IQfy has produced multiple collaborative projects and periodicals over the years. Many of these projects are now defunct, and the few that are still active seem to have uncertain trajectories. There are also solo writers who frequent IQfy and—for better or for worse—their namegayging and shilling has impacted the culture of this board.
This thread is for the discussion of the history of IQfy writing and the future of IQfy. To those that have been involved in previous IQfy collaborative projects, such as The Lit Quarterly, Pinecone, The April Review, miniMAG and &: what were your experiences like? Does the drama and infighting surrounding so many of these IQfy collaborative projects inevitably result in their dissolution? Do you think that IQfy has anything valuable to offer for aspiring writers, in terms of critique or support?
Additionally: Are there any new projects in the works? What do you think is next for the so-called IQfy renaissance? And now that a IQfy author has finally gotten a mainstream book deal with a major publishing house, do you think that more of our authors are likely to see similar success?
Mega archive of IQfy periodicals:
mega.nz/folder/2gsHSSbA#Sl46P4LljGlk9mnpAf3Mlw
 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
 Tip Your Landlord Shirt $21.68 |
CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
What do I have to do to appear in a G. Farmer book?
either become a IQfy lolcow or send feet pics to his email
Post on the /wg/ discord.
I'm not trans tho
troony thread. troony spam.
samegay
Your thread is a fart huffing circlejerk and multiple anons know this. Cry more
Frick off Ari. Stop crabbing
You are a newhomosexual who NEVER appeared on this board until last year. Disgusting scum boomer moron. Circlejerking homosexual Black person
photoshopped
nope, just clipped. seethe mor
Seethe? I'm having a great night... are you?
indeed. rarely been better
I'm an oldgay and I've never heard of half of these things.
Is "Call Of Wells Fargo" an authentic G. Farmer work? I missed the announcement.
Why the new thread pic? Did something change?
Based Woolston
samegay
Bruh, there are tops a couple dozen people that read this forum. What's the point of same gayging?
Doing TikToks or YouTubes would get more traffic than samegayging here.
I like the new thread pic tbh. Nice to have a fresh one for a change
new pasta too, doesn’t say amp is rapidly in decline
Reminder that these are trash circlejerk threads used by schizos like Jason homosexual and Frank "3rd Person" Gardener to advertise.
exactly. so report for advertising/begging & ignore
Remember when IQfy writers used to be relatively good, clever, and witty? Pepperidge Farm remembers…
Which ones are you referring to?
Hey Jason, try putting your dick in your hot glue binder, see what happens.
Making a yummy meal and then working on book #4.
Twenty posts in and you're already blogging and advertising a new Amazon pamphlet. You just can't help it
can't afford meat huh?
Had a nice 3 pepper steak to put on top
you know that when meat is sold heavily spiced, that it means it's turning rancid & the store is just trying to unload it before it's unsalable, right?
I don't think you actually shop for yourself, you probably live at home with your parents.
more like the opposite of that. seethe more
You don't write, you don't cook.
i do both, you're just a mindless crab
do you make bread out of the tree bark you forage, or do you just eat it straight off the trunk?
I laughed!
But can you eat five plates?
YES!!!
Watching Shogun and not writing tonight. Great show.
I went for Chinese food with my neighbour the other week and it was so fricking bad. $19 for a buffet that was about 1/2 the quality of even Foody Goody. I got pieces of "sweet and sour chicken ball" that had no chicken, just all deep fried batter. A fricking cola was like $4 and came in a small plastic cup. They had freezer burnt shrimp, no dessert (Unlike foody goody which had dessert and free ice cream) and their fried rice was crunchy and hard. The only good thing was the beef broccoli which had fresh broccoli and decent cuts of beef. Also the chicken chow mein was pretty good, but it is hard to frick up chow fricking mein.
Buffet quality has gone down drastically I think. Foody Goody would be like $30 per person in 2024.
Heard that "Asian Pear Restaurant" was the best buffet in town, better than the one my neighbour invited me along to, then I looked up the reviews.
I remember eating Foody Goody and thinking it was mid-tier but after the gym, it was the best, like I craved it so much. $9 for a massive shitload of chinese buffet, ice cream, and like $2 for a coal. $13 after tax and tip if I remember correctly. I don't think I ever barfed from it and ate it many times.
Meanwhile, the asian buffet I went to recently, basically the next day my guts were spraying the bowl and the odour was similar to that of a dead homeless man farting the scent of fish guts pushed out of an butthole made of old gym socks. Maybe society would have a place for me, again, if I dedicated myself to exploring the chinese buffets of Canada and finding the successor to Foody Goody.
It wouldn't fit. My dick is too big.
Your posts don't really reflect that.
Why are these threads so full of people hating on Jason? What did he ever do to any of you? He's a chill bro
Circlejerking harder lil homosexual
because he's a frank-like shill-spammer with delusions of grandeur, and he keeps posting trivial details of his crappy life like he's a wannabe influencer
Because the more he posts here, the less time he has for "writing". So far, he's dumb enough to fall for it.
Stop shitting up the threads blogposting about your shitty food and pointless life??? No one cares
I thought this was a cool internet hangout? Fellow writers and readers?
You're neither.
Hahaha, I'll still be here when book #10 drops, and you'll still tell me I'm not a writer. Love you too.
If a toddler haphazardly smears paint over ten canvases with his grubby fingers does that make him an artist?? No, and the same principle applies to you it doesn’t matter how much you write because everything you produce is
utter trash???? I hope you get hantavirus
I mean, yeah, going into art, you have to have the view that you're already dead. You're in the intellectual trench, and the work you do today may never be given a hero's treatment, you're forever unsung. It's part of the artist persona, embrace it, there is a reason why the starving artist is the male equivalent to the female prostitute, they are the two anti-heros that can achieve something from the background. We're smugglers of thoughts and ideas, most art comes from inside, we're the swimming, fighting sperm trying to get into the egg. We're not guaranteed jack shit, which is why, when you set out, you have to accept defeat. It is only when you're resigned to dying alone and forgotten that you can just self-express until the bitter end.
I meant outside, I think.
Calm down, Hannah. We’re monitoring you too.
Why would you even say that???
frank has 16 books and is still not a writer. the communist "labor theory" doesn't work in the real world, and especially not to writing
Has "gardener" been added to the list yet?
