Irony: incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result (from Merriam-Webster Online)

What is irony? How about this?

A literary author (writing under a pseudonym) is paid buckets o' money for an unfinished post-apocalyptic vampire trilogy (not even the first book is finished).

OK, the spec fic folks (not counting JK Rowling and Stephen King, who are each pretty much their own genre) are crying for some respect, and some real money, while the literary writer who (presumably) already has the respect writes what is plainly a spec fic novel and gets 3.75 million for it. So when he wanted big money, he went with spec fic?

Now that's irony.