It's New Year's Eve, and it's been a good year for the indie world. The Iron Age arrived, indies in comics are killing it where the Big Two failed, European comics are back on people's radar in North America, Manga rules the roost, and OldPub continues to wither on the vine.
No big rundown this week--and last week I missed due to it being Christmas Eve--but this one I have to post because it just got released and it's a holiday anthology.
Take care, everyone, and I'll be back next week.
New And Coming Soon:
Ironage Media interviewed Cirsova (here) recently. If you prefer video, here you go.
Author Rawle Nyazi appeared to be interviewed on the IronAge Spotlight.
David Stewart had a New Pub Talk stream today.
The Business of Writing had a new episode.
And #20Booksto50K began dumping video archives of their 2022 Vegas convention. More are being added. Playlist below.
There was also a lot of talk about A.I. art and writing algorythms this week, but that deserves a seperate post.
It being the Christmas season, new releases are getting thin on the ground as people take the rest of the year off.
One unexpected present was the release of the 2022 #20BooksTo50K video playlist. Embedded below.
It's months after the fact, so the information will be dated to a degree, yet I would ask that you watch it anyway. This is as close to an annual report on the business as it gets these days, coupled with some sound business and craft instruction for those still on the newer side of things. Many present are veteran indie authors and publishers, who have been there since the space became viable, and so remember when it was OldPub or nothing.
The caveat is that, like indie Western film and TV, it presumes Western OldPub as the only other model; there is little awareness, nevermind comprehension, of how the business works in the East or anywhere else. If you're not working within the Western paradigm of business, #20Books will have lesser utility for you.
This is also where I must complain that "BookTube" is almost worthless. It is filled with Death Cultists and incompetents (but I repeat myself) tearing at greater men of the past and foreign talent of the present that contradict and defy the (Un)Holy Narrative.
I would like to remind such people screeching about "Muh Representation!" that one of the properties they are trying so hard to subvert--Warhammer--has represented them from the start. The Ruinous Powers of Chaos need worshippers to carry out their will, and the Death Cult--a peculiar blend of Nurgle and Slannesh--does so with glee. Furthermore, the specific pattern of Convergence fits the Genestealer Cult motif perfectly. No wonder they hate it so much.
And if you need to relax, David Stewart's streams are always a comfy time.
New/Upcoming Releases:
Notable Videos:
Mercury Falcon continues to deliver good stuff. Grounding Harlock in the decade wherein he emerged, and properly attributed Matsomoto's influence on Space Battleship Yamato, is the sort of attention to detail I wish I would see as commonplace in video essays about media. He has not disappointed me yet.
A few months old, but worth a watch. I commented that Big-O is a reaction to Lang's Metropolis, which a comparison between the two supports as you have the protagonist occupying the same space between Head and Heart in order to resolve the conflict driving the story. His other videos on this show should be worthwhile.
Dave Stewart did another stream today, and you can count on nuggets of wisdom being found therein.
New Releases:
Reminder that Yoshiki Tanaka, author of Legend of the Galactic Heroes and The Heroic Legend of Arslan, still has volumes of the latter being published in English. Vol. 16 of Arslan showed up in September.
There's also a massive Indie Fiction sale. Click on the image.
Cirsova's water heater busted. If you want to help the man out, buy issues of the magazine or other publications at Amazon or Lulu. If you have your copies, gift more to others. Otherwise, hit up the ebay store.
New Releases:
David Stewart had a New Pub stream where he talked storytelling in the context of gaming.
A quieter week than most since I started doing these.
New Releases & Related Things:
Nick Cole: CTRL ALT REVOLT Podcast No. 185 here.
David Stewart had a New Pub Talk episode.
New Releases:
Nick Cole: CTRL ALT REVOLT podcast ep 184 here, Ch. 6 of The Tolkien Project streamed live (here) this past week and Ch. (X) at the Substack here.
Alexander Hellene: An essay about writing, the canon, and Gitting Gud called "Prerequisites".
