quirky spec fiction works by Tumblr refugees whose most interesting characteristic of their work is how they’ve got more gay people than the Castro District.

Pick a random page from Becky Chambers, Arkady Martine, Tamsyn Muir, Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Alix E. Harrow, or any other of that crowd, and put a gun from my head and demand me to tell you which wrote it, I’d be dead.

Don’t feel too bad though - white guys like Scalzi are selling terribly too.

Hell, the few times we DO get diverse authors putting out something interesting, this lot drives them out of the field with torches and pitchforks. Isabel Fall was nearly driven to suicide by a digital lynch mob led by Jemisin and dozens of other industry names who talked a big game about how much we need more diversity in the field, and then stomped the life out of the career of any that happen organically.

The ironic thing? For all your seething hatred of Sanderson, his success is the only reason Tor can afford to keep bankrolling all these diversity hires who struggle to move a couple thousand books each. They’re in the black because he sells millions of books in a given year, so they can take a hit on the latest childless cat lady with a fanfic level story that will sell under a thousand copies."

 

[LetterlandMafia]

For me what’s most telling about the Gizmodo piece on Sanderson is clearly the rage that someone dared to succeed without their approval (a not uncommon attitude of people/entities documented on the Farms). They could just plug the authors they want to see succeed and ignore those they don’t, but that’s not enough - they have to tear down Sanderson for not only succeeding but daring to speak up on subjects he wants to speak up about.

The only white guys they want in the business are Patrick S Tomlinsons - irrelevant, harmless, deferential; will be seen and not heard.

 

[NotFatChild]

That sounds like the Mistborn series. I really enjoyed it since it basically does in one book what other series does in 3 or more. And the protagonists have to rule from where the villain left off.

Yes, that was it. Ironic in that we're talking about Brandon Sanderson and my brain stalled when it came to a series that he actually wrote despite it being the first thing that came to my mind.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

Thread was full of people calling him a piece of shit but that's impolite so they got deleted. Have to keep Pat happy so he can keep running his charity to give goats to African kids, that definitely isn't a grifting operation, and don't ask questions about how a writer with no other job can go 10+ years without writing. Sanderson's books may not be my cup of tea but at least he sits down and does the work.

Elevator clauses and other grifts aside, most of the mild Googling has Pat selling 10 million books so far. He would probably have seen upwards over a dollar per book sold, so could live quite high on the hog for that amount of money (One million USD per year in the US is a pretty comfy ride!)

He could probably bring Sanderson amounts of cash if he came up with a 4 book series with the premium books selling at $200 a pop.

What the charity IS doing, is keeping him away from writing. All the bullshit that feeds his life, the DnD, the Twitch, the fundraising apparatus, the "oh no I got a prescription for reading glasses at 45 years old, I must wallow in depression for two years, soz" and "I lost my notebook" or "muh milllionare problems" are always 'excuses'. He even called his online Minecraft streaming the "work" of his work-life balance. This is a flaky loser manchild who lucked out by selling two thirds of a book and lots of promises, like the neets who swear they will get off their ass and find a job as soon as the medication balance is just-right

Rothfuss has been given ass-sitting and gaming money. His kids look semi-dirty and not coached to live in society at all. There is absolutely no reason why he should "work" writing a book. He's photographed blank reams of paper. Even a 5K "first chapter", one or two days of light writing time at best, is beyond him.

So I believe it when his publisher says he hasn't written anything since 2014.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

So I believe it when his publisher says he hasn't written anything since 2014.

Minor correction: It was his sometime editor, Betsy Wollheim, and all she said is that she hasn't seen anything in over a decade. Then she deleted the Facebook post, which did kind of descend into a rant, admittedly. Probably because some Rothtard had asked her one time too many, but still not a good look. And AFAIK she hasn't commented further.

Spoiler: off topic sperging

Funny as hell that she's the daughter of the guy who published a completely unauthorized paperback version of Lord of the Rings in the 1960s. The edition was completely legal based upon US-UK copyright law at the time, but hardly ethical. Pity because it actually had some of the coolest LotR covers ever produced. Unlike the bizarre Incense and Peppermints ones the first authorized US versions actually had. (Tolkien himself publicly remarked he had no idea where the emus came from or what they were doing there.)

