Piggy Got Paid

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

Also he’s completely contradicting his need for PPP loans. Yeah Rick, people couldn’t leave the house for months so they got ebooks, video games, and streaming services. It should have been a bonanza for you.

In a perfect world this whole crazy saga ends with Pat getting caught swatting himself on top of being guilty of PPP fraud.

 

[Rick Roblinson]

He'd show off that royalty check if it was worth a shit. Like that picture where he's wiping away fake tears with his first check from Tor. Also, hypothetically, let's say he did sell 2500 of one of his pieces of shit this year. I guarantee you it was the 99cent audio book version on sale and Pat only got like 35cents per sale. Fuck you, fat boy. That writing career is over. Enjoy your Burger King employee sized "royalty checks."

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

He'd show off that royalty check if it was worth a shit. Like that picture where he's wiping away fake tears with his first check from Tor. Also, hypothetically, let's say he did sell 2500 of one of his pieces of shit this year. I guarantee you it was the 99cent audio book version on sale and Pat only got like 35cents per sale. Fuck you, fat boy. That writing career is over. Enjoy your Burger King employee sized "royalty checks."

He only gets his royalty checks twice a year. He hasn’t had a contract in years so he’s probably bragging about making less than 250 dollars

 

[PorqueDealer]

3.0 out of 5 stars Could Have Been More Fun
Reviewed in the United States on September 24, 2023
Verified Purchase
This was one of those books where you go in wanting to like it because the premise sounds fun. I'm glad I only paid a dollar and some change for it. $15 is outrageous given the quality of the book.

There are some parts that genuinely shine, especially in the last 20 or so pages, which sound like what Tomlinson wanted to write in the first place.

Tomlinson's setting leaves a lot to be desired and is what hurts this book the most, in my opinion. I can take some of the camp and pulp in the Ark. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a little more than average for the Ark. I'll even ignore a handful of plot holes for the Ark. I'm not willing to smile along as I wonder where the heck I'm supposed to be oriented to in the story.

It took me more than a few pages to understand "football in space" (it wasn't called that). I never got a great idea of how the Ark looked until about 1/3 of the way through the book. A lot of people would give up before then.

The vastness of the Ark doesn't come into view until much later in the book, with the "underground" subplot (there's also an art heist subplot that was a LOT of fun to read). The vastness of the Ark is in PLAY for the entirety of the book, leaving the reader to feel like they're groping around in the dark vacuum of space. The result is a book that wants to emit a cosy vibe, but instead is suffocating.

There were also a couple of instances of casual racism. The Orientalism might make you cringe. Also the idea of causing grand mal seizures as a method of self-defense feels a bit...off? I think the seizures are only for very serious situations, but the fact that they don't have a better way of knocking someone out without potentially disabling or killing them (and leaving a mess of human excrement to clean up after) is hard to believe.

The Ark has apparently had 11 generations of intermixing and yet people are still able to distinguish things like Zimbabwean, or the ever famous "Asian". Humans will lose defining features of ethnicity at 6 - 8 generations. I don't recall there being especially long-lived humans on the Ark--they'd be well over 200 years old.

There are also oddities in the text, such as Tomlinson's insistence on using "span" for "spun", or the interruption of what should have been a very tense moment with a "gay is OK" speech. While I think most of us agree with the premise of the speech, it dissipated any emotion or tension during what was supposed to be a huge reveal.

That wasn't the only place Tomlinson did this. All of the big reveals near the end are ruined by his interjecting, or his rush to get through the payoff of a big reveal. The obvious rush to get through the big reveal is what baffles me most. The vast majority of authors will hurry through the build up because they want the smack of the payoff. Not Tomlinson, though.

There were a few other miscellaneous errors, such as POV shifts that went on for no more than a line or two. Easy mistake to identify and correct that I'm surprised made it into the final product. If he was going for 3rd person omniscient, Tomlinson should have spent far less than in a limited 3rd person POV.

Tomlinson also likes to overuse adverbs, meaning you'll get a lot of tell, not show in the Ark. In fact, outside of describing parts of the Ark, weapons, etc., you don't get a whole lot to go off of. Benson's gorgeous girlfriend arrived at one of their dates look like a snack and all Tomlinson wrote basically amounted to: "she was hot and she had boobs".

