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.
Scalzi would probably do pretty well in self-publishing–he has the name and the contacts (i.e., he knows editors), but if publishing with Tor nets him 3.4 million and he likes the group he works with there (editors, etc.), why would he jump ship? Let the publishers do what they do best, if it is working out.
Anyway, he’d do pretty well on the ebook market self-publishing, but for physical books… best to go with a publishing company.
Five birds in the bush…He thinks Scalzi could net $17 million if he self-pubbed??
From Scalzi’s blog, seems he might be addressing all this jelly.
“Why are you sticking with traditional publishing! Think of how much money you could have made self-publishing!
Yeah, thanks, no. One, for various reasons, I find it doubtful that I would be making more self-publishing. I’m not going to go into those reasons at the moment because it’s a long slog, but, you know. Trust me on this for now. Assume I know my business pretty well after all this time.
Two, look, I like to write, and I don’t mind marketing myself. But there is a whole lot more that goes into producing a book than just showing up with a manuscript and then telling people about it. I don’t want to do any of the rest of that stuff. That’s why publishers exist. That’s what publishers do. As it happens, when it comes to science fiction, Tor is as good as it gets, in every department. They are better at these things I don’t want to do than I am. I am delighted to partner with them and let them handle all that. I am clearly making enough money.
Three, if I want to self-publish something, I can, and have in the past. So, false dichotomy in any event.”
http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/05/25/about-that-deal/
Scalzi always took the beta mangina route to winning a Hugo, by (adopts sarcastic tone) writing stuff people want to read. Pfft! The bolder strategy would have been mediocre writing, and then gaming the Hugo process: that’s the alpha way.
Sigh, for “always” read “also”.
@Rabukurafuto
You know, I’m one of those feminist humanist progressive atheists, and I love reading devout orthodox Catholic Flannery O’Connor. The fact that her worldview was in many ways diametrically opposed to mine? Has no bearing on the fact that she was a FUCKING GREAT WRITER!
Also–isn’t it funny how free-market libertarians will claim the unregulated FM will always reward the best, but when THEY do poorly they’re all “help help I’m bein suppressed!” 😉
Just for lulz, I checked Alexa’s (admittedly not to be taken as gospel) rankings.
Scalzi is ahead of Beale in the U.S. (Oddly, Beale does better than Scalzi in global ranking. Who reads him, I wonder? Neofascists, I bet.)
I toast Scalzi with a magnum of SadRabid Puppy Tears.
But leave the Shitgolem’s out of the mix. I’m sure they’re fine to look at and foul to taste.
And WHTM does better than both. A LOT better than Beale, globally.
Beale is not unpopular, so stop saying that! Like Spinal Tap, his appeal is more selective, that’s all!
Ah, no. Ted Beale is not John Scalzi’s nemesis. To be John Scalzi’s nemesis, Ted Beale would have to ping on John Scalzi’s radar, and Mr Scalzi has been remarkably clear that he is no longer interested in the various doings of Ted Beale, and hasn’t been for at least a year or two now.
Which pisses Ted Beale off no end. For behold, it denies the uber-supremacy of Ted Beale’s ego, which must be pandered unto at all costs.
(Given Ted Beale is one of the group who has been busy deriding Mr Scalzi as someone who will never make a living off writing, and who will die destitute in a ditch somewhere because his books apparently don’t sell, I’m not surprised the grapes of wrath he’s harvesting have turned out to be sour as the dickens).
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/sour-grapes-make-the-best-whine.jpg
” I don’t know how much he paid for that Finnish vanity press”
Bit OT, but as a finn i’m curious. What finnish vanity press?
I’m currently trying to read through the Hugo nominees, but they’re so boring. I get the impression that the guys who put together the Puppy ballots didn’t put much thought into them, just threw together random work they happened to read and liked okay (I bet 3.4 million dollars one of them has a subscription to Analog, and only Analog) along with anything by their friends.
I’m offended less by the Puppies’ politics than by their laziness.
Yep, yep, getting a book published through a reputable publisher, who has things like standards and editors is sooooo taking the easy route! Real men get their books published by throwing money at a printer to get it to make copies of literally any shit you can slap down on a word processor.
