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Drake's Drum

Meadow said:
"Don't read your reviews, weigh them" - I've found that phrase valuable over the years.

However, as Skinny says, this is ultimately a big shout-out to an audience directly in your niche. Years ago, Jack and I encountered some people being a bit 'nah' about Lavender, but still engaging closely with what we'd written and ultimately drawing attention to the book and inspiring others to form their own opinion by reading it. I'll keep an eye on DD sales to see if there's a noticeable translation into a boost.
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To echo that, I had a similar experience with a YouTuber who did a review of Lands of Red and Gold which was decidedly mixed (though not wholly negative), and still saw a significant spike in sales for the next few weeks from the series being drawn to people's attention.
 
This is such a baffling event that I'm genuinely still struggling to parse it - an eight-hour stream combining a half-dozen of the biggest naval YouTubers on the platform in order to analyse a four-book series is - well it's unprecedented. That's less effort than Lazerpig et al take to drunkenly shitpost the Moscow Victory Parade each year, and that's an actual worthy target

I've only just started to listen - do they ever clarify why Drake's Drum as a series attracted their attention? I'm wondering why it got chosen instead of something like The Whale Has Wings or any of the other indie AH series that go into rivet-counting to a much further extent.

@Meadow is this series one of our best-sellers? Or it had a big boost a few months ago? I'm trying to figure out something that might explain why such a weight of influencers suddenly fell on it
 
Thande said:
Yeah, what they said @Nick Sumner , no such thing as bad publicity and nil illegitimi carborundum.
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yes honestly @Nick Sumner while you might wish to just duck head and ignore it, striking while the iron is hot might be worthwhile

A polite and level-headed email to Fleet of Oceans thanking him for the stream ("Grateful for the attention, enjoyed the stream, some valid criticisms etc") and then asking if he might be interested in doing an interview might be a good idea
 
Skinny87 said:
This is such a baffling event that I'm genuinely still struggling to parse it - an eight-hour stream combining a half-dozen of the biggest naval YouTubers on the platform in order to analyse a four-book series is - well it's unprecedented. That's less effort than Lazerpig et al take to drunkenly shitpost the Moscow Victory Parade each year, and that's an actual worthy target

I've only just started to listen - do they ever clarify why Drake's Drum as a series attracted their attention? I'm wondering why it got chosen instead of something like The Whale Has Wings or any of the other indie AH series that go into rivet-counting to a much further extent.

@Meadow is this series one of our best-sellers? Or it had a big boost a few months ago? I'm trying to figure out something that might explain why such a weight of influencers suddenly fell on it
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It is our bestselling series, has been for a long while.
 
Because real life intervened, I wasn’t able to listen to all of it, but I caught large sections. In many ways I’m glad I didn’t hear it all, because even for someone as old and thick skinned as me, hearing your ideas attacked for 7 1/2 hours is rather depressing.

Three things

1. I think what I found most trying was the jeering tone of the whole thing, though, within the ‘lone good cop – mob of bad cops’ format it would be worth me thanking whoever did the good cop role.

2. They used Wikipedia as a reference! This stripped what little credibility they had to begin with. I mean lets face it, Norman Friedman and David K. Brown they aint.

3. It was both remiss and cowardly of them not to invite me to take part in this discussion. I could’ve corrected a lot of misconceptions and errors and pointed out inadequate research, and there were a lot of misconceptions and errors, and there was a lot of inadequate research.

Should I also call out the craven Internet habit of attacking others while hiding behind some ‘handle’ which disguises identity but gives the ability to be as rude as you like without taking ownership by putting your real name on it? I mean from the parts I saw, some of them didn't even show their faces.
 
@Nick Sumner I don't have time to write now, but sending that would be an absolute disaster

either don't engage at all, or send a polite upbeat email asking to be interviewed if possible. Anything else is just begging for a backlash, especially against the YouTubers
 
I don't want to be interviewed by these guys. The format is too shouty and too bullying. I'd lose my cool. Also my lunch. probably.

But. The credibility of my writing is based on solid research. This undermines it. Not to respond would be a mistake.
 
Having just come out of a, frankly baffling, exchange on Threads with some Americans about, of all things, Macaroni Cheese, don't, don't respond like that. Just a shout out and a pointer to the source material and an offer to be interviewed.
 
Nick Sumner said:
I don't want to be interviewed by these guys. The format is too shouty and too bullying. I'd lose my cool. Also my lunch. probably.

But. The credibility of my writing is based on solid research. This undermines it. Not to respond would be a mistake.
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Nick, look, I've been a reviewer for years now and been on social media for years before that. And I cannot emphasise enough that a response like the one you highlighted will only end in a tonne more grief and backlash against you, and likely @Meadow and SLP as well eventually

You're frustrated, and I get that - as I said this is a particularly annoying example of this type of thing. But responding in any manner other than polite engagement will spring the trap and potentially cause a lot of problems, both immediately and further down the line

I cannot strongly recommend enough that you delete your draft message above and just go on with things, and hope for some increased sales

Edit: Nick even the new version would still cause problems - just don't engage and walk away. I'm doing some snooping online to see what's going on with them doing such a length livestream on the series
 
add the line 'Many of the points made were very fair, after 'I wish that you had invited me to take part in this discussion' and before 'I could’ve corrected a lot...'

Perhaps the final paragraph of version 2 is the main point worth making.
 
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