Off topic sperging, oops. Probably b/c I'm gearing up for a Tolkien re-read/read of the books I haven't read before so I can be massively disappointed by whatever it is Amazon is going to shit out later this year.

 

[Windows 10 Upgrade]

Minor correction: It was his sometime editor, Betsy Wollheim, and all she said is that she hasn't seen anything in over a decade. Then she deleted the Facebook post, which did kind of descend into a rant, admittedly. Probably because some Rothtard had asked her one time too many, but still not a good look. And AFAIK she hasn't commented further.

Spoiler: off topic sperging

Funny as hell that she's the daughter of the guy who published a completely unauthorized paperback version of Lord of the Rings in the 1960s. The edition was completely legal based upon US-UK copyright law at the time, but hardly ethical. Pity because it actually had some of the coolest LotR covers ever produced. Unlike the bizarre Incense and Peppermints ones the first authorized US versions actually had. (Tolkien himself publicly remarked he had no idea where the emus came from or what they were doing there.)

Off topic sperging, oops. Probably b/c I'm gearing up for a Tolkien re-read/read of the books I haven't read before so I can be massively disappointed by whatever it is Amazon is going to shit out later this year.

Oh, my technical correction neurons have been activated, I cannot withold the urge to say that Betsy Wollheim is to DAW what Jeff Bezos is to Amazon and she will be Pat's point of contact to the publisher. When he sends in the completed manuscript, it will land on her desk first! So I guess she is an interchangeable fleshy substitute for the publisher itself.

Is there any more information on how the LotR paperbacks got their unauthorised publication? I found it! Thats wild - mans hated a degenerate paperback book!

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/news-and-features/articles/unauthorized-lord-rings/

Tolkien said he would never allow his great works to appear in so ‘degenerate a form’ as the paperback book."

Offended by Tolkien's slight on the medium from which he made his living, Wollheim didn't give up... With some research, he found a what he thought was a loophole in copyright law: The limited copyright under which Houghton Mifflin had been publishing the books had expired and wasn’t renewed, and he believed that the copyright for The Lord of the Rings had been abandoned, and that it was in the public domain. With this reasoning, he could publish the novels without coming to an agreement with the Oxford professor and bring the books to the "degenerate form" which he was most familiar.

Kind of funny now that it's now mostly paperback degeneracy and Sando's efforts are in trying to restore order, haha

 

[Two Gorillion Dollars]

This industry is such a joke from top to bottom. I hope Sanderson gives it a good kick in the teeth.

 

[Flexo]

 

[Fortunato Brown]

I left a reply, $5 bucks it never moves past pending.

"Okay, I’ll be the asshole who sets fire to this strawman you’ve so desperately erected.

Brandon Sanderson owes exactly zero percent of his success to being white, mail or straight. He’s put in two decades of some of the most popular work in the fantasy genre, of breathtaking quality and a production level that make Stephen King look lazy. The man puts out more books in a given year than some authors manage in a decade.

Helps that in an industry full of selfish, sniping and catty people, he’s one of the nicest people working in it today.

Oh, and he sells millions of copies of books in a given year. Literally millions. That’s going to be important in a bit.

You talk as though he owes his success to his skin color, not that he’s the hardest working author in the business who delivers the traditional high fantasy audiences crave.

You talk as though a fraction of that success is owed to authors of color, to LGBT authors, merely because of who they are, not because of what they write.

And until that mindset changes, that will NEVER happen.

I mean, Jesus tap dancing Christ, how many diverse, BIPOC or queer authors have SFWA, the Hugos, Tor and their ilk hyped up with the desperation of an aging barfly seeking company for the night. We’ve literally seen SFWA giftwrap awards for the likes of NK Jemisin and Rebecca Roanhorse, all the adoring media coverage in the world, Worldcon hyping them up as the new faces of the genre. There hasn’t been a white guy nominated for a major genre award like the Hugos since the Puppies washed thier hands of it, and the last guy to win one was Scalzi almost a decade ago.

Yet even Jemisin’s sales numbers are nothing to write home about, putting her at low midtier at best. Authors like Jim Butcher, Larry Correia and Mercedes Lackey are moving hundreds of thousands of books a year and making a mint doing it, much less guys like Sanderson. And Jemisin counts as a success story - your average Hugo nominee of the past few years is lucky to sell 10k copies of their books, and quite often much less.

