Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

(This one is dedicated to my good friend Onasander ... who I'm hoping is standing very near a very large grease-fire right now. )

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Okay, so one of my gigantic issues with Anderhack is his continual self-promotion. Beyond that, I've always suspected that much of what he says is just flat-out inaccurate at best; at worst, he's a complete liar.

I've already done some research showing that his "numerous awards" are actually something like four awards in total (in a nearly 30-year career), none of which are major and one of which is for children's books. It's also been a breeze to expose Becky Moesta as a sham author — she has no individual credits at all that I can find — and to take the air out of the "Brian Herbert is a respected author" balloon. Those are all easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.

I actually had to do a little research for this one. I'm sick of running into Keith's "I've written 10 DUNE Books, and each one has peaked higher than the last on the bestseller lists!" spiel, and I've always suspected it was patently false. Let's check: here's the performance of the last five PreekDune novels on the official New York Times hardcover fiction list:



What you're looking at there is a series that is getting demonstrably less popular, even with a built-in base of mouth-breathing preeks who will buy anything with a big "DUNE" on the cover and SF/F completists who will ... uh ... buy anything with a big "DUNE" on the cover.

The trend here can be summed up in a single word: down. Corrin enjoyed four solid weeks ... Hunters debuted at No. 3 (!!), but then tanked quickly ... Sandworms managed to squeeze out four weeks ... Paul only lasted for one week ... and Winds barely made the list even once before disappearing forever (the NYT lists are 15 deep).

I've said this before, but I'll repeat: without a massive marketing push, there's no way that Leto's Golden Throne or Whatever of DUNE is going to be a NYT best-seller. There does appear to be a threshold for over-saturation, crappy dicta-writing, and shitting all over your fanbase. What's scary is that I think Brian Herbert, of all people, sees this and knows that the good times won't last forever — it was Brian who made all the noise last summer about calling it a day after three more books at most.

Oh, and Kevin? You're a fucking liar. Take that "peaked higher" line out of your cut-and-paste promotional material, Fat Boy, and do it now.

Nice. I doubt even the movie (which may never even be made) is going to help the shitters. (Especially with it apparently set to come out in an off-McDune year.)

Seriously, why don't we have someone mailing stuff like this to KJA?

EDIT: Oh, and good work!

post it in the discussions on Keith's Amazon "community" ....

sending it to Merritt will get nowhere - twitting it about won't help,
they just ignore what they don't like or doesn't fit the agenda ...

or ... maybe send copies of the Keith Quotes and the Real Numbers
to SciFi mags & general sites like IO9 or whatever - and be sure to
include the Better Business Bureau in the cc ...

maybe somebody at the New York Times would be interested in how Keith is twisting
their list all to hell and back ?

SandRider wrote: maybe somebody at the New York Times would be interested in how Keith is twisting
their list all to hell and back ?

I doubt it. They'd probably just say: "who?"

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Seriously, why don't we have someone mailing stuff like this to KJA?

You mean to annoy him, or there's a possibility he really doesn't know?

SandChigger wrote:

Nice. I doubt even the movie (which may never even be made) is going to help the shitters. (Especially with it apparently set to come out in an off-McDune year.)

This might make me too cynical, but I'm kinda hoping for that.

Yeah.

But the only thing better than the deal falling apart and it never getting made is...


It getting made and KJA bragging about playing a part in the process and it ending up being a MASSIVE FAIL.

absolutely, Keith's got such a case of pre-twit, he'd be babbling about the movie
for a year straight, twits from "The Set", blahg inside blahgs inside blahgs, pics
of him & Becky in the buffet line, giving away signed "memorabilia" to the 501ers ...

then the movie tanks, loses more money than "Ishtar", worse reviews than "WaterWorld",
released on DVD within the month, FX buys the rights within the year, airs it between
"Galaxina" and "Spaceballs" ....

reminds me of Frank talking about writing instead of talking about what you're writing ...
more Frank Keith's not read .... too busy twitting about the novel he was talking into the recorder ...

TheDukester wrote: the performance of the last five PreekDune novels on the official New York Times hardcover fiction list:



Oh, and Kevin? You're a fucking liar.

That is excellent work. Obviously, the New York Times bestseller list also has an agenda against shite writing by the journeyman.

(Is anyone else NOT seeing the graph image now? Or is it just the uni NetNazis? I'm not getting the usual "site brocked" message.)

I'm seeing it just fine.

