I’m off to Loscon for the day — so a very early Scroll.
(1) ARTISTS AND NEW WFA. Several tweets of interest about the call for submissions of World Fantasy Award designs.
https://twitter.com/plunderpuss/status/669314888657842176
The first three of nine tweets by John Picacio responding to discussion of his blog post “Artists Beware”.
Seen a lot of reaction today on my WF Award post. This award's new design is a job. It will be a process to fulfill it. 1/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
It's a specific, unique job outside of the normal purview of a typical conrunning experience, which is usually volunteer. 2/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
This unique job will require the insights and talents of experienced professionals, giving their best, value for value. 3/9 #WFAward
— John Picacio (On Deadline Hiatus) (@JohnPicacio) November 24, 2015
(2) FAN CRITICS OF TOLKIEN. Robin Anne Reid’s “The question of Tolkien Criticism” answers Norbert Schürer’s “Tolkien Criticism Today” (LA Review of Books).
Fans can and do write critical commentary of Tolkien’s work, and not all critics/academics distance ourselves from being fans, a distancing stance that was perhaps once required to support the myth of academic objectivity. I suspect, given Schürer’s commentary on Tolkien’s work and style as well as his conclusion, that he would not identify as a fan. But his idea that the primary audience for Tolkien scholars is only fans (instead of other Tolkien scholars) strikes me as bizarre as does the idea that fan demands would affect what a critic would say:
Just as importantly, Tolkien should not be treated with kid gloves because he is a fan favorite with legions to be placated, but as the serious and major author he is (para.22).
Since the quote above is Schürer’s conclusion, he provides no evidence for this claim that critics treat Tolkien “with kid gloves” for fear of these legions of fans.
(3) REACHER. Andy Martin observed Lee Child writing the Jack Reacher novel Make Me from start to finish. Martin, a University of Cambridge lecturer, and the author have a dialog in about their experience in “The Professor on Lee Child’s Shoulder” at the New York Times Sunday Review.
MARTIN I was sitting about two yards behind you while you tapped away. Trying to keep quiet. I could actually make out a few of the words. “Nothingness” I remember for some obscure reason. And “waterbed.” And then I kept asking questions. I couldn’t help myself. How? Why? What the…? Oh surely not! A lot of people thought I would destroy the book.
CHILD Here is the fundamental reality about the writing business. It’s lonely. You spend all your time writing and then wondering whether what you just wrote is any good. You gave me instant feedback. If I write a nicely balanced four-word sentence with good rhythm and cadence, most critics will skip right over it. You not only notice it, you go and write a couple of chapters about it. I liked the chance to discuss stuff that most people never think about. It’s weird and picayune, but obviously of burning interest to me.
MARTIN And the way you care about commas — almost Flaubertian! I tried to be a kind of white-coated detached observer. But every observer impinges on the thing he is observing. Which would be you in this case. And I noticed that everything around you gets into your texts. You are an opportunistic writer. For example, one day the maid was bumping around in the kitchen and in the next line you used the word “bucket.” Another time there was some construction work going on nearby and the next verb you used was “nail.” We go to a bookstore and suddenly there is Reacher, in a bookstore.
(4) ACCESSIBLE CONS. Rose Lemberg adopts a unified approach to “#accessiblecons and Geek Social Fallacies”.
“Geek Social Fallacies” are in themselves a fallacy. There are many people – not just the disabled -pushed away from fandom.
It’s not expensive to get a ramp in the US with pre-planning. Most hotels have them ready because they are ADA-compliant. If you invite a person in a wheelchair to speak at a con, and there is no ramp, you ostracized them. Own it.
It’s not because it’s too difficult, too expensive, it’s not because the fan did not ask nicely or loudly or politely enough. It’s because you did NOT accept them as they are. It’s because you ostracized them. Will you own it?
Year after year, I see defensiveness. I see the same arguments repeat. It’s too pricey. It’s the disabled person’s fault. Where are our Geek Social Fallacies when it comes to access? Can we as a community stop ostracizing disabled fans already?
