Vox Day’s conservative publishing company Castalia House has book pulled from Amazon

[Cyberman tM]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Judging by your description they are far more likely to return with something by Asimov anyway, so that's a bonus.

Hah, true.
Hopefully they end up buying both books (Asimov & Scalzi).

Really stretching now, so if you were buying a book for someone, you would go off a vague memory of how it looked rather than the author and title?

No, I'd probably ask them to mail me the title and name.
What I tried to suggest is that unless you have very specific instructions, you're likely to get it wrong.
The human mind is NOT precise. The opposite rather.
Which is why there are laws against too closely copying designs, because it can and will fool consumers.

Originally Posted by DrNefario

Every time someone posts in this thread, the man's name and the name of his publishing (out)house get pushed to the top of the forum and give him a nice little publicity boost, and I sigh.

Hrm.
True enough. Fortunately the title isn't really positive, but good point nonetheless.

[gbm]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have read some reviews where it was said that the book was bought by mistake. So yes, it happens because of the too similar nature of the cover.

So you read a fake review--how do I know it is fake, at the time Kindle was the only format for The Corroding Empire it did not have the Amazon Verified Purchase notation.


bernie

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

Only if they themselves are buying the book.

What if the purchase is indirect? I.e. "When you go to *bookstore* please pick up the new Scalzi for me - "Collapsing Empire", here's a picture ".

How large does the potential group have to be until a significant number of wrong books are purchased? Unless it's written down, or the person has eidetic memory, they're only going to remember how the name sounds and the cover was blue with planets and ships and something about a ruined empire.

Yes, most sensible people will check twice. Someone in a hurry might not because they don't even imagine the possibility that there might be two similar books.

Oh come on. I like hypotheticals as much as the next guy. But what you are talking about can not happen. For one thing, there is no paper copy of the book.

Then, even if there were, a store would order numerous copies of a new Scalzi book. It would be prominently displayed in the sci-fi section and likely in the new releases section.

The Kalsi book would have very few copies in stock (if any). And a place like Walmart that has a much smaller book section would likely stock zero copies. In the book stores that did carry a copy, it would be filed away, under 'K', so it wouldn't even be close to the other John Scalzi books.

And finally, if someone still managed to grab the Kalsi book instead of the Scalzi, at some point they have to take some responsibility.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by gbm

So you read a fake review--how do I know it is fake, at the time Kindle was the only format for The Corroding Empire it did not have the Amazon Verified Purchase notation.


bernie

The reviewer can choose to turn off the Amazon verified purchase. So the lack of an AVP proves nothing.
Now the review may be real because a lot of people will blame something when because they weren't paying attention they make a mistake.
So I would take that review with a grain of salt.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by gbm

So you read a fake review--how do I know it is fake, at the time Kindle was the only format for The Corroding Empire it did not have the Amazon Verified Purchase notation.


bernie

You don't get Amazon Verified Purchase if it's a returned eBook.

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You don't get Amazon Verified Purchase if it's a returned eBook.

I sent you a pm on your question.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Cyberman tM

What I tried to suggest is that unless you have very specific instructions, you're likely to get it wrong.
The human mind is NOT precise. The opposite rather.
Which is why there are laws against too closely copying designs, because it can and will fool consumers.

That's true, a neighbour of mine went to complain about the state of a farmers fence and came back with a beagle/collie cross puppy.

Essentially, some people shouldn't be allowed out unsupervised (Although to be fair the dogs only problem is chasing cyclists down the canal)

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Cinisajoy

I sent you a pm on your question.

Got it. Thanks.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Scalzi can give as good as he gets. He doesn't need his fans to fight his battles for him.

This was posted last week:

Second, I recognize that the haters generally have a pretty low impact on my life, professionally or personally. Despite several years of committed hater action against me, including the active attempt to spread lies about my character and the state of my career, I’m one of the best-selling, best-known authors in my genre (and do pretty well overall as a writer), with lots of friends and colleagues, and some enviable professional opportunities. If my haters have been trying to drag me down (more on that in a second), they are delightfully incompetent at it, and have been for a while. I’ll note that this is a result specific to me; other people with other haters may have other, different and more serious problems with theirs.

