Entry tags:

Author wank, oh boy!
(Thank you to a mouse on wank_report for the following post which I am plagiarizing)

Self-published author Michael Robb Matthias make a self-promotional post in the forums of Fantasy Faction. Fantasy Faction is perfectly okay with authors promoting their work, provided they do it in the proper place, but moves said post into the "self-published and small presses" category where it belongs.

Robb duly takes this for the TERRIBLE INSULT that it is.

I am not a small press. I am an author with 18 titles for sale. That is more titles that some big publishing houses. I have advertising currently running in Locus, Publishers Weekly, Fantasy and Sci Fi, and Revolver magazines. I have blog advertising across the entire blog-o-sphere. I am not a small press or even self published. M. R. Mathias' books are PUBLISHED by Michael Robb Mathias Jr. and should be treated no differently that any big named publishers title. WHY? Because I do my job as a publisher too. Please quit sending my posts into the self published/small press thread. My titles are neither. I have 92k twitter followers @DahgMahn and 10 titles in their genre bestselling list. There is nothing self pubbed, or small, about books written by M. R. Mathias.
Thank you,
M.R.Mathias' publisher, Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

Commenters point out that this is... not really the best way to go about things and are accused of e-bullying, being sick, petty, and "jelous".

The mods close things despite the protests of a crowd of gleeful spectators on Twitter who aren't ready for the drama to end yet. Fantasy Faction posts a follow-up the next day, including a summary of the events on the forum, some mildly worrisome self-glorifying tweets, a few reviews indicating these glorious works of fiction are less than glorious, and Mr. Robb's claims of how we're all just jealous.

The fun continues on Twitter, where among other things, Mr. Robb calls Fantasy Faction Nazis and complains of censorship. He has at least four aliases on Twitter: @Michael_Robb @BookReTweeter @MrStubbs @NocturnMP3. But don't worry, they are, he informs people, all "licensed". Are your twitter handles "licensed," peons? I THINK NOT!

https://twitter.com/#!/dahgmahn seems to be where most of the action is -- but at one point, NocturnMP3 (admitted as being another sock) steps into defend...himself:

@fantasyfaction You suck, but only for banning M.R. He did NOTHING WRONG!

This entire conversation is comedy gold, of course.

@Gollancz I wanted to market my books to faction readers not indie authors. Its basic buisness. I dont want to now. Faction is all BULLIES!

Further highlights include this, to author M.D Lachlan:

@mdlachlan Ah you have publishers? 5th draft? You must suck as a writer. My #bestseller was wriiten with a pen in a prison cell. Two drafts.

WITH A PEN IN A PRISON CELL.

For your pleasure, you may also marvel at the spinning skulls and note the name of the main character of his latest book on his website.

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sandglass
2012-05-23 02:46 am UTC (link)

One of Mathias's tweets: @FantasyFaction FACT – My post will have three times the number of hits as you have followers. I broke NO rules! #NAZI #Censorship #InEffect

Oh, that is just delightful! Pageviews means they agree with you? I read the whole thing to laugh at him.

I want to know how I am a small press, if I am outselling Robin Hobb and Terry Goodkind and Tolkien? lmao

He...outsells Tolkein? In what universe?

@mdlachlan @FantasyFaction Only industry people CARE about commas. Everyone else is enjoying the story. You could learn a lot from me.

I CARE ABOUT COMMAS. I super duper capslock care about commas. They are awesome. How else do you make your sentences understandable? ALL HAIL COMMAS.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

	khym_chanur 2012-05-23 03:42 am UTC (link)
	I, for one, welcome our new comma overlords. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	gerorin 2012-05-23 04:23 am UTC (link)
	You're just saying that because you don't know how to proper legit enjoy super speshul snowflake stories, clearly. or rather: You're just saying that because you don't know how to proper legit enjoy super speshul snowflake stories (Reply to this)(Parent)

	risha 2012-05-23 03:45 pm UTC (link)
	I, too, have very strong opinions about commas, especially the Oxford comma; semicolons are my true love, though. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	bitca 2012-05-23 07:56 pm UTC (link)
	Quick, someone get him a copy of Eats Shoots and Leaves! (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	singe 2012-05-25 12:31 am UTC (link)
	He can have mine. Wait, no he can't. MINE! (Reply to this)(Parent)

nifflet
2012-05-23 10:45 pm UTC (link)

Only industry people CARE about commas.

I read this and all I can think about is how one time, I watched this show on Food Network and one of the competitors said in a talking head interview that she felt confident she'd win because the other person's entry looked like "TOTAL cruise ship food".

The sheer contempt in her voice for something relatively mundane that somehow she felt everyone in the world shared with her is eerily similar to this quote.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sandglass 2012-05-23 11:47 pm UTC (link)
	What the eff does cruise ship food look like? Other than delicious and in copious amounts. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ekaterinv 2012-05-24 04:31 am UTC (link)
	I wonder that too. The one time I've been on a cruise, the food was marvelous. Maybe she's above making her food tasty? (Reply to this)(Parent)

	dreamworld 2012-05-24 12:08 pm UTC (link)
	Sounds like the foodie equivalent to Simon Cowell dissing a performance for sounding like a lounge singer. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	paladin 2012-05-23 11:02 pm UTC (link)
	Do not mock his sales data, unbeliever! Just look at this record: this year alone, his website has sold TWO books by Matthias, but has sold ZERO books by Hobb, Goodkind, and Tolkien COMBINED! Could a small press say that? FACT! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	solelyfictional 2012-05-24 09:29 am UTC (link)
	At this point he sounds so much like Garth "As a writer, I make my own rules up, okay? If I wanna start a sentence with a full stop I will" Marenghi I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't some cleverly constructed parody. (Reply to this)(Parent)

full_metal_ox
2012-05-25 12:32 am UTC (link)

Update: here's B. J. Keeton's's take on the matter, which Mathias cannot allow to go unchallenged:

Mark Twain was a slaver. I suppose you wouldn’t read anything he wrote because he was dick? lmao I never lied once. Search M. R. Mathias at Amazon, B&N, iStore, SonyReaderStore, Goodreads, Wattpad. What you will find is a whole lot of books with a whole lot of stars.

I can be a dick because my books have sold themselves into the Amazon bestseller Charts. What I or you say about them wont change the words I wrote or how good they are. Just ask one of the nearing 175k people who have read a M.R.Mathias book. thats all you have to do.

See ya in the Epic Fantasy top 100, when you get there.</a>

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	nightwithmoon 2012-05-26 05:22 pm UTC (link)
	Someone needs to beat this guy senseless with a red pen. (But then, what do I know? I'm just one of those fun-hating people who care about commas and know that "wont" is very much not the same as "won't".) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	full_metal_ox 2012-05-26 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	I also find myself wondering what edition of Huckleberry Finn he read--if any. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	aewgliriel 2012-05-29 01:33 pm UTC (link)
	. . . Yeaaaaah, mine's been on the bestsellers list, too, so what? Dickhead. (Reply to this)(Parent)

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