 Welcome back. My name's Cam. That's Cam with an M, not an N. It's not, it's not Can. It's weird that I even have to like correct people on that. It seems like in the last year, authors have been chronically lacking self-awareness. It seems like barely a week will go by now without some writer participating in some absolute clownery, further dividing readers from the people that write the books. I've watched this unfold all the time over on Twitter, and usually I don't say anything, but sometimes I might weigh in and give my opinion, so I decided that I will start a new video series here on my channel. A series I'll do every now and then where I will highlight and discuss all of the most recent instances of authors and writers showing us what not to do. Some of these stories are small and pretty insignificant, mostly just interesting or funny, but others are pretty bad. One of them in particular got me pretty steamed. I'm sure you'll know the one when I start talking about it, but without further ado, make yourself comfortable, get a snack, a drink, settle in. It's probably going to be a bit of a long video as we jump into Episode 1 of Writers. So I do want to start each of these Writers Badlands videos with at least one example of authors doing something cool or something great. So about a week ago, Brandon Sanderson uploaded a video called It's Time to Come Clean, a video where he confessed to something that it made me absolutely sick to my stomach. This man, this six foot seven bag of bones and talent, I don't know if that's his height by the way, I'm just too lazy to look it up and I like to imagine that he's like comically tall. In just two years, this guy wrote not one, not two, not six, that's too many. He wrote five books. Now the reader in me is absolutely ecstatic that we will have so many new stories by a writer that I think is arguably one of the best of our generation. But the writer in me, however, wants to grab him by the shoulders, look him in the eyes and say, hey, fuck you. Anyway, the reason we're talking about this now is because Brandon is doing something rather unconventional here. Rather than releasing four of these books through the more traditional methods, he's actually started a Kickstarter that will act as a bit of a paid book club. There's been a bit of a back and forth about how good this actually is of an idea. There's a number of different payment methods over the course of 12 months, the cheaper of which will get you your choice of format of these four books, going about as cheap as $40 over the course of the year for those four books, which is a pretty standard pricing. However, the prices do jump up quite a bit to some more expensive ones, which will get you a number of different formats. Rather than just getting the ebooks, you could end up getting the hardcover and the audio book and the ebook. It can even go up to as far as $500 over the course of the year, which gets you the books in every format, as well as about eight swag boxes, which are basically just like subscription boxes. Those boxes will contain items based on Sando's various different books. Now, a lot of people think that that's too much money, that it's a bit of a rip off and that it's a bit of a cash grab by someone who is already one of the most wealthy authors that we're currently aware of. Personally, I think that's a bit of a premature stance to take considering we don't even know what's going to be in these boxes yet. If the boxes come out and they're filled with cheap garbage, then sure. But for all we know, you could be getting your money's worth or even more so with limited items, etc. Either way, I'm struggling to see a real downside to this. As of right now, Brandon Sanderson's secret novel project is literally the most funded Kickstarter in history, which is that's absolutely monumental. That's a huge achievement in itself, that the biggest Kickstarter in history right now is from an author. And that becomes even more impressive when you realize that there's still more than 20 days left and this Kickstarter has reached over $30 million at the time of me filming this video. So obviously, this kind of Kickstarter experiment isn't something that is going to work for all authors or even most authors. Calling it, let's say, the future of publishing is probably a bit of an exaggeration. Even the most successful and busy authors probably wouldn't be able to keep up with something like this. I think that having a large platform and being able to write a large number of books between releases is the real crux of this project working. And in fact, I don't even think it's something that Brandon Sanderson is going to be able to keep doing every year. With that said, personally, I think that Brandon is one of the very few people that this could have worked for. He's already notorious for writing so much and of such high quality, and his platform is obviously enormous. Something like this probably wouldn't work for almost anyone else, but I do think it would be very naive to think that publishers aren't going to take notice of this. Again, this has raised over $30 million in less than a week. It is the biggest Kickstarter ever. Once funding is completely done, once the month is over, it's very likely that this Kickstarter will have raised more than $10 million per book before the books are even being sold in store and online. That is, the significance of that is beyond words. Whether this affects the future of publishing or not, Brandon has made history here, and I think it's, I personally think it's a