So the noted science fiction author (and evil Social Justice Warrior) John Scalzi just signed a $3.4 million dollar, 13-book deal with Tor books, his publisher.

Scalzi’s longtime nemesis, far-right fantasy author and garbage human Vox Day, wants us to know that Scalzi’s grapes, all $3.4 million worth of them, are very sour indeed.

In a post today on his Vox Popoli blog, Vox sniffs that Scalzi’s book deal is “an interesting indication of his intrinsic insecurity.”

For you see, as Vox tries to convince his readers (and, presumably, himself), only timid souls sign $3.4 million deals with actual publishers; real men self-publish.

This isn’t a bad deal for Scalzi, it is merely a very conservative deal. What Johnny Con is attempting to do is to secure his retirement and look for any upside to come out of the various media deals he’s got going. It’s a perfectly reasonable strategy, particularly in these uncertain economic times. The bolder strategy would have been for him to go into self-publishing, where as I’ve demonstrated, there is considerably more upside to be had. But Scalzi is neither a self-confident man nor an entrepreneur, so it is entirely in character that he’d prefer to give up the equivalent of about five birds in the bush in favor of the one in Tor’s hand.

Yeah, those grapes are really, really sour.

After dismissing the $3.4 million deal as really no big deal, when you look at it, seriously, what can you buy for $3.4 million anyway these days, Vox goes on to mock what he sees as Scalzi’s inadequate blog traffic.

The fact that a mediocre and derivative hack without any discernible talent beyond self-promotion and petty snark could turn 300k monthly pageviews and a color-by-numbers Heinlein ripoff into a near-guaranteed $250k per year is borderline astonishing. If he’d somehow managed to do it without repeatedly lying his ample ass off and consistently misrepresenting himself, I’d consider him to be downright brilliant.

Vox is indeed mad jelly.

NOTE: I calculated the tonnage of grapes used in the headline using what I think was the most recent price of seedless red grapes, my favorite, at my local supermarket. At $3.49/pound, $3.4 million buys you roughly 442 metric tons of grapes, before taxes.

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