Sue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago

Dystopia Status Level: ADS IN BOOKS 😡

My dear readers, you can leave Amazon, I promise. Even reducing Amazon usage helps, but *especially* for books. There are alternatives.

Here's how to find them:
https://susankayequinn.com/how-to-buy-sues-books-a-guide-to-retailers

Show threadJosh Sutphin

@susankayequinn Literally just yesterday I learned about Terry Pratchett's German publisher inserting soup ads into The Light Fantastic back in the 90s and I thought "oh that's so gross, surely nobody will ever do that again" 😬

https://gmkeros.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/terry-pratchett-and-the-maggi-soup-adverts/

Terry Pratchett and the Maggi Soup Adverts

Back in the 90s (starting with Moving Pictures) Terry Pratchett (yet to be knighted) changed his German publisher. A rather radical move in the market for someone who had been published by Heyne fo…

Stuffed Crocodile
Mar 21 at 8:55pmWeb
Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago
@joshsutphin OH MY GOD
Show threadJanne Pekkala1d ago

@susankayequinn @joshsutphin don’t know, if I break some illusion here, but for a long long time, there has been product placements in literature. Way before computer era. Probably as long as there has been entertainment books on market. (Sadly only found ai generated shit when trying to get actual link to prove this 😒)

Of course, that one is pretty obvious and sloppy, unlike those Stephen Kings Bud lights, Camels, etc in his books (just one known author to mention). Every time you read an actual product name (specially, if the hero is using it), it is pretty probably paid mention.

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago

@jannepekkala @joshsutphin

Somehow I think product placements are different than ads because it's entirely possible the author intentionally put the product name there. I mean, I know *many* aspiring authors who loved to laden their prose with product names, and no one was paying them to do it.

Show threadspooky Ske-Lil-ton 🦇1d ago
@joshsutphin @susankayequinn that was also my first thought since I owned a book with such an ad and I remember being really confused and weirded out by it back then…
(Not sure if it was Terry Pratchett or some other book by the same publisher)
Show threadSusanne1d ago
@Larymir @joshsutphin @susankayequinn Sometimes I feel ancient. Actually, after the war when pocket books came up, you would find an ad here and there - I remember ads for cigarettes, and yes, soup - like broth, Maggi, I think. It was a German publisher, rororo, I remember. I don't think the author was asked for permission, maybe it was somewhere in the contract. They stopped this eventually - I think once pocket books were more accepted.
This does not mean I condone A.'s behavior.
Show threadAmy Worrall1d ago
@joshsutphin @susankayequinn heh, was going to reply with that :)
Show threadFugue State Machine Moto1d ago

@joshsutphin @susankayequinn Wow. And it seems Heyne Verlag (the ad vandal / publishing house) is still in operation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heyne_Verlag

I wouldn’t have thought you were allowed to piss off both Iain Banks and Terry Pratchett and still keep your book business.

Heyne Verlag - Wikipedia

Show threadSue is Writing Solarpunk 🌞🌱1d ago
@cmdrmoto @joshsutphin wow
Show threadHannah Steenbock1d ago

@cmdrmoto

Oh, yes, Heyne is one of Germany's biggest publishers of Fantasy, not many ways around them. They publish a LOT of translations.

I don't read Terry Pratchett in German (ugh, I hate translations, most are bad), but I remember books having ads in them myself - very clearly ads, on their own page though, not snuck into the text like Sue's example.

Those ads happened in the 1970s, for some reason. Still, I'm sure it was in the contract.

@joshsutphin @susankayequinn

Show threadAndrew1d ago
@joshsutphin @susankayequinn *CERVEZA CRISTAL*