(5) LON CHANEY. Not As A Stranger (1955) will air on Turner Classic Movies this Thursday December 3 at 10:00 a.m. Eastern; Lon Chaney cast as Job Marsh, father of Robert Mitchum, a moving portrayal that ranks among his very best.
(6) SF SCREENPLAYS. Nick Ransome, “Writing Science Fiction Screenplays” at Industrial Scripts.
Sci-Fi is the only genre, apart from the Western, still to resist the post-modern impulse. This could be due to the fact that Sci-Fi is not a genre at all, but the actual reason that Sci-Fi so completely resists the post-modern relativity of time and meaning is because that is what it was always about in the first place. There are no realities or meanings more relative than those revealed by Science Fiction.
In its purest form, the Sci-Fi narrative presents a polarity of moral choices and asks the most difficult of existential questions. This polarity is encapsulated by the utopian (ordered, no conflict, boring) and the dystopian (messy, intriguing, human).
LOGAN’S RUN is the best example in terms of story theory because although the action begins in a utopia, we soon realise that in fact we are in a dystopian nightmare (the Act One reversal). Films like BRAZIL, DARK CITY and THE MATRIX may start with a semblance of reality (the world as you just about know it) but then fairly swiftly make us aware that we are actually in a version of hell (or rather an allegory of the world as it really is).
(7) CIXIN LIU. A Cixin Liu interview about “The future of Chinese sci-fi” at Global Times was posted August 30, however, I believe this is the first time it’s been linked here.
GT: Some Chinese fans have said they want to band together to vote on the World Science Fiction website next year. What’s your opinion on this? Liu: That’s the best way to destroy The Three-Body Trilogy. And not just this sci-fi work, but also the reputation of Chinese sci-fi fans. The entire number of voters for the Hugo Awards is only around 5,000. That means it is easily influenced by malicious voting. Organizing 2,000 people to each spend $14 is not hard, but I am strongly against such misbehavior. If that really does happen, I will follow the example of Marko Kloos, who withdrew from the shortlist after discovering the “Rabid Puppies” had asked voters to support him.
GT: Many fans believe that even if The Three-Body Problem had benefited from the “puppies,” it still was deserving of a Hugo Award. Do you agree? Liu: Deserving is one thing, getting the award is another thing. Many votes went to The Three-Body Problem after Marko Kloos withdrew. That’s something I didn’t want to see. But The Three-Body Problem still would have had a chance to win by a slim margin of a few votes [without the “puppies”]. After the awards, some critics used this – the support right-wing organizations like the “puppies” gave The Three-Body Problem – as an excuse to criticize the win. That frustrated me. The “puppies” severely harmed the credibility of the Hugo Awards. I feel both happy and “unfortunate” to have won this year. The second volume was translated by an American translator, while the first and third were translated by Liu Yukun (Ken Liu). Most Chinese readers think the second and the third books are better than the first, but American readers won’t necessarily feel the same way. So I’m not sure about the Hugo Awards next year. I’m just going to take things in stride.
GT: It’s not easy for foreign literature to break into the English language market. What do you think of Liu Yukun’s translation? Liu: Although only my name is on the trophy, it actually belongs to both myself and Liu Yukun. He gets half the credit. He has a profound mastery of both Oriental and Western literature. He is important to me and Chinese sci-fi. He has also introduced books from other countries to the West. A Japanese author once told me that the quality of Japanese sci-fi is much better than China’s, but its influence in the US is much weaker. That’s because they lack a bridge like Liu Yukun.
(8) RETRO COLLECTION. Bradley W. Schenck is pleased with the latest use of his Pulp-O-Mizer.
I ran across a post at File770.com featuring the third volume of a collection of stories eligible for the 1941 Retro Hugo Awards at next year’s Worldcon. The collection is an ongoing project by File770 user von Dimpleheimer.
Since the third volume is a big batch of stories by Henry Kuttner and Ray Cummings I followed the link and grabbed a copy, only to discover that von Dimpleheimer had made the eBook cover with my very own Pulp-O-Mizer. This put a smile all over my face. Like, actually, all over my face.
So I went back and downloaded the first two volumes and, sure enough, they had also been Pulp-O-Mized. This may be my very favorite use of the Pulp-O-Mizer to date.