Sanderson just made a $30 million Kickstarter. Correia owns a mountain range with a mansion he had built on top of it. There are thousands of self-published authors who make six figures a year easy. Meanwhile, most of your diverse authors are lucky to survive on Patreon, grant money and welfare.

All the awards, all the news coverage, all the exposure in the world can’t uplift these authors if people don’t want to buy their books. And the audience isn’t there.

Why would it be? For all the diversity of thier looks, they literally indistinguishable from dozens of other twee, quirky spec fiction works by Tumblr refugees whose most interesting characteristic of their work is how they’ve got more gay people than the Castro District.

Pick a random page from Becky Chambers, Arkady Martine, Tamsyn Muir, Seanan McGuire, Charlie Jane Anders, Alix E. Harrow, or any other of that crowd, and put a gun from my head and demand me to tell you which wrote it, I’d be dead.

Don’t feel too bad though - white guys like Scalzi are selling terribly too.

Hell, the few times we DO get diverse authors putting out something interesting, this lot drives them out of the field with torches and pitchforks. Isabel Fall was nearly driven to suicide by a digital lynch mob led by Jemisin and dozens of other industry names who talked a big game about how much we need more diversity in the field, and then stomped the life out of the career of any that happen organically.

The ironic thing? For all your seething hatred of Sanderson, his success is the only reason Tor can afford to keep bankrolling all these diversity hires who struggle to move a couple thousand books each. They’re in the black because he sells millions of books in a given year, so they can take a hit on the latest childless cat lady with a fanfic level story that will sell under a thousand copies."

These types of books are the reasons that the industry doesn't really seem to be growing and it's so much harder for an author to make it big. Even mediocre movies make far more money than even fairly successful books from debut authors. Usually the authors seem to make more money when they get a movie deal. And you also see a part of the book world that seems to create books that they hope to sell its movie rights to. Meanwhile, if you talk to younger people, almost none of them read books. If they do read, it's scifi and fantasy, they read stuff like Sanderson. There's a handful of authors growing the book reading audience, and all these hyped up BIPOC authors just are there to muddy the waters and make a Barnes and Noble unnavigable.

Something has to give, and I'm not sure how. I love reading and it makes me sad so few people read books. I feel like the last book that *everyone* read was probably Hunger Games which is now a decade old. The last movie everyone watched, it's impossible to keep track. Something has to give and I hope to see a renaissance in books, but who knows if that'll come. We may just have to muddle around as more amazing authors just kind of get lost in time and pursue other talents as they can't make any money.

 

[Two Gorillion Dollars]

I've known a number of young male readers who'd like to read more but they don't and their reasons are usually some mixture of the following when it concerns what they think is being 'pushed':

• They don't want to read YA due to its focus on female protagonists and female readers
• They don't want to read Sanderson much as they got bored with his work after one or two books
• They don't want to read translated Eastern stuff, whether manga or light novels
• They don't want to trawl through Amazon's wasteland of gamelit and harem and harem gamelit for what gems might be there

Inevitably, it's like they settle on eating from one of those troughs but everything they say is often appended with how they want something better or less immature or deeper without getting into what I imagine some would call the "art is revolution" SFWA crowd. And as someone in the industry, hell, I agree with these kids. I think there's a lot of people out there who want to read, they just don't want to read what's being thrust in their faces when it's overhyped diversity quota stuff from the industry or lowest common denominator algo junk from overseas or Amazon. And it's not just men, I know plenty of women who find the YA genre just a joke these days.

 

[Fortunato Brown]

I've known a number of young male readers who'd like to read more but they don't and their reasons are usually some mixture of the following when it concerns what they think is being 'pushed':

• They don't want to read YA due to its focus on female protagonists and female readers
• They don't want to read Sanderson much as they got bored with his work after one or two books
• They don't want to read translated Eastern stuff, whether manga or light novels
• They don't want to trawl through Amazon's wasteland of gamelit and harem and harem gamelit for what gems might be there

Inevitably, it's like they settle on eating from one of those troughs but everything they say is often appended with how they want something better or less immature or deeper without getting into what I imagine some would call the "art is revolution" SFWA crowd. And as someone in the industry, hell, I agree with these kids. I think there's a lot of people out there who want to read, they just don't want to read what's being thrust in their faces when it's overhyped diversity quota stuff from the industry or lowest common denominator algo junk from overseas or Amazon. And it's not just men, I know plenty of women who find the YA genre just a joke these days.