Oh, and if you aren't already keep Red Pilled Fiction Factory, #20BooksTo50K Live Events, and The Business of Writing in your YouTube feeds.
New Releases:
Nick Cole read another chapter of The Tolkien Project live on his channel while Walt drew.
On Nick's Tolkien Project Substack, he read Chapter 10.
While more leaning to the gaming side of things, Alexander Macris' Substack article on Tolkien and Orcs should be read by folks into believable humanoid monsters and practical mythologizing.
Releases summarized:
David Stewart has a new episode of New Pub Talk up with Alexander Hellene.
And Red Pilled Fiction had on English writer Jason Ayres
First, the new stuff.
I don't know what it is, but the last year or so saw renewed attention on the Wars of German Unification in popular Anglosphere media. DVX's book on the Franco-Prussian War is just the latest; Reel Time History on YouTube has had several videos about Otto von Bismark and his political manuevering to turn the German states into a unified Germany under Prussian rule and the Franco-Prussian War was fundamental to making that happen, and around the same time clips from European films (in German or other languages) about this period have filtered into the Anglosphere.
The timing could not be more fortuitous, as we're seeing yet another round of European warfare threatening to break its current containment and spread into something right out of 1848's many revolutions, revolts, and wars.
Don't be surprised if a renewed interest in the fiction of the period follows.
David Stewart had a New Pub Talk episode yesterday. Embedded below.
You'll find the campaign page for Kyrie 3 here, and there's about 10 hours left to pile on to this already-successful campaign.
First, the new stuff that came out:
Then some related author stuff:
Dave Stewart drew some fantasy maps today.
The Excellence of Elocution cut a new Iron Age promo today.
Man are the gaslighters going into overtime attempting to maintain containment.
Ankle-biters come out of the wooodwork to go after independent upstarts, from #Comicsgate to #PulpRev and more beyond comics and literature.
Yes, Razorfist is right; this is a cultural movement and the seperate subsets are already seeing common cause and by so seeing they see the need to cross-promote across media and genre lines.
You'll find Iron Age Media here.
Oh, and on a side note, today is the day where--in Mobile Suit Gundam--Garma Zabi was not set up to die by his best friend Char Aznable because Char Did Nothing Wrong.
Which lead to the best Totally Not Hitler moment in anime.
First, notables:
In addition, Galaxy's Edge had a regular podcast last night.
And so did Red Pill Fiction Factory.
And we have a New Pub Talk episode.
This is a bigger week than most, with the biggest happening today.
And just a couple of hours ago David Stewart had Brian Niemeier on New Pub Talk to chat about stuff.
This week I noticed:
More than the usual caught my notice this past week.
Things that caught my eye this past week:
Things of note that I saw over the week:
This week's notables that came to my attention:
Notable things I saw over the week:
We are not out of this shit yet. Too many Normies still don't even know that indies exist, that BDs exist (outside of Europe), and--being Normies--will not go out of their way to find anything to replace the stuff they consistently complain about.
The Manga and Anime angle is being controlled via Sony. While there's complaints about pozzing, I think this is a strategy of containment; what they can't adulterate via control over Western audience access (Muh Localizations!), they choke off entirely and thus piracy--already recovering--will surge once more as the primary means for a lot of stuff to come West at all.
(For some, this means no change; they already pirate everything they read, watch, or play and buy merch via imports.)
This is a marketing problem.
That is itself a daunting realization. That's a game where scale is a multiplier and thus megacorporations have it a lot easier to market than indie actors. Combine this with not even pretending to be neutral intermediaries like YouTube, and you have a hell of a time putting your stuff before the eyeballs of Normies that may like it. They aren't going to go look for it, so you have to go to them and they stick in lanes dominated by the major media institutions- however unfit for purpose they are, they yet are and wield power as such.
Solve this problem and you'll break the dominant institution's hold over the minds of Normies.
Coming and Going for the week ending 8/6/2022:
Notable comings and goings this week:
Last night, author Peter Nealan appeared on the Galaxy's Edge YouTube channel for an hour to talk about his new mil-WeirdFic novel Swords Against The Night with Walt.
