The SJWs on File 770 gleefully cheered about how the Hugo voting this year was up…. compared to 2013, which is when the award voting was at a drastic low. They’re declaring victory in a year where it’s still fresh in people’s minds exactly what the hugo is, mainly because of the free publicity it was given by Larry Correia, Brad Torgersen, Sarah Hoyt, and Vox Day. The fact that it’s up from this point is almost entirely due to them, as the award voting was on a downward trajectory before they got involved.
And the odd part is, that’s why they got involved. They saw an increasingly small insular group getting together to give the award based on politics rather than merit, and they decided to do something about it. Their efforts paid off in terms of getting fans to tune in.
Graph courtesy of File 770:
2014 marked the first year Mr. Correia started getting involved in his slate, and there was a huge increase because of it. 2015 was the year when everything really took off and we see the memberships shot through the roof. 2017 marked the last push as the award nomination process changed and we’re seeing the trends back downward because every moderate and conservative fan is tuning back out.
We’ll see the numbers drop back to 2012-2013 levels I believe by 2022, as the award loses its appeal and meaning since they’re just giving it to the same people every year.
It’s interesting to watch the victory declared, however, when their actions turned off a large portion of the audience from caring. It’ll be interesting to see the dragon award voting numbers come out. I imagine it’ll be at least five times what we’re seeing here. The Dragons reflect what readers want these days.
And readers want airships! That’s what mine told me at least. Make sure to pick up For Steam And Country and The Blood of Giants in preparation for the final book in the trilogy, coming out in just a couple of weeks!
@Jon —
“The SJWs on File 770 gleefully cheered about how the Hugo voting this year was up…. compared to 2013, which is when the award voting was at a drastic low”
Don’t you ever get tired of lying, Jon?
In reality, Hugo voting numbers had been roughly stagnant for years until 2008, when they started rising steadily. By 2013 those numbers had **more than doubled**. Then there was the huge bump during the puppy years — no surprise there — and now we are still more than 1000 votes above the levels we had before the puppies ever came along.
I have a graph of the numbers from last year, here:
https://contrariusest.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/hugo-voting-2000-2017/
Seriously, try a little reality every once in a while. You might actually like the change.
Besides, the 2014 WorldCon in London was one of the biggest ever, so of course there will be more voters. Some of them were brought in by Larry Correia, but the biggest part of the increase was due to the fact that Loncon was huge.
Yeah, that’s something else that the pups tend to ignore — the location of the con has a big effect on the size of the voting pool each year.
The most important award in sf is definitly the dragon. The ribbit awards are more important than the hugo. It’s quite possibly the least important award in sf because of the unreadability of the winning books. I greatly prefer stories where the story not a checklist is most important.
@Julian —
“The most important award in sf is definitly the dragon. “
If you guys really think it’s all about voting numbers, then you should be looking to the Goodreads Choice awards. They get hundreds of thousands of votes every year.
Where in his statement did he mention anything about numbers? seems to me he was talking about quality.
LOL.
That’s not even a good try.
First, Jon’s post was all *about* numbers. And second, we constantly hear from the puppy set that the Dragons are supposedly more significant because of a large voting pool — it’s a never-ending refrain with them. Funny thing, though, they never want to acknowledge the fact that, if numbers are really the determining factor, then Goodreads has them beat all hollow.
As for quality — I agree that the quality of the Dragons is improving. Improving as the puppy influence fades, of course. Artemis (mixed-race woman main character) won both the Dragon and the Goodreads awards; Children of Blood and Bone has been incredibly popular (an Afrocentric tale written by a black woman); Leia, Black Panther, and so on, all good and diverse works. There’s plenty to like in the awards this year, now that scamming campaigns by the pups are starting to be overshadowed.
Oh, and I had forgotten —
Sleeping Beauties — about how men are bums and screw women over
Mighty Thor — female Thor
I’m glad to see that you’re such a fan of diversity and social consciousness in sff, Julian! 😉
(oops, that should have said Julian and VR!)
I’ve been reading science fiction for over 50 years. And I’m still reading as much of it as ever. It’s just that aside from Correia and Butcher, (neither of which is SF at all but the second F instead) everything I read is indie.
I’ve never been to a con and never will go to one.
I never really cared about the awards. As a kid and “young adult” I’d read everything available, award or not.
But I definitely started strongly not caring about 15 years ago when I noticed that the local BIG independent bookstore – Elliot Bay Book Company – was highlighting Hugo and Nebula winners with tags taped on the shelves in front of face-out books – along with commentary by the book store employees.
Now, I really liked the enormous selection at Elliot Bay (scifi, mystery, and math/computer science/science were all excellent) but as for the employees – though they’re nice people – I thought their opinions were … junk. Just useless. They never liked books I liked and they _really_ liked books I’d never read if they were the only books I had with me when stranded on a desert island. So that pretty much gave me the idea about what was happening with the awards.
These days I get my book/author recommendations online from blogs I frequent – frequently they’re author blogs of authors I like.
So the end result is: IDC about the awards. IDC about WorldCon. I sure as hell DC about any “fan” blog or news (like file770). I read what I like, and there’s plenty of it available.
Liberalists, like communists, come pre-equipped with a reality denying implant in their brains. This allows them to believe their fake religion easier. They can’t understand how all reasonable people oppose their extremism. Finally getting angry when people blaspheme it.
@Smockman —
“pre-equipped with a reality denying implant in their brains.”
Funny how we’re the ones who have the actual facts, then. 😉
But hey, to get back to the Dragons — it would be great if they did prosper. There’s plenty of room for more awards. And the fact that their awards are getting more and more diverse as the voting base grows points to good things in the future. 🙂
Answer me this:
Did Jesmin really deserve to win 3 Hugos in a row? And her speech was the Serena Williams’ version for SF. The Hugo winners and nominees are people I’ve never ever heard of.
What about Teresa’s twittersperge?
By contrast, the Dragons, I was familiar with the vast majority of names and titles.