(9) TEASER. A new Star Wars: The Force Awakens teaser was posted on Thanksgiving. I’m leery of viewing these TV spots because I’m already sold on the movie and don’t want to dilute the experience of watching it. YMMV.
The minute-long teaser, dubbed “All The Way,” debuted on Facebook, but will also appear as a TV spot. IT finds Andy Serkis’ Supreme Leader Snoke character telling Adam Driver’s Kylo Ren, “Even you have never faced such a test.”
[Thanks to Francis Hamit, Will R., and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Jonathan Edelstein.]
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I just stumbled upon some news that’s relatively recent, but I’m not sure HOW recent. (Within the last month, I think.) Anyway, Macmillan has started distributing some of their ebooks, including at least some of Tor’s catalog, through the Viggle store. This makes them the second of the Big Five to do so, after HarperCollins started in January.
For the uninitiated, Viggle is an Android/iOS app that gives you up to 12K points/day for checking into TV shows, playing trivia games, listening to music, guessing how football games will come out, and clicking on ads that are usually 15-30 seconds long. Points can be spent on ebooks, renting/buying digital video (through UltraViolet), and sometimes more tangible things like gift cards or merchandise. Back when I started, they offered things like iPads and televisions, but those seem to be history now.
What this means to me is that, while I’m watching a movie or reading a book at home – or anywhere else I have a net connection – I can build up points by tapping away at ads. Then I can cash in like I did tonight and grab a few free books when the prices drop – like Wendig’s Zer0es and the two discounted Anno Dracula books, which cost me about half a day’s points each. (That sounds like more work than it is. It takes me nowhere near a full day to max out, and I don’t spend a ton of mental effort on it.)
So, yeah – I snapped up that copy of The End of All Things that I had in my wishlist, too. I’ve got over 3.2 million points banked; I’m not cryin’ over spending about 36K on a new Scalzi. I’ll probably go in tonight and snag some of his backlist that I don’t already have in digital. I’ve already been getting my Orbit content that way; now I can add Tor to the list! (Most, anyway. I spotted a few gaps.)
@Mike Glyer
I’m enjoying your programme coverage. 🙂
The general impression that I’ve got is that one of the main benefits to traditional publishing is you get a one-stop-shop in exchange for a little creative control. No need to find an editor (or more than one), a cover artist, learn how to format ebooks, do a ton of marketing… Self-pub seems like it has a steeper learning curve, a decent chunk of monetary investment (traditional publishers pay the writer, self-published writers pay everyone else), and a much greater time investment, if you want to do it properly. On the plus side, you won’t end up with cover art you hate and if you have the poor luck to get a bad editor they won’t have the power to make your book worse.
BGHilton wrote:
“I don’t think you’ll meet many dedicated literature critics who aren’t fans. Bottom line, nobody Is going to spend years of their life reading and researching an author / genre / era they’re not not a fan of.”
Even in SF there are a few, but mainstream general literature seems to attract more than a few scholars who seem to spend their days in burning resentment against the books they have to spend their days contemplating.
Great to see Meredith’s renewed interest in understanding the work of an editor – maybe we won’t have to cancel all the Best Editor awards simply because she doesn’t know how to evaluate them after all.
Not great to see Brian Z’s continued interest in trolling, but at least he’s gotten lazy and sloppy about it.
Rev. Bob: Not great to see Brian Z’s continued interest in trolling, but at least he’s gotten lazy and sloppy about it.
Yeah, you have to be incredibly stupid to make nasty, caustic remarks to the one person who has been the kindest and most generous of spirit to you.
But then, I’ve noticed that ever since EPH passed, it’s just been one round of childish, bitter stupidity after another.
I’m afraid I must disagree with these points. Having control over the process does not actually guarantee satisfaction.
ETA: BrianZ, quit trying to bully Meredith.
You sloppy, lazy trolls should quit acting as if Meredith isn’t perfectly capable of responding for herself if she wants to.
