Ark Press is a science fiction and fantasy-focused publishing company that just launched with the announcement of picking up Larry Correia, but the implication is much bigger than many genre book fans may have realized, as the company is backed by Donald Trump advisor Peter Thiel and his investment group, putting a big target on the back of Toni Weisskopf’s Baen Books.
While Elon Musk has garnered the most public attention by entering the culture war with his purchase of the X social media platform, toying with video game creation, and positing whether he would buy Hasbro to save Dungeons & Dragons from wokeness, Peter Thiel has been making behind the scenes moves in culture, particularly in book publishing, to change the landscape for the Donald Trump era.
In 2021, Peter Thiel’s investment group helped found Passage Publishing, or Passage Press as it’s known, an explicitly right-wing press known for high-quality reprints of classic works that American Academia has mostly forgotten. The publishing company has grown to more than 20,000 followers on X and is well-regarded for its cultural projects and event sponsoring, though it is not well-known among the mainstream.
As the publishing house has grown, it’s become clear that genre fiction and science fiction and fantasy,, in particular,, are important to the landscape of the overall culture, given how the insane left has destroyed institutions like Worldcon and the Hugo Awards while propping up authors like N.K. Jemisin and John Scalzi, talents not nearly worthy of the contracts and acclaim they’ve received from the mainstream media, with both building brands based on extreme left identity politics.
The environment has become so bad in publishing that even big fan-favorite authors like Brandon Sanderson have completely caved to the woke agenda with new fiction to ensure he won’t be a victim of leftist publishing cancel culture.
One bright spot in the industry has been Baen Books, while riding the line trying to be apolitical is the one bastion in traditional science fiction and fantasy publishing where openly conservative and libertarian authors can get published. The company has had large success over the last decade with Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International series, and boasts conservative talent like John Ringo, David Weber, and Tom Kratman.
However, Baen Books has fallen into the trap of a lot of mainstream publishing, not building up a stable of modern talent to come up as the next generation. The company has been floundering with new authors and has made business decisions that might be considered questionable in recent years as the market has been shifting at an ever-increasing rate.
On January 17, 2023, Baen Books announced its acquisition of Christopher Ruocchio’s Sun Eater series from DAW Books to publish the final two books in his space opera series. Sun Eater has outsold much of the industry by leaps and bounds with a poignant character fans love, giving a feel much like Dune in its scope. The pickup appeared to be a huge win for Baen Books who needed younger talent like Ruocchio with many of their bestselling authors aging in the market.
However, on July 2, 2024, it was announced that Ruocchio’s books would return to DAW, the rights being sold back from Baen Books in a bizarre move. The publisher of DAW, Betsy Wollheim said, “I’m incredibly glad that Christopher Ruocchio has returned to DAW with the Sun Eater series, which are the kind of big space operas that fans of James S. A. Corey and Iain M. Banks will love. I look forward to publishing these books and connecting readers to Ruocchio’s works for many years to come.”
She likely was thrilled as this money-making series does incredibly well for the publisher. The move left many fans and industry insiders speculating that Baen might have made the move because they’re in financial trouble.
Adding to these rumors of financial woes was the fact Baen had laid off several employees in the past year, including longtime editor Jim Minz and company publicist Sean CW Korsgaard.
Minz was unable to be reached for comment. Korsgaard declined to comment.
Enter Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal and Donald Trump Advisor with his giant venture capital fund. While he’d been in publishing before, he came to Baen Books with an offer to buy the company and inject capital to modernize it and preserve Baen for the next generation.
Fandom Pulse spoke with multiple industry insiders who confirmed this buyout offer. While the details of the offer are not known, Toni Weisskopf, Editor in Chief of Baen Books, reportedly declined, but that didn’t stop Thiel’s hunger to enter the science fiction and fantasy space.
One Baen Books author who asked to be anonymous told Fandom Pulse that the company has a “kill switch” clause in every author contract that would make such a buyout impossible. Fandom Pulse was told that in the event the company sells, rights to books automatically revert to authors. This effectively prevents a sale of the company from occurring, as it would be worthless without the contracts of its top authors in place.
UPDATE: I have read the contracts from the authors. The “kill switch” involved is only in regards to bankruptcy, not in regards to a sale of the company.
Thiel and his investment group were not deterred but decided to take over genre fiction themselves in a move that would take a lot of Baen’s top remaining talent with them.
Ark Press was formed as Thiel and his investors began a new publishing company to run in tandem with Passage Press, whose face became former Baen author D.J. Butler. Butler had been rumored to be on the shortlist to take over Baen Books once Toni Weisskopf retired and is well-liked in author circles, best-known for his book Witchy Eye, which was highly promoted by his long-time friend Larry Correia.
Fandom Pulse reached out to Butler to confirm Thiel’s investment group involvement and he said, “we're in the same corporate group [as Passage Press]. Ark has separate editorial and management from Passage. We wish those guys well, and we hope they feel benevolently disposed toward us.”
With the announcement of Ark Press came word that Larry Correia would be penning a new modern fantasy series in the vein of Monster Hunter International for the budding company. It appears that Thiel’s investment group, unable to procure Baen and the Monster Hunter series, decided to take the talent from Baen and directly compete as the Monster Hunter series is still under Baen’s contract.
Fandom Pulse learned that Correia pitched the new series to Baen Books and that Baen Books passed on the series. We reached out to Toni Weisskopf for comment on this and the purchase offer, but she has not responded as of this writing.
Thiel’s move didn’t stop with Baen talent D.J. Butler and Larry Correia, but he also brought Tony Daniel, one of Baen’s former top editors who had previously left for Regency as editor-in-chief of the new company, as well as Baen editor David Afsharirad.
Baen Books, having already undergone layoffs, was left gutted, a shell of what the former company had been. They’ve been scrambling to replace their editors, most recently naming author Griffin Barber to fill some of the vacancies.
Another anonymous Baen author told Fandom Pulse the company is in chaos now, undergoing what’s described as a “civil war” because of Thiel’s actions. Weisskopf is under stress, increasingly taking on more tasks that should be handed to employees by herself. Multiple authors have mentioned royalty checks have been slow to arrive in recent months, adding to speculation as to troubles with the sci-fi publisher.
With these problems has come a lack of publicity for recent books. After the layoff of Korsgaard, Baen never hired another publicist to take his place. Recent book offerings have not gone out to media contacts, authors have been scheduled for fewer interviews and have been left on their own to try to market as a result without the help of the company, with many books in 2024 dying on the vine as a result.
Another anonymous insider told Fandom Pulse Baen Books had standing orders not to talk to or acknowledge Fandom Pulse that came down from on high, which seems to be the case with Baen’s corporate account blocking the author of this article on X, another strange move considering this is the most widely-read blog in science fiction fandom, garnering more monthly views than John Scalzi’s Whatever.
Whether Baen Books can survive this civil war and poaching of its talent remains to be seen, but signs are not looking good for the publisher that already has a reputation for not modernizing and sticking with legacy publishing and marketing tactics that haven’t worked for authors in decades. Now having to compete with Peter Thiel's money, it appears as if Ark Press has positioned itself to be the king of science fiction and fantasy in the near future.
What do you think of Peter Thiel and his investment group starting Ark Press to directly compete with Baen Books? Leave a comment and let us know.
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Baen Books were my entry to good scifi and fantasy, devouring their back catalog in the last decade. Unfortunate, where things stand right now.
Theil is a vampire