very good thing. I think even outside of the book and reader industry, people are going to take notice of this and they're going to see that the fantasy fandom is a lot more lucrative and large than they thought. For all we know, this whole project could be a big catalyst for future fantasy adaptations or games or who knows. I think it's entirely possible that we will see this whole Kickstarter project setting fires in the publishing industry's approach to how they do their releases. How that looks and whether it ends up being a good or a bad thing remains to be seen. There's been a lot of discourse over the last couple of years since the popularity explosion of Tiktok's Booktube counterpart, aptly titled Booktok. Make no mistake, if you didn't already know, Booktok has been skyrocketing books all then new to levels of success and popularity that are sending waves all through the industry. We saw a similar thing happen when Booktube was, you know, rising up, selling a lot of books and it was getting noticed by the mainstream media. However, the levels of success that Tiktok have been facilitating flows Booktube out of the water. I'm sorry to say, as someone who was a part of Booktube, I tried and I try sometimes to do Booktoks but it just rarely works for me. I just find that the short videos isn't a great platform for someone who likes to ramble so much. So not only are publishers seeing some of their titles literally transformed into fountains of money, okay maybe not literally figuratively, but this is extra notable because those publishers are fully aware that they didn't even need to spend an extra dime on all of this extra marketing. For publishers, Booktok has been the best thing in the world and a lot of people on Twitter have taken issue with this for quite a few reasons. Some of them I think are a little bit silly, others are I would say pretty important. So one argument is that the books being recommended on Booktok are all the same ones and could generally be described as generic or vapid romance and smut. Now that might be true although personally I think it's just a tad hypocritical because I mean I think a lot of the same points could be made about Booktube or especially Book Twitter especially when those communities were first you know blowing up and thriving. Seeing very surface level recommendations for books that everyone already knew about was what primarily brought attention to a lot of big Booktube and Book Twitter accounts. It seems like only the same popular books are being discussed or recommended on these platforms because by their very nature popular books are the ones that most people have read. They're the books that most people can relate with and engage with. Of course those Booktok videos are going to be more widely shared because more people can relate to it. Whether the books themselves are good or bad as we know a lot of popular books aren't. That's just how all forms of entertainment work. Like Booktube if you want more obscure recommendations or reviews they are there even on Booktok you just have to look a bit beyond the recommended feed. That's my thoughts on that side of the argument although there is a much more serious debate or round of discourse against Booktok and that is the normalization or romanticizing of abusive relationships. Bad boys have been and always will be a big staple in romance and smart but I do think there is definitely a conversation to be had about just how much the line is being blurred in particular for younger readers on Booktok. Having a DOM or a sub kink is one thing but seeing hundreds of pre-eutines thirsting over a TikTok writer's description of what is objectively a mentally abusive and controlling relationship is something else entirely. A lot of people much smarter than myself have pointed out that it's not only dangerous for people who end up with partners like this but it also sets a rather dangerous expectation for a lot of other people in particular young men who think that if they act controlling or abusive it will make them more sexually desirable. It's something that we see all over TikTok even outside of Booktok. People confusing some kinky roleplay for just straight up abuse. Some of the stories that are skyrocketing to success through Booktok are doing so on the backs of tropes like this and it can be pretty damaging to the reputation of romance and smart as a whole. There is also a very real concern that the insanely profitable nature of these style of stories through TikTok could shape the publishing company's preferences in future. If they see that these are the types of stories that are selling so much and making them so much money maybe they'll start accepting less hard work stories end up instead for quickly written trope heavy stories that we're more used to seeing on Wattpad. So that brings us to the next story and this is where it gets a little more serious it's much more disgusting and sad than it is interesting or funny. As I'm sure we're all painfully aware at this point the people of Ukraine are currently dealing with the invasion of their home by Russia through inhumanly violent acts of war. Most people would see the actions of Ukraine's president Vladimir Zelensky as brave but a few romance orders have taken it one step further and decided that this currently unraveling humanitarian crisis is perfect material for their next spicy book. I feel like Zelensky is going to inspire a lot of romance heroes in the future. Hashtag real hero, hashtag romance writer. I found myself outlining a story with Zelensky inspired