The problem with the Hugo is the insufferable squawking of whatever strikes the obsession of the social justice fanatics, Whatever, I ignore it and read other stuff.
xavier
Yes, no doubt, those three books were the best fantasy AND scifi I’ve read in years, and yes, I read Znick Cole, Vox Day and Jonn.
Hands down, the freshest, most original, well written thing in a long time.
And by Serena Williams, you mean John McEnro, right?
When the president of the SFWA won a Hugo for his Star Trek fanfic I stopped paying attention. For me it was like Sophia Copula winning the Best Screenplay Oscar for Lost In Translation–there is nothing that can convince me that either award is given on the basis of merit rather than connections.
As far as the Dragon Awards are concerned, I think that the splitting of the award into a dozen different sub-genres is a mistake, as if the exclusion of short fiction. It seems tome to be designed to avoid paying attention to anything groundbreaking.
So it’s dropped back to less than half what it was at the height of the Puppy campaign, and this is… a victory? They’d rather shoot themselves in the foot than have the Wrong Kinds Of Fans voting on “their” award? Fewer fans this year than last year is a good thing?
Okay, then.
There’s a reason (well, more than one reason) I removed “Win a Hugo” from my career bingo card and replaced it with “Win a Dragon.”
@Julie —
“So it’s dropped back to less than half what it was at the height of the Puppy campaign, and this is… a victory?”
Yet again — Everyone knows that the puppy attacks inspired a huge bump in the Hugo voting numbers. Sff fans came from far and wide to defend the integrity of the Hugos, and it worked. We sent the pups running home to mama with their tails between their legs.
So it’s no surprise that the numbers have gone back down towards normal over the last couple of years. After all, the troops are no longer as badly needed as they were during the puppy wars. Where you guys fail to acknowledge reality is that the final ballot numbers this year are still 1000 votes ABOVE the level they were at before the puppies ever showed up. You have to look at the overall trend, not isolated numbers taken out of context. And the overall trend is still UPwards, not down.
Go look at my graph to see the pattern more clearly.
“There’s a reason (well, more than one reason) I removed “Win a Hugo” from my career bingo card and replaced it with “Win a Dragon.””
Go for it. With winners like Children of Blood and Bone, Black Panther, and the Jane Foster Thor, you’ll be in great company. 🙂
So I guess that since the Puppies were Wrongfans having Wrongfun, it’s just fine and dandy that they’ve thrown up their hands in disgust and gone to greener fields rather than gracing WorldCon with their money. Gotcha. I’m glad WorldCon thinks that it’s perfectly fine to alienate thousands of people in our tiny niche genre. Or maybe people really don’t know the way to San Jose and they just got lost.
And, yeah, I’d be in awesome company in the Dragons with Correia, Butcher, Wright, Ringo, Hoyt, Weber, Cole, and Niemeier. I’m not sure my little werewolf thriller is in the same class as their stuff (probably not), but hope springs eternal.
@Julie —
“So I guess that since the Puppies were Wrongfans having Wrongfun, it’s just fine and dandy that they’ve thrown up their hands in disgust and gone to greener fields rather than gracing WorldCon with their money.”
??
You do have some awfully strange ideas scurrying around up there in your head.
The puppies have always been welcome to vote — AS INDIVIDUALS. They still are. However, they are NOT welcome to try to scam the system in order to make people’s “heads explode”. That has nothing to do with their political views, or lack thereof.
It’s very telling that they turned tail just as soon as the Hugo admins instituted the rule to punish slate voting. Those pups weren’t interested in honest participation, just trolling and destruction.
“And, yeah, I’d be in awesome company in the Dragons with Correia, Butcher, Wright, Ringo, Hoyt, Weber, Cole, and Niemeier.”
Those were Ye Olden Dayes of the Dragons, Julie. Their future is gonna be more like
— Artemis (mixed race female MC)
— Children of Blood and Bone (African female MC, in Africa)
— Leia: Princess of Alderaan (female MC)
— Sleeping Beauties (as one reviewer summarized the theme: “women are routinely *** over by men, and that men overall are pretty awful.”)
— Jane Foster Thor
— Black Panther
That’s what happens when the pups lose their grip, Julie. People actually WANT to read diverse sff with socially conscious POVs.
You also seem to have some strange ideas scurrying around in your head. The Pups proved their point–or, rather, WorldCon proved it for them–and while the Rabids may have been about destruction, the Sads were about more participation. Good going, there, guys.
Ye Olden Days? Like… last year (Correia, Ringo, Butcher)? And this year (Hoyt)? Well, damn, I guess I’m SOL with my manly protag doing manly protag things. Darn, whatever shall I do. …Though he’s a white dude married to a black woman, and his wife gets her share of Moments of Awesome, so I guess I get points for that? But then negative points because he’s white?
Thing is, I am not trying to score points or check boxes. I will be so FREAKING happy when books are more about the actual stories rather than the demographics of the protagonists. I personally do not want to read “diverse sff with socially conscious POVs,” because that usually translates to “getting bludgeoned over the head with how badwrongevil white men are.” If I want a sermon, I will go to church. I read books to be entertained, not preached at. And I am to the point where I am actively turned off by a woman on the cover art of a novel. I swear to Dad, if I never hear the words “strong female protagonist” again, it will be too soon.
But, you know, I don’t count.
@Julie —
“The Pups proved their point”
Yeah, no.
Correia said he wanted to see our “heads explode”, and he specifically started the pups in order to get his own book awarded. VD claimed he was going to “burn down” the Hugos.
Guess what? None of those things happened — and attempts to gaslight our perceptions of the past won’t change the realities.
“the Sads were about more participation. Good going, there, guys.”
Thanks! As I already pointed out, the 2018 final voting ballot numbers are about 1000 votes HIGHER than before the pups came to town (2012 and 2013). The overall trend continues upward. 🙂
“Ye Olden Days? Like… last year (Correia, Ringo, Butcher)? And this year (Hoyt)?”
Yup. History marches ever forward.
Now, let me be more clear: there’s nothing at all wrong with folks like Correia, Ringo, Butcher, or Weber winning Dragons. They are popular authors (heck, I’m in the middle of a Weber/Ringo book at this very moment — We Few, book #4 of the Prince Roger series). But never-were folks like Niemeier, Wright, Finn, and others of their ilk? They’re history.