Fourth, I’ve come to realize that some people are using hating me primarily as a transactional enterprise; they see some personal business advantage to holding me up as someone to be hated, and doing so allows them to, say, peddle to the gullible and strident wares that they might not otherwise be able to profitably market. To this respect the hating isn’t actually about me — if I didn’t exist, they’d just pick someone else who suited their needs. That being the case, why get worked up about it? Especially if it’s not having any noticeable effect on my own personal or professional fortunes.

Specific, embarrassingly devoted hater and his pals: I don’t have much time for this dude anymore, and I suspect it really bothers him. Cultivating the idea of a feud between us is a cornerstone of his publishing strategy, and asserting equivalency in our careers is how he tries to convince others he’s important. And while it’s nice every now and again to raise lots of money for charitable causes off his obsession with me, in a general sense I’ve been kind of busy. I pretty much don’t think of him unless he’s jumping up and down to get my attention, or trying to make a buck off my name. It’s a lopsided deal — he needs me, but I don’t need him for anything. My real annoyance at this point is that other folks are unintentionally doing this jerk’s desperately attention-seeking work for him, sending me updates on the latest nonsense he’s saying or doing, involving the version of me he peddles to his pals. If all y’all could resist the temptation, I’d be obliged. I don’t actually care about this dude.

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2017/04/1...eal-with-them/

[theducks]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Similar picture, same font and same text layout. It's a blatant rip-off and if you don't see it as such, I feel sorry for you because Vox Day has a thing for John Scalzi and that's why he had this cover made the way it is.

Gah!
This sounds like the old Lotus 123 suit against Borland because the put the menu at the bottom of the screen (row 24 of a 80 col TEXT only screen).
Thankfully the court said no!, but not before Borland suffered from the drain.

[GrannyGrump]

This thread is long, I haven't read thoroughly. (and here am I, making it even longer...)

Was info already posted about "Corroding Empire" being an intentional parody?

http://neveryetmelted.com/2017/03/21...scalzi-parody/

******
While I'm thinking about it --- cover-creation advice blogs tell self-pubbers to google other books *similar to their own* and use those covers as inspiration for their own cover -- to attract readers of *that genre*. So we are going to see more and more clones of book covers.

And frankly, it already feels like 75% of scifi books use blue/cyan color scheme (sometimes with magenta highlights), planets and/or stars in background, and hulking spaceships. So what's the surprise that they tend to look like the love-child result of an incestuous relationship?

[meeera]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

This thread is long, I haven't read thoroughly. (and here am I, making it even longer...)

Was info already posted about "Corroding Empire" being an intentional parody?

http://neveryetmelted.com/2017/03/21...scalzi-parody/

Interesting source - and one written either by someone very ignorant about SF publishing, or deliberately obtuse. Tor is not remotely a "minor" publisher in the F/SF field.

[GrannyGrump]

@meeera --- I interpreted the phrase " (who knew that such a minor publisher had that kind of power?) " as referring to VOX DAY, not to TOR. I took this meaning:
"who knew Vox Day (minor house) could upset the (major) publishing house TOR?"

Ambiguous phrasing by the article's author, though. He should have asked a MobileRead member to proofread for him, we could fix that for him.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by GrannyGrump

@meeera --- I interpreted the phrase " (who knew that such a minor publisher had that kind of power?) " as referring to VOX DAY, not to TOR. I took this meaning:
"who knew Vox Day (minor house) could upset the (major) publishing house TOR?"

I'm not sure how you're getting that from the whole context, but *shrug*. Bad writing's bad writing, I guess.

All this seems rather funny, but Tor Books was not amused and (who knew that such a minor publisher had that kind of power?) promptly prevailed on the great and powerful Amazon to remove the parody.

Protecting trade dress has nothing to do with how 'powerful' the people infringing it are. You either enforce it or lose it. "Hah! I managed to get you to notice me! Look at mee!" doesn't make a person powerful.

[GrannyGrump]

Originally Posted by meeera

Protecting trade dress has nothing to do with how 'powerful' the people infringing it are. You either enforce it or lose it. "Hah! I managed to get you to notice me! Look at mee!" doesn't make a person powerful.

Oh, agreed. Tor is rightfully protecting its territory. (and sadly, giving the parody a lot of free publicity along the way). I am only surprised there haven't been more incidents of this kind --- perhaps there will be more in the future...