As the interview makes clear, this is Peter's take on the mixture of real contemporary military personnel dealing with fantasy worlds. Forgotten Ruin broke this concept through in the West, but Japan's GATE precedes it by several years.
This is, at present, a four-book series. You can find it at Amazon here. (The link goes to the Kindle page, but there are paperback options for each book.)
In case you missed it, here's some things to consider by people that don't hate you.
Got any others? Drop them in the Comments below.
As he put it on Twitter:
In case you missed the announcement on tonight's stream:
— RazörFist (@RAZ0RFIST) June 18, 2022
My new fantasy noir pulp, DEATH MASK is now available for pre-order! Fully illustrated by the very talented @GPrime85 (with additional illustrations by myself) https://t.co/S8jGDlCzXP pic.twitter.com/TcPBbUFTJu
You'll find the preorder page here.
That page also has a link to the first novel, so you can catch up while you wait for Death Mask to arrive, and by all means follow Razorfist on all the socials and especially when he streams live.
The Leading Hispanic Voice in Science Fiction, Jon del Arroz, has a new comic-and-novel project up at Kickstarter: Overmind.
OVERMIND is a 66-Page graphic novel in the tradition of the great science fiction European comics, made for a modern era with the best art and storytelling in comics!
It is accompanied by a full-length sequel novel starring Special Agent Ayla Rin by #1 Bestselling Sci-Fi author, Jon Del Arroz.
We have a number of great rewards and add-ons with amazing collectibles and tons of books for your reading pleasure.
THE TEAM
This project is already funded. That makes this a sureshot, so feel free to pile on now as it's all about the Stretch Goals.
$6,000 - All backers will receive a courtesy digital copy of Flying Sparks Volume 1
$10,000 An Ayla Rin Origin Short Prose Story digitally for all backers
$12,500 OVERMIND logo Stickers for all physical backers
$15,000 Ayla Rin trading card for all physical backers
$20,000. Bonus Pages! Process sketches added to the OVERMIND book with a deep look inside Ayla Rin's gadgets and life!
$25,000 Aya Rin bookmark with physical every order
$30,000 We will create an Audiobook version of the Ayla Rin prose novel
You'll find the campaign page here. Rewards start at $17(US), and there's options to get other work that Jon's published such as Deus Vult.
Dragon Award winner Brian Niemeier has launched his funding campaign for the final book in the Combat Frame XSeed series.
Betrayed by their makers…
…their sole hope is vengeance
Humanity reels from the disastrous Battle of Earth. Blamed for the crushing defeat, the Guardian Angels are branded as traitors.
Jehu, Dex, and Kaiser must make a daring escape to save their families from a resurgent terror.
To clear their names, they must lead the rebel ExSols they once fought.
But against the combined might of the UCP and the Ynzu, do even Angels have a prayer of victory?
If you like Halo and Neon Genesis Evangelion, you’ll love Combat Frame Z Strike XSeed!
The image below will take you to the campaign landing page.
If you've seen Brian's previous campaigns, you'll know that he's good on making it easy to catch up if you're behind and he's got plenty of Perks that are proven hits with backers. He launched yesterday and is already 75% to goal. This is going to happen, so you're safe backing this.
The book trailer has the TLDR.
One would expect that a book by Imperium Press, the company with an entire series called "Studies in Reaction", would pick up a book like this and give it the best promotion possible.
It is as you expect: a gut-punch to everyone that still believes that you're going to vote your way out of this Clown World. The leadership that erected Clown World were an elite that displaced their enemies--also elites--and the masses were resources to exploit, pawns to manuever, and prizes to be won in their contest.
What you are going to learn is that this has been consistent for all of Mankind's existence. If you read other Reactionary thinkers, you will not be surprised to find that Clown World is actually strictly disciplined, hierarchical, and (believe it or not) lead by the men who lead as patriarchs shaping internal and external organizations to be family-like in their structure- mockeries of God-given kinship and the bond therein.
