Publishing Empire?

This is not really a post, just a note that I’m quite confused here.

This video interview was posted on Wednesday August 26th. I confess that I couldn’t watch it all the way through, because I find the whole gimmick¹ embarrassing.

Worth: Lord of Reckoning, by Grace Burrowes

This book was free back in April, before the reading slump from Hell struck, and has been sitting in ye olde kindle app since.

This is one of two novels by Ms Burrowes that were nominated for this year’s RITA Award for long historical (the other one was Douglas: Lord of Heartache, which I had read a few months ago).

I originally thought, after being unable to finish reading The Summer of You for July’s TBR Challenge, that this novel would do, but, well, reading slump from Hell, you know?

Worth: Lord of Reckoning, by Grace Burrowes

This is the eleventh book in The Lonely Lords, a loosely connected series. As far as I can tell, for whatever reasons, some of these were published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, and others have been self-published. This books is one of the latter, and I had a lot of issues with it.

Here’s the blurb:

The Hugos, the puppies, no awards, and more.

(Originally posted in the literature section at MyMedia, here, and here, and here)

A while back I wrote a short post about the crowdfunding of Lightspeed Magazine’s issue on queer writers ‘destroying’ science fiction. I also mentioned that the year before they did the same for women writers. (You can read the thread here.)

Among other reactions, I was told that women have always written science fiction–which is true, though often women writers have to hide their gender behind neutral initials or male pseudonyms.

I mention this discussion as a sort of tangential introduction to the topic of the 2015 Hugo Awards.

Those of you who are avid science fiction readers are probably all up to date on the controversy, and thus need no primer. For the rest, this article on Wired has a pretty decent sum up–though there are a few issues, some of which were corrected and addressed in the end notes.

Here is a link to a series of tweets by an author who happens not to be a straight white male. The link opens a tweet in the middle of the conversation; I suggest scrolling up and then reading the whole thing.

A couple of things on the EC v DA suit (the Ann Jacobs update)

After a few months of quiet, shit is getting real (h/t to Courtney Milan).

Ellora’s Cave author Ann Jacobs has filed a motion to intervene as a third party in the defamation lawsuit against Dear Author. Ms Jacobs also filed a counterclaim to the suit.

Courtney Milan is hosting both documents (motion to intervene, counterclaim), and she also explains what this means, here. Deirdre Saoirse Moen discusses her own perspective here.

I call your attention to the discussion, in Ms Milan’s blog, of what this motion by Ms Jacobs can mean for all the many–oh so many!–Ellora’s Cave authors, and other subcontractors, who can make the argument that the publisher breached its contracts with them. The fact that a class action against Ellora’s Cave, that would benefit people who have been mistreated–late payments, incorrect royalty statements and checks, derogatory statements by Tina Engler/Jaid Black about the very people who made EC succeed, and more–is legally possible…