A comment by Daniel on Vox Day’s blog put this amusing spin on yesterday’s story about the 2014 Worldcon financial report:
Semi-on topic: thanks to record memberships, LonCon finished with a cash surplus of…
…about £1,000.
Without Larry and Vox last year, they would have been deep in the red.
There you have it: all the people who joined to stuff the ballot box for Larry Correia’s “Sad Puppies” slate kept the Worldcon afloat.
Now I know how that English schoolboy felt in Hope and Glory when he discovered his school had been bombed by the Luftwaffe — “Thank you Adolf!”
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Obviously, the best way to ensure future worldcons remain solvent is to encourage Hugo nominees (or potential nominees) to contend with each other in viscious, paid promotional campaigns! One wonders whether following in the footsteps of politics is a good idea, though?
Daniel’s comment will be quickly transformed from urban legend to the received truth of the internet, I’m sure, even though it’s mathematical baloney.
Larry Correia’s novel got 184 nominations. Loncon 3 broke the record for most nominations received — almost 600 more than the previous year. So at most Sad Puppies were a minority of all who helped grow participation in the Hugos.
Also, some of the expenses were variable, not fixed, so even dropping 200 supporting memberships would have reduced costs as well. Furthermore, L3 would have almost certainly cut some other things in such a case.
I see how easy it is for some people to pander to their own egos. What a wanker.
Despite Mike Glyer’s denial, it is mathematical reality that Larry Correia’s campaign inspired most if not all of those nearly 600 additional nominations. It is just that for every fan of Larry who was inspired to sign up, about two anti-fans of Larry were also inspired to sign up, specifically to counter Larry’s campaign.
FYI, Loncon 3 has a spiffy demographics page for those wanting to crunch numbers:
http://loncon3.org/demographics.php
At a glance, there clearly was a big bump in supporting memberships in April of 2014 which was sustained through the cut-off at the end of July. How this correlates with the reported 3,587 total Hugo votes actually cast for Loncon 3 is another question.
The record for total Hugo nominating ballots has been broken the past six years in a row. Loncon 3 beat the old record by 580 votes.
Loncon 3 broke the record for Hugo final ballots with 3,587, surpassing the old record by 1,487 votes.
If somebody wants to deduce the effect of Sad Puppies, you only need to look at the numbers for Larry Correia’s Warbound. It got 184 nominating votes. On the final ballot it got 332 first place votes.
And even if you could assume every one of those votes was from a first-timer, Sad Puppies is just a sideshow in growing participation in the Hugos.
Let me get this straight, when the left organizes it’s OK. But when the right organzies it is NOT OK. Ohh yeaaa…makes total sense.
Take a look at demographics for Science fiction. Men have left it and are continuing to flee. No matter what you say, the end of big publishers is near and therefore the control it has over the gateway to publishing.
Well, Deep, you’re proceeding from a fallacious premise, that the Hugos are designed to be an exercise in mundane political power. Some people prefer to take that approach, but not most of us. If you are willing to read an attempt to explain where most of us are coming from, Steve Davidson made a sincere effort in a post today at Amazing Stories.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a general bump in supporting memberships that happens after the Hugo finalists are announced in April, given the publicity that generates in fandom.