Banned by the Publisher

http://www.nickcolebooks.com/2016/02/09/banned-by-the-publisher/

by nkurz • 10 years ago

41 44 10 years ago

amyjess• 10 years ago

In other words, they were attempting to effectively ban a book because they felt the ideas and concepts I was writing about were dangerous and more importantly, not in keeping with their philosophical ideals.

No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.

erbo4• 10 years ago

Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics. Period.

[1] http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-...

tyingq2• 10 years ago

The post you reference also mentions that the resulting free publicity is boosting Nick's sales of his existing books. So, at least there's some upside to his current situation.

deong• 10 years ago

To which I'd say, "And?"

The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand".

He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.

sleepybrett• 10 years ago

As much as this isn't an atttempt to "ban" the book it also isn't an attempt to "censor" the book. It's simply a publisher saying 'We don't want to publish this book in this form". And they could say that for any reason, including a political one.

Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.

x0x02• 10 years ago

Larry finds liberal bias in any outcome in which his results aren't what he perceives they ought to be. He also is a poor writer (imo obviously; I've half-read two books before quitting because I was bored) who likes to write superman books and is offended by any reader that prefers moderately more complex fiction than when the reader was an 8 year old child. To top it off, Larry is in the midst of a 3-year (and counting!) tantrum that the Hugos include, and sometimes give awards to, anything but straight white men. So, you know, giant grain of salt.

ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-...

dragonwriter5• 10 years ago

Larry Correia says [1] that "ban" would not be the right word here, but what they were doing was effectively censoring his work. And the reason they did so, in the instant case, was because of politics.

And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press.

It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.

chrismcb2• 10 years ago

I thought they did it because of sales.

Someone12342• 10 years ago

They're using "ban a book" to elicit a specific response here. Look; a publisher has the right to publish or not any work they wish for any reason they wish.

If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something.

But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.

ricketycricket• 10 years ago

The publisher absolutely has the right to not publish the book. It's also very possible the author is being a bit unreasonable and bitter. We are only getting one side of the story.

However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.

scandox• 10 years ago

I'm curious why the author's agent didn't just approach other mainstream publishers with it. After all, if he's a critical and commercial success with HarperCollins then it's very likely that someone, somewhere will take a serious interest. Now I know that the publishing world has conglomerated a lot in the last 20 years...but still there are other players.

edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.

Mtinie• 10 years ago

This article gives us one passionate side of the situation. It would be nice to be a fly on the wall during the lead up conversations between HarperCollins and Mr. Cole's agent prior to the final decision being made.

Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.

largehotcoffee• 10 years ago

We're in a similar situation except with Amazon being the one banning our books. I am the owner of FAKKU, an English publisher of erotic manga (Japanese comics). Despite there being a category on Amazon for our specific material and previously receiving approval to list our books behind an "Adults Only" flag, our books have been banned.

If you're wondering what that looks like from the customer perspective, you can see (or not see) our banned best sellers here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/...

dragonwriter5• 10 years ago

Actually, I think being blocked by a retail channel with the absolute dominance Amazon has is a lot more significant than being turned down by a publisher.

The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.

joesmo• 10 years ago

It's terrible but thinking Amazon is a haven from censorship is wrong. They can and will close your account for any reason or no reason at all. If they didn't agree with this idea, they'd kill the book, guaranteed.

parfe2• 10 years ago

Why is this blatant marketing allowed on HN?

This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.

paolomaffei• 10 years ago

I agree that this sound like self-promoting, but calling that bit of the book "obviously unacceptable"?

parfe2• 10 years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh0nkoJgDM8

It's pretty simple. Get rejected, complain about how the man is holding you down, and hope the free publicity rolls in. It's marketing.

luketheobscure• 10 years ago

Interesting how I felt total empathy for the author up until about 2/3 of the way through, when I started to wonder if he was, perhaps, just a jerk. Probably somewhere around when he started comparing his publisher to the Nazis.

MCRed• 10 years ago

He didn't compare the publisher to nazis. He talked about one of the essential components that allowed the nazis to have power in germany.

The nazis existed. They were real.

I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"

pkinsky3• 10 years ago

I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction?

The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc).

edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.

Someone12342• 10 years ago

I would absolutely agree if several publishers were colluding to make it so an author couldn't publish. That is what happened during mccarthyism.

However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author.

I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.

pkinsky3• 10 years ago

I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.

Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.

dragonwriter5• 10 years ago

I see a few people pointing out that the book wasn't really banned, in the sense that it was not published as a direct result of government intervention. But is this really a meaningful distinction?

Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier.

The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction.

The book was prevented from being published

No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."

pkinsky3• 10 years ago

No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."

Prevented from being published via established channels, then. The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.

Onolo2• 10 years ago

Even with your example I don't see any justification for such a book to be banned/censored. Maybe I am too optimistic about society but I don't think there is any realistic harm from letting such a book be published, and a larger harm of false negatives under a set of rules that would censor such books.

xbmcuser• 10 years ago

This was mostly a business call publishing this book could make the publishers loose customers or even authors so they chose not to publish it. The author brilliantly is taking it as a business opportunity to market as something that was banned. With the american public so divided over right and left it will get a lot of publicity. Persoanlly I am for more people doing self publishing and not using the big 5 as that makes books cheaper for me. At the same time the topics and stories are not just those that are acceptable to particular group or ideology.

chrismcb2• 10 years ago

I was under the impression the publisher felt they would lose sales because of it. So yeah there is a huge distinction.

mikeash3• 10 years ago

Next time I'm turned down for something, I should write a blog post complaining about how I've been "banned."

What next, "banned from acting" when the author auditions for a commercial but the producers pick someone else?

dh997• 10 years ago

Controversy sells, also sadly evidenced by the 2016 US political process. :/

mst• 10 years ago

Having gone to the trouble of reading said first chapter ... wut. It's the "AI sees a human do something that can be interpreted as callous, starts thinking, decides maybe this is going to be a problem" trope (and, actually, as a firmly pro-choice person I find that the human action in question being one I wouldn't condemn actually adds to the horror inherent to the trope).

The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.

anotherevan• 10 years ago

Oh God. A publisher didn't like his work of fiction and perhaps acted unprofessionally and he cries about free speech and concentration camps, all in the same long winded paragraph. Cry me a river.

Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to.

Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.

Banned by the Publisher

Related Stories