Rayvin

You can get a service to do what you're talking about to a professional standard - that's why vanity publishing exists. But it'll cost a few hundred easily. Just getting them printed and bound - for 10 copies - isn't going to break the bank. But as ewerk says you need the format to be right. It can be a bit of a ballache to be quite honest. Check out a company called lightningsource. They print books for big publishers on demand, but i think their model goes all the way down to a few copies for the individual buyer. They should have info on what the files need to look like, as well as an online quoting tool.

I'm a publisher by trade. I basically ran an academic publisher up until the summer, all aspects of production, editorial, sales etc. Turned over about 5m a year so big enough to really know the industry but small enough that i had to understand every part of the process.

I dont think what you're saying is totally stupid if you're looking at this from an entirely rational perspective - but I'm not sure it would be possible for us to be a founding member even if Ashley suddenly did start throwing money around. We dont have the stature. Also, does Ashley have the 5 or 600m that would be required to do this anyway?

Just re-reading your post, the bit about enough copies for grandkids - is the book formatted and basically print ready or do you need it to go through editorial too? If its just print you can probably get 10 copies made for about 50 quid at a printer. If it needs editing you're up into the hundreds depending on the length.

There are different kinds of publisher you can look at. Vanity publishing is what Gemmill describes - you pay them up front and they publish the work, edit it, get an ISBN etc. It's not a scam IMO, it just does what it says on the tin. They won't market the book though so ultimately you'll be left to do that yourself. Conventional publishers, realistically, are unlikely to take on the book. They assess everything based on the profit making potential of the work and would be more inclined to publish if you can demonstrate a large potential market for it, maybe preorders already made, or if you have books published with successful sales numbers in the past. I wouldn't even waste your time looking into these. By far and away the best bet for getting started is Amazon. Publish through them as an ebook. They won't market it but at least they won't charge you up front for any costs. They take 30% of the sales price as long as you keep it under a tenner, and i think 50% if you go higher. If you need them to print physical books for the sales it'll cost more again. It's worth keeping in mind that non-academic publishers are being squeezed really hard these days. For a fiction book that is priced at £10, retailers will take 60%, producing the book itself will be about £2, and then the publisher has to cover all of its overheads and editorial work for that particular book in the remaining £2. And make a profit. So believe me when i say that they will only take on books that are basically guaranteed to sell thousands of copies.

Does this mean CT was right

Maybe that is indeed my issue I can think of a few ways i would have improved this game had I been responsible for designing it but they'd contain too many spoilers for now. Anyone finished it?

The story irritates me a bit. Also, while this game is clearly bigger than the first, i feel like the world was larger in the original. I guess because the landscape changed so much. This game is just a snowy region plus grasslands. Also i dont understand the point of the money.

In fairness to UKIP they did get 4 million votes in the previous to last GE. That's a lot. More than the Liberals as I recall. And the people who voted for them still hold the same views, they just needed to vote Tory for Brexit instead. Giving people a platform or not in this day and age is irrelevant. They get heard anyway. What matters is challenging them. The whole right wing side of the culture war relies on the notion that they are somehow looking at truths and facts that the MSM refuses to. To beat them, the MSM needs to address the same issues from a centrist perspective rather than shying away. And yes this does mean admitting some inconvenient truths (working class multicultural integration has been a failure in many areas through no fault of either side, for one).

I ceased following Sargon ages back, largely because of his anti-EU stance, and his joining of UKIP really cemented it for me Doesn't change the fact that he makes some good arguments sometimes though.

He should say it's a political statement and criticism of saudi Arabia and that he is depicting the Prince. The box is actually the dismembered body parts of a journalist.

I'll be honest, I stopped paying attention to Brexit a few months back and just assumed that we were heading for the worst outcome possible. You're talking as if May has a deal ready to go which everyone will be happy about. Is this true? I was vaguely under the impression that the deal was going to suck, but that if any deal was to be achieved, it was going to be something like 'No Deal + Northern Ireland doesn't go back to war with itself' rather than just 'No Deal'. If the former, I don't understand why any British businesses would celebrate this. The EU maybe, since they'll be shot of us, but that's it. Happy to concede I could be wrong though.