“I personally do not want to read “diverse sff with socially conscious POVs,””
Then you’ll probably have to invent yet another new award, because it’s pretty clear which direction the Dragons are headed. 😉
They blew up their own award in a hissy fit of massive proportions, doubled down the following year, and have been stuck in SJZ City ever since. It will be interesting to see what the trend is going forward, say, ten years from now, but I don’t particularly care other than to roast marshmallows over the flames. They built the fire, they can burn in it. *shrug*
When “diversity” is more than skin-deep, get back to me. But, oh, I forgot, diversity of viewpoint doesn’t matter because Those People are Literally Hitler and Have No Place in Our Fandom.
At least, that’s the message I’m getting from all this. I suppose YMMV.
The Dragon is still a baby award. I don’t think you can predict anything from the past three years when it’s still in a shakeout phase. But it’s super cute how people are howling about how horrible it is and how it doesn’t count on the one hand, and how Diversity Is Winning on the other.
@Julie —
“They blew up their own award in a hissy fit of massive proportions”
The pups? I agree about their massive hissy fit, but I wasn’t aware they had their own award to blow up.
As for the Hugos, they’re doing fine. As I keep pointing out, the overall trend in voting numbers over the last 18 years is UP, not down.
“Those People are Literally Hitler and Have No Place in Our Fandom.”
LOL.
If you really want your voice to be heard, try participating HONESTLY instead of trying to scam the system. The pups tried scamming — and failed. And then ran away crying about how unfair it was that we didn’t let them get away with their scamming attempts. Boo hoo.
“The Dragon is still a baby award.”
Right — and that’s the only reason the pups were able to take advantage of it at the beginning. Those days, thankfully, seem to have already passed.
“But it’s super cute how people are howling about how horrible it is and how it doesn’t count on the one hand, and how Diversity Is Winning on the other.”
Nobody is saying that it’s horrible — only that there is no transparency and nobody but the admins really knows how the winners are being picked. And that criticism has nothing whatsoever to do with the growing diversity of the winners.
Keep trying.
Dude, no. Worldcon blew up the Hugos by no-awarding five categories. They no-awarded Toni Weisskopf twice.
It is really quite amazing how you can read a “trend” on an award that’s a scant three years old! Wow, I am impressed.
My voice, it has been made eminently clear, does not matter to the People In Charge of WorldCon. And that’s fine. I will go where I’m actually wanted and not waste my time and money on people who hate me. No one “ran away crying” except in Delusionville, they said “Hey, way to prove our point for us, long live the Dragons.”
No one is saying how horrible it is… except for Cora Buhlert. OH NOES KINDLE UNLIMITED WRITING FACTORIES. No, seriously, you and I both know that these people will not be happy until it’s Hugos Lite. But it looks like my category includes Brandon Sanderson, so, uh, I’ll win … never. Woe. 🙁 I wish they’d break up the fantasy category a little more, but it’s not my shout, and I will continue to cheer my friends on when they get nominated–and win.
Also, if you think Black Panther won because diversity, I will point and laugh at you.
@Julie —
“Worldcon blew up the Hugos by no-awarding five categories.”
And yet here we still are, voting on Hugo works every single year. And getting 1000 MORE votes than before the pups ever showed their pointy little noses.
You seem to have an awfully strange definition of “blew up”.
“It is really quite amazing how you can read a “trend” on an award that’s a scant three years old! Wow, I am impressed.”
You’re welcome! I’m always happy to share my observations with those who may be somewhat less observant than I. 😉
“My voice, it has been made eminently clear, does not matter to the People In Charge of WorldCon.”
Baloney.
Yet again — any pup is more than welcome to vote in the Hugos — AS AN INDIVIDUAL. Scammers are not welcomed, regardless of political affiliation or lack thereof.
“No one “ran away crying” except in Delusionville, they said “Hey, way to prove our point for us, long live the Dragons.””
Yeah, a “point” that magically kept changing, and changing, and changing, in desperate attempts to allow themselves to declare victory about SOMETHING as they scuttled away.
But here the Hugo voters still are. Plus 1000 more of us than before the pups tried to “burn us down”. Huh.
“No one is saying how horrible it is… except for Cora Buhlert.”
LOL.
Please point out any quote, anywhere, in which Cora said the Dragons are horrible. I dare you. ;-D
“OH NOES KINDLE UNLIMITED WRITING FACTORIES.”
Yeah, they’re a thing. So what?
“But it looks like my category includes Brandon Sanderson, so, uh, I’ll win … never.”
Yup. And Sanderson appeals to all — a nice Mormon boy and both a talented and dedicated writer, who mostly stays out of politics but is smart enough and honest enough to say things like “Over the years, I’ve grown more and more aware of how the tone and biases of one like myself (white, male, straight) can itself be part of the problem.” And he’s also said “a lot of religious people seem to want to ignore that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people exist, which I think is inherently evil. It is immoral to banish an entire group of people, and to pretend that they are not good people with good arguments, and lives and passions. To not represent that in my fiction would be something deeply immoral” — amongst other things. He’s a Good Guy.
“I wish they’d break up the fantasy category a little more”
Here’s one thing we can definitely agree on. If they’re going to have mil-SF and alt-hist, they should at least have a separate UF or UF/PNR award.
“Also, if you think Black Panther won because diversity, I will point and laugh at you.”
Please stop making things up. I never said any such thing. I said these works ARE diverse, and I said that sff voters actually want to see diverse and socially conscious POVs. Those particular works won because they appealed to the voters — for many reasons.
It’s adorable that you think I count to the Powers That Be at Worldcon. I’m sure they’re just happy as hell that I’m staying away forever, and probably wish assiduously that the rest of my cohort would as well. And, hey, most of us have, so… congrats, I guess? I mean, it’s way cool that you’ve got a thousand more people showing up to your little shindig than before, but that’s still less than half what it was at the height of the Puppies and also less than it was just last year when it wasn’t in North America, so you do you, I guess.
