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ravensweptThere are few things I truly hate. The word gets thrown around quite a bit, and has become to mean less "utter loathing to it's core" and more "extreme dislike". And that list gets even fewer when you start talking about actual people, because no one (well, most people) don't want that kind pressure to say that they "hate" someone.
What's worse is when you don't know the person well, or even at all. Your opinion is based on what you heard, what you think you know, tabloids, whatever, your information is not what it could be. It's all curcumstantional. So when people say it, it usually doesn't speak well of the person expressing their "hate".
So, having weighed this knowledge and finding it to be true to me, I say this; I hate Phillip Jones. No, I will not dignify his stupid nickname by acknowledging it.
Here's the thing; I don't know the guy. Never met him, don't really hope to, and I don't see things ending well should we meet, because oooh the words I would have for this man.
Should you not know, Phillip Jones is an "author" in same way a person who buys a trophy for themselves is an athlete. I'm not linking to any of his work, if you really want you can find him yourself, he does a commendible job of self advertising. His series, Worlds of the Crystal Moon: World of Grayham, is a series he's been writing for several years and only one book has come out. Why is this? The answer to this is where my loathing for this human being comes from.
I'm ignoring his writing, which is drek. I'm ignoring the fact he cannot, in any way, write believeible characters. I'm ignoring how stupid he believes his audience to be, which is made evident in the writing itself. There are horrible writers out there, many of them published for whatever reason. Christopher Paolini, the target of much ridicule, is not a bad person, just really, really annoying in his lack of self awareness. Jones is this, and much more.
What makes me want him to insert sideways a brick into his person is his marketing technique, which most believed to have gone the way of snake oil salesmen. He is a man who palms the ace on the street corner, who tells old women their donations are helping starving children then goes and buys himself a pizza with their money.
Okay, I'm not being clear. It's just so easy to sidetrack on this. What Jones does, has been doing, and why no respected publishing house will ever have anything to do with him, is he republishes his work multiple times under the guise of "re-editing".
He once had an idea, it came to him in a dream, ala Meyer. But instead of being steadfast in his confidence in his own work, he knew it was not good. So, to brush off any criticism leveled his way, he stated that his book, a book he fully printed with a cover, IMB number and all the glit, was merely a "draft". A, to the naked eye, fully published and printed book is a simple draft. And you, lucky giver of cash money, could help edit his work. All you have to do is pay full cover price, give or take shipping and handling, because you won't find this in stores anytime ever, write down everything you see wrong (no, simply sending the book back won't work) and he will "consider" your "suggestions", with no promise that he'll do jack shit or acknowledge he even got it. Once he's gotten tired of people telling him what many things he did wrong, Jones goes back and fixes simple grammar mistakes, maybe alters a few words, and reprints the same book, now with all these marvolous "edits", and sells it for the same goddamn price.
But my bile doesn't stop there. He didn't do this once. Or twice. To what I know, Jones has repeated this shell game of literature (and I shudder to use that word in regards to his work) five times. Never once has the price dropped (it may have even increased). Five times has Jones made the most minimal of changes to a story he wrote, and five times has he had his own readers and fans (god help me, he somehow has them) pay him for the privilage to edit his work.
I. HATE. This person. He makes me want to kill. This is not being an author, this isn't even being a writer. A writer, an author, a storyteller, does not play these kinds of games with their audience. Worst of it is that he sees nothing wrong with what he does. He sees it as audience interaction, letting them feel they have a stake in their book purchase. Except it doesn't work that way, because you can't have input into something already made. And there's no stake when there's no lower purchase price for those who try to make this man see the light.
In some dimension, one where lizard-cats ride horses made of popcorn and rainbows block traffic like the racist bastards they are, this might have seemed like a good idea once upon a time. Not making the audience fix his shattered mirror of a story and pay for the chance to do so, god no, but letting the audience have some influence over the story. Let them make story decisions, because it's not like Jones really cares either way.
Even Gloria Tesch, the most vapid and delusional under-20 self-published author I can think of, is not this bad. She's pretty bad, don't get me wrong, but at least when she attempts to fleece her readers she doesn't do so from lack of confidence. She just splits her already oversized books in half, and sells the now two books for the same price as the single one. But she doesn't tell the reader if they buy the book and send in their notes that she'll republish the same book with maybe half a correction in there. She's stuck by her piece of crap from the beginning (well, except for trying to disclaim forty "leaked" pages as unfinished draft, which was untrue, but this raving isn't about her) and continues to delude herself into thinking her work is worthy of such things likes movies, TV shows, and freaking theme park.
Jones is shit. I have no respect for him, at all. Granted, this opinion might change should I meet him and civil words are exchanged. Granted, I could also learn to play a chocolate saxaphone from the air I push out my ear after eating habanero peppers.
He makes all writers look bad. He is the reason people don't respect self-publishing, or if anyone did he's why they don't anymore. His existance in the literary world is the crushed and rotting arm of a hiker trapped under a boulder; there's nothing to be done except sever the arm from the body in order to save yourself.
