General > Author Q&A
Unholy Consultation - *SUPER SPOILERIFIC*
bridgeburner:
Would The Judging Eye be able to see Kelmomas? If he is invisible to the gods, and the Judging Eye is (I think?) a manifestation of the gods or one god or the god of gods, then would he be invisible to it?
Madness:
I created a new thread for the content derailing this thread, Midlist Authors & Online Piracy.
I'll probably even join in on the conversation if it continues therein. I've always enjoyed sounding Bakker on a variety of subjects but the growing back and forth really takes away from fans who simply want to take the opportunity to ask questions.
Cheers.
codebread:
Thanks, Madness.
If it's not too late to ask anything with the AMA being tomorrow and all...
How would you define death in the context of TSA's universe? It's something that I've been curious about considering the physics we've seen. Perhaps this is a question with an obvious answer, but I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it. We know that Heaven and Hell (for lack of better words) exist, as well as "Oblivion". We know that when a person "dies" in the physical sense their soul moves on to another place and continues to experience things, good or bad. Is death the act of your soul moving to one of these places (i.e leaving your body permanently), or is death simply related only to a creature's physical form, regardless of where the soul goes (i.e what happened to Malowebi)? Is there a form of soul "death" (moving to Oblivion, perhaps)?
Would Malowebi still be considered "alive" because he has a consciousness (his soul?) tied to the world?
MisterGuyMan:
--- Quote from: Cû'jara-Cinmoi on August 01, 2017, 07:43:58 pm --- (click to show/hide)The sheer number of media consumers worldwide is exploding, so of course there's an overall gain. In Western music markets, revenue remains around 60% of its 2000 mark. Even looking at the EU data correlating higher illegal downloading with higher purchasing you very quickly run into differential granularity problems: the fact is, the 'long tail' as they call it, is getting skinnier and skinnier, and the long tail is where the genuine novelty incubates. The skinnier it gets, the less incubation time it has, the more likely it is to die off, the more monotonous and mechanical the mainstream becomes. (Since concert/touring income is almost entirely restricted to the manufacturers of pap, and only applicable to musicians to boot, it is an argumentative canard).
Like all instances of free-riding, the viability depends on honest brokers. Since you seem to recognize this now (abandoning the assertion that IP is an artificial instrument of oppression), then the question is one of why you aren't decrying illegal downloading? At what point do you think illegal downloading will negatively impact sales. When it reaches 50%? 60%? 70%? 80%? Do you only plan to defend it so far?
To the extent you provide apparently articulate rationales for illegal downloading you are, most definitely, part of the problem. I thank you for buying my books, but as someone who regularly encounters 'I'll keep reading, but I ain't paying a cent,' comments because of some perceived moral failing on my part, I would kindly ask that you stop encouraging people to perpetuate my poverty. Do you really think product placement and merchandising are commensurate with projects like mine? What other 'business model' do you have in mind? Government handouts? The last I checked my books contravened pretty much every 'literary scruple' an arts bureaucrat can be expected to muster.
I am genuinely 'out there.' The only way fools like me get to make a difference is by toughing it out in the long tail. The problem I face, even though my sell-through percentages are in the high 80 percentile range, is that publishers are becoming less and less inclined to 'develop' midlist authors, and more and more inclined to grope for lightning in a bottle. Why pay an artist to hone their craft when you need only troll for magical amateurs? The less books I sell, the more expendable I become. As soon as I vanish from bookstore shelves, my single biggest point of exposure to new readers vanishes also, as well as any chance of receiving mainstream attention. Then odds are, it's off to the experimenter's graveyard. The genre community finds me pretentious, too 'academic.' The academic community finds me vulgar, too 'genre.' My publishers are the only institutional leg I have to stand on... of course I find your chiseling insulting. That which robs me makes me richer.
In one breath you say illegal downloading generates IP income, and in the next you say it's time to find something other than IP income. Then you say I'm advocating higher levels of household debt. Ooof. If we don't let people steal X, then we risk the economy collapsing. And X = 'content' as opposed to 'chairs' or 'diapers' or 'allergy medication' why?
Talk about rationalization.
--- End quote ---
I'm still currently trying to see how feasible it would be to attend Zauduyanicon or BakkerCon! on as I prefer to call it. I'm hoping this disagreement won't prevent you from signing my books.
[I edited out the paragraphs here since they pertain to our private Piracy argument and posted the complete reply in Madness' new thread.]
With respect, and this is a self serving request, I ask that you reconsider your stance on alternate sources of revenue if this issue really concerns you. I'm trying to bridge our disagreement into a productive request. There were a handful of people here already showing interest in action figures. The custom Kellhus figure I mentioned earlier will probably cost me over $500 to make and that's largely because you pay a premium for custom work if there's no official stuff to buy. I would support you via patron if you ever decided to go that route. Wilshire was upgrading your books into these awesome leatherbound and I said I would only sign up for a set if you would agree to sign them as a semi official first edition collector set. Your fans are dying to support you if you let us.
Consider this an olive branch. I feel l have supported my position enough [refer to Madness' new thread if you wish] so you can at least see where I stand even though I know we will continue to disagree. I firmly believe consumers generally want to and continue to prove even today that they do prefer to support creators.
Dunkelheit:
--- Quote from: bridgeburner on August 01, 2017, 09:50:22 pm ---Would The Judging Eye be able to see Kelmomas? If he is invisible to the gods, and the Judging Eye is (I think?) a manifestation of the gods or one god or the god of gods, then would he be invisible to it?
--- End quote ---
The is a scene in TUC where it does. It sees the whirlwind.
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