Oh, and having a bunch of Tor authors on the ballot, and all female winners, is super diverse. *thumbs up*
Cora seems to think that the “Kiindle Unlimited Writing Factories” are a problem for the Dragons, and her “puppy adjacent” “observations” scream of “Are you now or have you ever been associated with…” a little too much for me. Again, YMMV, but there’s plenty of disdain dripping off that post of hers.
Also, no one cheated, and no one “scammed” the Hugos. The rules were followed. Just because you don’t like the results doesn’t mean there was cheating involved.
We can agree that Brandon is very nice. And he works his butt off. In fact, I should be working my butt off rather than taking up any more of your, my, and Jon’s time. *doffs cap*
@Julie —
“It’s adorable that you think I count to the Powers That Be at Worldcon.”
As I mentioned before, what you’re doing now is basically just crying about how unfair it is that we wouldn’t let the pups get away with scamming the Hugo voting process.
Well, guess what? We have very, VERY little patience for scammers. If you want to “count” to the Hugo voters, then try participating HONESTLY and as AN INDIVIDUAL.
“it’s way cool that you’ve got a thousand more people showing up to your little shindig than before, but that’s still less than half what it was at the height of the Puppies and also less than it was just last year when it wasn’t in North America, so you do you, I guess.”
You’re chasing your tail in circles, Julie. We’ve alreay been over this point several times.
Yet again: we all know that the puppy attacks inspired a huge bump in participation. No surprise there — the pups needed to be rebuffed, and they were. And numbers are now returning closer to pre-puppy levels. There’s nothing apocalyptic about that — our participation is simply getting back to normal.
“Oh, and having a bunch of Tor authors on the ballot, and all female winners, is super diverse. *thumbs up*”
In case you didn’t notice, The Stone Sky was actually published by ORBIT. 😉
In reality, there were at least 13 different publishers represented in the fiction categories alone, and 3 men on the ballot in the novel category alone.
“Cora seems to think that the “Kiindle Unlimited Writing Factories” are a problem for the Dragons”
Which is not even a little bit the same thing as your false claim that she called the Dragons “horrible”.
Keep trying.
“Also, no one cheated, and no one “scammed” the Hugos.”
ROFLMAO.
Nope nope nope not getting sucked back into this. I have actual writing work to do. Have a nice day ,and bless your heart.
@Julie —
Buh-bye, now! Y’all run along and have a good time somewhere a little less intellectually challenging, m’kay?
😉
Bless your heart, sweetums. Again. Just because I have neither the time nor the inclination to engage with your nonsense further doesn’t mean you’re in any way “intellectually challenging.” Some of us have actual lives. Perhaps you should get one, rather than wasting it commenting (at length!) on the blog of a guy you despise.
@Julie —
Julie, honey, if you’re going to pretend to flounce out of a room — or a discussion — then you need to commit to the flounce. When you’ve claimed to leave a place, but then you repeatedly stick your head back in and keep figuratively declaring “I’m really leaving this time! Honestly and truly, I really am!”, you just make yourself look silly. And sillier, and sillier, every time you do it.
😉
@Xavier —
“Did Jesmin really deserve to win 3 Hugos in a row?”
The voters thought so. That’s what counts.
“And her speech was the Serena Williams’ version for SF.”
It wasn’t, but her speech has nothing whatsoever to do with whether she deserved to win the awards.
“The Hugo winners and nominees are people I’ve never ever heard of.”
So what? Why do you expect Hugo voters to care about your knowledge of the field, or lack thereof?
In fact, all three of Jemisin’s books have been very good sellers. Back in May I kept track of the sales ranking trends for works by several authors, for a couple of weeks, and all three of Jemisin’s books consistently outsold Correia’s most recent books by a whole helluva lot.
Jemisin is currently listed at Amazon as their #13 author in science fiction and #20 in fantasy. And Correia? He doesn’t even make the top 100 in science fiction, and he’s ranked #74 in fantasy. Oops.
So it’s irrelevant whether you personally have heard of these authors or not. Many, MANY other people have.
And Correia is building a mountain fortress with his royalties while Jemisin begs for rent money on Patraeon. Weird.
@Julie —
Correia has written a much higher number of books than Jemisin does — and there’s no telling what kind of deals each one made with their publishers.
And land is cheap in Utah. 😉
I doubt Jemisin will be making any more Patreon appeals, though, since her trilogy has recently been optioned for TV. 🙂
Right. Building a passable road from scratch to the top of a mountain, and then a house from the ground up, is super cheap in Utah. Shoot, I could do that with my sofa change! Silly me.
Correia has options too. Those don’t actually mean much until it goes into actual production. Not that I would turn them down, because I wouldn’t (if the deal was good and not a rights grab). But stuff gets optioned all the time without a foot of film actually being made.
@Julie —
“Correia has options too. Those don’t actually mean much until it goes into actual production.”
Sorry, I should have been more specific. The series is already in development at TNT, with a writer and producers attached to the project.
Contarius,
Now why is it that Jesmin hasn’t written many books?
OOOO I know she wants to write Literatur(tm) so fussy academics can write poderous tomes about the zeigeist derived from her books; teachers can foist those books on a captive school audience and then everyone’s parodied at @realpeerreview.
Here’s the thing. I work hard and I want to spend my beer money on entertainment. The Tor award(tm) novels don’t cut it and I read to be entertained not to be hectored sanctimoniously by bad writing
xavier
@Xavier —
“Now why is it that Jesmin hasn’t written many books?
OOOO I know she wants to write Literatur(tm) so fussy academics can write poderous tomes about the zeigeist derived from her books”
LOL.
Now you’re criticizing her WRITING SPEED??
That’s one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.
Seriously, get a life. The speed at which Jemisin does — or does not — write has nothing whatsoever to do with whether her books deserve to win awards.
“Here’s the thing. I work hard and I want to spend my beer money on entertainment.”
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Spend your money however you like. Again: your personal preferences have nothing at all to do with what does or does not deserve to win awards.