Fuck Phillip Jones.
What's worse is when you don't know the person well, or even at all. Your opinion is based on what you heard, what you think you know, tabloids, whatever, your information is not what it could be. It's all curcumstantional. So when people say it, it usually doesn't speak well of the person expressing their "hate".
So, having weighed this knowledge and finding it to be true to me, I say this; I hate Phillip Jones. No, I will not dignify his stupid nickname by acknowledging it.
Here's the thing; I don't know the guy. Never met him, don't really hope to, and I don't see things ending well should we meet, because oooh the words I would have for this man.
Should you not know, Phillip Jones is an "author" in same way a person who buys a trophy for themselves is an athlete. I'm not linking to any of his work, if you really want you can find him yourself, he does a commendible job of self advertising. His series, Worlds of the Crystal Moon: World of Grayham, is a series he's been writing for several years and only one book has come out. Why is this? The answer to this is where my loathing for this human being comes from.
I'm ignoring his writing, which is drek. I'm ignoring the fact he cannot, in any way, write believeible characters. I'm ignoring how stupid he believes his audience to be, which is made evident in the writing itself. There are horrible writers out there, many of them published for whatever reason. Christopher Paolini, the target of much ridicule, is not a bad person, just really, really annoying in his lack of self awareness. Jones is this, and much more.
What makes me want him to insert sideways a brick into his person is his marketing technique, which most believed to have gone the way of snake oil salesmen. He is a man who palms the ace on the street corner, who tells old women their donations are helping starving children then goes and buys himself a pizza with their money.
Okay, I'm not being clear. It's just so easy to sidetrack on this. What Jones does, has been doing, and why no respected publishing house will ever have anything to do with him, is he republishes his work multiple times under the guise of "re-editing".
He once had an idea, it came to him in a dream, ala Meyer. But instead of being steadfast in his confidence in his own work, he knew it was not good. So, to brush off any criticism leveled his way, he stated that his book, a book he fully printed with a cover, IMB number and all the glit, was merely a "draft". A, to the naked eye, fully published and printed book is a simple draft. And you, lucky giver of cash money, could help edit his work. All you have to do is pay full cover price, give or take shipping and handling, because you won't find this in stores anytime ever, write down everything you see wrong (no, simply sending the book back won't work) and he will "consider" your "suggestions", with no promise that he'll do jack shit or acknowledge he even got it. Once he's gotten tired of people telling him what many things he did wrong, Jones goes back and fixes simple grammar mistakes, maybe alters a few words, and reprints the same book, now with all these marvolous "edits", and sells it for the same goddamn price.
But my bile doesn't stop there. He didn't do this once. Or twice. To what I know, Jones has repeated this shell game of literature (and I shudder to use that word in regards to his work) five times. Never once has the price dropped (it may have even increased). Five times has Jones made the most minimal of changes to a story he wrote, and five times has he had his own readers and fans (god help me, he somehow has them) pay him for the privilage to edit his work.
I. HATE. This person. He makes me want to kill. This is not being an author, this isn't even being a writer. A writer, an author, a storyteller, does not play these kinds of games with their audience. Worst of it is that he sees nothing wrong with what he does. He sees it as audience interaction, letting them feel they have a stake in their book purchase. Except it doesn't work that way, because you can't have input into something already made. And there's no stake when there's no lower purchase price for those who try to make this man see the light.
In some dimension, one where lizard-cats ride horses made of popcorn and rainbows block traffic like the racist bastards they are, this might have seemed like a good idea once upon a time. Not making the audience fix his shattered mirror of a story and pay for the chance to do so, god no, but letting the audience have some influence over the story. Let them make story decisions, because it's not like Jones really cares either way.
Even Gloria Tesch, the most vapid and delusional under-20 self-published author I can think of, is not this bad. She's pretty bad, don't get me wrong, but at least when she attempts to fleece her readers she doesn't do so from lack of confidence. She just splits her already oversized books in half, and sells the now two books for the same price as the single one. But she doesn't tell the reader if they buy the book and send in their notes that she'll republish the same book with maybe half a correction in there. She's stuck by her piece of crap from the beginning (well, except for trying to disclaim forty "leaked" pages as unfinished draft, which was untrue, but this raving isn't about her) and continues to delude herself into thinking her work is worthy of such things likes movies, TV shows, and freaking theme park.
Jones is shit. I have no respect for him, at all. Granted, this opinion might change should I meet him and civil words are exchanged. Granted, I could also learn to play a chocolate saxaphone from the air I push out my ear after eating habanero peppers.
He makes all writers look bad. He is the reason people don't respect self-publishing, or if anyone did he's why they don't anymore. His existance in the literary world is the crushed and rotting arm of a hiker trapped under a boulder; there's nothing to be done except sever the arm from the body in order to save yourself.
Fuck Phillip Jones.