Bleh

A book lover who posts almost nothing about books (sorry bout that). She/Her

[clouds-of-wings]

"Watching my dad (a GP doctor) watch House is more entertaining than the show"

[zoi-no-miko]

GOD, I wish more doctors were more like this redditor's dad

[sighinastorm]

been ages since I saw a rage comic!

>thread is from 13 years ago

oh.

[ninjamouse13]

[depsidase]

[thememedaddy]

[fairycosmos]

IDK it pisses me off the way people act like murderers are some sort of great puzzle to be solved when 90% of the time its literally just a boring freak that hates women

[what-even-is-thiss]

“Your pets only love you because you feed them”

Yeah well that’s also how your relationship with your parents starts out but more stuff happens after that doesn’t it

[joycomplexx]

by the way it's fine to like sexual content just for the sake of it. "we can't ban porn because other stuff will get banned" "sometimes nude art has value" "the government will classify queer people as sexual" this is all true but it's okay to just like porn. its okay to not want porn to be banned because you like it.

[bruzum]

[otthonzulles]

i'd rather slit my own throat with a scissor

[gay-lotus]

31 hours deep into the insomniac’s gambit and i tried to microwave a popsicle

[gay-lotus]

31 hours deep into the insomniac’s gambit and i posted on the wrong blog again

[gay-lotus]

[catfancyceo]

Let's kill this guy with mama.

[woodwool]

this is killing me

[jellogram]

I should be doing more to appreciate the lack of marvel movies in today's popular culture. I once yearned for marvel movies to have this level of irrelevance. They used to feel almost ozymandian, like an empire that had no beginning and no end. and now tony stark iron man is naught but two vast and trunkless legs of stone.

[kuttithevangu]

People universally seem to parse it as Mean but sometimes what you really, really need to hear is "this is not a socially appropriate thing to say, and you should not have said it"

[tothechaos]

phones love to go "do you want to clear up .3 GB by deleting these cherished pictures that you havent looked at in more than 30 days?" while also installing random apps and AI bullshit you didnt ask for. and you cant even uninstall half the apps

[tonystarksanxieties]

No, but literally

[anxiousmercy]

seeing this reminded me to finally get rid of that Damned Thing that keeps installing random games on my phone

The mobile services manager app performs many functions including installing and updating apps, controlling some Android settings

[tothechaos]

anxiousmercy im giving you my first born and the keys to the city for helping me disable that damn thing that has infuriated me for years

if you have an android, follow the steps in the article to stop random, unwanted apps from being installed on your device!

[hugh-lauries-bald-spot]

whats a stereotype for your country that you absolutely do. mine is that i unironically go "eh" and apologize a lot and i often drink maple syrup straight

[asteroidtroglodyte]

The grip that Burger & Big Drink has on the American People cannot be overstated

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[pangur-and-grim]

OOPS yes, @stjohnstarling makes a good point! everything I'm saying is from the perspective of traditional publishing, but it's a very different game if you're a self-published author

[gollancz]

I will also add that this is why pre-orders can make a HUGE difference to authors - because if there's enough hype, publishers can pull more levers to build that momentum and reach more readers to help authors earn out their advance faster.

[gudgercollege]

Trad publishing contracts person here to co-sign everything in this post. If you want to support an author you really like but are broke as hell, then you can buy their book when it's discounted, buy it used, borrow it from a friend, or use the library. The first step as an author is to get your book read, not to get it bought. The important thing for you as a reader is to spread the word about how good the book is so the publisher knows the audience is there even if sales aren't spectacular. Piracy of books, especially books from small/indie publishers, means the publisher will print fewer copies of their next book, and sometimes if it's an ongoing series the next books in the series will be canceled, either to be replaced by a book with a different premise or they'll cancel the contract for the next books entirely. The "hack" where you buy the ebook or audiobook and then return it for a credit also takes money directly out of the author's pocket since those payment/royalty systems are set up differently than if you were to buy a book from a bookstore and return it. In that situation the bookstore absorbs that loss, but returning the ebook means the money gets clawed back from the author's advance or royalties and they'll have to earn that back.

Pre-orders and Amazon/Goodreads reviews are used as a gauge by publishers to predict how many copies they are likely to sell and therefore how many copies they want to print. They want to sell most of what they print rather than print too many and end up with a bunch of copies no one wants that they'll have to pay to store or sell at a huge discount or recycle, which is what happens to unsold books. Most publishers have a limited amount of money and manpower to dedicate to any particular book, so if there's a book building up a lot of buzz, that'll give them reason to put their resources towards promoting that book to get a better return on their investment. If the publisher can't make money off a book or author they'll dump them.

Generally, every aspect of the publishing and book industries, including writers, agents, publishing employees, librarians, and booksellers are overworked and underpaid. Unless you're Stephen King or already famous, you don't make money off of books. We do it for sheer love of the game.

Use your library! Publishers have a whole department dedicated to selling their books to libraries and the author gets part of those sales. Increasing circulation of library resources means the libraries can make a better case to get more money from the government to buy more books that you want to read and they're a place to hang out for free. Libraries are the best gift humanity gave itself, use yours as often as possible.

[mirasmirages]

Amazon Removes Books From Kindle Unlimited After They Appear On Pirate Sites - Slashdot

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: Several independent publishers have had their books removed from Kindle Unlimited bec

Sign the Petition

Stop the unfair removal of titles on Amazon — Change the KDP Select Policy!

You are absolutely hurting indie writer by pirating books. This is not the same as pirating popular movies or tv shows. Don't pirate books.

[wyrmicelli]

me tongue-deep in a sandalwood candle: 🤤

the tjmaxx employee loading a fourth tranquilizer dart into their blowgun: i need backup

[snowown]

[monkeywiki]

28 year old tumblr users will look at you and say do you remember thwomp day of 2013 when everyone was posting thwomp from mario 64 in different audio