So the noted science fiction author (and evil Social Justice Warrior) John Scalzi just signed a $3.4 million dollar, 13-book deal with Tor books, his publisher.
Scalzi’s longtime nemesis, far-right fantasy author and garbage human Vox Day, wants us to know that Scalzi’s grapes, all $3.4 million worth of them, are very sour indeed.
In a post today on his Vox Popoli blog, Vox sniffs that Scalzi’s book deal is “an interesting indication of his intrinsic insecurity.”
For you see, as Vox tries to convince his readers (and, presumably, himself), only timid souls sign $3.4 million deals with actual publishers; real men self-publish.
This isn’t a bad deal for Scalzi, it is merely a very conservative deal. What Johnny Con is attempting to do is to secure his retirement and look for any upside to come out of the various media deals he’s got going. It’s a perfectly reasonable strategy, particularly in these uncertain economic times. The bolder strategy would have been for him to go into self-publishing, where as I’ve demonstrated, there is considerably more upside to be had. But Scalzi is neither a self-confident man nor an entrepreneur, so it is entirely in character that he’d prefer to give up the equivalent of about five birds in the bush in favor of the one in Tor’s hand.
Yeah, those grapes are really, really sour.
After dismissing the $3.4 million deal as really no big deal, when you look at it, seriously, what can you buy for $3.4 million anyway these days, Vox goes on to mock what he sees as Scalzi’s inadequate blog traffic.
The fact that a mediocre and derivative hack without any discernible talent beyond self-promotion and petty snark could turn 300k monthly pageviews and a color-by-numbers Heinlein ripoff into a near-guaranteed $250k per year is borderline astonishing. If he’d somehow managed to do it without repeatedly lying his ample ass off and consistently misrepresenting himself, I’d consider him to be downright brilliant.
Vox is indeed mad jelly.
NOTE: I calculated the tonnage of grapes used in the headline using what I think was the most recent price of seedless red grapes, my favorite, at my local supermarket. At $3.49/pound, $3.4 million buys you roughly 442 metric tons of grapes, before taxes.
Pox even manages to get some fat-shaming in there. Can’t have sour grapes without it!
Yay for Scalzi! And why am I not surprised at the human garbage pile’s reaction?
Um, I hope one day I can be as insecure as John Scalzi.
Yay for Scalzi! And why am I not surprised at the human garbage pile’s reaction? This time from m yCORRECT facebook account?
Didn’t Scalzi start out by serialising one of his books on his website, from where it got picked up and got a print deal? Fiction, that is, I think he had a couple of nonfiction titles out by then. One more case of Vox missing the boat?
Scalzi is a delight, both as a writer and speaker. The fact that his success annoys the fuck out of Vox Day is just a bonus. 🙂
Allow said grapes to lay in the sun for 3 to 4 days for souring to occur.
Hahaha!
Vox Day has a sad because nobody wants him.
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0wnjjuh9H1r7dhbq.gif
How is having a contract to write thirteen books a retirement plan? That just sounds fucking exhausting to me.
That’s a LOT of sour grapes. I’d almost feel sorry for Pox, but I always remember what a complete and utter jackass he is. And then I feel schadenfreude.
http://libertycitys.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/bold-strategy-cotton.jpg
Oh, my good goodness. I hope Vox is budgeting his daddy’s money well – I don’t know how much he paid for that Finnish vanity press, but the ROI can’t be as much as all that.
As my mother would say, he has no idea what he looks like.
Scalzi is an extremely talented writer, and I look forward to reading more of his books.
And for anyone who hasn’t seen it, check out his “pose-off” with Jim C. Hines, in which they imitate the anatomically impossible poses of women on science fiction book covers:
http://www.jimchines.com/2012/12/pose-off-with-john-scalzi/
Hang on a tick. I know I’m focusing on a trivial thing here, but…
Is Vox actually saying that, if Scalzi had published these upcoming 13 books via self-publishing, he would have made five times the money ($17 million or about $1.3 million per book) than he’s making via this traditional publishing deal?
Now, I’m not an expert on the publishing world by a long shot, and I know Scalzi is a popular SF author, but that seems…overly optimistic? And frankly much more complimentary of Scalzi than I think VD really intended.
I wonder how long it took David for this article about how sour grapes made Vox jelly to be pectin on his keyboard. Sorry if this pun was jarring.
@friday jones
I’d add more puns, but I gotta jam.
Scalzi probably would have made more money self publishing. He’s got a big enough audience already that discoverability isn’t a problem. He’s got enough cash that he can hire good editors, cover designers and so forth.
But he just signed a deal that will make sure he and his wife have a nice retirement and that his daughter won’t have to start her adult life with a mountain of student loan debt. He’s getting paid enough money that he won’t ever have to deal with shit he doesn’t have to and he doesn’t want to deal with all that shit.
I’ve been reading your stuff for a while now and it seems like MRAs and PUAs and the whole lot of them are incredibly emotionally invested in being better. Better than women. Better than beta cucks and gamma rabbits. All their derogatory nicknames. All their talk of game. And, of course, the whole privilege on steroids mindset that underlies the whole thing.
It makes me wonder if someone could make a disgusting amount of money writing shorts or serials that planet to their childish, insecure little shrunken penis egos.
If a quarter million per book deal from the biggest publisher in Scalzi’s genre is “not a bad deal,” then I’d love to see what a good deal looks like. But hey, I’m sure that Beale is moving his own self-published masterpieces by the millions, right? Right?
Ah, Theodore Beale, my favorite manospherian. Well, him and John C. Wright, who really needs to be covered here sometime. He is rather more subdued than Beale most of the time, but every once in a while you get nuggets of shit from him like supporting Gamergate, gasping in horror as Dungeons & Dragons mentions gay and transpeople characters, and comparing Terry Prachett to Hitler (and expressing that he wished he assaulted him).
Anyway, congratulations to Scalzi. I really need to read his books some time, and I hope the 13 books are a joy to write.
Oh, and about self-publishing being the better option: I know authors who are forced into self-publishing because major publishers won’t touch their novels, who would love to distribute their SFF works about people of color though major publishers, but can’t because the gatekeepers won’t let let them. Self-publishing isn’t so great when it’s the only option you have.
Rabukurafoto: They should check out #WNDB. Diverse books in all genres are going like hotcakes in YA right now.
Beale’s just trying to preserve his dignity. At least this prose is purple of a different sort.
I am following them on Twitter, but thanks for bringing them up. I was very happy to see that there is a #WeNeedDiverseBooks and just started following their Tumblr account too.
Yeah, Teddy Beale’s stuff is selling like hotcakes on his personal vanity press!
–What’s that?
*whispers*
Um, sorry. I’m being told that Teddy Beale’s stuff does not sell well, and if it wasn’t for his daddy’s money, he’d have nothin’.
Sorry, Beale. Keep pushing the bullshit, man, somebody somewhere is bound to believe it!
You mean like nobody reading your shit because you’re a no-good-very-bad scribbler?
(Not that ALL self-publishers are; some are very good. But Theodore Fucking Beale is not one of them.)
The funny part is, self-publishing really has been an improvement for Beale; I found an article by him about his earliest attempts at being published and his books sold even less than they do today, not being placed into the fantasy sections at bookstores, going into the Christian fiction sections instead. He is entirely right that now the people who want to find them can do so with little effort. He has a small but loyal bunch of readers, descending on anyone who gives his work a bad review to accuse of not having read the book, and when said reviewer can prove xie had read it, start going on about how the right can enjoy works from the left but the left refuses to enjoy works from the right regardless of merit (which is just parroting Beale’s own words).