JJ, your obsession with EPH is fascinating. I don’t like it because it has been show to be ineffective in many or even most categories, and most of all because I’d rather see fans take the process seriously and vote their conscience. Look at what Cixin Liu said very clearly in the linked interview: he’s threatening to withdraw if a bunch of those mammoth Chinese fan forums take it on themselves to manipulate the Hugo results. Because it would reflect badly on Chinese fandom. It’s not rocket science.
But EPH helps the “puppies.” It helps others who might want to manipulate the list of nominees. Why you are so crazy for it that even now, months later, you are hurling spittle-flecked insults at critics?
It’s an old bully tactic to try to silence those who would stand up for the bully’s victims by claiming that it somehow takes away the victim’s dignity to be supported, or that the victim is perfectly able to protest if they truly objected.
It is in bullies’ interests that people be silent when they see bullying.
My. It seems the troll’s skin has worn rather thin.
Peace Is My Middle Name: It’s an old bully tactic to try to silence those who would stand up for the bully’s victims by claiming that it somehow takes away the victim’s dignity to be supported, or that the victim is perfectly able to protest if they truly objected. It is in bullies’ interests that people be silent when they see bullying.
Yes. So much this.
@Peace
Good point. I was a bit too broad there. What I was thinking of was Laura Resnick’s comments about bad editors and having to defend novels from them, and that a publisher-editor has more power to force the changes on you whereas an editor you hire yourself may do a bad job but you have much more ability to ignore them without it adding workload. For cover art, I was mostly thinking of the long, terrible history of protagonists depicted as anything but what the protagonist actually is (white-washing is the most egregious example, but there are lots of examples). Of course cover art – and the appreciation thereof – is more complex than that and I should have thought it through a bit more before commenting.
@Rev. Bob, JJ, and Peace
Thank you for the effort and the thought, but ignoring him and talking about something else would probably be better for the rest of the thread unless he decides to participate sensibly. I feel appropriately supported and I don’t feel the need to give him any more air. 🙂
@Meredith:
I’ve seen far too many really regrettable self-published book covers. It’s a little strange that the idea has hung on that having control of your publishing process means less chance of having a bad cover or a cover you hate (two not necessarily overlapping categories, I note).
@Peace
Having spent far too much time looking at Amazon sales of late, I agree that self-pub covers are often, um, noticeable. And not in a good way. I’m never quite sure if that’s a budget problem or proof that being artistic in one area doesn’t necessarily mean you’d recognise artistic skill or talent in another area if it bit you on the nose.
In other words: My work has professional value; yours is a volunteer effort.
John Picacio’s argument is not getting better with age. A non-profit convention making a public call for submissions for artists to contribute the cover to the program is not giving insult to professionals if the job is unpaid. The same principle applies to a sculpture.
I think part of the thing is that writing a story is a completely different set of skills from editing a story or illustrating a story.
Each of those arts is complex and nuanced. It’s hard enough to be skilled at one of them, let alone all of them.
How is the self-published author to recognize what is good work in editing or cover art?
Really awful editing or illustrating work is fairly easy to recognize, I would think.
But good work is a little more complex and difficult to follow.
A single person may not have the depth of skills in multiple arts to judge best for themselves what is best for their book.
1. No one has claimed any such thing. 2. Meredith is not a victim.
Anything else?
Peace Is My Middle Name: Really awful editing or illustrating work is fairly easy to recognize, I would think. But good work is a little more complex and difficult to follow. A single person may not have the depth of skills in multiple arts to judge best for themselves what is best for their book.
Even artists aren’t necessarily a good judge of what comprises quality work. A Google Image Search on one Hugo nominee’s name revealed a lot of poor quality works. So it’s really a conundrum for a writer, who has no significant artistic talent or training, to figure out what constitutes a high-quality cover — and the advice they may be getting might not be from people whose judgment is any better than their own.
There’s also a question of visibility. By its very nature, cover art is a lot more visible than a book’s contents. The cover is a book’s “storefront”; and if it’s badly done, it doesn’t matter how well done the book itself is, a lot of sales are likely to be lost on appearance alone.
Meredith, good on you for asking them to stop.
But “decides to participate sensibly”? Good grief.
