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Teddy Beale is attempting the "Mockbuster" method of marketing


Ser Scot A Ellison

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Yeah, Teddy doesn't like John Scalzi and he figures he can cash in on people too stupid to recognized a book with a similar name and cover:

http://io9.gizmodo.com/amazon-pulls-castalia-house-book-for-ripping-off-john-s-1793533638


From the article:

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the covers are basically the same damn thing. It’s practically a game of “Can you spot the difference?” you’d find in Highlights magazine. The title, the artwork, even the author’s name. Strangely, the book itself is not a parody of The Collapsing Empire. According to Beale, the novel draws from Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, which is a favorite of his. This means it wouldn’t be “protected” as parody, although Amazon isn’t subject to the same rules that the government is. 

 
 
 

There’s a reason Beale made a cover that looks exactly like Scalzi’s, and it’s not to ride his coattails. This is all part of Beale’s longstanding feud (or obsession) with Scalzi, who hasn’t shied away from criticizing him in the past. Beale has long considered himself Scalzi’s literary rival, even though they’re on completely different levels of success. Beale has said and done questionable and offensive things to perpetuate that rivalry, including accusing Scalzi of rape because of a satirical article he wrote in 2012.

When Beale announced pre-orders for The Corroding Empire, he made his mission very clear: He wanted his publishing house to do better than Tor Books and thought outperforming Scalzi with a near-identical book cover would twist the knife, adding “What would be more amusing than for The Corroding Empire to outsell and outrank The Collapsing Empire?” Then again, Beale’s never shied away from promoting himself or his publishing house through controversial means, including getting his followers to nominate himself and several Castalia House books for Hugo Awards during the Rabid Puppies heyday.

Yeah, I'm sure "The Corroding Empire" will do just as well as "Transmorphers" did when "Transformers" was first released.  Teddy is sad.  Very, very, sad.

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