Conquer Club

So fantasy-writer apparently had to apologize for lashing out at a 'laughably bad' cover illustration for his newest book. Weirdly enough a writer can't criticize what's done to his own book.

And honestly I agree with Terry, it's awfully generic.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/26/terry-goodkind-book-cover-shroud-of-eternity

show: cover

The Guardian (of whiny victim culture) better be careful...
If they do manage to redefine all criticism and analysis as 'hurtful microaggressions' they won't be able to write any of their own queasy sanctimonious drivel.

I don't get it. Why would he write that about the cover? Without any context, if I looked at that cover I wouldn't laugh, so I don't understand what makes it laughably bad either.

Is it something about the characters? Are they from the wrong book or something?

Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

Looks the same as every other cover of one of those sorts of books.

Neoteny wrote:Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

I've seen that response elsewhere. Where in the post did he blame the artist? He might have been blaming the publisher for a laughably bad cover.

It was vague enough that you could probably get either read from it. But who are the majority of people going to think of when you say the cover art is laughably bad?

waauw wrote:So fantasy-writer apparently had to apologize for lashing out at a 'laughably bad' cover illustration for his newest book. Weirdly enough a writer can't criticize what's done to his own book.

And honestly I agree with Terry, it's awfully generic.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/26/terry-goodkind-book-cover-shroud-of-eternity

show: cover

The warrior broad needs to have at least one breast showing.

Neoteny wrote:Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

It's a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

You might be right but even if you hate your publisher, I would recomend being polite and only writing good things about them even if you actively try to find a different one.

2dimes wrote:

Neoteny wrote:Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

It's a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

You might be right but even if you hate your publisher, I would recomend being polite and only writing good things about them even if you actively try to find a different one.

A cheque from the publisher is not a handout. The publisher needs the author as much as the author needs the publisher. It's not a bad idea to remind them of that.

Yeah, you go ahead and think that. Good luck getting anyone to publish your next book.

Goodkind is probably immune to some of that publisher backlash since he is pretty established and sells books, which is why he didn't mind airing this sort of thing out until people got grumpy with him for not being clear who he was criticizing. But, yeah, authors usually need the publisher a lot more than the other way around.

Dukasaur wrote:

2dimes wrote:

Neoteny wrote:Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

It's a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

You might be right but even if you hate your publisher, I would recomend being polite and only writing good things about them even if you actively try to find a different one.

A cheque from the publisher is not a handout. The publisher needs the author as much as the author needs the publisher. It's not a bad idea to remind them of that.

You can remind them of that without being a c*nt on social media though.

Who wants to work with someone who's just going to go off and trash them to everyone the second something happens that they don't like?

mrswdk wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

2dimes wrote:

Neoteny wrote:Weird that he would blame the artist for producing what his publisher asked for. You can not like the art, but it's so weird that he would criticize another artist instead of the people paying his check.

It's a bad idea to bite the hand that feeds you.

You might be right but even if you hate your publisher, I would recomend being polite and only writing good things about them even if you actively try to find a different one.

A cheque from the publisher is not a handout. The publisher needs the author as much as the author needs the publisher. It's not a bad idea to remind them of that.

You can remind them of that without being a c*nt on social media though.

Who wants to work with someone who's just going to go off and trash them to everyone the second something happens that they don't like?

Maybe he tried the soft approach and they were unresponsive, at which point he decided to up the ante. We don't know all the background.

Doesn't really matter if he tried another channel first or not. Resorting to public bashing is poor form and will get you nowhere. e.g. the author of this book having to apologize and look like an idiot

mrswdk wrote:Doesn't really matter if he tried another channel first or not. Resorting to public bashing is poor form and will get you nowhere. e.g. the author of this book having to apologize and look like an idiot

He only looks like an idiot because he blinked and changed course. If he had the balls to stay the course, they would have eventually given him a new cover rather than lose a multi-million selling author.

And they would have resented him for it and artists would be wary of ever producing artwork for one of his books for fear of being publicly ridiculed if he doesn't like their work.

mrswdk wrote:And they would have resented him for it and artists would be wary of ever producing artwork for one of his books for fear of being publicly ridiculed if he doesn't like their work.

When you're at the top of your game, the people making money off you know that you're the one buttering their bread. Do you think John McEnroe worried about whether his water boy resented his arrogance?

Is the water boy the publisher or the artists here?

Dukasaur wrote:

mrswdk wrote:And they would have resented him for it and artists would be wary of ever producing artwork for one of his books for fear of being publicly ridiculed if he doesn't like their work.

When you're at the top of your game, the people making money off you know that you're the one buttering their bread. Do you think John McEnroe worried about whether his water boy resented his arrogance?

There aren't many people who are so indispensable that they can behave like a douche to the people they work with and continually get away with it.

And even if they can get away with it, that's not a reason to behave that way. In the long run you are still better served by being the sort of person people want to work with than by being the sort of person people don't want to work with.

This author is barely some tennis pro at the club in Bassano, he's definately not MacEnroe.

If he was at the top of his game they would have showed him the cover and if he wasn't giddy about it they would try again rather than run a batch for him to complain about online.

The Harry Potter lady isn't opening a brown paper wrapped package to find out she does' like the new cover of her books.

mrswdk wrote:
You can remind them of that without being a c*nt on social media though.

Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding.

mrswdk wrote:

Dukasaur wrote:

mrswdk wrote:And they would have resented him for it and artists would be wary of ever producing artwork for one of his books for fear of being publicly ridiculed if he doesn't like their work.

When you're at the top of your game, the people making money off you know that you're the one buttering their bread. Do you think John McEnroe worried about whether his water boy resented his arrogance?

There aren't many people who are so indispensable that they can behave like a douche to the people they work with and continually get away with it.

And even if they can get away with it, that's not a reason to behave that way. In the long run you are still better served by being the sort of person people want to work with than by being the sort of person people don't want to work with.

I don't disagree. Again, however, we don't know the full background. We don't know how many times he asked nicely and was ignored before he decided to take his grievance public. This may have been a last resort after he tried everything else.

The only reason he looks bad is because he didn't have the courage to see the battle through to the end.

Terry has aspirations of being a better 'artist' than he is, that's probably why he criticized it.

He's also not at the top of his game anymore. 10-15 years ago when he was writing the main SoT series, maybe, but i think the book in question is a spin-off from that with one of the characters.

Artists who can't take criticism shouldn't even try to go pro. It will just call too much pain...

Maybe the publishers didn't like the artist's shoddy work either...

..and if the artist is claiming to just have made a piece of hack work for hire, then he should really have kept quiet about it.

Maybe I'm the only one reading the article, but the publisher pissed off the author and the author then attempted to piss off the publisher and inadvertently pissed off the artist?

I don't see the big deal really. The author wants an accurate depiction of his characters that he has envisioned and practically created. The publisher should have at least respect his wishes when he showed him the art to begin with instead of just saying "Tough shit, we're printing." Artist is just unfortunately caught in the fire.

Long story short - Respects a two way street.