DB – true, but resentful a fannish sort of way. Fans can get super defensive about the things they love, but getting pissed that the object of their devotion falls short of perfection is pretty common too.
@rcade
I’m fence-sitting on the subject. Requesting that sort of work has a bad history for artists, but yes, most convention work is volunteer work. Plus, it isn’t like we have many details yet and we could all be collectively barking up the wrong tree – I’d rather know what’s going on for sure before making up my mind!
@Peace
Yes, that was the intended general thrust of my original comment – although rereading it I’m not sure I got that across well enough. A self-pub author has to wear all the hats, or know how to hire people who can wear them, and most people don’t have that kind of skillset. Writing, editing, art, marketing, formatting… Traditional publishing will always be better for an author who doesn’t enjoy or just plain can’t do all the things, all the time.
I’m also fairly sure self-pub wouldn’t be a good option for most people who are money-poor, time-poor, or spoons-poor, but I might be being pessimistic. 🙂
It does look like a lot of self-publishing is being done as an economizing move, which seems to me an error.
I wonder if part if it is people who once would have been targets for vanity presses. Vanity presses seem like just about the only thing compared to which self publishing seems a good deal.
I loved The Martian, but does anyone seriously think it couldn’t have been improved with the help of a good editor from the start?
Other than The Martian, I’m unable to think offhand of a self-published book that was a great book.
This year I have spent around 500 hours of unpaid work, both qualified and non-qualified to help organize meetings. Last year it was around 1000 hours, possibly nearer 1500 hours.
And I get really pissed off at people like John Picacio. I do categorize him as an ashole. This because his continuous attacks on WFC makes it so much harder for them, a non-profit organization depending on unpaid workers, to replace the bust. It creates a lot of more work for them, draining their energy, energy that could have been placed somewhere else.
I hate people who act like that, not thinking about what either context or situation. Just about themselves.
So I’d still like to hear specifically what the Chinese fans are planning, but meanwhile:
Cixin Liu’s stance is admirable, but his understanding of the situation seems a bit out of date. The Hugo nomination system could collapse completely if there is NOT just such a large infusion of new voters. We’ve already got factions of up to a thousand or possibly more maliciously manipulating the vote. A proliferation of slates and slate-like lists. Hordes of new anti-puppy voters who may not do the hard work of serious nominations, or who will read seriously but won’t hesitate to vote tactically. Two so-called “fixes” awaiting ratification that won’t fix anything at all.
Two thousand new Chinese voters signing up because they are Cixin Liu fans and heard about a fan campaign to vote for Dark Forest will be very healthy for the Hugos. I hope they do it.
The March North and A Succession of Bad Days are self published and are excellent. Graydon did have the good sense to hire a professional editor and get good artwork for his covers.
Re critics and fans: most academics will be enthusiastic about what they study, but that is distinct from what is usually meant in SF circles as being a fan.
I’ll check out A Succession of Bad Days, thanks.
James, glancing through Graydon Saunders’ book (which looks great), I see he hired a copyeditor to clean up the text but doesn’t seem to have solicited any higher level editorial feedback.
Marna is a substantive editor.
So, 45 minutes max to evaluate Graydon’s book? You didn’t even skim it. That’s assuming you found it instantly, no confusion over where it was available.
Totally enough time to evaluate whether it got “higher level editorial feedback.”
So each author needs to decide what blend of line editing and developmental editing they need/are willing to pay for.
http://www.the-efa.org/res/rates.php
If those rates are any guide, doing it all it ain’t cheap. What a challenge for both the author and the editor(s).
If that means you’re interested, Lis, I found it on Google Play for $2.60, which seems reasonable for an “impulse buy” from an interesting author that comes well-recommended. It does in fact look good.
My knowledge of what type of editorial services Saunders paid for is based on his thanking someone for copy editing in his acknowledgement. (He thanked another reader for content feedback but did not say it was an editor). Anyway, it looks like paying for freelance editing is not all that cheap and everybody will need to budget for what they find a reasonable compromise.
https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=tYyxCQAAQBAJ
Already have it, Brian. As usual, you make leaps of assumption and conclude that it is “fact.”
