I Am A Real Person

Dear Readers,

I have received more messages, publicly and privately, from fans who enjoy and buy my works but who, deeply offended at at least four, perhaps more, of the ranking officers of my publisher, have told me they can no longer buy my works.

This is unprecedented, or, I should say, at least I have never heard of readers disavowing books based not on the content or author, but the publisher.

Some have likewise written to Tor books to express their displeasure at this high handed and unprofessional treatment.

However, the latest slander issued from the enemy is that these readers do not exist.

They are trying to blank you out of their minds. You are unpersons. The claim is that the emails and letters sent to Tor expressing the displeasure of the customer are said to be faked, counterfeit, written by robots.

If you are a reader of mine, and now or in times to come write to my publisher to express your preferences on how we are supposed to serve you and offer you goods for purchase, in order to prevent this slander from squelching your voice, please do the following:

Send to each of these three people one email apiece:

tom.doherty@tor.com
andrew.weber@macmillan.com
rhonda.brown@macmillan.com

Let the messages be curt, plain, and polite. Please put I AM A REAL PERSON in the subject line.

  • State that you are a real person, a customer, and not a robot.
  • If you have not been well served by the public statements of any senior persons at Tor Books, politely express your disapproval.
  • Request a confirmation that your email has been opened and read.

Remember Tor Books, and your truly, are in the business of providing you with entertainment. Tom Doherty has officially and publicly stated that we are in the business of finding great stories and promoting literature and are not about promoting a political agenda.

Of course he speaks for me and for all loyal authors and employees honored to be published or employed by him. I do not publish my humble works to promote a political agenda.

I can speak with authority for the other Sad Puppies. We explicitly and openly said and meant from the outset to promote the opposite of a political agenda with our slate:

We promoted for your consideration, dear readers, works thought good because they were entertaining, well crafted and imaginative; not bad works thought useful because they served political correctness, starred or were written by some favored mascot or supported some cause of the Left, and had no science fiction in them at all. The only color we care about is the black of the ink and the green of the pay. The hue of the hand that wields the pen does not somehow magically make the story more well written.

For this we were libeled, slandered, and insulted in every possible way in every venue the enemy could reach, with a fervor and a blinding soul-destroying hatred even now impossible to credit.

Who in his right mind calls his own authors and readers, on whom his livelihood depends, neo-nazi racist psycho bigots on the ground that they prefer this year’s offering by Cixin Liu to that of John Chu?

Those who make libelous, false, and outrageous statements about the authors and readers and fans of Tor’s many fine publications have no honest reason to remain at their posts at a company whom they despise and undermine, serving readers they hate.

Let them take their political divisions and unprofessional venom-tongued hysteria elsewhere, and leave the professionals alone to craft and sell our product, and entertain readers we adore and serve.