SO WHO REALLY RUNS VOX DAY'S MEDIA EMPIRE?

     In October, Vox Day's shady publishing firm, Castalia House, was suspended by the crowdfunding platform Indiegogo for "a pattern of unusual (i.e. suspicious) activities." This incident has caused more than a few in the literary community to start questioning Vox' activities. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy blogger Camestros Felapton wrote an article suggesting that Vox' funding tactics bore several characteristics of money-laundering. Vox is currently suing Indegogo, thus whatever irregularities are alleged will be brought out in court.

     It's also been further shown that Vox' questionable business practices don't stop there. First of all, Castalia House is not even a registered company in its own right; but a subsidiary of a Finnish outfit called 'Alpenwolf'. 

  
      Alpenwolf purportedly is engaged in some type of 'computer programming activities. Regardless, however, the company is not registered with the European Union Tax Authority. Finnish law exempts firms from registration if their yearly net profits fall below 10,000 Euros (about $11,500). And this is the second suspicious thing. How Vox presents his sales and influence to the public and what is represented to the EU tax officials are two radically different things. 

     Castalia House recently ran afoul of Amazon's Terms of Use though the issue was resolved rather quickly. The Sci-Fi/Fantasy site, File 770, received a missive from Markku Koponen, the registered owner of Alpenwolf/Castalia, which said of the book in question:

    "But the sales had dropped so low on it (because people seem to connect it only with the Scalzi events, which isn’t really fair. Again, it’s an actual, serious book) that removing that tool from them had more value than having the title there. And it’s still available on our own site, from which we keep 100% of the revenue instead of 70%."

     So we started to look into Markku Koponen a bit. What was interesting was not what was found, but what we didn't find. 

    There is very little on the web about Koponen that isn't directly connected to Vox Day. Koponen has a Twitter feed, but it's mostly retweets of American Alt-RINOs. The photo gallery has a number of Confederate flags and such---but surprisingly little commentary about Finland---where Koponen supposedly lives. 

    In fact, this is the building in Kouvola, Finland which is supposedly Castalia House's publishing headquarters:

    And the building description is listed in the city's registry as follows:

    
  
     This address is an apartment complex---not a business office. So who lives there? Not Markku Koponen. His address is listed as in the town of Voikkaa. Presumably, those donating to Vox' crowdfunding campaigns are paying for the maintenance of an office and business facilities: but are they really paying somebody's rent?

      When Castalia House first opened, a blog called Charlie's Diary published an article about it.  What's interesting is reading through the comments---many of which were posted by active members of Finland's sci-fi, comics, and gaming communities. Nobody in Koponen's own neighborhood seems to know anything about him:

      As a public figure, Vox Day certainly owes an explanation to everyone about these anomalies. The lack of transparency concerning his donor-base and funding; the irreconcilable sales reporting; the questionable status of Castalia House's actual ownership and management: these things really need some public airing and clearing up.