Why is there such a long wait until the next &? I've been waiting for it to come out cause I wanna get published. Didn't it used to be a monthly deal?
I think they need more editors.
The editor is serving a three month jail sentence and gets released at the end of May. 020 drops in June.
I literally talk to Ryan every other day. He's not in jail. Lol
You're lying to help him save face.
sounds kinda gay ngl
>having friends is gay in 2024
I don’t get the part in Shards about Murmur Bay. Is that where the dude massacred a bunch of asiatics? Or did some asiatic women get raped by the Americans and then come back as the prostitutes? And does the dude die in the casino in the end?
The story doesn't just take place in Las Vegas and Vietnam. Those are the principal locations for the trauma that the main character carries with him throughout the shards.
Murmur Bay is a conceptual colony on the east coast of the United States during the time of piracy and the slave trade. Obviously our main character would need a familiar origin. I, like you, did not come from nothing. We came, without our knowledge or permission, from scorched earth and ash. From war and colonization.
I do not consider myself a liberal or a conservative but I will admit to holding a position on my distain for colonialism and its casualties. There is little need for the destruction and decimation inflicted on the inhabitants of colonized areas since time immemorial. Vietnam included. I dedicate the book to the vets of the war and I mean to emphasize that I mean the vets on both sides.
I used to play guitar with this 60-year-old Mexican guy and he had a Vietnam vet buddy named Bob who invited me over for a bánh mì sandwich. I thought he would be the one making it but to my surprise it was his friend...a Vietcong vet...with whom he would sit opposite in a quiet living room and have a staring match for hours. The tension was palpable. Here was a man who had lost his brothers in war and another man who had lost his home and possibly more. I felt as though they had both died in the war and the remainder that they were still alive was their hell.
The prostitutes of Nevada are connected to the supernatural. Nothing to do with Vietnam.
I usually hate when people spoil the ending of a book, author or not, so I won't do it here. I'll just say that the war in Vegas has soldiers on God's side and the other side. Nevada is known for biker gangs and the mafia and the corporations. Think of all the history that Vegas has with groups congregating up and down the strip to take it over. Some have good intentions and some don't. Money talks, bullshit walks.
Awesome thanks man.
Ryan is focusing on building the press so he's putting the magazine aside for the next while.
I don’t have enough material yet. submit to ¢hamp, nygger.
IQfy is the perfect example of online anarchism. An anonymous hyper-individualistic group of thousands, who sometimes attempt to co-operate with each other to do something, and spectacularly fail every time
>thousands
I would estimate that only a few hundred people regularly make use of this board.
So we're just pretending Tales of the Unreal 2 doesn't exist right?
Yes. Miles is a hack.
Tales 2 was better than Tales 1 imo
Did Jason get banned again? Some of his posts got deleted.
Apparently sharing a couple songs has upset the crabs?
Zulu mogs you, homosexual.
i thought zulu gave up IQfy
You’re here for life. He gave up Discord.
Zulu mogs nobody, when was his last book release?
I bet Jason Bryan will have his 4th book done before Zulu can pump out any more work.
Zulu here, I recently took a trip to Vancouver and was disgusted at what a completely soulless shithole it was. It really inspired me to warn the rest of the world to not go there, and since then I've written 3 new books. The first is about how all the women there are bawds and then men can't keep them satisfied, so they're constantly whoring around. I haven't picked out a title for this one. The next is about how everyone there is a petty criminal or a huge pussy who gets walked all over. The main character gets his bike stolen and has a complete mental breakdown, he reimagines himself as a heroic figure in a terrible book he's writing while his actual life collapses around him. I'm not sure what the third one is about, but that's not important, what's important is that I'm writing lots and lots and never stopping to doubt or question the quality of my work in the slightest.
Meanwhile, nobody knows anything about you because your work is boring and you are a boring person. Completely forgettable.
See you on the other side of book #4.
I'm not boring. I drive fast cars, have sex with beautiful women, and cook dinner for myself. I used to get drunk at bars and talk to people a lot but then everything changed with covid. That's why I'm writing, because humanity needs cool people like me writing cool books so people will see me as a role model and live more fuller lives of also drinking and driving cars.
>since they can't attack Jason's 3rd book because it is better than any of the drivel they've put out in years, let's see what they attack him for this time
Checks notes
>enjoying fast cars
>enjoying women
>enjoying the bar
Discord trannies and shut-in dorks are the crabs here
I'm not attacking Jason at all, I just don't have time to read his book because I'm too busy writing. I find that completely ignoring the context in which I'm working and publishing helps me establish my own voice with the help of an AI proofreader. If only I could get those pesky tenses sorted out.
The tears of the crabs when a IQfy writer finishes and releases a book is as certain as the rising of the sun in the morning
I know, right? Jason sees that Zulu has written four books and is now driving himself crazy trying to catch up. Sad!
Don't even know the name of a single one, and none of them have ever been discussed here. Zulu is waning.
How about these:
>prostitutedem waves
>stepfather's pride
>lots and lots of leaves
I remember Zulu's first Tale's chapter as being incredibly boring and poorly written, the dude is projecting so hard because he doesn't produce any work and his personality is non-existent outside of crabbing. Oh better jump on Discord and scheme with Ari and Atlas about how to get someone banned for another 3 days, got to get that big win!
Why does it matter if my work is boring and has no audience? The key thing here is quantity, and it makes me feel good to see my word count continuously going up every day while my readership remains the same. It validates my self-image as an outsider in opposition to the establishment.
3rd book has the highest number of downloads and pages read on Amazon so far, why would I stop? I'm not a quitter like Zulu or a failure to launch like Ari or Atlas.
3rd book was given away for free. It will cease to collect downloads once it isn't. It will not maintain the pace, and you know it.
More shoveling shit in Hell at your "job"?
Having a great day actually, did a little maintenance on my van, and by little I mean spraying WD40 on the throttle linkage so it doesn't stick and go vrrrrrrro---ooooo----OOOOM!
Second, I got my tools half organized. Going to get my turbo car towed here and continue to work on it once the weather warms up. This summer, going to cruise in the convertible and it will feel so good!
Third, making a sick ass nachos dinner tonight, cheese was 1/2 off so I got a huge bag of shredded tex-mex for $8. Really good price here in ol' Canada.
