Robert Llewellyn has updated his Substack

[Stephen Abootman]

https://llewellyn.substack.com/p/am-i-woke

Hopefully Craig will update his TikTok next unless Norman Lovett has an OnlyFans to put forward his views on wokery etc.

Topic

[Stephen Abootman]

[Asclepius]

I think being nostalgic for the final moments before the post-recession endless shift to the right is just about the opposite of unreasonable.

I was 13 at the time and not fully able to appreciate that. You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone. I only really noticed everything sliding into fascist shit starting around 2015 with the very open racism being flung around, then it was transphobia and now we’re on to good, old-fashioned gay bashing once again. It’s fun to watch all the people/corporations who used to be performatively woke because it made them money pivot to the right. Maybe it will open some people’s eyes to how hollow it all is.

I find it really hard to listen to podcasts/commentaries or anything from Before Those Times. 2016, Brexit and Trump. Or even the Covid-cut-off. I like listening to old Dwarfcasts, but when the casters are speaking to me from The Before Times, it feels very out of sync with life as we know it. Same with old Buxton or Herring podcasts. Yes, I’d like to hear this person, but telling me about life in 2015 might as well be a museum piece. But not far back enough to be interesting enough to be in an actual museum.

[Asclepius]

Again, the quote function fails me.

Robert could make a fair bit by being a decent person and auctioning these for a good cause. Similar to what Linehan did recently, except replace the words ‘decent’ and ‘good’ with other words.

[Unrumble]

[tombow]

I saw that there’s a new Captain America film with Falcon as the new Cap out on DVD last week. I can’t imagine the me of ten years ago not knowing there was a new Cap film out, not knowing it existed or was in cinemas. The world has changed

[Technopeasant]

As I recall it didn’t do that well commercially.

There was a streaming show too.

[Dave]

I completely missed this update at the time but it looks like plans to publish The Ghost Camera via Unbound fell through.

https://llewellyn.substack.com/p/the-ghost-camera-363

Robert is offering to print copies for anyone who signed up for it though. Did anyone get one?

Also, it looks like there might be further copies available at some point.

https://substack.com/home/post/p-175289353

Not sure about that cover though.

[theycallhernebraska]

Fell through is generous in a sane country the people running Unbound would have been locked up for the bullshit they pulled.

Good guy Bobby for making it right, his redemption arc from the depths of glazing Krytie TV continues apace.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

Fell through is generous in a sane country the people running Unbound would have been locked up for the bullshit they pulled.

I’ve only read one article on it but it didn’t indicate anything dodgy going on other than. The fact the entire model of crowd funding is precarious in the first place and is basically asking people to bet on something with no guaranteed outcome.

They had the added complexity of actually having to produce a product the,selves at the end of it, where as usually the person running the campaign would do that with the funds raised if the targets met. So they had actual production overheads and not the cash flow to meet them.

 

[Flap Jack]

Then the article you read wasn’t comprehensive enough Quinn. Unbound recklessly spent and lost money that was owed to their authors, fully stopped paying them their share of book sales while continuing to sell copies, became virtually radio silent when pressed for explanation, and then they tried “”starting a new company”” (Boundless) as a way of keeping the publishing rights for the books while dodging their obligations to pay debts and royalties.

If the business was failing so hard, the right thing to do would have been to pay the authors their dues as a top priority, and then go into administration promptly so that the publishing rights of all their books reverted to the authors and they could look for new publishers. Instead they chose to fuck authors over for as long as they could get away with so they could take whatever money the company had left for themselves. The former bosses of Unbound are cunts.

[Quinn: Clochebusters World Champion]

It was this I read 

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/article/97919-after-unbound-s-collapse-boundless-faces-uphill-battle-to-rebuild-trust.html

> If the business was failing so hard, the right thing to do would have been to pay the authors their dues as a top priority, and then go into administration promptly so that the publishing rights of all their books reverted to the authors and they could look for new publishers

That’s fair, but it does seem they just didn’t have the cash flow or the liquid capital to pay anyone. True the morally right thing to do is give the publishing rights back, but as with any failing business it just reads as if they were trying to save the sinking ship and the rights are about the only asset they had. Maybe they should have just cut their loses but I assume they thought selling to Boundless would be the right move for everyone in the long term.

Either way it still jus reads like a business failing because of a flawed business model. 

[Dave]

I hear the Duke of Manchester was involved.

[Jonsmad]

The hitch hikers book – about tv series scripts and rarities also fell to this mess of business bastards. With no updates yet on its survival. I don’t the blame author, or seek my lost money. Just want the future chance to buy it if ever finished 

[Flap Jack]

Oh yeah, Kevin Jon Davies. I got his previous Hitchhiker’s book as a gift, and I thought it was really good. I was looking forward to the TV script book (though I didn’t pledge to it), so here’s hoping he finds another publisher for it.

[desbug]

Fell through is generous in a sane country the people running Unbound would have been locked up for the bullshit they pulled.
Good guy Bobby for making it right, his redemption arc from the depths of glazing Krytie TV continues apace.

I’ve only just realised I never got this – the dangers of the pledge and forget model of pre-ordering… did anyone ever get a copy of the book or contacted about it as suggested on substack? I only pledged because I liked going to Bekonscot model village as a child so that hooked me in on the unbound blurb, but I guess I should just assume that I’ll never see the book…

[applemask]

I’m glad they rejected my book now.

[Author]

Replies