Imperium's store page is here where you can pay them directly and deny others their middleman cut.
Coming soon:
The Hit Mech Saga’s World-Rending Conclusion
Betrayed by their makers …
… their sole hope is vengeance.
Humanity reels from the disastrous Battle of Earth. Blamed for the crushing defeat, the Guardian Angels are branded as traitors.
Jehu, Dex, and Kaiser must make a daring escape to save their families from a resurgent terror.
To clear their names, they must lead the rebel ExSols they once fought.
But against the combined might of the UCP and the Ynzu, do even Angels have a prayer of victory?
If you like Halo and Martian Successor Nadesico, you’ll love Combat Frame Z Strike XSeed!
And here's the trailer:
Join Brian's newsletter to guarantee that you'll get notified of when the crowdfunding campaign launches. You can do that here. If you're late to the party, you can buy copies here and catch up.
Imperium Press has an update that you ought to see.
Let me make this convenient for you:
In the meantime, know that they still sell books not only at their own site but also at Amazon and other online outlets; get them in print and don't trust owners of digital publishing technologies to not screw you after the sale.
Their Western Canon and Studies In Raction series alone justifies this press' existence, so throw them some cash as you're able to build a library full of the wisdom our enemies have willfully undermined and occulted from us.
Author Sky Hernstrom appeared on the Red-Pilled Fiction Factory recently, uploaded today.
And here's all the relevant links:
This move by one of the last great success stories of OldPub, who had recently left OldPub behind to go independent, is how those that do succeed make the most of their success: to help those coming up the ladder behind them. The Leading Hispanic Voice In Science Fiction, Jon del Arroz, explains.
This was not done automatically. He and his team manually inspected every such campaign on Kickstarter and deliberately chose which to assist in this manner. Given his general Good Guy Greg character, that assistance went rather far and wide indeed.
And yes, all of us benefit from his generosity. This is how leaders and winners ought to act. Class act there, Mr. Sanderson. Bravo.
Imperium Press is a new publisher focusing on returning the Western Classics and other great works memory-holed by the Death Cult back into your hands. Their newest offering The Ancient Family, explained below.
The deepest and oldest layer of European religion is almost unknown today, and yet it governs all subsequent history. This is the Indo-European hearth cult, the subject of The Ancient Family. In this book we get a picture of the most traditionalist, nationalist, patriarchal religion imaginable, of a people gathered around a sacred fire, worshipping its ancestors, jealous of its gods, and sufficient unto itself.
Taken from books I–II of Fustel’s momentous work The Ancient City, this volume can be read as a constitution of the primordial family structure, the father of all that came after it. The Studies in Reaction series collects works that challenge modernity, and this family structure is the perfect antithesis of, and remedy for, all that ails us today.
There is precious little information of useful substance on how pre-Christian religion actually worked, and here is Imperium Press putting some of what there is out there for you to easily acquire and master. You'd be a fool to pass up this opportunity to learn from this, and see how this ancient structure readily integrated with Christianity once introduced. This structure works, doesn't require expense and complex technologies to become or maintain effectivness, doens't require complex social instruments (such as media complexes, phramaseutical regimes, or academic institutions), and is wholly self-sufficient so autarky is facilitated by this structure and Globohomo deliberately attacked by it.
This came up in a recent interview, embedded below, and it's worth a listen in own right.
And talked about more here.
You'll find Imperium's store listing here, where it's available in paperback for now, but you can also find it at Amazon for pre-order.
The conventional wisdom on adverbs in writing is, bluntly put, wrong. David explains.
Words are your toolkit. You want to strive for accuracy and precision to achieve the intended effect upon the reader, and that means using the right word in the right way to make that happen. Adverbs are fine when this is the intent of their use.
David's got plenty of videos like this at his channel, and he streams regularly there on weekends--usually Saturdays--so keep him in your blog/vlogroll.
