A brief history: For years, Tor editor Jim Frenkel was widely known as a serial sexual harasser at conventions. What was done about it? Not much, for a very long time. Eventually, he was encouraged to resign after the public outcry became too much, which was announced with typical corporate blandness.

Last year, Tor contracts manager Sean Fodera publicly attacked one of Tor’s authors, Mary Robinette Kowal, in a typically gross and sexist way. He later apologized, in a half-assed way, and she graciously accepted.

In May of this year, on her personal Facebook page, Irene Gallo (Creative Director at Tor Books) described a group of extreme right wings fans who call themselves “Sad Puppies” as extreme right wing fans. She also described a group of fan who follow a neo-Nazi (he denies the label even though he fits it) who call themselves “Rabid Puppies” as neo-Nazis. That neo-Nazi screencapped her remark and filed it away so he could release it as the Nebula Awards were given out, to distract people from the award winning books.

Did Tor CEO Tom Doherty release a letter apologizing publicly for Frenkel’s or Fodera’s behavior, while insisting that they should have been smarter about separating the personal from the professional? Of course not. For one thing, Frenkel’s shitty behavior happened while he was representing Tor Books at public events. For another, they were dudes and their victims were women. Continue reading

No author likes to see a one-star review, but the truth is that they’re a good sign for some books.

However, as mentioned previously, some authors really don’t deal well with rejection.

I’m an indie author. I work over 100 hours a week to get my books to succeed so that I don’t have to be a slave anymore. This review is not good for my business, so unless your desire is to ruin my dreams, it would mean a great deal if you could remove this review from my work and forget about it. But if it’s your desire to hurt me financially and ruin my business, then it’s understandable why you would post such a harmful review.

and

For someone to leave such a toxic review on a book that contains so much gnosis, that people had to die in order to learn in the past, is an utter disgrace to the human condition.

and

Someone that leaves 1 star reviews on someone’s work who didn’t wrong them, who they’ve never met, that’s IS THE MEASURE OF A BAD PERSON.

and one more

NONE of you have any more or less rights than anyone at the NYT. To me, you’re more important than the people that are bought off at the NYT. Or did you think Hilary Clinton could just write a bestseller on her own? Nevertheless, wait till the NYT tries me. I’ll start NAMING NAMES. See what you don’t understand is my experience with the dark occultists of this world that are destroying you from within. You think ToO is some pathetic little fantasy from an author with a God complex. It’s not. It’s an allegorical metaphor for what’s going on because I can’t come out and speak without being in serious danger…

And on and on. It’s quite the train wreck, and he does it in response to other comments as well.

But what he doesn’t understand is that a few one-star reviews mixed in with a bunch of five-stars (and I don’t even want to think about how he got those) legitimizes those positive reviews. Without a few slams, the praise seems like it came from friends, family, and co-workers (or worse, was bought and paid for). He should WANT some dings.

Instead, he’s going on about “dark occultists” and being attacked, which says everything that needs saying about him, I guess.

So, John Scalzi just signed a 13-book deal with Tor, worth $3.4 million.

Pretty good for a guy whose career is over.

Actually, I’m sure there are people out there claiming that this is all a publicity stunt to get him in the news sell a few dozen copies, but those people are just sad.

Here’s more evidence, if anyone needs it, that an author does not need to hide their politics to have a healthy career. Be yourself. Speak out.