Title---------1 2 3 4----------- weeks-----highest
Corrin---------- 10 9 13 13-------------4-------9
Hunters---------3 7 9-----------------3-------9
Sandworms----- 4 6 10 14------------- 4-------4
Paul------------ 11----------------------1-------11
Winds---------- 15--------------------- 1-------15

I hope that makes some sense.

Thanks, but I can see it now. Uni network must not have liked the server or something.

SandChigger wrote:Thanks, but I can see it now. Uni network must not have liked the server or something.

That's 2 minutes you owe me, get dancing.

MrFlibble wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:Seriously, why don't we have someone mailing stuff like this to KJA?

You mean to annoy him, or there's a possibility he really doesn't know?

Both. He probably filters out the parts of reality that say anything negative about him (the way someone who believes one specific thing about the nature of reality will filter out the parts of reality that don't match... this is how we end up with museums that show people living with dinosaurs...) and having the stats shoved right in his face would probably jar him momentarily - until he quickly rationalizes it. He'll tell himself that the books that "rode on Dune's coat tails" (in his mind Dune 7, but we all know it's really ALL of them) sold more out the gate for obvious reasons, and now he's settling into writing his "unappreceated in their time" books that will some day be regarded as one with the original series.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:now he's settling into writing his "unappreceated in their time" books that will some day be regarded as one with the original series.

don't hold your breath, Keith

merkin muffley wrote:

A Thing of Eternity wrote:now he's settling into writing his "unappreceated in their time" books that will some day be regarded as one with the original series.

don't hold your breath, Keith

Or do hold your breath for that one KJA, and do us all a favour.

inhuien wrote:That's 2 minutes you owe me, get dancing.

Wull ... wull ... it's not like I ASKED you to go to the trouble, now is it? And my earlier post in the thread showed that I had seen it; was just wondering if anyone else wasn't!

OH, ALL RIGHT!

After watching him in action for a few years now, I think it's pretty obvious that Keith has a bit of a dual nature.

Most often, he's in full-on Pretentious Dickhead Mode. This is where he honestly believes he's a "bestselling author" as opposed to a guy whose name gets put on franchises; where he thinks he actually has some skills instead of just being a low-rent hack; and where he thinks he's going to end up as some sort of SF legend.

Sometimes, though, the mask slips, and he lets some frustration get through. It's as these times that I think his mind is screaming, "You're a Rent-A-Hack™! You'll be forgotten the minute you're gone! No one buys or cares about your solo books!" (Coincidentally, these are also the times that I'm smiling and happy and looking to sex up the wife).

TheDukester wrote:...This is where he honestly believes he's a "international bestselling author" ...

You left out a key word that he always adds - just because he once sold a couple of books in fucking New Zealand.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:He probably filters out the parts of reality that say anything negative about him (the way someone who believes one specific thing about the nature of reality will filter out the parts of reality that don't match... this is how we end up with museums that show people living with dinosaurs...) and having the stats shoved right in his face would probably jar him momentarily - until he quickly rationalizes it. He'll tell himself that the books that "rode on Dune's coat tails" (in his mind Dune 7, but we all know it's really ALL of them) sold more out the gate for obvious reasons, and now he's settling into writing his "unappreceated in their time" books that will some day be regarded as one with the original series.

Hmm, I'd rather believe he's an avid practitioner of doublethink and blackwhite, but that's just my opinion.

SandChigger wrote:

inhuien wrote:That's 2 minutes you owe me, get dancing.

Wull ... wull ... it's not like I ASKED you to go to the trouble, now is it? And my earlier post in the thread showed that I had seen it; was just wondering if anyone else wasn't!

You could very well have a point there, it's a good thing then that time isn't linear and I'm blessed with zero memory.

TheDukester wrote:Sometimes, though, the mask slips, and he lets some frustration get through. It's as these times that I think his mind is screaming, "You're a Rent-A-Hack™! You'll be forgotten the minute you're gone! No one buys or cares about your solo books!"

Insecure Dickhead Mode, perhaps.

HBJ

Sorry for the massive bump, but I wanted to note that Twisted Sisterhood did not debut on the NYT list (the upcoming 1/22 issue of the Times; the first week the book would have been eligible). It's mentioned in the "other crap that's shifting a few copies" section, but not in the official top 15. Sort of like when Wyoming or Boston College gets a random vote in the AP football poll.

Maybe y'all already know this; I've been out of the loop for a while. Apologies if it's posted elsewhere.