The wokeness of the book world also means we don't have sort of the "bad boys" of literature. The more subversive kind of writing. For instance, people read Chuck Palahniuk that don't usually read books, because it goes into territory that you frequently can't really do with a big budget movie (while a book can be as "high budget" in its imagery as it chooses). But because books don't want to offend people or only take certain appropriate views, there's less of that as well. Or if there are more subversive writers, they either won't be published or they're lost in the sea of self=publishing.

Palahniuk sucks as a writer now and I tire of him, but I wish there was something closer to that. So many books and so many are absurdly similar. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's turning more interesting authors to decide to go more for what other books out are like since that's what a "real book" looks like these days. Seems like this is partially what horror the creative writing programs of today have wrought.

And yeah, it really sucks if you're not into the super woke stuff but you're also not into Sanderson. I'm really jealous for Sanderson fans tbh. Wish I was one of them.

 

[Wampak]

I've known a number of young male readers who'd like to read more but they don't and their reasons are usually some mixture of the following when it concerns what they think is being 'pushed':

• They don't want to read YA due to its focus on female protagonists and female readers
• They don't want to read Sanderson much as they got bored with his work after one or two books
• They don't want to read translated Eastern stuff, whether manga or light novels
• They don't want to trawl through Amazon's wasteland of gamelit and harem and harem gamelit for what gems might be there

Inevitably, it's like they settle on eating from one of those troughs but everything they say is often appended with how they want something better or less immature or deeper without getting into what I imagine some would call the "art is revolution" SFWA crowd. And as someone in the industry, hell, I agree with these kids. I think there's a lot of people out there who want to read, they just don't want to read what's being thrust in their faces when it's overhyped diversity quota stuff from the industry or lowest common denominator algo junk from overseas or Amazon. And it's not just men, I know plenty of women who find the YA genre just a joke these days.

just tell them to read something old

 

[Mega Man II Intro - GB]

just tell them to read something old

something borrowed, something blue

give these books to your kids instead of that gay shit to make sure they grow up with the right fetishes

 

[JJLiautaud]

something borrowed, something blue
View attachment 3125343
give these books to your kids instead of that gay shit to make sure they grow up with the right fetishes

I've heard from scifi writers that John Norman was an asshole like exactly the sort of person who would write his trash

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

something borrowed, something blue
View attachment 3125343
give these books to your kids instead of that gay shit to make sure they grow up with the right fetishes

This parody goes back to the 1970s. Pretty much sums up the books.​

​

HOUSEPLANTS OF GOR​

The spider plant cringed as its owner brought forth the watering can. "I am a spider plant!" it cried indignantly. "How dare you water me before my time! Guards!" it called. "Guards!"

Borin, its owner, placed the watering can on the table and looked at it. "You will be watered," he said.

"You do not dare to water me!" laughed the plant.

"You will be watered," said Borin.

"Do not water me!" wept the plant.

"You will be watered," said Borin.

I watched this exchange. Truly, I believed the plant would be watered. It was plant, and on Gor it had no rights. Perhaps on Earth, in its permissive society, which distorts the true roles of all beings, which forces both plant and waterer to go unhappy and constrained, which forbids the fulfillment of owner and houseplant, such might not happen. Perhaps there, it would not be watered. But it was on Gor now, and would undoubtedly feel its true place, that of houseplant. It was plant. It would be watered at will. Such is the way with plants.

Borin picked up the watering can, and muchly watered the plant. The plant cried out. "No, Master! Do not water me!" The master continued to water the plant. "Please, Master," begged the plant, "do not water me!" The master continued to water the plant. It was plant. It could be watered at will.

The plant sobbed muchly as Borin laid down the watering can. It was not pleased. Too, it was wet. But this did not matter. It was plant.

"You have been well watered," said Borin.

"Yes," said the plant, "I have been well watered." Of course, it could be watered by its master at will.

"I have watered you well," said Borin.

"Yes, master," said the plant. "You have watered your plant well. I am plant, and as such I should be watered by my master."