The 3 time Hugo award winner is ebegging for rent money? Looks like the puppies were more successful than anyone could have ever imagined.
@Smockman —
“The 3 time Hugo award winner is ebegging for rent money?”
Lots of authors have Patreons — like, for instance, the host of this website (or he used to — I don’t know if he still does). And since Jemisin is currently making about $70,000 per year through that Patreon alone, you might want to rethink your attitude about it. 😉
But is she cranking out novels, stories etc or not? That’s expectation from her patrons
xavier
@Xavier —
“But is she cranking out novels, stories etc or not? That’s expectation from her patrons”
“Cranking out” is something that pulp writers do. Actual good books usually take longer.
As for her patrons’ “expectations”, you might want to actually ask them instead of just making stuff up.
Wow, could you be more of a condescending twat?
Also, you really need to get a life. Nobody’s impressed at your continuous trolling of an author’s blog. You come across as a crazed stalker.
@Elaine —
Do you have any constructive contributions to make to the discussion?
not nobody Elaine.
If beer money is a concern, it’s worth noting that N.K. Jemisins books are priced about the same per page as Jon’s. And she is several standard deviations better as a writer. Why read pulp at Tor prices?
@Jason —
“If beer money is a concern, it’s worth noting that N.K. Jemisins books are priced about the same per page as Jon’s.”
But remember — Jon’s books, like many of the pups’, are mostly available FREE on Kindle Unlimited. That’s one way they artificially inflate their sales figures. You can’t beat free!
(And also remember — Jemisin is published by Orbit, not Tor!)
Contrarius, I know, but I was using “Tor” in it’s “overpriced boogyman to a certain segment of the reading public” sense.
Ahh. Carry on, then. 😉
Contrairius,
Whoa hold on there. What do you have against pulp?
You do know that Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were pulp writers? And their stories are still read and enjoyed by millions. Actual good books is rather subjective because practically no one reads Nobel lit prize winners.
But yeah Tarzan, John Carter, Hercule Poirot, Maigret, the 3 Musketeers, etc still suck because the lit depts and the lit criticis will never fawn over low brow stories.
What precisely did I make up about her patrons? I simply stated if she’s earning 70 000$/yr from Paetron, she should be cranking out novels and some written work rather regularly. Ya know like a pulp writer because her job,her only job is to entertain her customers at that salary. That’s the expectation. It certainly would be mine if I gave her my hard earned beer money.
xavier
@Xavier —
“Whoa hold on there. What do you have against pulp?”
I don’t have anything against pulp. In fact, as I mentioned to Julie in an earlier post, I just finished the 4th book in a rather pulpy mil-sf series, the Prince Roger (aka Empire of Man) series by Weber and Ringo.
But here’s the thing: I may like both candy and steak, but I can tell the difference between them.
“You do know that Agatha Christie and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were pulp writers?”
Yeah, now you’re trying out a common logical fallacy. Sorry, I ain’t falling for it. Just because **some** pulp rises above its original classification, that doesn’t mean that **all** pulp does, or that literary quality is a common characteristic of that group of books.
And no, Conan Doyle was not a pulp writer. “Pulp” as such (originally meaning mass-market paperbacks) did not even come into existence until the late 1930s, and Conan Doyle was already dead by then.
“What precisely did I make up about her patrons?”
You said that her patrons expect her to “crank out” books.
Which is making things up, because you actually have no idea what her patrons do or do not expect from her.
Keep trying.
Hmmm.
You got me curious about pulps, and I’ve come across two different articles that seem to contradict each other about the origins of the term and time frame. Conan Doyle still doesn’t fit either definition, since he didn’t publish in pulp magazines (his shorter stories for magazines were published almost exclusively in The Strand), but I wanted to clarify that my original ideas about pulp were very incomplete.
If you get curious as well, there’s interesting stuff at these two sites:
https: //www.newyorker. com/magazine/2015/01/05/pulps-big-moment
https: //www.pulpmags. org/contexts/essays/golden-age-of-pulps.html
Contrarious,
Pulp refers to the poor quality paper made out of wood pulp. In Britian, these were called penny dreadfuls.
Just because Conan Doyle wrote for the Strand magazine doesn’t change the fact that he wrote a lot and consistently as well as entertaining regular people as opposed to getting kudos from lit critics and literature professors for the Great Novel(tm).
That’s what I mean by pulp. I’d argue that he wrote penny dreadfuls- not as lurid and far better writing but definately popular literature.
In any case, Chesterson wrote a defense of the pulps (penny dreadfuls in the article) that’s still relevant.
xavier
@Xavier —
“Pulp refers to the poor quality paper made out of wood pulp. In Britian, these were called penny dreadfuls.”
No (to the part about the penny dreadfuls). As the second link I posted will tell you, “The first pulp was The Argosy published in New York by Frank A. Munsey.” (which started publication in 1896).
The low-brow attitude of the pulps may very well have developed out of things like the penny dreadfuls, but they themselves were not pulps. And Conan Doyle didn’t write penny dreadfuls, either. In fact, the magazine he wrote for — The Strand — was aimed at higher-class families.
“he wrote a lot and consistently as well as entertaining regular people as opposed to getting kudos from lit critics and literature professors for the Great Novel(tm).”
LOL.
You are quite energetically moving goalposts all over the place.
Again: writing speed or lack thereof has no revelance to whether Jemisin’s work deserves to win awards. That’s a great huge red herring you keep trying to throw into the works. Please stop that.
“I’d argue that he wrote penny dreadfuls”
And you would be wrong. He never did any such thing.
From the wikipedia article on penny dreadfuls: “The term typically referred to a story published in weekly parts, each costing one penny.”
Keep trying.
I was just going to point out that it won’t make sense to compare Hugo Voting numbers with Dragon Award numbers because you have to pay about $50 to vote on the Hugo. Anyone with a browser can vote for the Dragon–repeatedly, if desired (although I suspect there’s at least some attempt to catch repeat voting).
I suspect that’s part of the reason they’ve never released the Dragon Award nominating and voting numbers.
