Ancalagon said:
I'm just confused as to why the press released led us to believe Valtera was the author when he is not.
Sure, creating controversy to atract attention is an old tactic, but that was downright missinformation.
As to the product itself, I will reserve judgement for when I see it.
Ancalagon
But their lawyers will say the release never actually
said he was the author. Just the photographer. The release also made the book sound like it was Penthouse for D&D, with which Gwen here, one of the actual authors, seems to disagree.
So, yes, it was a pretty cheap ploy. They picked the most contraversial person on the team and talked only about them. They put up a like to that person's most contraversial work.
This was done pretty much ONLY to generate the kinds of discussions we're having here. The more contraversy that surrounds a product, in general, the better it sells. Simply by debating the appropriateness of the book, we are fueling its sales. More people are reading this thread than are posting in it. That sounds like free advertising to me, eh?
Valtera has probably done some pretty mild work, too. It wasn't linked to the press release, because it would have done little to nothing to generate discussion about the product.
People in the porn business can and do more respectible work. The new director for the Harry Potter movies (the old one backed out) used to direct porn movies, for instance (not that there wasn't any hooplah about that). Of course, they didn't want the publicity, so it wasn't mentioned in their press releases.
There's always
somebody on the deveopment team for any media (book, film, whatever) who's done some [fringe? adult? questionable?] work in the past. In this case, they chose to advertise the fact.
And we're all paying perfectly into their hands,
especially the naysayers. Yes, those of you opposing the book are doing
exactly what the publishers wanted you to. Without you, there would be no discussion, no debate, no publicity.