Banned by the Publisher
nickcolebooks.com
nickcolebooks.com
If the publisher had turned around and tried to stop the author from publishing this themselves (via indie routes) or going to another publisher, sure, I'd agree that that would be akin to trying to "ban" something.
But the reality is here that the publisher just opted out of publishing this specific works, as is their right. Sorry, author, but you sound bitter. Move on.
However, I read this more as a warning that there is a bias in the publishing world and to not look at currently-published works in the aggregate as an unbiased body of work.
edit: and editors at other imprints owned by the same group will often take a different view.
Perhaps the story is as straight forward as Mr. Cole represented it; that HarperCollins declined to publish the novel because of the nature of the AI conflict described. Personally, it strikes me as oddly simplistic, and lacking in other context, given the success that Mr. Cole's previous work brought the publisher.
The nazis existed. They were real.
I don't like the modern fad of holocaust revisionism that says "anyone who talks about the nazis is ipso facto unable to make an argument (because the nazis were not real and there is not possibility that there could be a valid comparison between the conditions that allowed them to exist and conditions in current society-- because the nazis weren't real.)"
No, they were exercising their private property rights to publish only what they want to publish.
[1] http://monsterhunternation.com/2016/02/10/left-wing-bias-in-...
[1] "Cliquish, Holier-than-thou, Obnoxious, Reactionary, Fanatics." A coinage by Brad Torgersen. See e.g. https://bradrtorgersen.wordpress.com/2015/03/31/chorf-its-a-...
The fact that you say something controversial doesn't change the relationship between an author and a publisher from "I'll publish your book if I think it's good and will sell" into "I'll publish your book absolutely because it makes a political stand".
He's free to find another publisher, or as in this case, self-publish. This seems about as clear a case of "move along, nothing to see here" as the internet is capable of providing.
"Publisher asks author to change book" hardly seems worthy of attention.
As far as I can tell no one gains in a society where the right refuses to work with the left and vis-versa. That just makes society harder for everyone.
What is far worse is when one side wields disproportionate power. Fiction has long played a role in advancing social morals. Imagine a case where in a society that was very, very homophobic. If books that featured lgbqt in a good light were not published... and it was considered okay because that is the publishers right, that would be a bad thing.
Finally, I think our rules on situations like this should be abstracted away from poltiical or social beliefs. It is easy to say that we can judge the publishers in my hypothetical wrong, because homophobia is bad, but the publishers in this actual instance okay, because there is nothing wrong with being pro-choice.
However there is a danger in that, and this is largely inspired by http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, but we have been pretty bad as society and individuals at judging what is good. Which is why I am hesitant to be okay with censoring something I disagree with, it may very well turn out that I am wrong.
Now, he may have signed a contract with this publisher that has the literary equivalent to a non-compete in it ( "You can only publish through us" ), but that's on him.
ps -- Daniel Wilson wrote Robopocalypse [1] which I found a good read; so there's at least one publisher in the sci-fi realm that continues to publish robot apocalypse fiction
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Robopocalypse-Contemporaries-Daniel-H-...
And, if so...which we have only his claim for, and its quite possible the publisher had other reasons, assuming its actually true that they refused it...so what? The right to make political choices about what you publish is exactly the central and most important part of the First Amendment's freedom of the press.
It does become worrying where there is a press monopoly or conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of certain political views and, so, suppressing them in the marketplace of ideas, but that's not happening here, and the evidence is the fact that his book is being published, and available through the dominant retail channel for such works.
What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned." Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book. The publisher yanked the book of the schedule, without even asking first if Cole would revise the point that they found unacceptable.
There is not a conspiring oligopoly preventing publication of the political views at issue, which I know about and mention in this post because those views are in fact published in works that are available through major commercial channels.
There may be a group of major publishers with biases which result in them not publishing the views that Correia and Cole complain about being "banned", but it is not only not a "ban", but its not a conspiring (or even independently acting in the same interest -- which seems to be what you mean with the "de facto conspiracy" description) oligopoly with the power to prevent the views from being widely published and the works embodying the views from being readily available through major outlets. As is evidenced by the fact that the views are widely published, and the works containing them are readily available through major outlets. Including, emphatically, the work of Cole's that this thread concerns.