Ha ha! John Scalzi just signed a 3,4 million book deal, that is BAD NEWS for him. I could make that much money easily. He’s not a real man! Also he’s fat! Ha ha! Fat! I’m importanter! Looook at meeeee!
To quote a great thinker: “Cry some more.”
Suffered through the likes of “Turncoat” and “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”? I’m so sorry. So is Analog have a right-wing or military SF bend to it? I never read it before.
I don’t often intentionally read people with very different views and enjoy them unironically (I’m certain I’ve read quite a bit by authors with opposing views and simply never noticed), but it’s a good quality to have.
Yes, extremely funny. Libertarians tend to be that way because they think they will benefit the most. “Obviously, without any regulation my genius will finally be allowed to shine and be recognized by all!”
Haha, John Scalzi has reliable employment for the next ten years, making 5x the median income for his country, doing something he loves for a company that treats him well. What a… uh… loser?
Seriously though, I’ve been looking into the world of publishing (I do have a book in the works), and if I can get even a halfway decent deal with a for-real publisher, you bet your sweet bippy I’m taking it. I haaaaaaate the marketing/distribution side of things, and I would vastly prefer for a team of professionals to handle it for me, as 1) I then would not have to do it; and 2) I then would have no opportunity to screw it up.
I understand that for a lot of people (and quite possibly eventually for me) self-publishing is a more viable deal—but there is definitely a reason that big-name authors sign with publishing houses. You have to have lots of talent and tenacity, as well as substantial luck, to really make it with a big company, but if you land it (which Scalzi has) then there’s precious little reason not to just comfortably ride that wave of success.
I’ve only read two Scalzi books so far (Android’s Dream and Old Man’s War), and enjoyed them both. My next fiction purchases will probably be continuing the OMW series.
It is true you can make a bundle self-publishing, with low overheads and low risk. Trouble is, you need to have both an artist brain and a business brain, and unsurprisingly almost all artists prefer the first to the second and to outsource the business stuff. Scalzi has detailed why he doesn’t do this: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/02/03/why-in-fact-publishing-will-not-go-away-anytime-soon-a-deeply-slanted-play-in-three-acts/ tl;dr writing is enough work.
I see VD is still calling Scalzi “McRapey” because he once wrote a blog post from the point of view of a hypothetical rapist in order to illustrate how limiting access to abortion gives rapists more of the power that they get off on. As VD knows damn well, this was not Scalzi actually confessing to being a rapist. This is what pisses me off so much about these arseholes is they’re determined not to argue in good faith. Not to mention that any moral high ground on the issue of sexual assault is fucking rich coming from VD.
JPN,
Lies are all they have. An argument in good faith is not an argument they can pretend to win.
Please, could we try and preserve the dignity of this blog? It is the fruit of Dave’s labor, and we should not be spreading nonsense. Conserve the tone. It’s got to be good.
I just finished reading all seven of the books in the Chronicles of Narnia series (I’d previously only had the opportunity to read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Prince Caspian before, and by the time I had a chance to pick up Voyage of the Dawn Treader I’d lost the thread of the story). I read them by publication order and I really enjoyed The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, Prince Caspian, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Silver Chair, and The Horse and His Boy. The Magician’s Nephew and The Last Battle, not so much – and not because of the blatant way C.S. Lewis was bludgeoning the reader with metaphors alluding to various Christian themes, but because it seemed that by the time Lewis wrote those last two books he realized he had written himself into a corner and was hurriedly trying to write his way back out.
I once named a cat after Flannery O’Connor, and I really enjoyed her short story A Good Man is Hard to Find, gruesome as it is.
Castalia House. He’s publishing his own work on it obviously, but speaking in terms of promotion he’s been pushing heavily the work of John C. Wright, who wrote this. On Vox Popoli last year, a number of his blog posts were devoted to describing Wright as the greatest SF/F writer he’d ever read and everyone must run out and buy his books RIGHT NOW OMG because they’re missing out on this awesome genius, et cetera.
Sarah:
Wow, that’s one talented cat!