The Fault in Amazon’s Stars

The Fault in Amazon’s Stars

If, like me, you thought books' star ratings on KDP were pure mathematical averages of review scores, Amazon is here to correct that assumption. You can find this message by going to a book's Amazon page, clicking on the number of reviews, shown next to its star rating, and hovering…
June 5, 20192 Comments
The Amazon Age

The Amazon Age

Pulp Archivist takes to Twitter to ask: Oldpub is dead. The Amazon age is truly upon us. How do publishers make money? You might say, "by selling books," and you'd be wrong. Books aren't commodities like TVs and toothpaste. They're pure information. Nobody buys just one book, and eBooks have…
March 4, 201916 Comments
Amazon: The Tiger Strikes

Amazon: The Tiger Strikes

Since the launch of the Kindle and KDP, we've had doomsayers--mostly tradpub authors, editors, and agents--prophesying Amazon's imminent descent into tyranny. Most forecasts of impending woe were founded on the premise that Amazon is a monopoly, and as such would impose draconian royalty terms on authors as soon as the…
September 11, 20189 Comments
A Detailed Road Map

A Detailed Road Map

A reader writes: Say Mr. Niemeier, when you write a multi-book saga like say the Soul Cycle, do you just write it out book by book or do you have a detailed kind of road-map before you put pen to paper? I answer: I outline extensively. For the Soul Cycle…
August 9, 20188 Comments
We Are the Industry

We Are the Industry

The gatekeepers of legacy print and comic book publishing have a habit of referring to themselves as "the Industry". Claiming that exclusive label may have been justified when the only alternatives were underground comics Xeroxed at the library or vanity presses. That claim started to sound disingenuous with the explosion…
July 31, 20185 Comments
SFF Death Report Greatly Exaggerated

SFF Death Report Greatly Exaggerated

Longtime readers may remember when I posted this graph: That image made the rounds and caused a bit of a stir in certain indie quarters a couple years back. Most of us sensed that the market for science fiction books had drastically shrunk since the good old days. A lot…
July 25, 201816 Comments
False Moral Equivalence

False Moral Equivalence

A blogger finds fault with my moral calculus equating paypigs who sell out their culture for a pot of message fic to Americans who aided and abetted communists. “Stop giving money to people who hate you.” Brian Niemeier has taken this to an extreme: From now on, I will regard…
June 27, 201825 Comments
21st Century Publishing

21st Century Publishing

Red Pill Religion put on quite a show last night. It was my honor to join new pub all-stars Nick Cole, John C. Wright, and Russell Newquist for a rousing and informative discussion of 21st century publishing strategies. It comes as a surprise to me that some aspiring authors haven't…
June 18, 20184 Comments
Son of Return of Amazon Zombie Memes

Son of Return of Amazon Zombie Memes

Legacy media stooge David Leonhardt took up his pen the other day to add a clueless editorial to the august body of clueless New York Times editorials. The target of Leonhardt's poison pen was Amazon, which makes his editorial a double threat since it also expands the canon of mainstream…
May 9, 201819 Comments
Review Meta Fail

Review Meta Fail

Self-publishing guru David Gaughran may have shed some light on the recent review purge by Amazon. There’s an article doing the rounds at the moment from the Washington Post suggesting that the Amazon is undergoing some kind of fake review crisis. There are problems with Amazon reviews, of course, but…
April 30, 20186 Comments