Considering that my previous set of posts around the Rusty Quill article attracted so much attention, I thought it only fair to give some discussion to the Editor's response to Rusty Quill. For those who may not have read my previous post (and may not know who I am or why I'm commenting here), you can find that post through this link.
First things first, it's quite gratifying to see a quote of mine in the response:
There seemed to be a lot of people trying to imply conspiracy and malice which simply wasn't warranted. As I mentioned on another ask, once a Kickstarter hits 1000%, there simply is no way you can knock a Kickstarter off course in the last week, no way at all.
Other than that pleasant surprise, I have to say that I have very little to fault in the editor's response. They have done a meticulous job in laying out the data they can lay out, providing clear context of where they're coming from, not to mention some very important discussion on journalists and journalism generally, and why "objectivity" and "balance" is a poor goal to aim for when it comes to reporting.
I certainly continue to agree with the editors that the fact that there are so many inconsistent statements of experience from Rusty Quill collaborators is probably a very clear sign of management failure. I stated before, and I continue to state, that the overall impression I get from the evidence provided is not that Rusty Quill are moustache-twirling villains who wish to suck the very life-blood of those who collaborate with them. Instead, I feel that RQ had a massive success, got a lot of money thanks to that success, had big goals about what they wanted to achieve once they had that windfall, but lacked the management skills (and perhaps the cash) to achieve those goals. In the process, that lack of management skills meant that they simply couldn't manage everyone the way they wanted.
It's such a common failure state, and it's common because the skills needed to be a creative are very different from the skills to manage a creative organisation. RQ's response doesn't even change that calculus that much - They released it within 24 hours, which is absurd - No organisation with a decent management structure would send out a response that quickly, because part of that response is actively going through your business and verifying what they've talked about. Considering the sheer number of points about law and contracts, they should have, at a minimum, engaged with their legal representative (which would have taken time), should have sent feelers out to current and former employees, and pulled up examples of contracts to provide clear understanding for everyone. Only once they knew they had the information should they have started drafting a response. At the very least, waiting a day probably would have cleared some of the sheer defensiveness that was a part of that response, and maybe would have avoided the accusations of conspiracy and sabotage.
Anyway, if people do want to discuss the editor's reply, or want to ask general questions about fiction podcasting and the fiction podcasting scene, my asks are open. Remember to engage responsibly, assume good faith, and for fuck's sake don't hurl abuse at them or anyone, frankly.
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