hero during my morning pages it just spilled out. I'm literally writing a romantic suspense story between the president of a country and the widow of one of his former bodyguards and I am getting so much inspiration. Taking inspiration from real life events even the tragic ones for your book is fine if you ask me. Although I think there is something deeply sick about seeing a real life person that is leading his country through an active war and an invasion a man who's dodging multiple assassination attempts on his life, a man who is watching his home and his people die violently and getting horny or wondering how you can turn it into a fictional love story for your self-insert cold shower fantasy. What it comes down to is that there is a time and a place and the first battleground for the next potential world war is not it. Read the fucking room guys. On a much lighter note, how does this tweet make you feel? Please know if you're someone who brings a book to the bar nobody likes you. So this tweet obviously received a pretty huge blowback. It was almost unanimously dunked on in responses like this one. I think the original tweet was pretty mean spirited and at the end of the day yeah if someone brings a book into the bar and they're not bothering anyone leave them be of course. However and bear with me here I do want to play devil's advocate for just one moment. I personally do find it a little bit obnoxious when someone brings a book into a setting that obviously doesn't allow for it and you can tell that they're doing it to build some kind of bullshit mysterious bookworm vibe. Like a casual bar is fine that's a perfectly fine place to read a book sure. But there has been times where I've seen people reading in the booth of places that could much closer be described as a nightclub and I know damn well you aren't reading the clockwork orange successfully while Doja Cat blasts your eardrums. I wouldn't go so far as to say no one likes you but I can promise you people are much sooner going to roll their eyes than come over to you and swoon but also who cares that's your business. So there's another interesting book based debate from Twitter and it comes from this tweet. Authors stop using pop culture references in books please. I'm not going to dunk on the poster of the tweet because they are a kid but I do find myself agreeing with most of the responses in this case. I can 100% understand people not liking pop culture references in books but personally I actually really enjoy them especially when it comes to like referencing songs playing in the background of certain scenes. Other pop culture references can ground the story in a particular time period that the book is written or set in which makes it all the more fun to read at a much later date. For example when you read a book that is written in or set in the 70s and the characters will mention the new Exorcist movie or the new Elton John song for me it helps to build the time period aesthetic and hopefully in another 50 years people will look back on our modern books in much the same way. In defense of this tweet though some writers can absolutely butcher it it's the how do you do fellow kids effect. Here's a really great example that I saw over on Twitter a while ago if you can't see it I'll read it out here. I need to do something or I'm going to go insane. She stood up from the bed and stretched her stiff muscles. The bed made groaning noises as she popped her knuckles and squared her shoulders. She did nothing but sleep, eat and stare into space for God knew how long. Watch me whip. She began. Watch me nay nay. The guard shot a glance her way curiously eyeing her as if she was some sort of weirdo. Valariana ignored him and went on with the task of entertaining herself. Every day I'm shuffling she did some shuffling somewhere along the chorus. Hey look one of those successful TikTok authors that we were talking about is in here. Piper C.G. in The Author made a noopsy. It's quite a saga so I am going to have to trim it down to the highlights. Piper published her book The Night and Its Moon and as of right now it's sitting rather awkwardly at about two and a half stars. A lot of the negative reviews coming in response to what's about to follow. So one Goodreads reviewer left a review that I personally think was pretty polite and constructive as far as Goodreads goes. I say that as someone who has constantly pointed out the dog shit practice of reviewers being unnecessarily mean to try and sound funny and falling flat. This particular review was as constructive as an author could probably hope to get. The only part that I think could even be close to being described as being mean spirited was this bit. You can pause and read that if you'd like but I'm sure you can see where this is going. So after the reviewer put up their review the author posted the very next day on their Instagram story. They posted screenshots of the review and other ratings from the reviewer's Goodreads page. Basically taking the piss. The other books that Piper was showing on an Instagram story from the reviewer's Goodreads was one that she thought was a picture book, an obvious attempt to insult the reviewer's intelligence and the other being a Columbine non-fiction and obvious attempt to question the reviewer's morals. Things got worse when Piper's editor also decided to weigh in and got involved responding directly to the reviewer on Goodreads with some wonderful lines such as, The greatest benefit to being indie is we can respond to you. Traditional authors don't have