The Footprint of Mussolini - TL

Hello all, I'm just giving a quick status update for publishing.

Assuming nothing goes wrong, the novel should be published (by Sealion) in a few months, but I'd be uncomfortable giving precise deadlines.

I wanted to be completely transparent about something. I added a few extra sections in the novel wrapping up some of the circumstances in Eastern Europe post-Soviet fall, the idea being there would be something worth the buying. One of the largest dealt with Ukraine, with Bandera having survived the war, returning to Ukraine and being funded by the Roman Alliance to come to power, before he starts persecuting ethnic Russians, ultimately leading to a Russian breakaway state and Polish/Belarussian intervention to depose him with the breakaway state in the Donbas/Crimea region becoming a Russian nationalist ethnostate.

For very, VERY obvious reasons, I don't feel comfortable publishing that, not in the least because I currently have a friend in Ukraine (my Chernobyl tour guide with whom I spent two glorious days together with when I was in Ukraine a few months ago) who is currently fighting on the frontlines and I check my phone every day to make sure he's alive. I have now removed the section and informed the publisher, which hopefully won't take much time to resolve.
Uh, Soriaro is President George Corey fictional, if not is he George Wallace?
 
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Hello all,

My apologies to inform you of this, but the Seal Lion has now said they won't publish the story 'after review' despite originally saying they would and implicitely called me a supporter of racism and Fascism in the reply; I believe they think I'm a supporter of the people who explicitly stated they want to kill me, who nearly lynched my father if a policewoman wasn't there to save him, who shot my great uncle in the gut on his porch for his ethnicity, who would kill the only girlfriend I ever had, my closest friend, and so many more people I love. My apologies for getting everyone's hopes up but their decision is final.

As it's obviously somewhat dispiriting to be (as I believe) libeled like this, and I am overwhelmed with tests at the moment, I'll have to put off the self-publishing decision until May. I'll probably do so, if only out of Irish spite.

Have a nice day, or a nicer day than I'm having.
 
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Sorry to heard that you have such problems. And these claims about supporting of racism and fascism are just idiotic. This TL has just shown how terrible racism can be and fascism whilst has better reputation than in OTL it is not really great ideology and fascists can do really terrible things.

I hope that you will publish some parts of your books on this thread since probably most of potential readers can't reach that if then you don't publish that as e-book.
 
Sorry to heard that you have such problems. And these claims about supporting of racism and fascism are just idiotic. This TL has just shown how terrible racism can be and fascism whilst has better reputation than in OTL it is not really great ideology and fascists can do really terrible things.

I hope that you will publish some parts of your books on this thread since probably most of potential readers can't reach that if then you don't publish that as e-book.

I would put the chance of eventual self-publishing at about 90% by now. The official publishing route has closed in my eyes so now I have less confusion about the route to take.

At the risk of flattery, I'm as thankful as I am surprised about the support I've gotten all throughout the making of this story from so many of you. Really.
 
Horrible that this happened. By any chance is there any other options to Sea Lion Press or are they the only game in town for publishing alternate history?

Most of publishers probably just say "We won't see there being commercial succesf for this". If it is AH novel they are just intrested only if author is either Harry Turtledove or someone else famous AH author or then it takes only some certain ACW or world wars stories which are easy to read for most of readers.
 
Most of publishers probably just say "We won't see there being commercial succesf for this". If it is AH novel they are just intrested only if author is either Harry Turtledove or someone else famous AH author or then it takes only some certain ACW or world wars stories which are easy to read for most of readers.
I guess FoM would be too much for most people.
 
I guess FoM would be too much for most people.

Probably. There would be too much strange things for average sci-fi readers. Most of them are not really familiar with these things what there has seen. And probably many think this being pro-fascist and outright racist TL without realising how things really are. Many hardly are aware differences between fascism in 1920's and early 1930 and nazism, speciality between1935 - 1945. And for many extremely antisimeitic and blatantly stupid communists might be too much.
 
Probably. There would be too much strange things for average sci-fi readers. Most of them are not really familiar with these things what there has seen. And probably many think this being pro-fascist and outright racist TL without realising how things really are. Many hardly are aware differences between fascism in 1920's and early 1930 and nazism, speciality between1935 - 1945. And for many extremely antisimeitic and blatantly stupid communists might be too much.
This
The reaction of Sealion is pretty much what I'd expect from that public, which is a pitty because I'm really looking forward for the revised version of this
I might have been critical of this TL at some points but it is still one of the first timelines I read on the site if not the first one and I'm very fond of it, Sorairo is genuinely a brilliant writer
But oh well, I guess that's what happens when people cant discern fiction from reality
 
I wouldnt ask that
It might be very amusing considering how ignorant and outright dumb their stance is
But thats something that very understandably upset the author and that must have hurt for all the reasons he mentioned, so I say we should leave that in off

Edit:
He deleted the post so I removed the quote. Still keeping my comment because my point still stands
 
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This
The reaction of Sealion is pretty much what I'd expect from that public, which is a pitty because I'm really looking forward for the revised version of this
I might have been critical of this TL at some points but it is still one of the first timelines I read on the site if not the first one and I'm very fond of it, Sorairo is genuinely a brilliant writer
But oh well, I guess that's what happens when people cant discern fiction from reality
To be completely fair to them. A timeline where Benito Mussolini of all people is turned into a saviour of Jews and is considered a decent person in universe by a lot of people would be extremely hard to stomach for most people no matter the context.
 
To be completely fair to them. A timeline where Benito Mussolini of all people is turned into a saviour of Jews and is considered a decent person in universe by a lot of people would be extremely hard to stomach for most people no matter the context.
Agreed, it's not something you should jump in to read without being mentally ready to
Doesnt change that they failed to separate the work from the author, which is pretty much a literature starter, and unfairly mistreated them proving they know nothing about him at all and didnt even try to doublecheck
I could understand Sealion cancelling it fearing how people would react to the book and a possibly backlash, Twitter exists after all, specially if they suggested Sorairo another option of publisher so he wouldnt leave emptyhanded
However thats not what happened here, they were highly unprofessional and made false accusations because they didnt like it
 
Agreed, it's not something you should jump in to read without being mentally ready to
Doesnt change that they failed to separate the work from the author, which is pretty much a literature starter, and unfairly mistreated them proving they know nothing about him at all and didnt even try to doublecheck
I could understand Sealion cancelling it fearing how people would react to the book and a possibly backlash, Twitter exists after all, specially if they suggested Sorairo another option of publisher so he wouldnt leave emptyhanded
However thats not what happened here, they were highly unprofessional and made false accusations because they didnt like it
Agreed. Their response was completely out of bounds.
 
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