Bakker LVII

[All Cats Are Bad]

22 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I dunno, plenty of authors finish up their contract and get hardcovers released then can't get future contracts. Names escape me from SFF at the moment but I know David Kirk had two somewhat successful Japanese historical novels but can't find a publisher for the third, which is written.

Like I said it isn't my field. But even if there was some kind of an issue, he could self-publish and hire an editor, he could post it online per-chapter and set up a Patreon, go to a small publisher. We'll get the rest of the story.

[All Cats Are Bad]

33 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Yeah Bakker has said he won't self publisher or go the gofundme route

To me, this is an indication that he's not worried about finding a publisher.

[IlyaP]

20 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Maybe! I have't heard peep from BakkerWorld in a long time so who knows.

He's got a blog up here (for those who don't know), and he seems to be semi-active in the comments sections.

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, SaltyGnosis said:

The last three books weren't my favorites either, but I also think each was better than the one that preceded it. TUC in particular I feel ended very strongly and has me pretty pumped for the next series. I hear some people saying he might not get a contract. I don't work in publishing, but I find the idea that an author could get 7 hardcover releases plus audiobooks and not be picked up for the long-planned completion of the series kind of silly.

Prince of Nothing sold well but there was a steep drop-off to The Aspect-Emperor and then an especially sharp drop-off between the second and third book. It turns out making fans wait 4 and 5 years between volumes when your first books were only a reasonable success is not a good idea. It was actually touch and go with the contract renegotiations to split the third book in two (the publishers eventually being swayed by the logic that after making people wait five years, getting two books might help with sales; it did not.

I'm not surprised he's having issues getting a new publishing contract going.

Quote

Yeah Bakker has said he won't self publisher or go the gofundme route, so small publisher, maybe. 

He already was with a small press, at least in the USA. The only way down from there is self-publishing.

[Caligula_K3]

I'll also go with the opposite perspective - while I enjoyed the Judging Eye and thought White Luck Warrior was an improvement on that (until its ending), I found The Great Ordeal and Unholy Consult to be both genuinely bad books that have made me disinterested in ever reading a Bakker book again. Neuropath as well, now that I think of it. Everyone I know IRL who reads Bakker thinks the same, though I know that's anecdotal evidence. Still, the audience for this series has clearly diminished over time, and I don't think those last two books are going to help, on top of all the rumours that Bakker is a huge pain in the ass to work with.

[All Cats Are Bad]

7 hours ago, Werthead said:

He already was with a small press, at least in the USA. The only way down from there is self-publishing.

I wouldn't necessarily classify that as a way down, though I know most probably do atm. Poe and Lovecraft and a lot of these writers who died way before their work got the recognition it deserved would have done some seriously dark shit for access to something like the internet. Someday historians are gonna look back at all these posts and threads by writers bemoaning their lack of success through recognition by one of the big five publishing companies and shake their heads in wonder at the hold capitalism had over all of us.

N.K. Jemisin has a Petreon. Lindsay Ellis scored her first Hugo nomination from a YouTube video. Traditional publishing is narrowing more and more every year while online alternatives are only expanding. Honestly there's a lot more room for artists who go online to produce something of real significance. But, again, has there actually been some indication that he might be dropped by his publisher, or is this all just"fans" speculating? 

4 hours ago, Caligula_K3 said:

 on top of all the rumours that Bakker is a huge pain in the ass to work with.

This is one of those things I hear people mention quite often, but then when I ask them about it they trail off or say some vague shit about arguments he's had on someone's blog a million years ago. Everyone I've ever met who knows or has met the guy has had nothing but nice things to say about him.

I think its like how everyone knew someone who knew someone who had a story about Stephanie Meyer being a bitch a decade or so back. Turns out she's just a Mormon mom who liked writing about vampires. As others have mentioned there have been quite a few...revelations about various figures in the scifi/fantasy genre over the past few years. I don't care if Scott makes a silly analogy with a g-string.

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

N.K. Jemisin has a Petreon. Lindsay Ellis scored her first Hugo nomination from a YouTube video. Traditional publishing is narrowing more and more every year while online alternatives are only expanding. Honestly there's a lot more room for artists who go online to produce something of real significance. But, again, has there actually been some indication that he might be dropped by his publisher, or is this all just"fans" speculating? 

His publisher has not renewed any contract with him, and to anyone's knowledge he is not under contract with any publisher right now. His last contract was for finishing TUC and maybe that rando short story thing? 

2 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

This is one of those things I hear people mention quite often, but then when I ask them about it they trail off or say some vague shit about arguments he's had on someone's blog a million years ago. Everyone I've ever met who knows or has met the guy has had nothing but nice things to say about him.

I have no idea how hard it is to work with him. I know he regularly gets into fights with virtually every single other author he ever talks with. I know his publisher was not happy at all with his fans calling them and telling them to release the book right away (especially since that turned out to be a fiction and the book wasn't ready anyway). Mostly, I would caution taking personal relationships as a sign of professional relationship behavior. 

2 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

 I don't care if Scott makes a silly analogy with a g-string.

I think most people had a problem with the analogy because it ended up to be so incorrect. If you want to be glib and squicky and alienate part of your audience, well, you do you, but also doing it in a way that turns out to not be accurate? 

[All Cats Are Bad]

Oh don't get me wrong, the dude says some very odd shit. Though the g-string comment was interesting if you think about it a little. The third-eye having this kind of "vaginal" connotation. Or maybe the man just likes genitals, idk. Damn near ruined honey for me, I'll tell you that.