Brandon Sanderson is one of the remaining OldPub authors that (a) actually has a real audience and (b) mostly makes work meant to be read and enjoyed (when SJWs in the office don't fuck with him). This is how he dealt with Corona-chan's World Tour.
That's right, five full novels. (Also, kudos to his team for this slick video presentation.)
Which lead to his Kickstarter campaign. As of this post, he's already hit nearly $25 MILLION DOLLARS. I'll post the video below.
You'll find the campaign page here. He's got premium pricing in his Rewards to reflect his status in the business, but if you're already a fan then this is nothing you haven't already been paying; it's just Kickstart getting a cut instead of some zombie OldPub publisher that ought to be put down for everyone's good.
But that's not the whole story here. That comes from the reactions, and man are the loser OldPub authors mad. Like their counterparts at Marvel and D.C., the losers in OldPub are now seeing the writing on the wall--that the folks propping up OldPub like Atlas holding up the world are shrugging off that burden--and what that will mean for OldPub's collapse, and with it their sinecures- and yes, these losers like Cat Rambo and Jeffe Kennedy are just sinecure holders.
Now that Sanderson sees what he can do without editorial interference by fat blue-haired landwhale cat ladies in New York offices, without sensitity readers, without Globohomo faggotry constantly pushing him to bend the knee, it won't be long before his team runs the numbers and decides that it is better for business--nevermind any morality concerns--to cut OldPub out as soon as possible and just go direct to the audience from here on out.
In short, to turn his audience into his patrons and--as Brian Niemeier has predicted--embraces Neo-Patronage wholeheartedly. Sanderson isn't stupid; he already sees that he's got a winning move as the YouTube video shows and the campaign proved with brick-to-face certainty. I fully expect him, and others like him that--like him--are not with Baen Books, will abandon OldPub and join us here in the NewPub sphere.
And yes, I wholeheartedly welcome him into the NewPub world. He'll join others who moved into the "I have a team!" tier like Cole & Anspach, and thereby show we one-man bands how to successfully scale up so we can focus on writing the books while remaining wholly independent. This is the future, and it's a better one than what OldPub wants, and there is not a damned thing OldPub can do to stop it from coming now.
I note that Brian has a nice take on this at his blog, which you can find here. His opinion complements mine.
Author J.D. Cowan announces a new release.
And here's the description:
Generation Why?
There is an epidemic in the modern age: a crisis of meaning. Why is it the world we were promised back in the 1980s and 1990s seems so far away now? Whatever happened to those hopeful kids from back then? Whatever happened to Generation Y?
From authors Brian Niemeier (Don't Give Money to People Who Hate You), David V Stewart (The Keys to Prolific Creativity), and JD Cowan (The Pulp Mindset), comes this collection of essays about a lost generation trapped in a modernity they were never prepared for.
Read on and discover how Madison Avenue shenanigans, social instability, mindless progress, and general ineptitude, led an entire generation of people through the cracks--and how we can find them again.
Click on the image to get to the download page, where there are also the files needed to print your own hardcopy if you like. Click here for JD's blogpost on the release.
Professional ghostwriter Joshua Lisec wrote a Twitter thread on what he sees as the future business model for writers going forward. His focus is in non-fiction, so keep that in mind when reading this.
Here's what the future of writing books looks like👇
— Joshua Lisec | The Ghostwriter (@JoshuaLisec) February 23, 2022
Thread🧵
Rather than have you click through, here's the rest (w/ some editing for clarity):
Every book is a product funnel. For example: a $19 book leads to a $49 masterclass, which leads to a $199 video course, which leads to a $499/month program, which culminates in a $9,999 service.
It's a $9 sale VS $16,254 in sales.
Authors who pay the big bucks to get their book done right the first time (Ed: such as by using a ghostwriter) would rather earn $16k than just $9.
Nonfiction niche-ification intensifies. Expect authors to apply their methods to specific audiences with unique problems. For example: my client Grace Smith and her trilogy hypnosis for weight loss, hypnosis for sleep, and hypnosis for stress relief.
