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Posted: 27 Dec 2008 17:48
by Omphalos
TheDukester wrote:SandChigger wrote:To truly hate a thing, you must know it well.
Disagree. I loathe Hacky and Whatsisface as much as it is humanly possible to loathe; I don't need to literally
suffer through something like Paul of Dune to make that the case.
Their wholesale pillaging of a literary classic and destruction of FH's legacy has very little to do with the actual order in which they put down the words; it matters little to me whether PoD is truly awful to the point of causing cancer of the eyes or if it's merely complete and utter shit. That's a fine point that does little to address the larger issues of the HLP's lack of editorial oversight, their hiring of a notorious hack, and the Herbert family selling out their own flesh and blood for a once-a-year paycheck.
Hating the assholes and hating their works are two different things. You can say that you hate what they write, and you can say that you hate them, but until you have read the books you cannot say why you hate that particular book, and knowing exactly why something sucks is a big part of the battle against them, and its critical to being a part of the debate. Ethics dictates that, and we may be vehement, but we are ethical over here and in our camp.
Why do you think they come over here to read what we write? So they know what it is they are up against. Personally, I cant take reading every word they write. I was not a part of the Sandworms debate, and I was not part of the Paul debate, because I did not read either book. But I think I will read this one. Just so I can join the fun.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 00:41
by Freakzilla
Baraka Bryan wrote:sad part is, it's hardly even fun anymore... it's just saddening
Agreed
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 11:17
by SandRider
Salon.com wrote:
Amazon.con
How the online retail giant hoodwinks the press.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Saturday, Dec. 27, 2008, at 3:00 PM ET
I am the most successful writer in the United States. Based on what, you ask? You'll just have to take my word for it. Not good enough, you say? Then why is it good enough when Amazon claims to be the most successful retailer in the United States?
The day after Christmas, Amazon put out a press release declaring the 2008 holiday season "its best ever, with over 6.3 million items ordered worldwide on the peak day, Dec. 15." The story was eagerly snapped up by the Associated Press, Reuters, the Washington Post, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and even the Web site for Business Week, which really ought to know better. Some, but not all, of these accounts went on to concede that Amazon would not provide revenue data for the entire shopping season, or even for its "peak day." Nor would Amazon confirm or deny that one or both of these revenue figures exceeded those for 2007. Without this information, we can't possibly know whether Amazon had a good year in comparison either to other retailers or to its own sales during the previous Christmas shopping season.
The same gullibility applies to coverage of the Kindle, Amazon's e-book reader. The New York Times reported on Dec. 23 that "the e-book has started to take hold." We "know" this "in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com's Kindle device," which is "out of stock and unavailable until February." The Post fronted essentially the same story in its business section on Dec. 27. But these newspapers were unable to report how many Kindles Amazon sold, much less how much revenue these sales generated, because Amazon won't release that information. We don't even know whether Amazon sold more Kindles this year than last. Amazon is famously stingy with financial numbers generally. This Christmas season, that's proving to be a winning strategy in dealing with a business press that, between layoffs and the usual holiday vacations, appears short-staffed to the point of utter witlessness.
I woke up this morning thinking about this one :
Duke in Shut Up, Byron, wrote:SandRider, quoting Brian Herbert, wrote:We're not going to milk this. We're not going to carry on too far.
Which means the public must be absolutely
clamoring for Jessica of Dune, right?
can one of you people who understand the publishing industry point me to where I could find
real sales data for "Paul of Dune" ? Along with data for books released in the same time period ?
maybe then an independant determination could be made regarding the commercial success or failure of
PoD.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 12:05
by SandChigger
Byron always claimed that they didn't have truly accurate sales data for any of the books, and that it was almost next to impossible to get data from the publishers.
That always sounded a bit suss to me: how the fuck can they be sure they're receiving the proper royalty payments then? (This could just be
Byron with his fingers up his ass again as usual. After all, when we were discussing the ridiculous prospect of waterworms, he claimed that we couldn't necessarily assume a connection between the cover illustration and content of the book because there was normally no contact between authors and illustrators. Then that suck-up WebDud came through a little later and said that Stephen Youll had in fact received input from Kevin and the other guy. So basically everything Byron tells you should be taken with a pound of salt.)