Agreed - it's in the digital arena that we can land some blows. And even then, it's hardly likely to be anything solid enough to force the man from an investment he values at £400m. Having said that, what is the intended outcome of the protest? If it's awareness raising, with whom are we raising awareness? Or are we raging against the storm because it's cathartic? I mean what is the point to any of this really.

There is absolutely no way that Labour will fear 'going down in history as the party that caused no deal'. That's fucking ludicrous. Only one party caused no deal, the one that decided to move away from perfectly feasible if rather pointless Norway style options and embrace utter lunacy. Labour might be remembered for generally doing fuck all about any of this, but not for actively making it happen.

Not wanting to get into a wider argument on this but I'm always curious when people say that the EU is failing. Failing at what? How is that being measured? I hear it a lot from the talking heads on the right wing side of the culture war and it is never backed up with a shred of evidence.

I dont think that was really a serious argumentative contention from her, the identity politics bit. She just gave him enough rope to hang himself. Not like her world view came out on top, it was just that his stupid attempts to protect the right wing end up trapping him. It's annoying when he departs from reason for politics but I'm used to seeing it from all sides so while disappointing it's no real surprise. You've latched on to her being a social democrat as an identifying label but how much do you really agree with from what she said? I'm going to watch more tomorrow and then we can spar about it I thought she lost the patriarchy thing comfortably though. What about the point where she introduces the idea of partriarchies that are dominated by women and he's challenges her on whether that would still be a patriarchy at all? And she says yes, and then loses the argument on the basis that all hierarchical structures are patriarchal on her opinion. Which basically means that the patriarchy is a system of order, by her definition. So what, she wants a feminist anarchy? Then she moves to the piece by piece examples of oppression of women and sure, he has to concede that there are examples of this but counters with many gender specific issues that affected men. Wars for instance. And men were also owned for much of history, by the rich. It fascinates me how people let the rich off as an identity group. Probably because we're all aspirational and want to be rich, even the feminists. Anyway that was only 20 mins of review so i need to watch more. Hope it's clear i dont agree with everything he says at face value though, he has become far too embroiled in the weaponising of culture issue.

Also thought the 'good luck with that' comment was a put down rather than a conceding of ground but will rematch to check. He looked shaky on some bits for sure though. The identity politics bit was just silly. Tribalism is a form of identity politics, he's just characterizing it as different so that he can draw a distinction between the right and the left. Both sides fuck around with identity politics so i disagree with him there.

Did you not think the bit where he asks her why she won't abandon her own privilege, since it comes from, as she defines it, a patriarchal tyranny, is sort of a game ended for her patriarchy argument? She acknowledges that she personally has done well out if the system but refuses to make any personal sacrifice towards 'balancing the system' through her own actions. She suggests progressive taxation which, sure, is fine. But doesn't consider it reasonable to abandon her many advantages as a well educated, white, middle class woman. So why does she expect anyone else to do the same? He didn't nail her on that but he fucking should've. It's all fine calling for the patriarchy to be torn down unless she herself has to sacrifice something, at which point she's where she is because of competence and not privilege. I'm only 20 mins in but while she handles herself better than Newman and Peterson is a bit all over the place, that was a huge own goal from my point of view. I think he won the patriarchy argument on the strength of that alone.

Interesting, I'll watch it. Which bits stuck out for you?

@NJS But 100,000 killed themselves? That's a staggering proportion even of 4.5m If that's true it should be massive news in the US. It's what, something like 2% of them? If they've allowed that to happen it's an absolute disgrace.

100,000 people in the US or... 100k ex soldiers? No way the latter, surely. Or 100k Afghans?

Had that exact sentiment myself.

This is a bit of a worry since she's been the last adult in the room for some time, as far as international politics goes

The left should have ridden this wave of anti-establishment sentiment. Unfortunately the left sucks and spends all of its time being bogged down in non-issues.

Here's my prediction: The government will achieve hard Brexit with a couple of minor deviations from the Canada model which will be hailed as a great success because the Tories' future depends on people believing this. The EU will regard the negotiations as a success for them because they probably will be, and CT will state that he was right because all sides are claiming victory and asserting that they have achieved their desired aims. All will be lying, even the EU probably, but it will allow CT to say he was right.