Not writing 10-20+ novels? Not Going To Make It.
The best chance you have at making money writing fiction is writing a loooooot of it. Applies to nonfiction, too, if that's your thing and you only want to write books (no courses, coaching etc). Expect groups like #20BooksTo50K to go mainstream.
Your self-published book will be made into a movie. This is no joke.
The Martian, The Celestine Prophecy, Legally Blonde, Still Alice, Eragon- all self-published, all made into movies. All you gotta do is sell a whole lotta copies first.
Every author is a publisher.
What do writers think about? Writing. What do publishers think about? Selling that writing. Profitable publishing is 80% persuasion and 20% everything else. Put on your marketer's hat (or hire someone to) if you want to sell lots 'o books. (Ed.: Learn To Sell.)
n TradPub, "Get Woke Go Broke" is not a thing. They sell books they want to be read. The Great Awokening will continue until sales improve. Or not. Because that doesn't matter. We are this close to pro-paedo picture books for children. Also not a joke.
Author advances plummet till they go negative. AKA, you have to pay big publishers an advance to publish your book. We've already seen TradPub do this with "hybrid imprints." For example, you can pay self-help press Hay House to publish your book through their spinoff Balboa Press.
Learn something new? Disagree with every prediction? Retweet or quote tweet the 1st tweet to let your people know.
There's already one author that many of you know that's taken up this advice, and that would be Adamn Lane Smith. He's stopped, for now, his fiction writing to focus on building up his work as an Attachment specialist in therapy and he's built himself a sales funnel via Gumroad--likely following Joshua's model--to great effect so far.
And if you know Yakov Merkin, you know that he's gone hard on the fast-publishing series method that #20Bookto50K pushes with plenty of reported success to date. In short, Joshua isn't wrong and isn't omitting details. Adam's sales letters are getting better, and Yakov's slowly improving his sales game also. So are Brian Niemeier's, and both he as well as Jon del Arroz have turned to livestreaming to attract and retain audiences that they can convert into readers and bring them into the sales funnel. David Stewart has done the same thing, and it's working for him also.
Then there's Nick Cole & Jason Anspach, who make all of them look like pikers. First Galaxy's Edge, then Forgotten Ruin, and now using that which they built to get other military veterans-turned-authors into the game via the Wargate Books imprint.
Like it or not, what's going to be required to succeed is not what the OldPub fossils and the maggots feeding on its corpse want you to believe. You cannot avoid doing your own marketing anymore. You cannot avoid thinking like a publisher, at least part-time, anymore. You cannot avoid being front-facing, even in a virtual sense, anymore. The days of just writing the manuscripts, then revising and rewriting the edited manuscripts, is over; you have to take on the jobs that the publisher used to do--to edit, promote, etc.--and that means you're spending more time than just what you do writing.
But, as Joshua shows, you can make the return on that time spent far more profitable now than was ever the case heretofore. There is one other thing to consider, which Joshua neglected to mention: you can do this from anywhere with a reliable Internet connection. There is no need to be in London, New York, Paris, Tokyo, Seoul, or even to spend postage on correspondance to someone--an agent or editor--based there. You can--and more of you should--consider moving to a location where your costs are lower so your revenue goes farther, be it internally or to expatriate entirely.
If you think that's absurd, go talk to the RPG Pundit; he moved from Canada to Uruguay and lives very comfortably on his tabletop RPG writing alone. So long as the Internet remains live, this remains true, and so does all the other changes in publishing that makes OldPub deader than the dinosaurs. Exploit this, profit, and thrive.
Nick Cole wrangled together some of the Galaxy's Edge regulars to do a launch stream for a new military fantasy adventure series yesterday.
This new venture of Nick and Jason to open an imprint and use the following and structure they erected in the creation of first Galaxy's Edge and now Forgotten Ruin is a welcome one, as this is exactly the "Fork and Replace" strategy playing out in real time.