Maybe Omph knows where to look for sales figures, but the publishers may not make that much detail available to outsiders.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 12:32
by Freakzilla
Just look at the dust jacket, does it say "Best Seller" already?
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 12:32
by TheDukester
Not to mention that sales figures are really pre-order figures when you parse the language down to what it actually represents.
That's the reason that books can enter the best-seller lists in their first week of release: it has nothing to do with "sales" — actual people walking up to cash registers — and everything to do with what is basically a guess.
PoD debuted on the NYT list based on X pre-orders reported by TOR (I think I saw the figure in Publisher's Weekly; I'll try to find it), but that doesn't address how well it has sold. For that, you'd need to take the pre-order figure and subtract all of the copies gathering dust at bookstores around the world.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 12:45
by TheDukester
Found it: pre-orders for Pauline of Dune (or at least what was reported to PW) were apparently 250,000.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article ... =paul+dune
(Scroll to Sept. 16).
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 13:11
by SandChigger
Those are definitely pre-orders and not the number of copies printed in the first run?
I just assumed it was the latter, but I don't see any explanation.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 13:26
by Freakzilla
Even with my usual disdain for half the population, I find it hard to believe that many suckers ordered this book.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 13:37
by DuneFishUK
Guessing pre-orders is pre-orders by bookshops/online retailers/etc estimating how many units they can flog based on past performance?
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 14:04
by DuneFishUK
There's not a single copy of POD left in any of my local bookshops. It looked like each originally had 4 copies (2HB, 2oversizedPB)... and it looks like they haven't re-ordered.
I think POD did quite well Stateside, but you're only as good as your last book and I don't imagine it did nearly as well as Sandworms did.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 14:50
by TheDukester
DuneFishUK wrote:... I don't imagine it did nearly as well as Sandworms did.
It didn't, at least in terms of KJA's absolute favorite I-mention-it-even-when-I'm-not-asked-statistic: NYT best-seller list.
We researched this in a different thread, but the summary would be: Sandworms debuted higher, stayed in the top 15 longer, and stayed on the "others to mention" list longer. Pauline was here-and-gone before the leaves fell.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 15:23
by GamePlayer
Freakzilla wrote:Even with my usual disdain for half the population, I find it hard to believe that many suckers ordered this book.
Only half? You're an optimist!
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 15:26
by Freakzilla
GamePlayer wrote:Freakzilla wrote:Even with my usual disdain for half the population, I find it hard to believe that many suckers ordered this book.
Only half? You're an optimist!
Based on my assumption that half of all people are below average intelligence.
I have no tollerance for stupidity. If you're in the upper half I'll give you the benifit of a doubt.
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 15:39
by GamePlayer
I'm afraid to ask
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 15:45
by Robspierre
Basically the reporting of sales figures to authors from publishers is a bit of trust. It is in the publishers interest to report fairly accurate figures to the author to avoid being audited and having to fork over damages yet at the same time they want to be vague because they do not want to reveal just how the system works.
The comic book industry is very similar and even more secretive when it comes to sale figures.
Rob
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 15:49
by Omphalos
This does not seem too out of balance to me. They are best selling authors, after all, and this is Dune. But I wonder if this figure includes second-run SFBC estimates?
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 16:55
by SandRider
Baraka Bryan wrote:DuneFishUK wrote:There's not a single copy of POD left in any of my local bookshops. It looked like each originally had 4 copies (2HB, 2oversizedPB)... and it looks like they haven't re-ordered.
I think POD did quite well Stateside, but you're only as good as your last book and I don't imagine it did nearly as well as Sandworms did.
the same 2 copies I moved a couple months ago from the Dune section to be filed under KJA were still there when I went about 2 weeks ago.
same with the one copy the mall franchise bookstore in the LittleBigTown,
it's still shelved with the Scientology where I put it before Thanksgiving !
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 17:10
by Omphalos
SandRider wrote:Baraka Bryan wrote:DuneFishUK wrote:There's not a single copy of POD left in any of my local bookshops. It looked like each originally had 4 copies (2HB, 2oversizedPB)... and it looks like they haven't re-ordered.
I think POD did quite well Stateside, but you're only as good as your last book and I don't imagine it did nearly as well as Sandworms did.
the same 2 copies I moved a couple months ago from the Dune section to be filed under KJA were still there when I went about 2 weeks ago.
same with the one copy the mall franchise bookstore in the LittleBigTown,
it's still shelved with the Scientology where I put it before Thanksgiving !
