A surprising amount of writing is self marketing

[james_davis_nicoll]

Case in point:Gary L.M. Martin's about page.

Comments

[theresawright]

"You suffer from three key deficits: LACK OF IMAGINATION, LACK OF EMPATHY, and LACK OF SELF-AWARENESS."

The ironic tension inherent between this paragraph and what this guy writes...

[(Anonymous)]

If only the Dunning-Kruger effect could be harnessed for peaceful purposes, this person could work wonders.

[jessie_c]

As with all Conservatives, everything is projection. Every accusation is in fact a confession.

[catsidhe]

Also autobiographies:

The Loneliest Man Who Ever Lived

Harry Crater is the smartest man in the world. He is also the loneliest.

Harry Crater has an IQ of 217. He simply doesn't relate well to other people. Especially women. He lives the life of a sad, isolated loner, until Goldie MacPherson shows up. She seduces Harry into working for the shadowy Foundation. They fall in love, until Harry learns that Goldie may or may not have been programmed to love him. Harry has to figure out what the Foundation is up to, and decide whether a woman could truly love him of her own free will. This is a very steamy tale of seduction.

Note: This 142,000 word book has adult situations, and explicit descriptions of men being seduced by women.

Let's see if I can summarise these 142,000 words: I am only an incel because I'm just so amazingly smart that I can't think on a low enough level to understand women, and they're so intimidated that they have to be mind controlled to be with me. Luckily, there's an entire shadowy organisation which is mind controlling women into wanting to be with me. This is not wish fulfilment.

[elusis]

Gary Stu strikes again.

[(Anonymous)]

If Reddit were a single human being, it would be Gary L M Martin.

[elusis]

Harsh, but fair.

[jwgh]

Wow.

[jwgh]

I had a look at the Amazon pages for some of his books and, without meaning to imply anything that I can't prove, I will just say that I found many similarities between many of the five star reviews.

[gatunian]

"Even from the covers, people can tell my books are different."

Well he's not wrong.

[keith_morrison]

Even some of the other self-published authors who write in the same fetish genres haven't skimped on covers like this schmuck.

[rpresser]

What proportion of genre writers believe themselves to be as ill-used as Mr. Martin? If it's more than about 10% then maybe Fahrenheit 451 is the future we really should wish for.

[jessie_c]

This is where we bless traditional publishing and the Editors who save us from writers like him. They used to filter the Martins onto the discard pile. Now, with self publishing so easy to achieve, we see the unfiltered reality.

However, that page does serve its purpose as one of Nature's warning signs.

[(Anonymous)]

"Thanks to the power of the Internet and the miracle of on-demand printing, we all can read raw slush!"

[jamoche]

Fanfic readers figured out early on that Sturgeon’s Law applied to stuff that had been filtered by an editor. If every level of filtering takes out 90%, the reality is that 99% of everything is crap.

[jreynoldsward]

Eh, I think Martin is more about ideology than he is about writing something readable.

[jazzfish]

Note to self: check tags BEFORE clicking links.

Yeesh. Some people's children.

[melita66]

The Journey to Year One Billion book has been showing up as a recommended book based on what I was reading (whut?). I was thinking about commissioning a review of it!

[catsidhe]

It would certainly add new meaning and depth to "because my tears are delicious to you".

[jessie_c]

"It is not a book to be tossed aside lightly..."

[graydon]

"Local man cited for unlicensed trebuchet construction"

[kedamono]

"...But instead thrown vigorously into a chipper/shredder, the resulting pulp burned to ashes, the ashes ground into a finest powder, mixed with concrete and dropped into the Challenger Deep."

[leecetheartist]

Got a deeply traumatised kraken here who wants a word with you.

[jamoche]

People who like good books and snark have been following links to this guy and forgetting to sanitize their “recently viewed” list.

[james_davis_nicoll]

eeeee

[melita66]

Well, you'd have to agree, of course. On the gripping hand, would you be interested in any K.L. Noone? She has a short trilogy of super-hero-based stories, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08638RL1H?searchxofy=true&binding=kindle_edition&qid=1623976439&sr=1-1. I *so* want more of the backstory. It is MMM with significant dom/sub and hurt/comfort so you'd have to be okay with that.

[james_davis_nicoll]

Sure! I wonder how it compares to Lauren Shippen's Bright Sessions?

[melita66]

I do not know! I will have to look at Shippen's work!

Email and paypal sent.

[melita66]

cackle, cackle

Commission was accepted, people!

[philrm]

You should go stand in the corner and think about what you've done!

[kgbooklog]

Can anyone guess when he last read an SF book, based on what he claims "everyone" is writing these days?

Seriously, I can't remember the last time I saw a post-nuclear dystopia. And what does "WWIII in Space" even mean?

[(Anonymous)]

A good long while.

File 770 quoted some choice shitheadery of his in February of last year, so I'd say he's good and painted himself into that ideological corner. Escape would involve a name change.

[bunsen_h]

This is the same stuff that File 770 quoted and linked to.

[bunsen_h]

And yet, I have the nagging suspicion that "Gary L.M." is intended to evoke "George R.R.".

[catsidhe]

That can't be true. He even has a usericon in his list of GRRM with the text "NOT ME".

[dragoness_e]

WWII in Space. Sounds like he's making a snide allusion to the Honorverse, which is not actually WWII in Space. It's the Napoleonic Wars in Space.

[jreynolds197]

What an imbecile! What an ultra maroon!

[bunsen_h]

Not merely ultra maroon; he's emitting hard N-rays.

[bolindbergh]

... and focusing them with phlogiston-infused polywater lenses?

[tree_and_leaf]

For some reason, the bit I'm most hung up on is his belief that James Bond is a multi-faceted character.

[(Anonymous)]

Isn't he? He's a raging alcoholic and a womanizer.

[ba_munronoe]

_And_ a hardened killer! The Mythbusters proved you can, in fact, polish a turd: perhaps you can facet it as well?

[jessie_c]

Well of course Bond's a multi-faceted character. He kills all the Bad Guys and he boinks all the girls. How much more multi-faceted can you get?
/sarxasm

[jreynoldsward]

Those covers. Those covers. Not just exploitative but poorly done...good lord, hasn't he heard about pre-mades and Fiverr?

We won't get into the screed because that's already been well-covered.

That said, his descriptions are an example of weaponized content warnings.

[keith_morrison]

Those covers. Those covers. Not just exploitative but poorly done...good lord, hasn't he heard about pre-mades and Fiverr?

I know, right? I went digging around and found examples of other authors writing the same sort of exploitive porn-esque genres, like this guy (Warning: NSFW cover art). The cover art is cheesy, exploitive, but it doesn't look like it was done by a bored teenager doodling in a notebook during class.

[jreynoldsward]

Yeah. I've been in the world of self-publishing since 2011, and...dear God, I can make better covers in PowerPoint. Those are extremely old-school covers. The covers you link to are much more current and, more than that, they aren't that frickin' expensive. Plus the author is probably making decent money on those books, enough to afford better cover art for the genre (nine pages of books? Author is cranking 'em out).

Then again, I don't think Martin's writing career is about sales as much as it is about ideology. The difference in blurbs is telling.

[ariaflame]

Good writers don't necessarily make decent money. This is not a good writer.

[jreynoldsward]

Duh.

[julesjones]

Dear God, someone take that man's 2004 copy of Poser away.

Actually, that's an insult to Poser from 2004. Even an erotic romance publisher notorious at the time for their cheesy Poser covers as branding would have found those a bit (a lot) too cheesy.