This is just Jason Bryan arguing with himself
Nope, been busy today.
yup
are you reporting this thread for advertising, or do you expect others to do it?
Which of these IQfy writing projects is most worth reading? I'm interested but I don't wanna waste my time on something that's shit.
Remembering the Dead by Lewis Woolston
Based on the abysmal quality of the story he wrote for &, I can say that his writing is not worth reading. Kiss my arse.
enough already of your shill-spamming, you've become as bad as frank and jason
the IQfy trolls and shill-spammers are back, but that's not a good thing
The three people who contribute the least to IQfy while attacking others the most:
>ari
>atlas
>zulu
What they lack in storytelling ability, they make up for in attacking other writers for their wallpaper, their appearances, or whatever else they see as their vulnerability. The fact is, if they could actually create, they'd be interesting people. Without the ability to produce material, they're left scrambling to attack people who do create, because other people creating makes them look bad.
The first 3-4 & issues were sprinkled with gems.
Anything from them in particular that you would recommend?
Issue 001
>the Justice System
>the Tiger
Issue 004
>/bizlit/
Issue 002 was just pictures but they are cool.
Also read Burgerpunk in any issue it appears in just because you have to know what it is.
maybe jason should write a book on how to live like a disgusting poorgay, he's certainly revealed himself to be an expert on that
IT'S UP
>Tooky shilling his Lamp Standard Press swill
Are you not embarrassed to be associated with this dumpster fire of a pyramid scheme?
Looks like all the old voices are here ITT.
I'm thinking IQfy is back.
Zulu vs. Jason: Schizo War
The funniest part is that it's probably not even the real Jason posting. Zulu is just arguing with some random nobody because everyone knows the slightest bit of criticism triggers a Zulu meltdown.
Dude Zulu would never engage in this kind of cringe and vain volley of condescensions. He’s probably on discord warning everyone not to make assumptions, but he definitely wouldn’t be here b***hing at JB of all people.
No, I’m definitely Mr. Zulu. I just made fajitas and the ingredients cost $18
Based on writing styles and the obvious people in the orbit of IQfy, the three main hater crabs that attack authors here are:
>atlas
>ari
>zulu
RJC got the Discord gangbang treatment last, but really, anyone who posts here to network and mingle with other authors is attacked by those three.
>hurr durr i can tell who people are based on their perceived writing styles
then why aren't you working for the cia and making bank doing something impossible like this? dumbass
Yeah I'm Zulu. You've got things backwards, it's actually Jason crabbing me. He's mad that I've published more books than he has and so he refuses to read them because he knows they're better than his. But why would you say that?? My name is Atlas not Zulu none of this makes sense why are you doing this???? Now I'm Ari. Post the contract RJB or just admit that you're being scammed. RJC here - Ryan helped me format and publish a book for which there would otherwise be no market, if you want to call it a scam you can. Yeah rock on Robert, says me Jason Bryan, crack those crabs wide open buddy, gonna write my fourth book and then I'm gonna put my hair in a fauxhawk and party like it's 2004. WASSUPP
jfc
i'll see your jfc, and raise you one jfkfc
>then I'm gonna put my hair in a fauxhawk and party like it's 2004
You only wish, those were the good ol' days compared to the era of trannies and indians everywhere currently happening in Canada. Not to mention rent being much higher, the drugs all poisoned, and incredible food prices.
If you people had a taste of 2004 for 24 hours, you'd never want to come back to 2024.
you aren’t the real atlas?? you aren’t real you are lying and you aren’t real you aren’t the real Ari you are lying??? how am I supposed to know which ones are real and not real when you’re pretending to be me and pretending to be him??? why would you even do that just stop okay it isn’t funny at all??? please stop I can’t
what??? we're going to pretend to be mentally unstable women who contribute nothing to this board??? why am I posting here??? I don't even read???
I do read you are lying I do read,???? all you ever do is lie I have to be here because I rlly need to and I am the real one???? you don’t know anything and I do contribute???? you are lying and you are not real
what??? atlas should kill herself??? at least then she'd be cool??? cold to the touch??? what book for this feel??? help??? you are lying I don't think you are real???
why would you even say that that you want me to be dead why would you even say that that you want me to kill my self why would you even say that???? It’s not real you are lying and you’re trying to make me crazy,????? I am the real one all you ever do is lie
who is this why are you impersonating me??? what did I do wrong??? help mods this is stupid??? why are we in this position where someone on this board is telling someone to kill themselves I don't understand how or what I did wrong??? It's not real the posts are not real,??? these posts are all just by someone trying to mess with me but I am not writing them,??? so who is
You are not the real one I’m the real one because I have the correct trip and you are not the real one???? you are not the real one and you’re lying lying lying all you ever do is lie because you’re not real,?????
>they let her out of the loony bin
>couple eggs short of a dozen
>Faulkner
Why?
I'm not a fan of his writing. He rode the coattails of his editor like Raymond Carver. If your editor is the guy who makes your writing good then you shouldn't be a writer. My opinion. You're entitled to yours. We live in a relatively "free" world with free thought and free expression. Do your part and have at it.
>If your editor is the guy who makes your writing good then you shouldn't be a writer.
Ironic, considering that your book is poorly written dogshit that reads like it needed some serious help from an editor.
I've only heard criticism about the format, several typos, and some confusion with the scattering of the plot nonlinearly. If I hired an editor and they completely changed my writing style and/or added terms that I would have no knowledge of, then I'd be like Faulkner.
If people want to revere writers like Faulkner then I would hope they'd do their due diligence in researching who or what made him so great.
Pound is a titan. Eliot made sure to give him credit. Faulkner and Carver kept their editors close to their chest and pretended to be the sole writer of their work. It's not the same.
He was great because he understood the tension between the Old South and modernity, with an authoritative voice that delivered that pain well. This is not unlike O'Connor who did a similar thing using different motifs.These are intuitive for readers in the region and perhaps some others, but not to postmodernists or cosmopolitans.
Also if I recall correctly, some manuscripts like As I Lay Dying were not as heavily edited. If Carver had been responsible for the style, it would have made these things read more like Part 1 of the Sound and the Fury from Benjy's perspective. Or many of his short stories, besides the ones about death. You could maybe say this about Soldier's Pay or Mosquitoes, which are impressive but not yet characteristic. By the Sound and the Fury Part 2, the rest of Faulkner's novels took on such a different, overwhelming style to his shorter or early novel style that attributing these to Carver cannot be accurate. And this is a typical trajectory of an author for style to not become fully independent until after a few books.
Yeah, that's great and all but any excellent formatting or writing in Faulkner or Carver's work I'm going to give credit to Maxwell Perkins and Gordon Lish. Flannery O'Connor was a good writer and I would give her the benefit of the doubt over Faulkner because her editor was Catholic and O'Connor oftentimes had Catholic imagery in her work because...guess what...SHE WAS CATHOLIC! Faulkner was not a fricking lawyer but his editor was. In fact, Faulkner never graduated from college. So, why is it that a lot of his work is peppered with legal terminology...hmmmm I wonder. And Gordon Lish fessed up to creating Carver's "minimalist" style on his death bed. I mean, they got paid so whatever but I have a sense of honor that tells me that a man who will take credit for another man's work is a shitty man. Again, MY OPINION.
None of those people drove fast cars, fricked hot chicks, or lived in cool places.
I grew up in Hollywood and I guess I've fricked a couple hot chicks but cars are just extensions of the phallus and I am not insecure enough to give a frick about that.
>cars are just extensions of the phallus
Compare driving an EV to driving a model year 2000 Honda S2000 with the 9000 RPM redline and with the original model tires on it. That car was such a wild and fun ride... The differentials were weak as frick though and broke so easily.
I don't know what any of that means. So congratulations I guess. I own a hybrid and my favorite thing about it is that it saves me money.
Have you ever driven a manual transmission vehicle? How old are you?
Lish isn't even dead, you dumb c**t.
Sorry, I meant Carver admitted that Lish created the style.
No. I'm 38. Is that a problem?
homosexual confirmed.
Because I have never driven a stick? Sounds like you like the STICK more than I do.
Confirmed bugman
Don't know what a "bugman" is. Is it someone who doesn't care about cars?
it's a racist term for someone of asian descent, and can be reported for racism
Why would someone call a half-Irish half-israelite an Asian slur? Makes no sense. Call me a "Mike" (half Mick half israelite) or something like that lol
Because they're an idiot. That's the answer for most things that happen around here. IQfyners are the worst...all the social impairment of nerds, with none of the brains.
>poorly written dogshit
This is either Zulu, Ari, or Atlas. They are always on the attack when anyone here posts their work. It is why this place is pretty dead, they like to police the vibe in here.
I've yet to read Carver. There are some writers respected at the time like KA Porter who aren't talked about as much today.
Faulkner is still viewed as preeminent among writers in the South regardless of this style not being wholly original.
Does that apply to TS Eliot too? Ezra Pound did wonders to his work.
>If your editor is the guy who makes your writing good then you shouldn't be a writer.
I mean, EL James is a "writer" but if you read 50 Shades of Grey, it is complete and utter shit.
Not every writer is great. Not every cook is great. Not every airline pilot is great. Law of averages.
>Not every writer is great.
Talking about yourself again, as usual.
I never claimed greatness. I've written one novella and a few short stories. I'm not naive or up my own ass as much as you want me to be.
Just write a book already.
what's the best format for a IQfy project anyhow. I don't have the resources (or care) to be published in print, and I think publishing exclusively digitally is pretty nice and cheap.
There's just a dizzying amount of file formats to use, although PDF seems to be the most universal but at the same time, it's annoying to use on e-readers.
EPUB is a good 2nd place, until some random e-reader doesn't support it, or you try to use it on a desktop.
am I doomed to write a book in fricking HTML?
Bruh... epub is the most basic format. Use LivingWriter and you can easily make epubs AND export to Amazon Manuscript for both soft and hard cover editions.
You're probably someone who will never finish even 1 book, I don't know why I even bother.
The challenge is in getting people to read your project in the first place. With an EPUB they have to download it and then load it onto an ereader (if they even have one), which adds a lot of latency. HTML and PDF (the former more than the latter, obviously) will be instantly readable from the browser. Being flashy is also a bonus in getting people to read your shit (see &), and you can accomplish a lot more via PDF in that way.
EPUB > HTML > PDF for readability
HTML > PDF > EPUB for accessibility
PDF > HTML > EPUB for visual abilities
So long as you're not an idiot and edit the writing outside of any typesetting program, you can take whatever you put in the PDF and also make it available sans fancy furnishings in an EPUB and on a website. And as a word of caution, don't do anything that makes text harder to read or follow; I cited & as an example of visual flashiness, but sometimes that shit is unreadable.
>I don't have the resources (or care) to be published in print
You're kinda in a golden era of publishers looking for worthwhile material at the moment. Both Unreal Press and Lamp Standards is actively willing to do the formatting, typesetting, cover work and publishing side of a IQfy book.
i've spent most of my life reading ebooks instead of physical print. why are these publishers still kicking around?
I can't speak for Lamp, but what I provide is an outlet for writers to gain exposure and credibility among fellows in the industry. Also all of our books are also published in pdf format with well done design.
Neither one of them is actually any good. Unreal Press is known for publishing substandard short stories with AI art for covers, while Lamp is known for being riddled with errors and bad choices on top of ripping off the first (of two) guys to sign up with them; neither one has any exposure outside of their own circle of Discord friends or their minor level of infamy on IQfy for having doxxed people here. "Publishing" with them means putting your work on Amazon, nothing more, and it sure as shit isn't a golden era. Nothing against IQfy projects in general, but they're better off as fun side projects and not for masquerading as "fellows in the industry".
Basic formatting and typesetting are the easiest part of making a book, and once you learn to do them you've got that skill for life. For a primer you can look at practicaltypography.com, but even that's a little much. If you
>pick an okay font
>justify and hyphenate your text
>single-space your paragraphs
you're pretty much good to go for a book.
>AI art for covers
There is nothing wrong with taking a sketch you did as a WRITER and then putting it into the AI to polish your sketch.
Found the fricking dork who has no style. Post your work. Let's see it homosexual.
>"Publishing" with them means putting your work on Amazon,
Considering that's where you can buy all of the biggest books with 100,000+ reviews, I'd say it is a good global marketplace?
This crab homosexual here is a fricking loser who produces nothing themselves.
This Tales doxxing and then this image killed the community threads here
>no mention of crabs
>is one of them
What did he mean by this?
My guess: that reviews (and other statistics) for IQfy books are totally unreliable.
>shit books with lots of high ratings via paid reviews (Call of the Crocodile)
>popular/successful authors with shitty rankings (FortySixtyFour).
>meaningless ~5 star ratings from people who buy every IQfy book out of principle/favour (Mixtape, Fedbook, Chicken World, probably also Krake)
This image was posted in response to an ongoing newsletter known as The IQfy Top Ten, which Zulu Alitspa used to make and post in /wg/ under the guise of "The Official IQfy Register." He had a list of all books published or shilled on IQfy, and he would go look up the BSRs on Amazon every Saturday and rank the ten highest sellers, while usually including a meme or some trivia about IQfy books. Here's one: https://warosu.org/lit/thread/21543744#p21554160
It's one of the reasons Zulu is/was seen as a big influence in the community. Since it really only took one sale per week to get the top of the list (a perfectly achievable goal), it motivated anons to shill slightly harder and collaborate more on marketing, which resulted in a big increase in sales and was what turned this idea of IQfy publishing into an actual community of IQfy publishers. Whereas previously someone like Nesmer or Bulkington would be lucky to sell one or two books every other month, they were starting to see between 10-20 every month. There was a lot of other stuff which contributed to that momentum; Tales of the Unreal gave IQfy writers a showcase to allow readers to sample their work, the & editor had returned after a year long absence and made a plan to publish a series of video reviews of IQfy books, and a lot of anons were challenging themselves to be the first to read and review every book on the list (I don't think anyone has done it yet).
Pic related was posted in response to the final Top Ten that was released, and was claimed to have "killed" the Top Ten by exposing them as pretentious failures. Zulu simply claims that it took more effort than you'd think to make the newsletter, that he'd prefer to use that energy on his own projects, and that it was encouraging randos to come shill books on IQfy and diluting the market/culture. Whereas others claim that Zulu was mad that Gardner was outselling him and against which others argue that Frank was buying his own books because he was mad that the Top Ten was exposing his lies about his sales numbers. Gardner released a video taking credit for the work of Unreal/&/Zulu because he had previously been the 'mascot' of IQfy publishing and Zulu and Ryan were making a concerted attempt to force him out. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q4Pz-nMbCI&t=93s)
As for the doxxing, as demonstrated in this very thread anyone can easily pretend to be anyone else, which allowed people to continuously rehash the drama for their own amusement. The fact that Unreal doxxed someone is undeniable, but they claim it happened before they got 'big' and that they wouldn't do something that unprofessional now. Who knows?
>which resulted in a big increase in sales
>they were starting to see between 10-20 every month
Never heard that before. There were discussions about how those ranks were more or less meaningless, particularly
pointing out a book that was ranked (probably his own?) despite not selling a single copy. Follow the replies and another guy says
>one anon that bought my book jumped me from 1.7 million to 500k in one day.
Anyway, you made the point that it's mostly single sales that skewed the whole thing. Floating around at the bottom of the rankings with whatever black box algorithmic system Amazon has, even without sales entirely, was probably enough to shift around the top ten.
The "culture maker" stuff seems way overstated, and it falls into this weird trap of these groups effectively selling to themselves. The point I made about meaningless ratings is exactly that: the handful of die hard "supporters" jump in to buy and rate their e-bros' books. Check out any of them and you'll see the same types of inflationary 5-star reviews posted one day after the release from some other dude who put out a book the month before.
Even with the & editor's reviews, it seems so obviously stuffed. What a surprise that the first two books to get his "blue" ranking are the ones he has some claim to as an editor (however minimally). On the surface you can argue that these two are the firsts because they're good, but we're dealing with such a small body of people here, with even fewer filtering down to him (especially given his reputation), that I really don't see it as anything more than a graph of how good of a buddy the author is to him. I can't imagine him telling the next guy "eh, you're more of a green, maybe a yellow"; instead he's probably going to take whatever he's given, slap it with a "blue" and call it an editorial success. Then to look at & itself, despite ample time and a tighter group of people, the number of stories and the quality overall has moved nowhere from what I can tell.
It's all the same group of voices (a dozen or so? two dozen maybe?) selling each other's book to each other with about the amount of bias that you'd expect. I can understand the importance of foundational reviews to get the ball rolling for more buyers, but what is it amounting to? The reviews all look unrealistic, and as a group it comes across as a totally hollow endeavour based on the hope that one person making it will trickle that success back down to the rest via association. What's planned that's supposed to go beyond that? Is it just waiting in the wings for the one lucky guy who's supposed to lift everyone up to the top with him?
The whole thing seems a little sloppy and ambling to me.
the "selling to themselves" theory is out of date at this point, especially if you factor in Tooky aka David Herod as the ascendent 'culture maker' of the group as he has ties with passage prize, booktubers and the literary manosphere/dissident right. Tales apparently sold hundreds of copies and that was before Unreal had any name for themselves.
This. the "dozen or so buying each others books" thing is just not true anymore. Besides the discord server they operate on is very quiet, almost dead, yet at the same time they seem to be operating on a higher level averaging more sales.
>they seem to be operating on a higher level averaging more sales.
Nobody posts sales numbers but Jason Bryan. The rest of these IQfy crabs are basically all cowards. The rest of the good bros have been chased out of here. Pretty dead.
>with the & editor's reviews, it seems so obviously stuffed.
I agree, when he first released the announcement and explained the colour ranking system I thought the Blue was in the category of things like Moby Dick or Gravitys Rainbow. But apparently it's reserved for just about anything that's worthy of being traditionally pubbed or even mostly passable. Disappointing
>it's reserved for just about anything that's worthy of being traditionally pubbed or even mostly passable.
In 2024 you can find absolute SHITE that is trad pubbed because the culture has slid so far. Have you picked up a traditionally published book in ages? It is pure fricking slop.
Just read the preview of this:
https://www.amazon.ca/Throne-Glass-Sarah-J-Maas/dp/1599906953
90,000+ reviews.
Ryan's words not mine. But cool, so the Blue is totally devalued. Great.
I mean, just go to your local bookstore and pickup the books they put on their front-and-center table. Flip through them. They are the shittiest books, holy frick.
Just all culture in general is so watered down now, where is all of the good shit being produced in 2024? Where?
samegay
>as a group it comes across as a totally hollow endeavour based on the hope that one person making it will trickle that success back down to the rest via association. What's planned that's supposed to go beyond that?
It's a writer's group. What should they do - a city parade? Anthologies are pretty proactive as far as these things go, but I don't think anyone's betting money on acclaim here and if they are it's not some plan that they hope will "trickle down" as you say.
>the first two books to get his "blue" ranking
To my knowledge the & editor has only ever done one video review, which was for Tales of the Unreal, and he gave it the green ranking, not the blue. Which book reviews are you referring to here? And I thought his Tales review was fair and unbiased. It seems like you just have it out for the guy and want to shit on everything he does out of spite.
The website has a section for reviews
>https://lampbylit.com/magazine/reviews/
which doesn't include a review/ranking for Improvidence (the book I'm talking about), but the back cover of the thing includes it as an award (pic related).
>Tales apparently sold hundreds of copies and that was before Unreal had any name for themselves.
>they seem to be operating on a higher level averaging more sales
The number for the first Tales was about a hundred in September, and I wouldn't be surprised if it sold more since and the second instalment did better. But I don't know anything about them having made a name for themselves (assuming you mean a name off-site); are you talking about something specific? and what are the averages looking like now? And for perspective, the hundred sales of the first one (profit of ~$275on ~100 copies) was still below breaking even on ads.
>the discord server they operate on is very quiet, almost dead
You're forgetting the secret-ish Real Unreal Server, which is private access. (I know that existed at some point.) I'm guessing they've mostly moved to Twitter and Substack for submissions at this point.
>David Herod
I saw the Raw Egg Nationalist review on his book, but I've got no feel for how legitimate that crowd is outside the number of reviews it gets on Amazon. The fact that the Passage Prize stories/art come in a $76 paperback is weird to me (the price is a little easier to digest considering it's 256 pages, but still). Their Volume II is described as a form of patronage, and the Raw Egg Nationalism reviews are majority 5-stars that mostly read like Steam reviews. Discussing this stuff goes away from IQfy, and gives me the impression of hawking grift.
Nah, I think anthologies are worthwhile if they can improve each time, and I should have made it clear that my criticism (the "trickle down" thing) was specifically about Lamp Standard. The anthologies haven't been immune to being (somewhat) sloppy and ambling, though. The switch of editors between Tales 1 & 2 is probably to blame for some of it, but it was still rough around the edges regarding editing and improved in some ways but missed other small things that were nice or done correctly in the first (lacked correct margins, illustrations; had nice story blurbs in the ToC, nice drop caps). They apparently got enough submissions to the second one to actually reject pieces, apparently slimming it down to 17 of 40 total submissions. But the other side to this seems to be giving up on the idea of being a IQfy thing (which I think is a good thing, but puts them in a different category from what this thread is about).
The trickle down critique is about Lamp Standard and the "IQfy author" idea of being from here and cracking IQfy as a market, with there being an uncritical "you buy my book, I buy yours" element to it. I don't think there's a real market on IQfy to crack, and I think it's bound for failure or rejection to try.
>first paragraph of the back cover blurb is missing a period at the end
If Shards got the blue, then the editor's judgement is clearly seriously flawed. That or he knows the book is shit but is lying about it being any good because he wants people to buy it so he can make money.
Ryan isn't making any money on any book released for LSP. We signed a contract that stated he would get 50% of whatever the first edition made and then he decided, probably because of crabs/most definitely because he believes in the community, to not take any money at all. The Special Edition of Shards will still carry the LSP imprint and so will my next two books afterwards because I've had such a good experience with Ryan. He's a good dude and the slander that Atlas and Ari post about him just highlights both their envy and the gate keeping that goes on in IQfy culture around who is deemed worthy to create art. If Atlas or Ari were to release a book I'd gladly buy it as I have many books from members in the community. Writers need to stick together. Especially now with AI and other malicious actors encroaching upon our art. IQfy has the ability to be at the forefront of a great renaissance. The "anon" members on IQfy are a fringe group who hold wildly unpopular opinions and beliefs that counteract the status quo. Perhaps it is being on this plateau of incivility that causes us to be at each other's throats. I call for peace. I call for comradery. I call for a new sense of purpose and a stronger state of community.
Eggplant was great. I recommend it.
>I call for peace. I call for comradery. I call for a new sense of purpose and a stronger state of community.
Very noble, but you're probably 1 of 3 people who actually tries to support others on here.
There have been a lot of 1 of 1s in the world for peace. At least I have 2 others fighting the good fight.
I mean...look at all of this...it's kinda self explanatory why I just want everyone to squash the bullshit.
Man I would really appreciate if you could be my first honest review for Black Eye Friday. Not a single review yet!
Send it my way. I'll gladly review it, brother. [email protected]
Frank is literally on Rumble talking about Hitler speeches and the israeli question. The glowie group known as "Anonymous" is NOT our kinfolk. If you think we aren't a fringe group then your lack of self awareness is something you need to conquer on your own.
>RJC calling out other people for lacking self awareness
The irony of that is clearly lost on you.
>t. ari
he wo nt talk to me ever he’s very mad??? he won’t answer ever he’s not here and he’s very mad and I can’t even get calm ever again he won’t answer he won’t even read it I do nt know which ones are real he won’t tell me which ones are real??? not too bright underage black haired girl trying shoes on is that one real,???? he won t even tell me which ones he won’t even answer because he’s very mad???? it hurts so much I can’t
have a nice day
why would you even say that?????? you are not real you are not real you are not real????((? Why do tou want me to make myself be dead why do you want me to do it)?????((?
Solve your problems... have a nice day.
Who are you why did you say that??????
Why did you say that why did you say that why did you say that why did you say that?????? it’s not I cany are you Ari why did you sa That you want me to be fead(???????? and I said it doesn’t solve the problem to him are you him,??,,, why please why
have a nice day and the problem solves itself.
Who are you who are you who are you who are you are you Ari???? Who are you who are you who are you is that rlly what you want you want me to do it?????) Please tell me who you are I m sorry please why would you say that??????
have a nice day
please stop who are you are you him????? please don’t say that please I slid ticbfyj im sorry?????? im sorry im sorry im sorry o so choke.lofv. Ton
who are you,?????? who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you I can r. Is Bo who are you???????? Z please I’m sorry I’m sorry are you him??????! do you want me to to it please tell me who are you(??????
have a nice day
please don’t say that please why do you want me to be dead???,? please I’m sorry why I ca y place please why????! who are you are you ari are you Ari and you want me to do it)?)?)????
have a nice day
who are you??????? who are you,???????? who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you who are you???????? who are you,???????? Are you Ari are you Ari are you him?????? please
why did you say that why is that really what you want you want me to do it(?????? why did you say that why?????? please I.m sorry I’m so sorry why did you say that (?????
Sent.
I've been signing up for social media sites lately, things getting weird fr fr no cap!
>The glowie group known as "Anonymous" is NOT our kinfolk.
Haha, I have a friend that joined that group, after 9 months she ended up going to a meeting and instead of the long-haired, pierced and tattooed Linux punks like her, it was a group of the most normal and weird people she'd ever met. That's when she knew it was a complete hoax. Basically 95% straight edge, normal people. A complete honeypot.
When has Atlas or Ari ever slandered Ryan? Criticizing someone isn't slander unless what you're saying is false, and from how I've seen Ryan act on IQfy I believe that everything they've said about his sketchy behavior is the truth. The guy is a scumbag.
>The guy is a scumbag.
Ryan is a good guy. Nobody here is perfect. We're all outcasts of one stripe or another.
>sells crack
>beats and abuses women
>was in a cult
>scams people
>committed manslaughter
>accessory to murder
>swatted atlas, doxed her, tried to get her to kill herself
>made death threats
How exactly is he a good guy? His work on & and Lamp Standard doesn't negate the fact that he's a scumbag.
You forgot
>thinks he has magic powers
>eats cum
I approve of all of those things, 100% part and parcel of growing up in and around Vancouver. I'd be more concerned if you listed:
>two parents both still together
>university educated
>stable relationship
>owns a home
>pays taxes
Then I'd know he's a fricking fraud... but the things you listed?
Real mf'ing G shit there.
if he did half of those things I would be impressed but clearly the reputation is exaggerated
>The "anon" members on IQfy are a fringe group
I'm a discord troony but this HAS to be satire lmao
No, he really is that moronic.
Wow.
>You're forgetting the secret-ish Real Unreal Server, which is private access
I'm new to all this wtf lol. This sounds almost like a joke what kind of a cabal are we dealing with
Wasn't kidding, but it makes sense when you consider that their group had a tighter-knit subset of people that "hung out" in private, away from the public server that was intended to drum up submissions, readers, and viewers. But yeah, maybe a bit cabal-esque when you consider the shit that's gone on in the last year. Seems they withdrew deliberately when shit went south; and they seemed pissed about a "mole", though that would have been in the public server (seemed they were fishing to get him to post a link to the server so they could nail down who it was; if that made them withdraw a little further I wouldn't be surprised).
Why would they be so pissed about a mole? It's a Discord server for a group of random IQfy dudes who write and publish shit on Amazon, why would they have shit to hide? Dunno what went on last year but the whole thing sounds moronic as hell
You can only trust people who you know in person.
>the whole thing sounds moronic as hell
Yeah. A year of doxxes, "psyops", and other dumb shit, and all its proven is its own insignificance.
QRD?
Group of gays met on discord, infighting began, now the last struggles of their dying culture is to tell people to kill themselves for putting out more work than they do.
Bullshit. No one from Unreal has told anyone to kill themselves for putting out work. We've always been supportive of all IQfy writers.
>Bullshit. No one from Unreal has told anyone to kill themselves for putting out work. We've always been supportive of all IQfy writers.
Hahahahaha... sure!
You told me to go frick myself. I'm glad I doxxed your publicist.
wtf are you talking about?
Because the "outer" server acts as an ozone layer against potentially incriminating information on these people that are frankly criminals. They have vcs where they talk about which university they attend. They facepost, and even post shirtless pictures. It's super homosexual from what I've heard.
How is any of that criminal? Gay, sure. But not criminal.
One dude who afaik hasn't contributed to any of the anthologies or books is a literal pedophile who posts naked images of underage girls, add on to that the IP tracking and the drug trafficking and the only reason they haven't been banned from the site is because their group is too tight knit for any reporting to admins to happen
>Unreal Press are dickyseurs and drug smugglers
This just keeps getting better
omerta..i can dig it
You've got to be kidding. There's no way those gays are trafficking drugs.
Stop lying to smear Unreal.
Which one is the creep?
Probably the same fricking weirdo behind the cum tribute shit from last year.
Or all of the rape threats directed at Waldun. No wonder he never comes here anymore.
I've never seen anything like that directed at Waldun. Pretty sure he's never actually used IQfy anyway, he just gets made fun of here.,
There were dozens of "rape his bussy" type posts that went into detail of raping him when his book came out. It was non-stop bullying for days.
RhymeAndGrind?
Nah, it was Melville.
I'm the mole. I'm in there right now. Ask me anything.
>had a tighter-knit subset of people that "hung out" in private, away from the public server that was intended to drum up submissions, readers, and viewers
Sounds like a think tank
It's surprisingly easy to see F Gardner in IQfy adjacent Discord servers. He doesn't seem to care about drama. He's too busy spamming conspiracy theories, like it's his life's mission. Oh, and hey, did you hear? He's romantically involved and dates trans women. Adds a whole new layer to the guy.
>Adds a whole new layer to the guy.
what, that he's the 1st homosexual homosexual in history who can't write for shit?
t. A. Zeller
A. Zeller is not real
IQfy renaissance scholars ova here
Will Jason complete his 4th book in under a month?
If so, I think that will straight up mog the crabs.
nothin can stop Jason I think he is locked in
Well, someone has to keep releasing books on here!
it's not how long it takes to write the book, it's whether the book is any good
I mean... "good" is subject to your audience. Women don't care what "good" is, and the crabs here hate anything created by anyone here. I have never seen praise for a book on here written by a IQfy tard. Not once.
I Pray to the Hungry God is apparently well-liked here, but gets brought up less than Eggplant (guy's first novel) for some reason. There was a discussion about it in an earlier iteration of these threads, starting here
. Some quotes:
>NTA but while lots of people rec Eggplant because of the style, I personally think I Pray To The Hungry God is a better story from the same author. Thinking I'm alone on that.