I was in the Borders on Fair Oaks in Sacto before and after Christmas. Looked and took a mental note, and did not see any movement at all of any of the Dune books, but all the origianals were sold out, and the crap new ones were everywhere. Yippee!
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 17:31
by trang
read them all, commented on them all, hate them and the words they right. Following that equation I will read JOD and hate them and and it.
The used book stores are choked full of preq/Seq books, hard/soft cover. Havent seen POD yet but will get there eventually.
POD was the worst of all the books they have written, hands down.
Will pop over to amazon when I get to work and light it up as best I can.
Butthead and Kockknocker should be banned from writing. The grand masters left alive, all the ones who have past, and FH should rise up and soul shock the hell out of those two. A whammy curses on their hands so when they try to write they loose all muscle function. Maybe even get violently Ill when the go near a computer or any kind of writing device.
The battle continues...!!!
The Spice Must Flow!!
Long live the fighters for Orthodoxy!!!
Trang
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 18:07
by TheDukester
SandRider wrote:same with the one copy the mall franchise bookstore in the LittleBigTown,
it's still shelved with the Scientology where I put it before Thanksgiving !
Ah, re-shelving ... that's just good, clean fun!
(I'll be at B&N later tonight ... hmmm, wonder if I should move Kurt and The Other Guy over into "outdoors" or something?
)
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 19:31
by Freakzilla
TheDukester wrote:SandRider wrote:same with the one copy the mall franchise bookstore in the LittleBigTown,
it's still shelved with the Scientology where I put it before Thanksgiving !
Ah, re-shelving ... that's just good, clean fun!
(I'll be at B&N later tonight ... hmmm, wonder if I should move Kurt and The Other Guy over into "outdoors" or something?
)
If only they had the opposite of a "self-help" section...
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 20:54
by Robspierre
Freakzilla wrote:TheDukester wrote:SandRider wrote:same with the one copy the mall franchise bookstore in the LittleBigTown,
it's still shelved with the Scientology where I put it before Thanksgiving !
Ah, re-shelving ... that's just good, clean fun!
(I'll be at B&N later tonight ... hmmm, wonder if I should move Kurt and The Other Guy over into "outdoors" or something?
)
If only they had the opposite of a "self-help" section...
Also known as the Religion section
Rob
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 23:26
by Robspierre
MICAH wrote:one of y'all needs to tag it as 'sligshit' like you did for POD
Ask and ye shall receive
Rob
Posted: 29 Dec 2008 23:57
by trang
Post over at JOD page on AMAZON to stir the fire!!! (here for retreival in case of Deletion)
"The entire idea of HEROES OF DUNE is a train wreck to begin with. PAUL OF DUNE (yes own and have read) was the worst writing they have done to date. Most authors (of any skill level) are supposed to get better as they practice their craft. These two were terrible at best to begin with, but continue to stretch the dimension of deplorable writing. If PAUL OF DUNE was any indication of whats to come, GODEMPEROR SAVE US PLEASE.
I would ask before any more idiotic writing is done, the HLP disown Brian, Kick KJA to the curb, Disavow the existance of all the heresy they have spewed out, and make a public statement that they are returning to the Orthodoxy that Frank created.
I further challenge them to take the moneys they have piled up using the DUNE name, and have a Hard Cover reprint of all 6 of originals, selling them at paperback price. These reprints should include the notes of FH, if they exist, and apology letter to the fans. With a promise to the fans they will seek out a talented, interested, Author, of at least GRAND MASTER Level, approach and offer project to create a true continuation/finale to the originals. Someone who actually can follow the continuity of the original story, expand based on the content, provide a depth that honors the originals. A tall order to be sure, but 10 more years of this stuff from BH/KJA is going to kill a small part of the literary world.
BH/KJA have watched the Dark knight and Hancock to many times. Paul, (with his trusty sidekicks jessica, Irulan, and leto II) the Super Powered Caped Crusader in the the next action packed saturday sci-fi serial episode is not DUNE.
Jessica of Dune is already a train wreck and it hasnt even left the station.
While were at it HLP have Peter Berg flogged and Quartered for ever thinking he had a
chance at grasping what DUNE CANON is.
end rant,
Roger/Trang
Proud Orthodox Herbertarian