Yesterday’s Book Bomb went much better than expected. You’ve got to understand, I’ve got a few set rules for running BBs that I’ve learned over time. Don’t do them too often. I try to never do more than one a month. Stick with plugging one book, don’t spread it out too much because it is all about putting momentum behind one object. Stick with books, because shorter works are really difficult to move up the charts.
Despite violating all of those things at once, and pushing a bunch of different short fiction things a week after we just did novellas, it still went surprisingly well. The only Amazon available item we didn’t get onto a bestseller list wasn’t even on the Sad Puppies suggestion list, and we still moved it up 1.5 million spots on Amazon. Everything else ended up somewhere on their respective lists, but most importantly the authors were exposed to new readers and Got Paid.
I posted the results in the BB thread. I’ve got to say, good work guys. Next week we’re going to do the same thing for the Campbell nominees for best new writer (the one I’m excited for is giant monster books, because I am a kaiju loving nerd) and Best Related Works.
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One of the short stories yesterday was available for free, and I know that was popular. However, because it was released right at the end of the year, and the copyright date wasn’t until the beginning of January so we’re trying to figure out if Tuesdays with Molakesh the Destroyer is actually eligible this year or not. I’ll let you know before the end of the voting deadline so you don’t waste any of your slots.
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But since you guys like free short stories, in addition to the Sad Puppies slate there is the even More Eviler RABID PUPPIES SLATE, prepared by Lord Voxemort the Malevolent. There are a couple of short stories on there I’d encourage you to take a look at, and here they are, FREE for your convenience:
The Parliament of Beasts and Birds by John C. Wright. http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-parliament-of-beasts-and-birds.html Which I have read, and it is great… But this is John C. Wright we’re talking about, who I think is one of the best wordsmiths alive.
Turncoat by Steve Rzasa http://voxday.blogspot.com/2014/08/turncoat.html which I’ve not read yet, but I’ve heard that it is really good.
And they’re both free, so check them out and I hope you enjoy them.
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And finally, last but not least, one of our Sad Puppies suggested nominees for best novel is Chuck Gannon’s Trial By Fire.
One of the things which has been said about Sad Puppies is that the authors we support don’t get awards, not because they fail to appease political cliques, but because we’re all just horrible, awful, terrible, shitty writers, and the mass consumer market that pays us large sums of money for our stuff are just stupid poopy heads.
But wait… Chuck Gannon’s Trial By Fire, which was already endorsed by Sad Puppies, has just been announced as a finalist for the Nebula Awards. So before they screech about Larry Correia’s evil ballot stuffing and crowd hypnosis, this is an award which can only be nominated by the ultra enlightened, cultural, always charming and never rude, immune to my nefarious mind control powers, members of SFWA.
Holy shit! Unpossible you say! Surely this is a fluke. Sad Puppies couldn’t possibly endorse something that some SFWA members would also think is good! This must be a fluke! It has been declared that Sad Puppies only pushes trash and pulp!
But wait. There’s more!
Now, you’ve probably heard how Sad Puppies writers are all big, mean, ugly,, and stupid, and how Larry Correia is “anti-intellectual” Sure, I went to college and got an accounting degree instead of something important like gender studies, but I hang out with rocket scientists and brain doctors and I’m teaching a creative writing class for Weber State soon, but whatever, it’s narrative, I hate education. Run with it. I don’t like SJWs, and they declare that they’re super smart because… stuff and reasons… ergo, Larry Correia hates smart people.It is hard to fault that logic.
On the contrary, Sad Puppies is not anti-intellectual. We’re anti-boring. Though to be fair I can see how they’d come up with that theory, since there is a lot of crossover, but let’s take a look at NEBULA NOMINEE Chuck Gannon’s resume for a moment.
Oh, wait. That’s Professor Chuck Gannon to you,
Distinguished Professor of English and Director of Graduate Program in English (SBU, ret.); Fulbright Senior Specialist in American Literature & Culture (2004-2009).
Four Fulbright Fellowships, three accepted (England, Czech Republic, Scotland) one declined (Moldova)
Two Fulbright Travel Grants: Slovakia, Netherlands
Six International Senior Scholar Grants, US Embassy: UK (4), Czech Republic (2)
One International Scholar Grant, U.S. Consulate: 1 (Scotland), 2004.
University Fellow (at various levels): Palacky University (Czech Republic), University of Liverpool, Fordham University, Temple University, Syracuse University,
PhD and MA, Fordham University (honors)
MS, S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communication, Syracuse University (honors)
BA, Brown University (magna cum laude.)
Whew… Okay, now I know that isn’t a “Concentration” in The Collective Unconscious by any means, but to this poor country auditor, all them big words make Chuck sound like one of them smart folks. I had to ask Chuck what all that stuff meant, but he said it means he knows the book learnings pretty good.
Sadly, not a single one of his many degrees is in Gender Studies, but we’ll let that slide… For now.
So, the book isn’t trash, SFWA members said so, and he’s one of them educated types, so obviously Larry Correia must be suggesting this novel because of Gannon’s politics… Except, wait a second… Hold on. Nobody knows what Gannon’s politics are. He’s an intellectual and an academic who gets along great in that community, he’ll debate policy and positions, and he has no patience for churlish posers.
Beyond that, the dude gets a big fat question mark in the politics box.
Basically, everybody who talks to Chuck comes away saying what a reasonable, intelligent, articulate, moderate person he is.Don’t take my word for it. Go talk to him and decide for yourself.
Chuck’s good and deserves the recognition, but his problem is that he’s too busying being brilliant to spend sufficient time kissing any WorldCon voting clique’s ass enough to get himself a Hugo nom. He’s a brilliant author, but he’s not a darling of the In Crowd. Wait… This sounds like the exact sort of thing that makes puppies sad!
So why did the Evil Legion of Evil promote this guy’s book?
Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we’re telling the truth and YOU SHOULD READ THE BOOK BECAUSE IT IS GOOD.
