- Joined
- Dec 16, 2019
In reference to the NerdCubed video above:
Did he say "five years worth of pre-sale money"? He's been working on this book for half a fucking decade? C'mon dude, you're not George R. R Martin. Eventually you have to deliver a product. Maybe I don't know the full story behind it [because I stopped paying attention to Dan's channel when he decided to rebrand his channel eight times and make videos complaining about politics instead of video games] but it seems reasonable to expect an author to produce something in five years time.
Gonna listen to the rest of it and add shit in as I go:
>used an "innovative" publisher that used a bunch of gobbledy-gook to claim they could never publish a flop
Yeah that sounds too good to be true for a prospective author and there are likely pages of fine-print that you signed indicating that this outcome was plausible.
And in this regard, I know Dan isn't the name he once was, but given that he once [at the start of this project] had a built-in audience for his work and likely enough money to start, why not crowdfund and self-publish?
>publisher didn't actually give him his cut of royalties, using it for a second-print that nobody asked him about.
If true, that's fair to be pissed off about and sounds like bullshit. I think Dan's a sperg but yeah, that sucks.
>used AI to throw together examples for his new book's cover
I'm actually surprised Dan is willing to use AI considering most Redditoids [he is basically the prototypical Redditor] hate AI because it's "STEALING FROM MUH ARTISTS!!!", but for examples/mock-ups, it actually is perfect. +1 respect.
>publishers input and editing ruined the flow of the book
Common problem in publishing that's only going to get worse as more and more companies start offloading work to LLMs to save money paying actual people to do it.
>got disgruntled that he then had to edit and proofread his own book
Yeah that's also fair but sometimes you have to do it. I fucking hate proofreading my own shit too but publishers seldom "get it" and as such you have to check their work and hover over them like you're supervising your kid while they're doing dishes.
>original publisher went under, got bought out by another company headed by the same people at the top
That should have been a big fucking clue to run, although at this point it may have been too far down the pipeline. This reeks of shell company 'trying to get out of liability/debts' fuckery.
>presales didn't count toward making the best-seller's list
I mean that sucks but you can still ship a profitable book without ending up on said list.
>publisher did an 85% off sale without permission
That also sucks but perhaps there is a chance that it was not doing as well as you thought, although given the fuckery afoot thus far, I can't blame you for being suspicious about it.
Basically even though I dislike Dan and find him to be a sperg, it certainly does sound like he [and other people] got fucked pretty hard, but the only real solution is to take it to court, which it appears he's already doing.
Did he say "five years worth of pre-sale money"? He's been working on this book for half a fucking decade? C'mon dude, you're not George R. R Martin. Eventually you have to deliver a product. Maybe I don't know the full story behind it [because I stopped paying attention to Dan's channel when he decided to rebrand his channel eight times and make videos complaining about politics instead of video games] but it seems reasonable to expect an author to produce something in five years time.
Gonna listen to the rest of it and add shit in as I go:
>used an "innovative" publisher that used a bunch of gobbledy-gook to claim they could never publish a flop
Yeah that sounds too good to be true for a prospective author and there are likely pages of fine-print that you signed indicating that this outcome was plausible.
And in this regard, I know Dan isn't the name he once was, but given that he once [at the start of this project] had a built-in audience for his work and likely enough money to start, why not crowdfund and self-publish?
>publisher didn't actually give him his cut of royalties, using it for a second-print that nobody asked him about.
If true, that's fair to be pissed off about and sounds like bullshit. I think Dan's a sperg but yeah, that sucks.
>used AI to throw together examples for his new book's cover
I'm actually surprised Dan is willing to use AI considering most Redditoids [he is basically the prototypical Redditor] hate AI because it's "STEALING FROM MUH ARTISTS!!!", but for examples/mock-ups, it actually is perfect. +1 respect.
>publishers input and editing ruined the flow of the book
Common problem in publishing that's only going to get worse as more and more companies start offloading work to LLMs to save money paying actual people to do it.
>got disgruntled that he then had to edit and proofread his own book
Yeah that's also fair but sometimes you have to do it. I fucking hate proofreading my own shit too but publishers seldom "get it" and as such you have to check their work and hover over them like you're supervising your kid while they're doing dishes.
>original publisher went under, got bought out by another company headed by the same people at the top
That should have been a big fucking clue to run, although at this point it may have been too far down the pipeline. This reeks of shell company 'trying to get out of liability/debts' fuckery.
>presales didn't count toward making the best-seller's list
I mean that sucks but you can still ship a profitable book without ending up on said list.
>publisher did an 85% off sale without permission
That also sucks but perhaps there is a chance that it was not doing as well as you thought, although given the fuckery afoot thus far, I can't blame you for being suspicious about it.
Basically even though I dislike Dan and find him to be a sperg, it certainly does sound like he [and other people] got fucked pretty hard, but the only real solution is to take it to court, which it appears he's already doing.