Posted on 02/09/2016 6:16:03 PM PST by GrootheWanderer
I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing. I had to. My Publisher, HarperVoyager, refused to publish it because of some of the ideas I wrote about in it. In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals. They felt my ideas weren’t socially acceptable and were “guaranteed to lose fifty percent of my audience†as related back to me by my agent. But more importantly… they were “deeply offended.â€
A little backstory. A few years back I wrote a novel called Soda Pop Soldier. It was the last obligated novel under my first contract. The novel was a critical hit (Starred Review in Publisher’s Weekly) and it resonated with my post-apocalyptic readership from my breakout Amazon best seller, The Old Man and the Wasteland, and it picked up a new audience in the cyberpunk and gamer crowd. The novel is about a future dystopia where people play video games for a living. It’s basically Call of Duty meets Ready Player One and a lot of people really enjoyed it. When it came time to write another book for Harper Collins I was encouraged by my editor to dip once more into the Dystopian Gamer milieu and tell another story inside the Soda Pop Soldier universe. We agreed on a prequel that told the story of how that future became the way it is in Soda Pop Soldier.
And that involved talking about Artificial Intelligence because in the dystopian gaming future, the planet had almost been destroyed by a robot revolution sourced by Artificial Intelligence.
(Excerpt) Read more at nickcolebooks.com ...
Then gave them they manuscript for a book in which intelligent machines see a TV show in which a woman has an abortion and decide that if humans can kill their children so easily, what might they do to them.
He noted that it's not a message book. He just wanted to have an explanation for why the machines are trying to wipe out mankind other than the old "We are superior to humans" story.
But his editor absolutely refused to accept the book unless he changed that.
Sorry about that. I did a search and nothing showed up. I just have misspelled publisher and didn’t catch it.
ping
The big publishing houses have a long history of censoring conservative thought.
First of all, great screen name. Second of all, as a writer myself, I’ve railed against self-publishing just because way too many people use it as a way to “publish” books that probably required 10 more revisions or a more skilled author before seeing print. This does not seem to be the case for your latest. Third of all, I shall pick up a digital copy tomorrow.
Dammit. Just because I was typing on my phone and my daughter was calling me, I forgot to add the requisite reference where intended...
“As any idiot can plainly see, this does not seem to be the case for your latest.”
Sigh. Totally blew that.
Uuuuugh. “As any fool can plainly see..”
Sigh. I should just call it a night.
Don't worry about it. I try to be careful and I still average one duplicate thread per week. I think half of my abuse reports are against myself. :)
I am going to have to get a copy.
I am going to have to get a copy.
Also posted here:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3394873/posts
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