Where Did Things Go So Wrong?!?

[carld]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

He manages not to showcase the homophobia by the simple expedient of not having any bisexual or homosexual characters. However, the sex-negativity and belief that individual desires and passions are best subsumed into a larger family context (even when "the family" becomes "the military"), and that individuals without that context are dangerous and bad, shine through all of his works.

Not every ideological twist or application will be visible in an author's works, but any book so formulaic or abstract as to avoid all connection with the author's sense of self isn't worth reading.

I'm trying to remember the title, but I did read one of his books with a minor gay character. I read it after reading his diatribes on gay marriage and such. I don't remember any trace of homopobia, and I was definitely looking for it. Also in reading his commentary on Unicorn Mountain, a fantasy novel with gay characters, I didn't detect any homophobia.

You may well be right about his sex-negative beliefs showing through. I'd have to reread his work to be sure, and I'm just not going to do that. I still maintain that it's relatively easy for an author to hide his or her true nature, or beliefs if that's what they want to do.

[ApK]

I apologize, again, I know this is off topic (and possibly approaching a violation of MR topic rules) but I wonder if I misunderstood something here:

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

For example: It's possible I wouldn't have decided the rampant homophobia and sex-negativity in Card's works were too extreme just based on blog reviewers.
.

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

He manages not to showcase the homophobia by the simple expedient of not having any bisexual or homosexual characters.

Are you saying the absence of homosexual characters constitutes 'rampant homophobia?'


ApK

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

Press releases? Press releases? The mind boggles.

Steve, people in the book business (and pretty much every other business) consider unsolicited press releases to be just another form of spam, and filter accordingly.

Thanks for telling me. So, if I wanted to get in touch with those companies, how should I go about it?

[ApK]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

No, it is pretty much logical.

Oh! And here I was, expecting you were going to agree with me that it was closed minded!

Just as you would not expect a staunch communist to write a book praising a capitalistic future, I see no reason to expect someone who strongly favors government enforced artificial scarcity to write anything positive about the type of post-scarcity, post-singularity future I prefer to read about.

I have no issue with that. We should probably send each other the SF stories we like least. I have a feeling we'd make a good Jack Sprat team.

I'll put it bluntly-- I do not want to live in the kind of world that he wants to live in. It is one thing if a writer presents a distopia knowing that it is a distopia, but another thing entirely when he presents a distopia thinking that this is just a swell way for things to end up.

My point is that you currently have no idea what he presents in his fiction, or how he presents its. Would "prejudiced" be a more accurate description than "closed-minded?"

[Elfwreck]

Originally Posted by ApK

Are you saying the absence of homosexual characters constitutes 'rampant homophobia?'

No, I'm saying he's got rampant homophobia that he manages to hide by pretending (or insisting; I don't know which) that homosexuality doesn't exist in his fictional worlds.

There are those who argue that lack of homosexual & bisexual characters is, itself, a sign of homophobia; I don't go that far.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

No, I'm saying he's got rampant homophobia that he manages to hide by pretending (or insisting; I don't know which) that homosexuality doesn't exist in his fictional worlds.

There are those who argue that lack of homosexual & bisexual characters is, itself, a sign of homophobia; I don't go that far.

Ah. Got it. thx.
ApK

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by ficbot

For every person who challenged him on it, he outright dismissed them and in some cases even demanded that they go away and stop bothering him.

Ficbot, the people I "dismissed" were people who came into this thread, not to give constructive criticism, but to say right off " Steven disgusts me, so I refuse to buy his books."

Any other points I've challenged were things I've tried before, and which haven't worked in my experience. I've tried to explain my position, as opposed to blindly dismissing that which I did not want to hear. Not surprisingly, I find my own comments being dismissed as thoroughly as you say I have dismissed others.

I'm trying to keep an open mind here, despite a lot of negative comments and criticism. To be honest, I've heard little that has encouraged me to keep at this, especially given the prevalent attitude that I am damaged, insane, evil and not worth helping... which, considering the intended nature of this thread, has surprised me. The outright negativity in even the nicest comments is incredible in here... and for the record, they're not all from me.

I don't want anyone to think they have to help me, or that I'm begging for help. I asked for some guidance in order to make a decision, given a very negative personal opinion of the state of the market. That's all. It's up to you whether or not to try to sway that opinion, but I wouldn't want you or anyone else to get as upset over this thing as I am already. If conversing with me frustrates and angers you, you should walk away from this thread and find something else to do. Don't feel obligated to do anything for me; It's not worth raising your blood pressure over.

[ApK]

Steve,
Your current custom user title and signature both show signs of hope.....

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Pablo

I agree with Cory Doctorow's opinions, but of his books, I only liked "Little Brother" and some short stories, struggled through "For the win" and found the rest of them unreadable.

...

yeppers...I haven't read anything of his I particularly cared for including his opinions on writing, ebooks, etc.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by kennyc

yeppers...I haven't read anything of his I particularly cared for including his opinions on writing, ebooks, etc.

Ever read Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom? It is an illustration of exactly the kind of future I like to read about, and wish I could live in.

[caleb72]

I do agree with someone earlier about maybe updating the covers. I'm also not a fan of the blue strip with your name on it on the side of the book.

Sorry - that's probably a pretty small point.

Regards
Caleb

[ApK]

Originally Posted by caleb72

I'm also not a fan of the blue strip with your name on it on the side of the book.

Sorry - that's probably a pretty small point.

Regards
Caleb

Probably. But now that you bring it up, when I first went to the site and saw the blue stripe, for some reason, I thought they were romance novels.

ApK

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Hmm... I redesigned the covers to better brand them. I thought they were a distinct improvement on what I'd done previously. I guess I'll look at another try.

[Frida Fantastic]

@Steven

That's a good idea. It would be nice to hire a cover artist, but if you don't have the resources for it, it shouldn't be expensive to do yourself. Perhaps you could do a few basic "drafts" of some new covers, put it up on forums like here and ask which one works the best, and then use that one. We're not all graphic designers, but some simple changes or change in composition could make a cover go from "meh" to "pretty good."

[Worldwalker]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Thanks for telling me. So, if I wanted to get in touch with those companies, how should I go about it?

Communicating with a company is a lot like getting a job there. You need to find out who the right person is, get in touch with that person, and give them a reason to think that doing what you want (hiring you, talking about your book, whatever fits a given situation) is in their best interest.

Let's say you were hoping to have your book reviewed in the "new books" column of a hypothetical SF magazine -- we'll call it Digital. You could send a press release to someone at Digital, but they're not likely to read it. Everyone sends them press releases. There are nearly 1 million ebooks out for the Kindle. If we assume that all ebook writers publish through Amazon (even if they're also elsewhere), if just 10% of those are some form of SF, and if just 10% of those SF writers send out one press release each in a given year, assuming 250 working days per year, they're getting the things at a rate of 40 a day. If it takes 15 minutes to read and respond to each one (whether 'respond' includes replying, excerpting form it to print, or whatever) that's 10 hours a day -- a full-time employee and an assistant -- just dealing with press releases. And they're not paying a full-time employee to read press releases. So if you just send a press release to Digital, it's unlikely that they'll ever read it, let alone get back to you and request your book for review.

Find out who it is that you need to get in touch with. Research! Send that person a personal letter. People who work at magazines don't like form letters any more than the rest of us. In short, don't be like the other however-many-thousand people who are sending them press releases for them to ignore.

The thing you have to remember: You may be Mrs. Jordan's darling boy, but if you're one in a million, there are a dozen just like you in New York. No matter how good you think you are, they think you're one of the crowd. Succeeding requires standing out from that crowd.