> What you're engaging in is part of the second way Correia predicted that Cole would be attacked and dismissed, namely, by quibbling over the exact definitions of "censorship" and "banned."
I absolutely agree that this is censorship. The right to censor works one publishes is central the right of freedom of the press. No quibbling there.
But when it comes to "ban", yes, I certainly disagree that with any description that this is a ban -- not only by a strict definition, but even by a loose analogy. I certainly agree that were there an alignment (conspiratorial or not) of publishers collectively wielding enough power over the market that could and did prevent certain political views from receiving wide circulation, that would be a lot like a ban. And, I'm open to the idea that, for some views, such an alignment does exist. But what happened to Cole is not evidence of anything that is even remotely similar to a ban. Because the book is being published, in a manner which makes it available through the single most significant outlet for retailing books, one which has a majority of the market for books.
> Oh, and we have Cole's own words about why the publisher rejected the book.
Cole is, obviously, not a neutral source of information on the matter.
What next, "banned from acting" when the author auditions for a commercial but the producers pick someone else?
The book was prevented from being published in approximately the same way a book advocating communism would have been effectively banned from publication in the 1950s (via whisper campaigns, implied or explicit threats of blacklisting, etc).
edit: sometimes this is justifiable: for example, a book titled 'Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jong Un: misunderstood heroes?' would probably also be effectively banned via social pressure.
However in this specific case we're talking about one publisher not agreeing to publish. There's no presented information to assume collusion between publishers or some larger game at play to suppress this book or the author.
I absolutely think that private organisations can effectively ban something without government intervention. I just don't think that happened here.
Oh, absolutely. To be honest I'm not terribly interested in the specifics of this case, just the general idea that today, when so much communication happens on privately-owned platforms, corporate censorship is not censorship because only governments censor.
Yes, there is a meaningful distinction between a publisher deciding not to publish a book, and a book being banned. While there may certainly be conditions where private action is so powerful in a given marketplace it is substantially equivalent to a government prohibition and raises the same issues, this isn't one. There are other publishers, and there has never been a time when self-publishing and bypassing major publishers -- especially for an already successful writer -- is easier.
The fact that this whole complaint is actually a promotional piece for the book, which is in fact being published through Amazon's direct publishing offering, demonstrates exactly why the distinction between a publisher choosing not to publish a book and the book actually being banned is a meaningful -- night-and-day -- distinction.
> The book was prevented from being published
No, it was, in fact, not prevented from being published. The first two sentences of the article are "I launched a book this week and I went Indie with it. Indie means I released it on Amazon via Kindle Direct Publishing."
Prevented from being published via established channels, then. The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
Kindle Direct Publishing has been around about as long as the Kindle (they were, IIRC, announced at the same time), and is backed by the dominant online book and ebook retailer. Its a pretty well-established channel.
> The analogy still holds, because in the 1950s you could still publish content considered communist in photocopied zines.
The analogy does not, even remotely, hold, because such photocopied zines would not be available via major retail outlets, whereas Kindle Direct Publishing is directly sponsored by the dominant retail outlet.
If you're wondering what that looks like from the customer perspective, you can see (or not see) our banned best sellers here: http://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Books-Erotica-Manga/zgbs/...
The former is a significant bar to reaching customers, the latter not so much.
The ranty and bitter tone of the author does him no favours, certainly, but taking him off the publication list before contacting him, and for something so (to my mind) frankly silly, quite understandably would feel like enough of a kick in the teeth that irrational anger is pretty understandable.
This is the same ploy as the "banned" super bowl commercial scam. Submit something obviously unacceptable and then cry foul when it gets refused hoping to get views via the media attention.
It's pretty simple. Get rejected, complain about how the man is holding you down, and hope the free publicity rolls in. It's marketing.
Free speech protects you from censorship from the government, not from a private company that doesn't like your book and so chooses not to invest their money and time in publishing it. Free speech does not mean other people have to listen to you, take you seriously, or do what you want them to.
Free speech means you can throw your little tantrum in public and the government cannot tell you to shut the fuck up. Rightly so, that is left to society in general to do.