But people like Pat Rothfuss and Mark Lawrence have said things that are just as bad, and they don't get the level of shit that Bakker does. Or maybe they do and I'm just not exposed to it   ╮( •́ω•̀ )╭

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, SaltyGnosis said:

Oh don't get me wrong, the dude says some very odd shit. Though the g-string comment was interesting if you think about it a little. The third-eye having this kind of "vaginal" connotation. Or maybe the man just likes genitals, idk. Damn near ruined honey for me, I'll tell you that.

But people like Pat Rothfuss and Mark Lawrence have said things that are just as bad, and they don't get the level of shit that Bakker does. Or maybe they do and I'm just not exposed to it   ╮( •́ω•̀ )╭

Pat Rothfuss and Lawrence get a LOT of shit. Like, a very large amount. I think it's more that you're paying attention to Bakker. 

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Kalbear said:

Pat Rothfuss and Lawrence get a LOT of shit. Like, a very large amount. I think it's more that you're paying attention to Bakker. 

Indeed. Not that it's significant, but I've about given up on Rothfuss and Lawrence, and I had no idea about the latter's bullshit until recently.

An interesting aspect about this whole Bakker v publishing thing, is The Unholy Consult isn't just listed as unavailable on Kindle [in CA] but it's not even there.

Seems indicative of definite... issues.

[Werthead]

Bakker's stuff is extremely low-key though, at least anywhere else but here and in a couple of flashpoints that happened a decade ago. He simply doesn have the fanbase to compete with the Rothfuss BS that's been going on.

What are the "Lawrence revelations"? The thing where some of his fans - against his wishes - harassed an author who gave him a bad review, but it turned out that author had done exactly the same thing to someone else (not that makes it okay, but it was an order of magnitude below the other stuff that was going on at the same time)?

[All Cats Are Bad]

3 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

Indeed. Not that it's significant, but I've about given up on Rothfuss and Lawrence, and I had no idea about the latter's bullshit until recently.

 

2 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Yeah shit, the recent Lawrence, uh, revelations? I guess are just...yikes. Seriously is anyone in SFF not a shitbag recently?

Guys, they're human. If they're not hurting children or using racial slurs or something, do we have to make them all about their worst gaffs?

Rothfuss is a doofus who thinks emulating Joss Whedon makes you a feminist, and Lawrence is an introverted shut-in who gets super defensive about his work. Neither make them evil.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I don't think I ever said they were evil? I just choice not to give me money to people who are giant assholes.

BINGO

[Larry of the Lawn]

4 hours ago, SaltyGnosis said:

 Or maybe the man just likes genitals, idk.

Maybe??????

[All Cats Are Bad]

When I was seventeen years old a youtuber called The Amazing Atheist put an annotation in one of his videos linking my social media and basically telling his followers to swarm because I said something negative about a book he was putting out at the time. Technically I said a negative thing several times, but I digress... I had all of my social media accounts swarmed, my deviantart too and had basically everything I'd posted anywhere downrated or swarmed with negative shit, somebody posted my real name somewhere shitty. It was a miserable experience.

I'm just saying this to put things in context when I say, loud and proud to anyone present, having been on the bad side of just such an encounter before, the Mark Lawrence thing was nothing. He retweeted a negative comment and some anti-feminist trolls went after the critic and said a few shitty things to her six years ago. He and others close to him have tried reaching out to the individual that was attacked and she basically ignored them. I look at this situation and tbh I see someone trying to squeeze as much social media cred as they can out of an e-encounter with a writer they don't like, fuck what it does to anyone's career.

[All Cats Are Bad]

30 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Maybe??????

You ever read a manga called Berserk? Swear to god everything in that series is genitals.

[All Cats Are Bad]

58 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Bullshit. Even ignoring, you know, the tons of other verbal abuse he;s dished out the guy constantly name searches himself to the point people in public forums don't like even saying his name

Like I said, big bowl of nothing.

58 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Not to mention this person you seem to think is trying to squeeze "social media cred" out of this is a best selling author who probably sells way more then ML to begin with.

Then I don't get why she's boo-hooing this thing that happened six years ago and acting he was at the heart of some harassment campaign, other than to attack a person whose writing she already (obviously) had a problem with.

Fuck I thought it was some rando on goodreads or something, I have even less sympathy now. What was she releasing a book around that time or something?

[All Cats Are Bad]

1 hour ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I also find the idea this is going to do anything to his career laughable

 

2 hours ago, JEORDHl said:

2 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

I just choice not to give me money to people who are giant assholes.

BINGO

Imma just leave these here together.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, SaltyGnosis said:

Imma just leave these here together.

 lol

[All Cats Are Bad]

59 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Yeah, well, obviously you haven't done shit for shit when looking into this, and I'm not going to sit here and be your google bitch. You can look into it and think whatever you want, and if you don't like it, you can sue me for Libel, Mr Lawrence.

What does her profession have to do with anything? Not being aware of who the person is independent of the incident in question doesn't really invalidate my points.

Look, maybe I'm being overly defensive, but:

6 hours ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Yeah shit, the recent Lawrence, uh, revelations? I guess are just...yikes. Seriously is anyone in SFF not a shitbag recently?

in light of recent events kind of came off, to me at least, like we're lumping Rothfuss and Lawrence in with bigots and child-abusers.

I found this worth reading: https://thatthornguy.com/2020/07/04/in-defence-of-mark-lawrence/

And while it's a long watch the ContraPoints video about 'Cancelling' is really interesting to listen to with this in mind. It puts a lot of these patterns of behavior (the extrapolation of perceived crimes, the connection by insinuation with abusers) into perspective, you look at 'em side-by-side and there are a lot of parallels. She might be a genius? Idk, I think Bakker is a genius too sorta, so who knows. Worth watching though: