ANTIFRAGILE: Tales of the Unstoppable (feat. Nick Cole)

When his publisher told him to remove a single negative reference to abortion in his novel Ctrl+Alt+Revolt!, Cole refused. He was dropped, and the novel went on to become a Dragon Award winner.

The value of the arts are more important than ever. The West is experiencing a cultural nadir unseen since the rise of the Dadists’ works of purile shock. Public “cancellings”, a phenomenon once alien to the American mind, have become commonplace for people of any walk of life. They are especially rife in the literary world, suffused as it is with those who are hyperconcerned with pushing people and ideas based on shallow physical and psychosexual traits or retarded political ideologies supposing to challenge the status quo without realizing they have become the status quo.

Instances are widely known now of baying hyenas having turned and torn authors to shreds, established and newcomer alike, for only a moment’s wrongthink. Cait Corrain knew the tactics of her own crowd, and chose to implode her own career late last year rather than face their wrath. Larry Correia has had to deal with threats tied to his appearances at cons for years. Jeanine Cummins, whose book American Dirt was a hotly anticipated novel in the summer of 2020—Oprah Winfrey herself posed for social media reading it—was met with full-throated screaming accusations of “racism” that would now be expected simply because a white author wrote a book about a Mexican mother and her son attempting to escape cartel violence after the rest of her family is murdered. Cummins toughed it out, and her publisher stuck by her. Amelie Wen Zhao, author of the Blood Heir trilogy wasn’t so lucky.

Nick Cole’s been there. After the success of his 2014 novel Soda Pop Soldier, his publisher Harper Voyager (an imprint of Harper Collins) contracted him for a prequel. Upon discovering a single negative representation of abortion, they demanded it be removed and issued threats through his agent that he’d be dropped if he didn’t (You can read more detail in Nick’s own rather harrowing account). Cole refused. As he says in his recounting of events:

“A writer is often the last defense in a society collapsing into a one-mind totalitarian state where the rights of people are trodden upon by the ruling elite in the name of the “greater good.”  Where freedom of speech and independent thinking are also curtailed in the name of “the greater good.”  Where writers and other artists disappear either by blacklisting or actual “disappearing” because they say, or write, something that the intellectual elite hates.  I am a writer.  It is my job to stand up and say what cannot be said.”

What happened to Nick, and Larry and Amelie can frankly happen to any of us. All it takes is a bad post, one reviewer to take something the wrong way, one wayward interaction. Nick was kind enough to talk to me about how he managed to make it through, and offers advice on how to help authors new to such an experience keep their sanity.

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Q&A

An author facing cancellation can be a mentally jarring and emotionally taxing thing, be it a publisher dropping them or waking up to a social media smear campaign. What advice would you give to an author to help navigate the initial shock? How do they get themselves back on track?

NC: “Best advice I can do is to advise you to not make your career about that.  It’s an easy seduction to bask in all the outrage and suddenly get some love and validation when you’ve been treated like a stray dog by your terrible publisher.

Suddenly everyone wants to talk about you because it’s strengthens their cause and some may even buy your book(s) out of spite.  In mere days you are asked to weigh in on everything from the Fall of Western Civ to the latest Dinero flick and whether Hellmen’s or Miracle Whip is the legitimate and rightful spread.

Fun stuff.

It ain’t writing though. It’s just popularity and that gossamer-wet toilet paper tissue that will soon fade because “all glory is fleeting” or something.  And if you keep playing your canary in a coal mine act you’ll soon be seen as tiresome, “that outrage guy” and ultimately merely boorish because you’re making everything about that time you got wronged way back when dinosaurs ruled the mall.

So what you’re not doing is what you supposedly do… write books.

Now, you’re a PROFESSIONAL VICTIM™️ and it’s easy to get lost in that role. And eventually… become that person like some mangy forgotten actor still wandering bus stations, still playing that character he was once momentarily famous for. Basically crazy and living in an imaginary world of your own victimhood where you’re the hero and sinister forces surely lurk behind every call, angry interaction, and bad idea .  Ask me about the guy who made the musical Hair sometime.  But it’ll cost you a cup of coffee.

Instead, just state the crimes that have been committed against you, haul the dragons who hurt you into the light, and then, after three days, get back to work writing.

Let the mob drag and burn then. They’re hungry to do so.

It’s weird, but the only way to make money writing books is to: write books. Not whine about how bad everything is and that time you got wronged forever ago.

I know… it sux. They’re bad.  Move on.

Move on. Write books.

The best revenge is success.  Prove them wrong. Write books. Make money. 

They’ll hate you for that.

They. Will. Hate. You.

But that’s great because they’re failed human beings.”

You were lucky enough to be adjacent to some fairly big names in the literary scene, eventually crossing paths with Larry Correia, who was able to give your cause a big boost. What advice would you give to the lesser known writer for finding support?

Like I said… write it down and publish it in a blog or tweet.  If it’s going anywhere it’ll go.  I had no plan.  I took a Jewish guy to get a hot dog and told him I was fired from Harper Collins and I was gonna key the boss’s car on the way out by writing a blog post and probably be finished for ever a a Trad Writer™️.

That Jewish guy was a reader.  He happened to be in a secret group with Larry and asked if he could share it, my post, there. I thought nothing of it.  I had bigger problems like writing for no one ever again.

Man plans.  God laughs.

I had no plan other than “keying” the boss’s car. I’m a forward think like that.”

You've written quite strongly in the past regarding the importance of what writers can do and be in declining societies ("a flickering candle of civilization in the darkness of a world going mad"). It's something that makes for a good reminder now and again. What's the most important thing for a shellshocked author facing the mob to remember?

“Only the Truth matters.  Flak and incoming are heaviest over the target. They killed Kennedy, that’s how committed they are.   So beware.  But none of that matters.  You wanna be a good guy, or a bad guy? Then  do the right thing and burn the village because it’s full of vampires and werewolves who call themselves “elites”. You wanna be RICH™️ and IMPORTANT™️ go join them. They’re always looking for another scumbag to shovel dirt on the sucked-dry corpse of our civilization until it’s little more than a deserted graveyard.  And the rewards are attractive, until they ain’t and it’s you getting drained for the greater good this time.

But you wanna live with yourself… do the right thing.  The kids tomorrow may thank you, some day. And, you sleep better. And… the terrible people hate you for it.  THEY. HATE. YOU.  I’m weird because that makes me happy. But perhaps you too want to burn the vampire village that is our current civilization and be hated by the low IQ weirdos? Then write books, tell the truth, and watch their village burn.

That’s where the fun is.”

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Nick Cole (@RealNickCole on X) is the author of the American Wasteland saga, the Soda Pop Soldier series, which includes Ctrl+Alt+Revolt!, WYRD, and co-authors the Galaxy’s Edge military sci-fi series with Jason Anspach. See more of his work at nickcolebooks.com