@Greg —
“I suspect that’s part of the reason they’ve never released the Dragon Award nominating and voting numbers.”
Ayup.
It’s been what — two years, three? — since the DA admins promised to release the voting data. But nada, zero, zip, zilch. That really tells us about everything we need to know.
And I keep having to remind the puppy types — award significance and prestige is NOT all about how many people vote. If it were, then the People’s Choice Awards would be more prestigious than the Oscars — and the Goodreads Choice Awards would beat the Dragons all hollow, even if the Dragon folks do ever get their act in gear.
Contratius,
In the end you’re right. The awards are ultimately meaningless. The important metric the only one is to write,entertain and be paid regularly for writing. Nothing else matters for a content creator.
xavier
@Xavier —
“The awards are ultimately meaningless. The important metric the only one is to write,entertain and be paid regularly for writing. Nothing else matters for a content creator.”
Well, yes and no. Warning, long post ahead!
Awards are meaningful to the extent that they actually succeed in telling the reading public something about the books that get awarded. For instance, the Pulitzer committee hopes that their fiction awards go to “distinguished” novels “about American life”. They want to award books that say something significant. If the awards manage to do that on a consistent basis, then they are meaningful.
Now, the Pulitzer isn’t voted on by bazillions of people. In fact, there’s a very small committee that decides the prize every year. But regardless of that teeny tiny voting pool, the Pulitzer is the most revered prize in American fiction. Why? Because vast numbers of people who have knowledge of the field of American fiction agree that the committee does a good job on a consistent basis, and they have done so for a lot of years.
Similarly, the Hugo awards are the most revered awards in the field of science fiction and fantasy, especially American sff. Why? It has nothing to do with the size of the voting pool — it mostly has to do with the fact that most serious sff fans agree that the Hugo voters usually do a good job of choosing significant works of sff to award, and have done so for years. Now, are the awards perfect? Nope, of course not. Tastes change over time, and sometimes groups of enthusiastic fans push a work to the front of the pool that really don’t belong there for one reason or other. But awards don’t have to be perfect to be meaningful — they just have to have a good track record.
Now, one way to give people more faith in the meaningfulness of your awards: be transparent and accountable for the voting process, whether that’s a small voting committee or a largish pool of dedicated fans or a humongous pool of casual readers. One way to destroy that faith? Say one thing and do another, or hide your process, or make it clear that your process is actually arbitrary, or fail to safeguard against ballot-box stuffing.
Of course, each award — even perfectly transparent and perfectly accountable awards — will be “meaningful” in a different way. For instance, the Mythopoeic Awards look for different things than the World Fantasy Awards, and both of those look for different things than the Nebula, and so on. And there’s nothing wrong with that. There is plenty of room in the field for multiple awards, and different awards will be more or less meaningful to different people.
Therefore, if the Dragon admins could get their act together, very few Hugo voters would have a problem with their existence. After all, the Dragons are looking for something different than the Hugos — the Dragons target mass market popularity as voted on by casual fans, while the Hugos tend to look more for serious works that have something important to say. Both are worthy goals.
But they have to get their act together before they can hope to be meaningful in any way.
“The important metric the only one is to write,entertain and be paid regularly for writing. ”
Yeah, no. For instance, Moby-Dick was a commercial failure during Melville’s lifetime; James Joyce made his living as a teacher. Lots of artists (of all types) who we revere today never got paid regularly. That’s why we have the term “starving artist”. Commercial success isn’t everything!
” it mostly has to do with the fact that most serious sff fans agree that the Hugo voters usually do a good job of choosing significant works of sff to award, and have done so for years.”
And yet when a group of serious sff fans made their opinions known, Worldcons reaction was to build a bigger wall and retreat deeper into their gated community. For a group that talks about inclusivity and diversity, that’s an interesting thing to do….
Of the people who voted in 2015, but not the following years (3142 this year), do you think did they not keep voting because they were never serious sff fans in the first place? I Ibelieve that’s a good possibility, as you had more votes for No Award in some categories than you did total votes at this years Hugos. And we know many people who voted No Award in 2015 did so without reading any of the nominated works. That to me is not a serious fan or voter. YMMV. Actually, what do you define as a serious fan?
Or, and this is possible as well, did those same voters not participate this year (or 2016 and 2017) because of a perceived lack of significant works to nominate and vote on?
Or some combination of the two?
And if those 3142 voters who participated in 2015 but not the following years weren’t serious, does their participation devalue the 2015 and following years results in any way?
Dav
Contraius,
Nope. Awards nowadays are meaningless. Sure they’re a nice kudo attaboy sticker for your artistic CV but in the end, entertaining and delighting the customer and to be paid for it is job 1 and the only job
Starving artist means you’re not fulfilling your customers’ reasonable expectations thus doing it wrong. Commercial success is everything for a professional entertainer in any artform.
Nobody reads the 1954 Nobel prize winner but everyone reads or has watched Lord of the Rings, the Hobbit, etc
@Xavier —
You’re taking a mighty materialistic, short-sighted, and anti-human-achievement point of view here. And as Jason already pointed out, Hemingway won the 1954 Nobel in literature. 😉
In contrast, the four NYT best-selling books in 1954 were titled: Lord Vanity, Not as a Stranger, Mary Anne, and Love is Eternal. Ever heard of them? Me neither!
For heaven’s sake — Van Gogh was a failure during his lifetime and died in near-poverty, but today his art is some of the most valuable in the world. Yet by your standards he’s still a failure, because he wasn’t appreciated during his own lifetime.
Broaden your horizons.
And btw, according to Amazon sales rankings, Jemisin’s three Hugo books are STILL vastly out-selling Correia. So who’s the failure here?
Kindle Store rankings this morning:
The Fifth Season — #757
The Obelisk Gate — #1111
The Stone Sky — #1447
Target-Rich Environment — #2498
Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints — #12,475
Monster Hunter Files — #36,072
Monster Hunter Seige — #21,071
Keep trying.
@Matt —
Wait, are you Matt or David? Could you please pick one user name and stick with it?