that luxury so me to you shut the fuck up. Which is just one of the most remarkable things that I've seen an actual editor say to someone. Now the reviewer in question relayed all of this to a TikTok user and that TikTok user posted it all online and that's how everything came to air and since then Piper has apologized both on TikTok and on YouTube. Now the video apology itself is okay. It does an okay job at owning up to all of the mistakes and in particular distancing herself from the editor and their actions, even if the apology does at times feel pretty self-pitying and almost comically dramatic. That's everything that happened in Dot Points and as far as my thoughts go I just think it's baffling. The level of unprofessionalism here by both the author and the editor is just it's mind-boggling. She's obviously a smart and educated woman it's very easy to see from her video apology. Smart enough at least to know what is appropriate or not when it comes to interacting with readers. This whole experience shouldn't have been the thing that taught her that. Blasting a reviewer on your social media is so obviously not okay and as much as she apologizes for it I think this is something that's going to follow her writing career around like the smell from a pair of skidmarked undies and to be honest good I think it should. I'm a very strong advocate for readers and authors to be able to communicate with each other. There seems to be this weird idea that they should not talk to each other at all and that as soon as the author publishes their book they should crawl back and say their cave and get to writing the next one and just shut up. However that communication should only come in a way that both parties are okay with. The author agrees to be critiqued when they sell their book but the reviewer does not agree to be personally vetted on that person's public profile when they give their feedback. If you're a reader and you tweet out some really nasty shit about an author and then tag them in it I think they have the right to respond but on a platform like Goodreads where the primary purpose is to leave reviews and a lot of those reviews are going to be negative that's not the place for authors to give their two cents. This whole situation just reminds me a lot of like the Kathleen Hale story albeit maybe not nearly as bad. AI audio reading looks to be working towards audiobook integration and the public response was less than stellar. Personally I don't really think there's anything to worry about audiobook narrations are a lot more than just reading words it's performance and I haven't seen anything even close to that from even the most advanced AI readers yet. Let's say though that they do come close enough to creating something that works well enough to not intrude on the immersion of the story. They create this AI that can read out a book and have it sound good enough that it doesn't distract you. Let's say they do that. There is a notable upside here. I'm someone with a full-time job and a pretty respectable income and there's still no way I could ever justify getting an audiobook narration done for my books. The price of narration for indie authors very often far exceeds what we could even hope to ever get back. It's just not affordable or profitable. I'm not saying that narrators charge too much it's a big job I get it but it is a whole medium of the storytelling that we simply cannot access. I think having a cheaper option with the trade-off of it being slightly lower quality than a human voice actor I think it would be nice. A very interesting bit of discourse has sparked up again recently although it's a conversation that's been being had for a long time. In short the oddly possessive nature of women in the romantic genre. In particular when writing male male romance. Before you jump on me and call me sexist for just saying that just hear me out so booktuber Jack Edwards made a throwaway tweet about the objectively funny trope of men in erotic literature being hung like Norse gods and the response was an overwhelming hey fuck you some going so far as to say that someone with a penis talking about the description of penises in books is sexist even when talking about gay romance there were some hot takes like male male romance is written for women so find your own thing gay guys I'm sure I don't need to explain why that is such a confusing hill for so many romance authors to die on it seems pretty obvious at least to me that if you are going to profit from writing gay romance the least you can do is engage in a conversation when a gay person asks you what's up rather than accusing them of being sexist even though they belong to the very group of people at the center of the conversation and your career also if you want to write your romance stories with men that have big shorn tier ding dongs go ahead I don't think anyone including Jack Edwards actually cares just don't be surprised if you get a few laughs along the way so there it is all of your most recent author writer and bookish controversy for you to feast on let me know what you think about any of this there's more than enough for you to give your thoughts on thanks so much for watching especially for watching through the whole video I appreciate you and if you want more updates in the world of authors behaving badly or if you just want to see more writing themed videos in general stick around I have no idea what we'll see in writer Badlands episode 2 but hopefully it's less people writing horny Ukraine fanfiction thanks again for watching catch ya