I concur with Nick that "Contemporary Military Goes Into Fantasy World" works far better when actual combat veterans who know how to write do so, as they are far more likely to address the premise honestly and with a high degree of verisimilitude, something that is lacking in the most well-known example in this genre: GATE, by a JSDF veteran.
I look forward to seeing where this goes, but as Nick and Jason are taking up something of a Big Brother role I can be confident of another success like Forgotten Ruin.
See for yourself by clicking on the image link below that takes you to the Amazon Page:
Authors Nick Cole and Jason Anspach uploaded a video to the Galaxy's Edge channel on YouTube last night to talk about the recent Amazon hiccup.
Nick and Jason wisely concluded that--while this incident was not deliberate malice--it could be at any time and Amazon holding a dominant position means they can pull Mean Girl nonsense and expect servile compliance as if you were a pathetic simp.
They decided to do something about it, and this video gets into that, but you can already see where this is going: deleveraging off Amazon and offering alternative avenues to sell GE books--ebook, audio, print--and this is expanding to new projects like Forgotten Ruin now that this series is a thing.
I urge all of you indie authors to, once again, pay attention to what Nick and Jason are doing. Learn from their mistakes. Learn what works for then (and, of course, why) so you can see what you can copy, and what it would take to do so, versus alternatives that don't work for them but do work for you. Then, when you find what's working for you, return the favor and share with the class; we're all in this together, and crowd-sourcing solutions spreads good solutions faster.
And if you want to see the core of GE's disentanglement, start with their site landing page here.
The Leading Hispanic Voice in Science Fiction, Jon del Arroz, cut a video exposing another paper tiger of OldPub.
The big tell is how they manipulate their own rules to execute Friend/Enemy distinctions and act accordingly. They confess to Jon that they gladly let in people who don't meet the criteria, and expell those that do, purely on being faithful Death Cultists or enemies. That means that this organization has been converged for a long time, because this was the state of SWFA when it violated its own bi-laws to punt Vox Day- an expulsion that Vox rejects as illegitimate to this day accordingly.
This means that the organization is wholly about the Death Cult, and not at all about Muh Fandom or Muh Sci-Fi, and the performance of its members in the marketplace shows this to be true--I've sold more than them--so what this is really about is using the organization to exercise Narrative Warfare campaigns against enemies of the Cult.
What does this tell you?
That you don't need this organization. Furthermore, that this group is your enemy; if you are not One of Them, you are their enemy and they will be hostile to you- their writers, their agents, their editors, their publishers, their press whores, etc. are all going to roll out and array against you on command.
And if they weren't pathetic, they'd be more powerful than they really are--and far closer to what they want you to believe they are--but as it stands you can (and should) shrug them off and focus instead on a bigger issue: the need to diverse from Amazon (which I need to do too).
The Leading Hispanic Voice in Science Fiction, Conqueror of WorldCon, and Future King of California Jon del Arroz has released a new Indiegogo campaign for his parody of his own Deus Vult graphic novel: "A High School Girl In The Crusades" (a.k.a. "Desu Vult").
This is a two-for-one campaign, as people who missed Deus Vult can acquire a copy now--complete with new cover--as part of a package deal with the manga-style parody. This is a smart move, as you'll get both the original work and what is being parodied in one go. Jon explains:
We are offering two different comics:
- A High School Girl In The Crusadesis a 22-page manga-style isekai parody about a high school girl transported to the crusades (duh!). Art is 100% by The Quaff (Shotgun Samurai, Nuclear Warhead Samurai).
- Deus Vult is a 66 page epic fantasy graphic novel about a crusader transported to a magical and evil realm. Art is by Jesse White and Matt Crotts. This is the 2nd chance for this book, and we are offering a brand new cover featuring art by famed fantasy artist, Lolo Guzman.
You'll find the campaign page here, and you'll find the covers for both books there along with other sample artwork for your consideration and the reminder of the original T-shirt that has now proven to be the inspiration for this project is a bonus- get one.
This is a good deal, so take a look at the campaign page and see what you'll find worth your money to put towards it.