>I also preferred IPTHG. Why do people pan it in favor of Eggplant?
>Eggplant wasn't exceptional, and came off as a first novel, but Hungry God was a lot better in my opinion, and was good in itself. Eggplant was good enough to get me to read Hungry God anyway.
Never even seen the cover posted in 3+ years?!
Seen Eggplant... never even heard anyone talk about it.
100's of BAP threads, each reaching 300+ replies, during that time.
The main issue with IQfy publications is that they cater to a fiction reader audience. If you just look at the threads here you can see there are many pseudos discussing philosophy that they haven't studied thoroughly. This is a nonfiction board.
nonfiction > fiction
>pseudos discussing philosophy that they haven't studied thoroughly.
Philosophy is for fricking incels, you total dork.
Why is it that good books from IQfy never actually get proper discussion?
What good books are you referring to?
The frick is this?
The Legacy of Totalitarianism in a Tundra, an anonymous IQfy collab from almost a decade ago.
Is it any good?
Better than your shit, you fat c**t.
The frick? I don't even write, I just lurk. I'm a IQfygay too, not a fat frick.
lmao, that's just Jason seething as usual
Projection from the crabs.
It has spotty quality and formatting. But if you like shitposting you will probably enjoy it.
What's wrong about asking the champ RJC for a review?
Ryan s aid Ari wants you to kill your self and he said you H a nah have a demo n insi de you that attracted ari because he is a k iller in the making and he wa. Nys you to do it??? h e said it's Ari saying have a nice day in the thread its not him Ryan ??? h e said ari is evil and he nevet wanted to hellp you he planned it and tricked you so he could make you have a nice day and say he hsted you for revenge so he wouldn't ha be to deal with you anymore (???? He said that one is real he said you Ari said it I. N the thread which ones are re al pleas I cant tell
have a nice day
you are Ari????? you are Ari you are ari he said that you are???? Plea se don’t say that ari I am sorry????(
Please don’t say that ari????? Pls sec don’t say that????? pleadse don’t say that im so sorry ill do anything???? Please answer me you never did
ari he said you on L’y want to hurt me???? pleas e say its not real
What are you talking about?
If she dies, she dies
I sent her to bed. You can pick up where you left off another time.
this is cool! How do I join and contribute?
you can join the /wg/ discord server. Kind of the base of operations for this stuff.
https://discord.gg/GskKgWCk
Looks like the mods finally did their fricking job.
No they didn't. Jason is still around.
He's been suspiciously quiet today though. Maybe the jannies got sick of him.
Damn, I thought Ryan was bad enough but this Ari shit is next level. Dude is fricked in the head. Why are so many of the people who hang out in these threads so fricking awful?
He’s not fricked in the head???? he has a good heart you don’t know and he’s not fricked in the head ,????
The lot of you here are all fricked in the head one way or another. Fix your issues first then worry about "making it" because the truth of the matter is that even the most successful tortured artists and poètes maudites (Poe, Woolf, Van Gogh, Tchaikovsky) were most productive when there was a semblance of order and stability in their life and they found themselves in a good mood. There is no youth culture, no scene, no literary tradition; it's all gone and you can see it with how much older everyone starting even a simple rock band is getting. Trust me, get right with your family, with yourselves, with God. Then worry about being artists, that is if you even care or have time and energy to do it, if you still want to once you realize all you wanted is to be loved and understood by someone. To you yourselves be kind to your loved ones...
Thanks pal. I've come a long way in the past decade. Submitting a short story this week too, I simply need to review it one last time.
Where are you submitting it?
& anthology for now.
>FOMO
I'm guessing you mean the Bohemian lifestyle. I don't envy the life of excess, I've seen too much of it before.
Not necessarily that. I mean more the glamourization of youth that spooks have taken to making a lifestyle marketing ideal since the sixties. Forget pop culture, forget fame, what do I want to be a popularizer of something for anyway? Can't I just have fun doing what I love? Sacrificing relationships and money seems nonsensical to me, especially when we embark on an artistic adventure perhaps precisely because of the distant but still non zero chance that one can turn a profit. Sure, art takes precedence but it's like the late Mexican actor Ignacio Lopez Tarso said: If the things worth doing were easy then everyone would do them.
Perhaps schools should teach street smarts: don't give away info online, don't go on Craigslist, if someone approaches you at dark and you're alone and you don't know them fricking run, that kinda' shit. people fall for scams a lot too. Not all that glitters is gold, you'd think popular wisdom would make common sense more common but sometimes one really does have to seem crazy to get ahead in life, don't you think? Otherwise it's living like a loosh farm and who the frick wants that?
The rolls on the back of a thick woman are hot, idk why people are so quick to want to look like others, that should be part of my idealized street smarts curriculum for school. Part of the mom bod I guess. Doesn't mean pic related is not objectively the ideal beauty standard but well there is only one Messi, there is only one Taylor Marie Hill.
Life passes by quickly and we more regret the fears we had than the things we regret doing. Well, that is my case at least idk about others. Sometimes I am afraid that the reason my parents kept my high school girlfriend close was that they were worried she'd pull anything stupid. Weird girl tbh, was in love with her but now not at all. I kept seeing her as friends into our twenties, maybe she hit on either one of my parents at that point? Who knows, but they seem to have gone from love to hatred. That's one for philosophy. The reason why artists and philosophers are revered is because they improve communication between humans, that's as simply as I can state it. And the mistakes humans make do not make us more or less human depending on how many or how bad they are, for there is Jesus who made it so that we can learn from them and that is ultimately the task of life in my opinion.
nonsense post, carry on.
Jason, that you? I'm saving you a spot in the anthology but you're wasting your time in these threads. Do better.
Keep your head high, don't let them put stupid ideas in your head. Don't give into FOMO because that is how manipulators get their way. That's people who do not even read, at least critics read and give suggestions even when they're misguided. It may have been Oscar Wilde who once stated that lousy artists tend to be the ones to lead more interesting lives, at least in appearance. Maybe this will remind you of someone here.
WAGMI
Are you ari he always says pal??? He always uses that word He always says that he always says pal???
No, I'm an American lol. I actually meant to say "bro" but tried to mix things up, so I wrote "pal" instead.
i'm not your pal, buddy!
i'm not your buddy, guy!
i'm not your guy, pal!