Benson as a character manages a good balance. . .kinda. He's neither someone you root for non-stop, nor is he someone you despise. He's a horn dog, a little stuck up, but devoted to his job. In one instance, his horn dog ways nearly lured him into statuatory rape so that was horrifying. Even more horrifying was how Tomlinson gave a better description of this girl than of Benson's girlfriend, Theresa.

Where Tomlinson shines is with his dialogue. Most of it is well-written--even the banter is pleasant to read. His pacing wasn't terrible, although The Ark suffers from a sagging middle like a lot of books.

If you can get it for a buck or two, you can get a couple hours' of cheap, pulpy entertainment. It's a pretty fun read, especially in the last 25% of the book if you can make it there. The plot gets a little out of Tomlinson's control here or there and turns outlandish, so be ready to suspend more disbelief than usual.

This is one of those authors who have a ton of potential, so imagine how sad I was to find out Tomlinson doesn't seem to be writing more books these days.

A solid 3/5.

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

The only time I’ve seen someone brag about a royalty check is when someone famous gets one for a few cents for something they did years ago as a joke. For example of something good done with a royalty check was every year when Wade Boggs would get his check for his Simpsons appearance in the episode “Homer At The Bat” for a couple cents he would auction the check off and the money all went to charity for that piece of sports / Simpsons memorabilia.

What Pat is doing here bragging about his sales is considered very unprofessional.

 

[Udders]

If only his wife knew what water was.

 

[TorpidSloth]

Let’s say 2,500 books were sold in the past 6 months… what does that even come out to? Let’s say he netted $20,000 even though I have no idea how it works nor what I’m talking about.

Wow Pat righteous bucks. Probably half this board made that in dividends alone you fat asshole

It's probably more like 2-3 grand. Apparently the average author makes 5-15% of the price of each book. Pat's are all paperbacks, so what? 10 bucks per book? Let’s be generous and say he's at the upper end of that bracket (he's not) and is getting 15%. That's $3750. Righteous bucks!

 

[IGotATreeOnMyHouse85]

It's probably more like 2-3 grand. Apparently the average author makes 5-15% of the price of each book. Pat's are all paperbacks, so what? 10 bucks per book? Let’s be generous and say he's at the upper end of that bracket (he's not) and is getting 15%. That's $3750. Righteous bucks!

Even then, he only gets paid twice a year from royalties - so for 2024 it looks like Pat will make under 10k for the year.

 

[BudDickman]

He's really trying to recapture some of his past "glory". It's like he's trying to turn back the clock to before ONA discovered him, pretending like the last 5 years didn't even happen.

 

[TorpidSloth]

Even then, he only gets paid twice a year from royalties - so for 2024 it looks like Pat will make under 10k for the year.

Exactly. And that's also an unrealistic high. There's no way he's either getting 15% or his books are selling for full price.

 

[TorquieTwoBeers]

There is literally no way this is true.

• 2,500 copies for the trilogy is about 833 copies per book over six months. Look at the sales rankings for those books on Amazon. The Ark (his best-selling book) is ranked 517,592 in the kindle store and 1,647,140 as a paperback. There is no way a book with rankings that abysmal is moving around 150 units per month
• If this were true, he would share the statement with the real numbers on it. This is a man who shared photos of his piss yellow teeth when he started using whitening strips
• Let's say it is true and let's give him an astronomical royalty of $5 per unit. That's only $12,500 every six months. That's nothing
• iirc, one of his books was either free or $0.99 in the kindle store for a while last year. So maybe he moved some extra books. But at the same time, that is not reflected in his Amazon sales rankings.
• A friend of mine self-published a book on Amazon a few years ago, science fiction no less, and his Amazon ranking is about twice as bad as The Ark (like 1,000,000 for kindle, 3,000,000 in paperback). He's lucky if he sells 10 copies a month. There is no way Pat is selling 10x that amount with his rankings.

 

[KaNAMBLA Harris]

As of beginning of 2023 he had sold 2656 copies of the Ark
With 22 copies being recorded sold for 2022
No idea what the 2500 copies he is talking about is, he passed that sales figure <2021.
There is no way that he somehow doubled his sales in 6month so its not new sales.