As a hybrid author, I’ll throw in that self-pub is often a resort for stuff that’s too niche to get a big house on it. I’ve written things that readers have claimed to quite enjoy (I’ll leave the question of “great” for the ages) but which are weird lengths, or not quite right for the “author brand” or “I love it and have no idea how to market it.”
There’s a particular sales range where something is quite lucrative for one person and a dead loss for a publishing house. One of my weird little self-pubs has sold 4000+ copies–at 3.99, I take home around 3$ apiece. 12K is, for me, a great return on the time investment, and even now, the steady day-to-day trickle of sales buy me a load of groceries a month. But for a large publisher, it’s nothing significant.
Get up into higher sales and the equations start to change–the one that’s moved 10K copies got snapped up by Amazon’s 47North imprint, because we’re getting into commercial viability for a publisher, not just an author.
There are a lot of terrible terrible books, don’t get me wrong–far more than are commercially published, regardless of what anyone says–but a small subset of books are certainly rejected for “not commercially viable” rather than “not good.” And some of those are absolutely lucrative for one person, rather than a house.
My assumption that you might be interested in hearing about an ebook that is a great bargain? I am corrected!
About editing? I noted I didn’t know, beyond what he said in the acknowledgments. You, Lis, should quit leaping!
Speaking purely for myself I value the gate-keeping function that a professional publisher provides. The handful of self-pubbed books I have read have impressed me with the, uh, highly variable quality of that field. Amazon reviews haven’t, in my limited experience, helped with the problem, since Puppies (and thus possibly others) sometimes diddle them–and sales rankings!–to make a political statement. In addition nature of the writing done by most of the authors I have seen enthusiastic about self-pub has not led me to think I will enjoy more of the same.
Now Sturgeon’s Law holds, and furthermore tastes vary. Perhaps I’ve just been unfortunate in encounters with self-pubbed books. But right now my strategy with self-pub is to let some other penguin be first off the floe. If people whose taste I know is similar to mine are assuring me that such and such book is good, I will try it whether or not it is self-pubbed. Or if it’s by an author I already know writes work I enjoy, I’ll buy self-pubbed work. Without that intro, I will perhaps miss a few diamonds, but also a sea of books that won’t appeal to me.
So if many are like me, I’d guess self-pub is a good strategy for an author who already has fans. Which may explain what some among the Puppies are up to–trying to build a fanbase for their self-pubbed work. I suppose Puppy dollars spend like any other.
Not that I plan to be writing anything substantial to show the world at large for a while, but for me, having a publisher has been in part a disability matter. Dealing with the public directly as much as I’ve had to in my part of the woods has sometimes been very stressful, and periodically becomes impossible for a while when things get acute. I’ve always been very glad to hand at least some promotional duties to others, who are better suited for it and not prone to collapsing at embarrassing random moments. It’s also worth a lot to me not to have to do a bunch of the private business negotiations with others, because similar stress issues arise.
So far I’ve only had one self-publishing-uber-alles enthusiast say that, well, if that’s the case, I’d be as well off not writing for others at all. Another once got close but realized what they were about to do and stopped with a funny, gracious apology.
Then allow me to serve as First Penguin and recommend John Lumpkin’s Reach novels, which are near-future milsf, Linda Nagata’s YA Skye-Object 3270a and J.R. Pournelle’s Outies, the sequel to Mote in God’s Eye that inspired me to write a sentence I had never before envisioned writing: I expect Pournelle to one day win the Tiptree.
Chuck Wendig is a good example of a hybrid author, and frequently talks about self and trad in his slightly ranty and sweary way. I’d guess that having the exposure from having at least some trad pub channels is a real advantage for making out of the self pub slush pile.
[1] I’m sympathetic to Picacio’s deeper point — that artistic skill is frequently undervalued by people who don’t have it — but I think directing it at WFC is rather misguided. Artistic professionals, who are also fans, contribute their labor to fan conventions all the time, for the same reason that professionals in every other area, who are also fans, contribute their labor.
