AgentPete's latest activity

That’s a good point. Actually, two good points, viz: 1) At the time (and today, but less so) authors really wanted the kudos of being “properly” published, i.e. not vanity. Although I know very little about Unbound, they did have a generally...

I should say, that as a customer, I think I got a good deal - a beautiful, hardback book with my name printed in the list of supporters delivered on the day of publication. It cost me no more than the cover price of the same book that I see for...

You know Pete all the authors ripped off here could form your first constellation...

Iconic. Complicated. Feet of clay. Of course, who hasn't. He had a heart. Biafra. The Odessa File, OMG. I never care about spoilers. I often read the ending of a book first, and gauge that way if I want to spend the time (horreur.) He had the...

I think you’re right to be suspicious. I don’t know what happened to Unbound, but they seem to have burnt through money. Nor do I know if their publishing model ever worked properly (does anyone here know?)

I know nothing about Forsyth's views, but Jackall is one of my favourite novels.

Dodgy through and through, with views very far from my own, but a towering figure nonetheless! He was also massively popular with army types. When I was about 12, my squaddie dad gave me a copy of The Dogs of War. "Read this. One day you might be...

Freddie Forsyth is dead. Author of The Day of the Jackal and more of that ilk. As dodgy a character in real life as any in his books. Like Jeffrey Archer, wrote thrillers for the home county set. End of an era – end of a profitable genre too...

This topic emerged in last week’s Huddle. Before the Huddle, I knew almost zero about Unbound, other than the generally favorable buzz that most of the publishing industry seemed to share about them. Frankly, what’s happened is shocking and...

Yeah. Can do. Thing about cog diss as a tool is that it actually has to work. Just throwing two utterly disparate concepts together into your story blender doesn’t guarantee any cog diss impact at all. There has to be some weird...

I suspect the fertile world of fanfic has already preempted you on that… many thousands of times…! And by now, there may well be AI videos, too... :eek:

Thank you for those fascinating examples of cognitive dissonance, really thought-provoking! I was thinking about the comments by @AgentPete on the lab project from @Sedayne, so more from marketing than psychology. Specifically, something...

Cognitive dissonance occurs in anorexia nervosa when they know they should eat the food but just can't. It also occurs when they look in the mirror and see their belief-version of themselves. I knew a rhythmic gymnast turned dancer with anorexia...

I'm always amazed at the widespread belief of the "need for protein" when every single food-form already has protein and considering the fact protein is broken down in your stomach, so it never enters your bloodstream. Eating protein to develop...

How well I remember that 6 mos period my youngest wanted to be crazy frog when he grew up and sped everywhere on his invisible bike singing his anthem.