LMAOOO. All right Ima try and explain this succinctly as possible. Basically this random-ass ‘young adult’ book, ‘Handbook for Mortals,’ hit the NYT Bestseller List on the #1 Spot for the Hardcover Young Adult Category this morning. Only problem is that literally NO ONE had ever heard of this book before, like nada marketing, publicity, etc. Zilch. It was supposedly published by a company, GeekNation who only announced their publishing arm back in July.
To hit the Bestseller list, the book would have had to sold at least 5,000~ copies within the first week, but a few people were quick to point out a major discrepancy where the book was literally out of stock everywhere in all major retailers, like legit you couldn’t find it on B&N, Amazon, and so on.
YA Twitter basically crowd-sourced an investigation where a few anonymous booksellers revealed that they had gotten calls first asking if they were NYT-reporting bookstores, and then received bulk orders of the book but not caring when the books arrived. Soooo essentially what happened was that this book scammed it’s way on to the top of the NYT Bestseller List by figuring out which bookstores reported sales to the NYT (to determine what hits the bestsellers list, the NYT’s methodology takes a sample from various bookstores, and this supposedly changes every week). They then ordered thousands of copies of the book from those stores and only those stores – and by doing so, this was all a scheme in the hopes of driving the book to the top of the bestseller list.
The main impetus for hitting the bestseller list was for getting a better chance to have a movie adaptation of the book made with a label like ‘#1 NYT Bestselling Book!’ which would have made it more appealing to potential investors. Butttt all of this was discovered and the NYT sent out a revision where they removed the book on the list a few hours ago.
Someone also compared an excerpt of the book to an excerpt from ‘My Immortal,’ so now there’s a conspiracy theory that the author, Lani Sarem, is actually the author behind that fanfic. She’s also a former music manager who worked with bands like Blues Traveler, and the official Blues Traveler account weighed in and claimed that she was fired for ‘pulling these kind of stunts.’
This doesn’t even cover half the craziness. Some of my other favorite parts:
– The cover wasn’t even revealed until the beginning of August
– The ONLY chatter on Twitter before this was a little blog tour they’d put together, but nothing else
– The distribution company behind this is the same people who distributed Milo Yadablahblah
– Whoever was behind this knew August was the best time to push a book onto the list (as opposed to September, which is bananas)
– Whoever was behind this knew the EXACTLY how many books to order form each store (the number that alerts NYT to start giving you a hard time is like 80 books at indies, so they went around and ordered 79 each.)
– But they were dumb enough to wildly over-order (they ordered over 18,000, over double what it would’ve taken)
– Also dumb enough to straight-up tell the booksellers “This is for an event but it’s okay if it doesn’t arrive”
– The book only has ONE blurb. One.
– No trade reviews. No blurbs from other authors within the community
– The ONE blurb is from an “international bestselling author”
– No. She’s a self-pub romance author who’s besties with LS
– You find all that out in the foreword (who puts a foreword on a YA novel???)
– Also the main character is 25 and there isn’t a single teen in this supposed YA novel
– Also also the cover may have been plagiarized
– Also also also the book knocked The Hate U Give to #2 and Everything, Everything off the list entirely, so people were maaaaaaaad
– And finally, when confronted with all this, the author tried to pull a “#KeepYAKind uwu” in her response to PW.
IT GOT WEIRDER
I’m getting a lot of this new stuff from Kayleigh Donaldson over at Punjabi.com, which was the first site to really pay attention to what was going down, and she’s kept at it even after the list was fixed.
first law: write the fic you wish to see in the world aka goddammit do I have to do everything myself around here
second law: it’s going to be longer than you think. much longer. hahaha so long. why are you crying
third law: the time spent writing is inversely proportional to the amount of smut present, dammit
fourth law: flesh out your secondary characters. make them real people. have them take over. oh god. put them back. somebody please help
fifth law: the time spent researching canon is directly proportional to the amount of time you’ll spend altering your plot. that one person on the internet
sixth law: the time spent researching in general will eclipse the time you spend writing. the nsa agent monitoring your internet search history is curled up in a corner. his boss wants to know if you’re a threat. “I don’t know,” the agent sobs. “I just really don’t know.”
seventh law: at some point, someone will ask what your favorite hobby is. you will feign a heart attack to get away
OMG the women’s boots have no heels!!!! You could actually run in those things!
Diverse cast AND sensible footwear! A girl could hardly ask for more…
that gold stripe on the thigh looks like a zipper. is that… are those… pockets?
This is such a tiny detail but it makes me so damn happy but look at the shoes. The women and men’s shoes are the same! There are no heels! Even Voyager and DS9 gave the women shoes with a heel. Even Wonder Woman, movie of my heartface, gave Diana fucking wedges which makes no goddamn sense. But not here! The shoes are the same! No heel in in sight! I fucking love this show already.
Here’s why it’s a big deal when female uniforms in Star Trek have the same principles applied as male ones.
Basically, the franchise’s record in that regard is mixed at best and the reboot films were a pretty big step backwards, even when ignoring the double standard in how female uniforms were cut.
~Ozzie
you know I get that this is some sort of huge culture debate and all, but tbh, if there was a Starfleet, and if I was in it, and if I had healthy and fit legs (and why wouldn’t I with the medicine hopefully being so much better than now), I would LOVE to wear the mini skirt version of the uniform, and it would make me feel powerful, sexy, confident, and yes, feminine, and I see absolutely NOTHING wrong with that or with the fact that all of those things might be potentially acknowledged by other people. Shouldn’t we be moving past the times when women needed to behave and dress like men to be accepted as leaders? Shouldn’t we be able to wear whatever the hell we want and still be taken seriously? I mean if we were in the 23d century or whatever.
side note: love the Discovery boots. love the uniform, too.
I take your point, but I think it’s less about mini skirts being too feminine and therefore wrong, and much more about the fact that women were given only those options that were sexually appealing: heels, miniskirts or slinky bodysuits.
Ignoring the practical issues for a second (after all, covering up isn’t just about aesthetics, it’s also about protection from the sun and other elements), the fact that the vast majority of Star Trek’s leading ladies have worn sexually appealing uniforms has nothing to do with the futuristic embrace of female empowerment, but rather much more to do with 20th and 21st century appeal to the male gaze.
Concerning the practical side of things, if we take what women wear on active duty on a U.S. Navy (or really any other country where women are permitted to serve) ship, you will find them dressed in trousers and flat shoes. This is the service khaki uniform (or alternatively summer whites) and it’s designed this way to be practical for everyday use as well as in emergencies. After all, no-one wants to skin a knee or roll an ankle under pressure.
Am I concerned that we dress women like men and the reverse is almost never true? Yeah, I am. (TNG has one shining moment of a male extra wearing the miniskirt.) But in the same way I think kilts are awesome but impractical for active service on a contemporary ship, I think miniskirts are likewise, now and in the future. Especially when we consider that background female characters and extras HAVE worn the practical uniforms in the past (so we know women are allowed to!) but this has been largely untrue for female lead characters (or those seen most frequently by male heterosexual viewers).
theclumsiestninja 