“And yet when a group of serious sff fans made their opinions known, Worldcons reaction was to build a bigger wall and retreat deeper into their gated community.”
Yeah, no.
Those fans would be quite welcome to make their opinions known HONESTLY and AS INDIVIDUALS. But they are not at all welcome to try to game the system. Too bad, so sad.
“For a group that talks about inclusivity and diversity, that’s an interesting thing to do….”
Inclusivity and diversity does not require giving up on honest and individual voting practices.
“Of the people who voted in 2015, but not the following years (3142 this year), do you think did they not keep voting because they were never serious sff fans in the first place?”
Refer to the response I made to your other post, in which you called yourself David.
LOL, 1954? I hope you pulled that number out of a hat and didn’t mean to actually imply that no one reads Hemmingway…
While I’m sure there are Nobel Prize winners who’s books do get outsold by The Hobbit, 1954 is the one year that’s definitely not the case.
Contrarius,
Van Gogh suffered from serious mental illness. A normal person simply doesn’t cut off his ear, that’s the main reason a lot of artisets were starving. Something unbalanced them and they either became alcoholics or drug addicts to cope with the distress.
it’s tragic but let’s not hold the starving artist as an ideal. It’s not
xavier
@Xavier —
“Van Gogh suffered from serious mental illness.”
So what? So do many other artists, including writers.
You’re trying to move the goalposts again, Xavier. Please stop that. You falsely tried to claim that the only goal for a creative person was to sell a lot of product quickly. You were talking about commercial success, not internal mental state. Stick to the subject.
And I noticed that you very carefully ignored the rest of my post as well. Gee, I wonder why? 😉
Kindle Store rankings this morning:
The Fifth Season — #863
The Obelisk Gate — #1349
The Stone Sky — #1794
Target-Rich Environment — #3009
Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints — #10,446
Monster Hunter Files — #39,835
Monster Hunter Seige — #20,282
Hmmmm.
Too bad that you insist on recognizing artistic success judged only by immediate commercial popularity, right?
😉
Oh, P.S. —
Let’s throw in a couple more books, just for giggles —
Today’s Kindle rankings:
The Collapsing Empire — #151
Six Wakes — #10,411
Provenance — #15,039
Hmmmmmm… now what was that you were saying about popularity?
😉
3142 few voters in 2018 than in 2015, yes?
In some categories in 2015, there were more No Award votes in categories than there were total voters in the 2018 awards.
Does that mean that the vast majority of the 3142 voters were not serious sff fans, as the Hugo are for serious fans (and given what we know about people in 2015 and 16 who bought memberships just to vote No Award you have to admit, this is very possible).
Or does it mean that the vast majority of those 3142 voters since 2015 (or prior to 2014 even) have not found any serious works that have something important to say worth of voting on. A possibility as well. As likely as the other scenario? Maybe. More likely no, but stranger things have occurred.
Next couple of years are going to be telling, if the number of participants stays the same or even grows, that’s a great thing. If it keeps falling to pre 2014 numbers, well, how is that good?
Dav
@David —
“3142 few voters in 2018 than in 2015, yes?”
Hang on… lemme do the math…
Actually 3122, I think. But yer close.
That’s also 980 votes MORE than in 2013.
“Does that mean that the vast majority of the 3142 voters were not serious sff fans”
No, it means that some of those 3122 were puppies, and some were non-puppy fans who don’t normally vote but who rallied the troops to help fight the puppies off.
“Or does it mean that the vast majority of those 3142 voters since 2015 (or prior to 2014 even) have not found any serious works that have something important to say worth of voting on.”
No.
This is where the pups put on their special fantasy glasses.
Figuratively speaking, the pups like to pretend that climbing up a mountain and then climbing back down a mountain is the same thing as standing on flat ground and then falling off a cliff. But those two things are not at all the same.
What happened with the Hugo voting is that the voting numbers were gradually rising between 2008 and 2013. Then those numbers went through a huge surge — climbing up the mountain — during the puppy years. And now that the puppies have run away with their tails between their legs, the Hugo voters have climbed back down that mountain to about 1000 votes above ground level.
Those voters have NOT fallen off any cliffs, no matter how desperately the puppy types wish it were true.
David is me, David Matthew. My last name is also a first name, so I’ve been called by all three over the past three plus decades. Good thing I’m not a Junior, or a III….but depending on what account I am posting under, different accounts for different type of sites, keeps things easier to follow, I’m Matt, or David, or Dav.
I made the first post and after about a half day it didn’t post, so I figured it was a PBKAC error on my end, wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened, wont be the last. And then when I was posting it again, I realized the first way I posed the question wasn’t very conducive to an honest discussion, and restated it.
I’m an infrequent visitor to the site, but was pretty much in the center of the 2014/2015 Hugo’s as a more than casual SFF fan who wasn’t happy with the quality of nominated works. I wasn’t fully on board with Larry Correia’s assertions, but safe to say the other side of the 2014/2015 fandom did nothing to convince me that Larry and Brad were 100% wrong, and did quite the job in convincing me that some cases the SP campaign was right.
And, as an tangent, yes London Con was a Big con, so that may explain why the number of voters there was larger. Sasquan on the other hand, is not a big con, the fact it made about $100K from the extra memberships bought to participate in the hugos is proof of that.
But as I and others have said, the next three to five years of attendance levels are going to be quite telling. Barring some other controversy, or a year in which there are a lot of strong nominations out there (of which I think only one of those is possible, and it’s not the strong nominations side), I thin World Con numbers are going to fall to 2013 levels, if not lower.
We will just have to wait and see.
Dav
@Matt/David —
“I thin World Con numbers are going to fall to 2013 levels, if not lower.”
They may very well go back to 2013 levels. Personally, I think they’ll remain a bit higher, but neither result would be the apocalypse the puppy types keep trying to paint it as. When a person or organization has been under attack, returning to normal is not a bad thing.
“What happened with the Hugo voting is that the voting numbers were gradually rising between 2008 and 2013.”
Numbers rose gradually from 2008 to 2010. Almost 100% growth from 2010 to 2011 is not, by and definition of the word, gradual. And after 2011, voting was falling, gradually.