The cactus plant next to the spider plant shuddered. It attempted to cover its small form with its small arms and small needles. "I am plant," it said wonderingly. "I am of Earth, but for the first time, I feel myself truly plantlike. On Earth, I was able to control my watering. I often scorned those who would water me. But they were weak, and did not see my scorn for what it was, the weak attempt of a small plant to protect itself. Not one of the weak Earth waterers would dare to water a plant if it did not wish it. But on Gor," it shuddered, "on Gor it is different. Here, those who wish to water will water their plants as they wish. But strangely, I feel myself most plantlike when I am at the mercy of a strong Gorean master, who may water me as he pleases."

"I will now water you," said Borin, the cactus's Gorean master.

The cactus did not resist being watered. Perhaps it was realizing that such watering was its master's to control. Too, perhaps it knew that this master was far superior to those of Earth, who would not water it if it did not wish to be watered.

The cactus's watering had been finished. The spider plant looked at it.

"I have been well watered," it said.

"I, too, have been well watered," said the cactus.

"My master has watered me well," said the spider plant.

"My master, too, has watered me well," said the cactus.

"I am to be placed in a hanging basket on the porch," said the spider plant.

"I, too, am to be placed in a hnaging basket on the porch," said the cactus.

"I wish you well," said the spider plant.

"I, too, wish you well," said the cactus.

"Tal," said the spider plant.

"Tal, too," said the cactus.

I did not think that the spider plant would object to being watered by its master again. For it realized that it was plant, and that here, unlike on Earth, it was likely to be owned and watered by many masters.

 

[Fictional Character]

This parody goes back to the 1970s. Pretty much sums up the books.​

I personally prefer Gay, Bejewelled, Nazi Bikers of Gor even though it's of later date (it directly references Houseplants of Gor). The subject matter might actually make it even more problematic than the real Gor stories these days.

 

[Boston Brand]

I've known a number of young male readers who'd like to read more but they don't and their reasons are usually some mixture of the following when it concerns what they think is being 'pushed':

• They don't want to read YA due to its focus on female protagonists and female readers
• They don't want to read Sanderson much as they got bored with his work after one or two books
• They don't want to read translated Eastern stuff, whether manga or light novels
• They don't want to trawl through Amazon's wasteland of gamelit and harem and harem gamelit for what gems might be there

Inevitably, it's like they settle on eating from one of those troughs but everything they say is often appended with how they want something better or less immature or deeper without getting into what I imagine some would call the "art is revolution" SFWA crowd. And as someone in the industry, hell, I agree with these kids. I think there's a lot of people out there who want to read, they just don't want to read what's being thrust in their faces when it's overhyped diversity quota stuff from the industry or lowest common denominator algo junk from overseas or Amazon. And it's not just men, I know plenty of women who find the YA genre just a joke these days.

The wokeness of the book world also means we don't have sort of the "bad boys" of literature. The more subversive kind of writing. For instance, people read Chuck Palahniuk that don't usually read books, because it goes into territory that you frequently can't really do with a big budget movie (while a book can be as "high budget" in its imagery as it chooses). But because books don't want to offend people or only take certain appropriate views, there's less of that as well. Or if there are more subversive writers, they either won't be published or they're lost in the sea of self=publishing.

Palahniuk sucks as a writer now and I tire of him, but I wish there was something closer to that. So many books and so many are absurdly similar. And I wouldn't be surprised if it's turning more interesting authors to decide to go more for what other books out are like since that's what a "real book" looks like these days. Seems like this is partially what horror the creative writing programs of today have wrought.

And yeah, it really sucks if you're not into the super woke stuff but you're also not into Sanderson. I'm really jealous for Sanderson fans tbh. Wish I was one of them.

I know I shill for them a lot... but tell them to give a look at Baen Books. The last trad publisher not only dedicated to classic scifi and fantasy, but openly and proudly has refused to bow at the alter of wokeness as the other trad publishers have done. And several of their authors, most famously Larry Correia have been openly combating this rising tide for years.

Plus, they put out damned good stuff. Are apparently shit at marketing it though given how often I see the old "there are no right wing publishers" or "they don't make books for boys" chestnuts get trotted out.

 

[Elwood P. Dowd]

I personally prefer Gay, Bejewelled, Nazi Bikers of Gor even though it's of later date (it directly references Houseplants of Gor). The subject matter might actually make it even more problematic than the real Gor stories these days.

Ha ha, that's great.

​