I’ve never begrudged contributing fan art to a fan convention. I do have a lot of resentment (well, mockery, anyway) toward people who expect professional services without paying for them. I started writing and drawing comics in the early 90s after getting together with a couple of would-be comic writers who were convinced their ideas were GENIUS, absolutely the best ever, they JUST needed someone to draw them. That’s how they put it. “I have this great idea, I just need someone to draw it.”
I was inexperienced enough with comics at that point that I kinda fell for the pitch, at least at first. I thought there was something special about writing for comics, that they knew, that I didn’t know.
Both relationships fell apart fairly quickly, when the dudes were a lot pickier about character designs — that I was doing ON SPEC — than I thought was reasonable, and, after attempting to draw their scripts, I was also pretty sure that their ideas were not as GENIUS as they thought. So I started drawing my own scripts. And realized that it takes about five to ten times as long to draw a script as it does to write it, and that’s without anybody other than me getting picky about the character design.
“I JUST need someone to draw it…” is still a punchline in our house.
[6]
Ransome’s premise confuses me. He seems to be suggesting that SF never became postmodern because it was postmodern the whole time.
Meredith on November 28, 2015 at 2:36 am said:
I think it’s a combination of options 1 and 2. Writers without much of an eye for the visuals might even know they need help, but if you’re very low-budget, it can be hard to justify paying an artist for their services. Similarly, I think a lot of self-pubbed work needs an editor, and doesn’t get one, because editors cost money.
Kyra, I found a dragon for you on Facebook.
@ James Davis Nicoll
Thank you. I appreciate your recommendations.
@Bruce Baugh:
Cute! And a nice little trompe l’oeil.
@RedWombat:
Thanks for the perspective.
I’m glad some people are doing well with self publishing and that it’s bringing more variety to the market. I think that’s what I was hoping for when it first cropped up.
@james
I really love Graydon’s books, but I have to say that from my perspective I think the covers are really horrible. Possibly the physical books look OK, but as ebook cover images and thumbnails they just turn into ugly, nearly monochrome mush. The smaller words fade into the mush, too.
I tend to suspect they would do the same thing at any distance in a real bookstore.
Do the ebook standards include a way to specify a different image for the thumbnail? (Getting the various tools and websites to use them would be a whole other battle.)
I suspect at least a small part of the problem with self-pubbed covers is people trying to use print cover styles and iconography “because that is what real books look like, and this is a real book dammit” when they are publishing primarily through the ebook channel and would benefit from a different style.
And then some of them can see that what they have is not really working so they crank it up to ELEVEN!!1!! to try to compensate for the loss of detail.
They’re everywhere – the software version is “I just need someone to code it”. First company I worked at was founded by such a person, and while it was a viable idea, he didn’t grasp just how much work was involved beyond the “just code it”.
@Rev. Bob: Viggle sounds, uh, well, I’d hate it (ads while reading books?!). Gamification of things you already do, to earn books, though – I can see how that would be attractive, even if I couldn’t do it. I’d never heard of Viggle, so thanks for mentioning it.
@Meredith: I tell myself it’s lack of money. Oh how I hope it’s that.
@James Davis Nicoll: I’m highly skeptical of self-pub’d work, but your examples point out an exception – authors with a proven track record (especially ones I’ve read before). At least two you mentioned (I’ve never heard of Lumpkin) are traditionally-published as well. I realize this doesn’t mean they can edit or design their ways out of a paper bag, but it’s easier to get people to take a chance on a traditionally-published author who’s self-published something – it’s just not the same thing, IMHO.
@rcade: I love Picacio’s work and usually his advocacy, but he’s missing his own point and undermining his whole argument. And/or has no earthly clue what modern conventions need outside of art.
@Bruce Baugh: Wow, that’s a brilliant piece of street art!
David Goldfarb –
Cool, good to know. I’ll probably finish reading the first by the time the rest are out depending on how I work my way through my pile, heck I only just picked up the last of the Newsflesh trilogy recently.
How, exactly? Give a worked example of the same set of data with and without EPH, and explain how it helps the Puppies more than not passing EPH does.
In what context is Pournelle conventionally published? Professionally, sure, but as far as SF goes, I thought Outies was her only publication.