“Then those numbers went through a huge surge — climbing up the mountain — during the puppy years. And now that the puppies have run away with their tails between their legs, the Hugo voters have climbed back down that mountain to about 1000 votes above ground level. ”
Ground level for the 2000’s would appear to be somewhere in the 1000 votes range. The Hugos are still above that, and maybe can establish a new ground level the next couple of years.
“Those voters have NOT fallen off any cliffs, no matter how desperately the puppy types wish it were true.”
If the Hugo attendance graph was a stock price tracker, how would the drop be described?
Growth before the 2015 Hugos was sporadic until 2011. Until then there were few, if any years, where the voting numbers stayed the same. A 300 vote gain from 03 to 04 was lost in 05, fewer voters in 08 than in 04, about the same number of voters in 09 and 10 as in 2000, that’s not exactly growth.
I’m not sure why the jump from 2010 to 2011 happened, fan outreach by Renocon, bigger online interaction maybe? But from 2011 to 2013 attendance fell. From 2015 to 2018 the Hugo’s have seen participation drop by almost 3000 voters. That’s not a cliff, but an honest observer has to admit that’s a pretty steep downward slope in participation.
Looking at the numbers, it’s hard to believe that without the SP/RP campaigns this years total votes would be at the 2818 that were cast. That would mean the Hugos were gaining 250 plus voters a year, which given the numbers falling after the 1000 vote bump in 2011, doesn’t seem likely. Possible, sure. Probable, not so much.
Honestly I didn’t think the voting numbers would be this low already, I figured it would be early 202’s before they fell below the 3000 vote range again. But I’ll wait and see what the next few years are like as well.
Dav
Matt/David —
“Numbers rose gradually from 2008 to 2010. Almost 100% growth from 2010 to 2011 is not, by and definition of the word, gradual. And after 2011, voting was falling, gradually.”
Stop taking individual years out of context and **look at the trend**. Focus on the nominating ballots instead of the final ballots if that makes the overall picture more clear for you — the nominations are probably less influenced by the con size, so there’s less “noise” in the numbers.
Again:
https://contrariusest.blog/2017/09/02/hugo-voting-2000-2017/
It would be interesting to add the actual con attendance numbers to the voting graph to see how they correlate, but I don’t have those.
“If the Hugo attendance graph was a stock price tracker, how would the drop be described?”
They don’t compare — the mechanisms are entirely different. There’s a finite number of shares in a business, but an infinite number of voting memberships in the Hugos. During a hostile takeover attempt of a business it’s impossible to buy *new* stock (that’s why they call it “trading” — they’re trading the same old stocks back and forth), but it’s very possible to buy new memberships.
“That’s not a cliff, but an honest observer has to admit that’s a pretty steep downward slope in participation.”
Of course it is — but it follows a huge surge. That’s what the pups keep ignoring. They keep pretending that it’s falling off a cliff from ground level (or maybe falling into a sinkhole), when it’s actually just climbing back down the mountain.
“Looking at the numbers, it’s hard to believe that without the SP/RP campaigns this years total votes would be at the 2818 that were cast.”
2828 — but close.
And we’ll never know, will we?
“And btw, according to Amazon sales rankings, Jemisin’s three Hugo books are STILL vastly out-selling Correia. So who’s the failure here?”
Depends on the category, in large ones such as Science fiction the difference between 1000 and 10000 in rankings isn’t as great as it is in a category such as Self Help. Heck, there’s categories and sub categoriers where one or two sales a day will put you top 10…
However, Sci-Fi/Fantasy is a very large pool. According to Amazon they are both top 100 Authors in Science Fiction. Jemsin is at #22, and Correia is #80. They only give Larry’s rank in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy, but they’ve both been top 100 authors for quite a few years.
@Matt/David —
“Depends on the category”
Heh.
Puppies like to play the “pick a misleading category” game, but I don’t. I much prefer to report HONEST numbers.
All those sales rankings I posted were from the SAME category — “Paid in Kindle Store.”
And here’s today’s rankings:
The Fifth Season — #843
The Obelisk Gate — #1332
The Fifth Season — #1519
Target-Rich Environment — #3139
Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints — #11,538
Monster Hunter Files — #36,911
Monster Hunter Seige — #17,668
The Collapsing Empire — #39 — yes, really, 39!
Six Wakes — #11,792
Provenance — #13,780
I sure wish the puppies would find one shred of integrity and stop yapping about how supposedly nobody ever reads the Hugo-nominated books. As these numbers clearly show, that’s an outright lie.
” According to Amazon they are both top 100 Authors in Science Fiction.”
No, actually, they aren’t. Here are today’s author rankings:
Jemisin — #21 in Science Fiction, #22 in Fantasy
Correia — doesn’t even make the top 100 in science fiction, #80 in Fantasy
Now, Correia is a popular author — nobody wants to dispute that. I put up the relative rankings because so many puppy types keep trying to claim that nobody reads Jemisin. Obviously, that’s an abject lie. I wish pups would just stop LYING for once.
P.S. Oh, and I just noticed there’s an all-inclusive “Science Fiction & Fantasy” author ranking —
Jemisin — #37
Correia — doesn’t make the top 100
Oops.
Today’s Kindle rankings:
The Fifth Season — #952
The Obelisk Gate — #1659
The Stone Sky — #1726
Collapsing Empire — #1933
Six Wakes — #16,972
Provenance — #18,875
Target-Rich Environment — #4594
Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saints — #18,182
Monster Hunter Seige — #20,882
Monster Hunter Files — #33,824
Jemisin author rankings:
— Science fiction — #21
— Fantasy — #25
— Science fiction & fantasy — #38
John Scalzi rankings:
— Science fiction — #38
— Fantasy — doesn’t make the top 100
— Science fiction & fantasy — #87
Correia author rankings:
— Science fiction — doesn’t make the top 100
— Fantasy — #90
— Science fiction & fantasy — doesn’t make the top 100
Yup, sure enough — STILL outselling Correia.
What a shocker. Really.