This is just piggy reminding everyone that he was also an author and not just a fat lunatic on twitter.

He means to say he sold 2500 copies in the second half of last year

 

[Slackjawed Cow]

Safe to assume he immediately ran tot he bar to get drunk and order bar food while trying to brag about his royalty check to the bartender that doesnt give a shit. Im sure Pat will throw in another $5 on the tip since he is rolling in dough now.

 

[TorpidSloth]

There is literally no way this is true.

• 2,500 copies for the trilogy is about 833 copies per book over six months. Look at the sales rankings for those books on Amazon. The Ark (his best-selling book) is ranked 517,592 in the kindle store and 1,647,140 as a paperback. There is no way a book with rankings that abysmal is moving around 150 units per month
• If this were true, he would share the statement with the real numbers on it. This is a man who shared photos of his piss yellow teeth when he started using whitening strips
• Let's say it is true and let's give him an astronomical royalty of $5 per unit. That's only $12,500 every six months. That's nothing
• iirc, one of his books was either free or $0.99 in the kindle store for a while last year. So maybe he moved some extra books. But at the same time, that is not reflected in his Amazon sales rankings.
• A friend of mine self-published a book on Amazon a few years ago, science fiction no less, and his Amazon ranking is about twice as bad as The Ark (like 1,000,000 for kindle, 3,000,000 in paperback). He's lucky if he sells 10 copies a month. There is no way Pat is selling 10x that amount with his rankings.

Just looked it up and the Ark is selling for $14.99 paperback and 7 dollars on Kindle. If anyone is dumb enough to pay that, Pat is most likely, at best, getting 10% of each sale. So a buck 50. So at best he made 3750. 7 and a half grand a year. He'd make double that working part time at Target.

 

[cliveowen]

It's very odd phrasing. His trilogy sold 2500 copies. Does that mean each book sold 2500 copies, or all 3 combined did?

And if it's 2500 for all 3, you know it was 90% just the first book. No way anyone would buy the second 2 after reading that dreck.

 

[Slackjawed Cow]

Just looked it up and the Ark is selling for $14.99 paperback and 7 dollars on Kindle. If anyone is dumb enough to pay that, Pat is most likely, at best, getting 10% of each sale. So a buck 50. So at best he made 3750. 7 and a half grand a year. He'd make double that working part time at Target.

He is so insecure. He has to make these posts so he can feel like he is a success. He would rather lie about accomplishments online than to actually do them. Just like his gym talk and pretending to be some intellectual.

 

[SpaceEdge]

Money is for faggots maaan, sit down at my drum circle and I'll explain

 

[Rodeo Clown]

2,500 copies in 9 years? Gnarly, dude

I think he's suggesting his 7 year old book is selling 5k copies a year still. If it were and he gets 2 bucks a copy and wrote 2 books a year for 5 years he'd have a passive 100k a year besides new works coming in. This is what we call a lie.

 

[PorqueDealer]

It's very odd phrasing. His trilogy sold 2500 copies. Does that mean each book sold 2500 copies, or all 3 combined did?

And if it's 2500 for all 3, you know it was 90% just the first book. No way anyone would buy the second 2 after reading that dreck.

You would think that with his original trilogy geting several thousand per cent bump in sales his TOR stuff would too.
Though that shouldn't be too hard as he was in minus sales for the first two books in 2022 according to Bookscan.

Just looked it up and the Ark is selling for $14.99 paperback and 7 dollars on Kindle. If anyone is dumb enough to pay that, Pat is most likely, at best, getting 10% of each sale. So a buck 50. So at best he made 3750. 7 and a half grand a year. He'd make double that working part time at Target.

The review I posted from Nov 23 stated they only paid a buck and some change for it so besides being free that one week, it is probably in the e-bargain bin regularly.

 

[JoeCumiawearsDIAPERS]

It's probably more like 2-3 grand. Apparently the average author makes 5-15% of the price of each book. Pat's are all paperbacks, so what? 10 bucks per book? Let’s be generous and say he's at the upper end of that bracket (he's not) and is getting 15%. That's $3750. Righteous bucks!

Shit I have that on me right now