So much is happening today. I had a planned piece that I’m going to post tomorrow instead, as there’s just been too much sci-fi news to keep up with. Even posting my thoughts on the Hugos has already been scooped by Declan Finn, so I’m going to focus on something that I haven’t seen talked about: the raw numbers.
A big SJW virtue signal meme that I see quite often is “this is a real fan” usually with some half-clothed girl in costume or something like that, as if there are roving hordes of people going around telling them they’re not. That’s the fantasy world the SJWs live in, where everyone is a victim, the tired mentality that has made their fandom scenes unfun, and filled with aging faces. While perhaps high schoolers talk like that, the only other people that do are the SJWs themselves (SJWs Always Project, someone once wrote). This is why their conventions dwindle in numbers with an ever aging base, as they actually shun the youth for enjoying anime, comics, Larry Correia, you know, the stuff that’s not “real science fiction”. These are the same people that spend whole panels at their conventions mocking extremely successful YA books like Twilight, because they aren’t “real vampires“. There was a huge rabid fanbase ready to come into the fold, and they were told they’re not welcome. So they went away. How ironic.
Of course, in recent years, they’ve been telling anyone who’s a conservative or Christian that they’re not real fans, and not welcome at their conventions, certainly never allowed to speak. And so the Sad Puppies were born, and had a good run for a few years before once again, just like their projecting meme, the establishment behind the Hugos said “these are not real fans” and changed the rules to make it impossible for anyone but their chosen to get noticed.
The Puppies pulled out. I promised you numbers, and here’s what we have.
Best Novel: 2,078 ballots in 2017 vs. 3,695 ballots in 2016, a 44% drop.
Best Novella: 1,410 ballots in 2017 vs. 2,416 ballots in 2016, a 42% drop.
Best Novelette: 1,097 ballots in 2017 vs. 1,975 ballots in 2016, a 45% drop.
Best Short Story: 1,275 ballots in 2017 vs. 2,451 ballots in 2016, a 52% drop.
I can keep going on with the numbers here, but that kind of pull out of an audience is staggering. If this were a TV show or a comic, it would be instantly cancelled. The execs would be using this as a case study as to what went wrong and why so that they could never do it again. Kinda like is beginning to happen in comics right now (but they’re still in the denial stage of grief).
You’re seeing about a thousand less votes across the board per category. That means a thousand less people with memberships than last year. Wow. Note to “real science fiction fandom”: you told about half your audience you hate them and you want them to go away. They did. This spells big trouble for you in the future.
It’s the same lesson over and over, and it’s why I don’t hate anyone who picks up my books. You are my dearest friends, don’t give a crap what your politics are. But the big lesson is the hubris that big publishing, big entertainment, big comics, big academics, and the FAKE NEWS misses: they think that in their field, the consumer audience is proportionate to the representation of people that they’ve hired. The problem is, they’ve hired a good ol’ boys country club that excludes anyone who thinks differently for nearly 50 years, so they have no idea what reality looks like anymore. Every time I get told “there’s not conservative or Christian artists…” I’ve started to push back. It’s a dirty lie. They haven’t looked. They haven’t hired us. The audience sees that and is pissed off. They’re taking their ball and going elsewhere now, reading people like me, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, Vox Day, Brain Neimeier, Declan Finn, John C. Wright, Peter Grant, Nick Cole, Robert Kroese, the list goes on and on. It’s not that there aren’t any of us, it’s that you’ve gouged out your eyes to not see us. Now you’ve cut out your heart, SJW fandom. Good luck keeping your body together.
And this, even though anyone who went to last year’s World Con could nominate. So, lots of people nominated because they had already paid.
I suspect you will see a much larger drop in numbers next year.
I agree 100% with you. It’s going to be ugly next year. It’s right in my back yard though… should I show up and say hi? lol
“The audience sees that and is pissed off. They’re taking their ball and going elsewhere now, reading people like me, Larry Correia, Sarah Hoyt, Brad Torgersen, Vox Day, Brain Neimeier, Declan Finn, John C. Wright, Peter Grant, Nick Cole, Robert Kroese, the list goes on and on.”
How do you know this? Go to any of the blogs of the writers mentioned above, and they almost all say the same thing. But where, and in what form, is the proof. You might say the Dragon Awards, but they have never released the final ballots from 2016 so we have no clue what the numbers involved were. How do you know readers are taking their ball and coming to you?
My book has been selling pretty darn well. You may want to see what the fuss is about. 🙂
What’s the name? I’ll check it out.
Sorry just realized who posted. I will definitely give your book a chance.
http://bit.ly/starrealmsnovel Star Realms: Rescue Run. Thanks for following up. I know dissenting and questioning voices can be brave if they’re in earnest, which is what I try to be and I respect that.
I missed the whole Sad Puppies goodness. I took a break from Sci-fi for a while, with the exception of some favorite authors I’ve been buying from consistently on Baen.com. Only Baen kept me tied to SF due to their ebook efforts.
The reason I stopped buying SF off the shelves is because invariably I’d get something written by a socialist with all sorts of virtue signalling and ‘free-market’ bad guys, and other sorts of ridiculous ignorance. All that and no satisfying STORY, on top of that? No thank you.
So now I’m finding Castalia House and would like a list of these kinds of authors. Planning to really dig into all these authors you listed here.
I love Baen and Castalia. Pretty much all I read other than indie authors anymore. My favorite writers right now (other than me!) are:
Peter Grant
John C. Wright
Vox Day (Seriously, his epic fantasy is far better than George R.R. Martin and it’s not political)
Nick Cole
Robert Kroese
Declan Finn
Daniel Humphreys
Tim Marquitz
Nadine Brandes
From Baen:
Lois McMaster Bujold
Sarah Hoyt
Larry Correia
Jody Lynn Nye
“Daniel Humphreys”
Eh, he’s okay. 😉
Thanks! Currently reading Corroding Empire. Not enough free time! John C. Wright is new to me, but I’ve heard him interviewed and I want to check out his stuff very soon.
Whenever I see Jody’s name turn up, I’m left wondering if Robert Asprin’s books, like Myth, Phule’s Company or Thieves World, will get something done to them similar to the SF Masterworks collection. They deserve it, I’d say.
Agreed. They definitely do!
We’re enjoying many of the 40 books that Christopher Nuttall writes and sells online and at Amazon. I started with the ArkRoyal series, read the Schooled in Magic series and I’m now working on School of Hard Knocks.
If you REALLY want recomendations, check out my blog: injusticegamer.blogspot.com. Since last April 19, I have reviewed 90 books. I’ve got book review links to make it easier.
And I pretty much listen to whatever Alfred recommends.
And those numbers are far smaller than the 2015 numbers. They’re smaller than the 2015 “No Award” arsonists. Which feeds in to my theory that the majority of them were fake ballots. I mean, if the TruFen were in such strong numbers to repel the Puppy boarders, where are they now? Or did they care about the award in the first place? I’m thinking “no.”