Admit it, you goose

kiera | uk | she/her maybe girls need an island

[astroportals]

I ❤️ MY PUBLIC LIBRARY

[blankpointdankmemes]

[matt-ruins-your-shit]

[spaceshipoftheseus]

Look, this is my litmus test: I pretend I am the original Earl of Sandwich. I have asked for non-bread foods to be brought to me inside bread, that I might more easily consume them one-handed while gambling.

This does not enable my wretched regency habits. This is not what I asked for. I do not deign to grace it with the name of my house.

[dirkbolero]

This is the most important addition to the sandwich discourse I have ever read.

[petitepancakes]

A nice week off work, spent mainly outside.

[etchif]

If you ever feel like a loser just remember there are people who are genuinely emotionally invested in the lives of the british royal family

[keepingthezoopodcast]

Do you want animal facts?

First off, that's a misleading title. We're not giving out free animal facts here (though we do on our show, plus larfs!)

But we're wondering, for those who listen, are the animals and animal details a big part of it? Or are y'all here for the humans (and whatever higher lifeform Kim is)?

[talontarget]

jkr is literally posting upskirt photos to her social media. when will it finally get through to harry potter fans that their support makes her feel confident and correct enough to do things like this

[dodykeahedron]

If the holocaust denialism SOMEHOW wasn't enough for you to shut up about your favourite kids book as an adult; JK Rowling just committed a sex crime IRL against a transgender woman.

When do we start to care.

[anywhoozles]

[magnoliamyrrh]

the year is 2035. the new beauty standard is for women to cut their ears off, as ears are a masculine trait which make the face look too big and hearing isnt necessary as it doesnt align with being demure. evil feminists say perhaps this is unnecessary and ears are natural. women are agressively proclaiming they are cutting their ears off due to sensory issues

[chronicallyhomoerotic]

this is a poem. To me.

[heyfruitcake]

Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

L'Odissea di Nolan tra "scheletri spazzatura" e relitti: Arpa al lavoro in Sicilia, che succede

Non è la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe però già impegnata a bonificare i

[ignitelimelight]

They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government

[bookcub]

i think it is unrealistic for fans to expect sequels to be published a year after the first one and also want the book at its highest quality. it's okay to expect a few years in between and i think it weird how much pressure authors face to publish their next book immediately. that's a lot of stress on authors and i think it often leads to books being put out before they are ready.

[mlerpwonders]

If you truly enjoy books, you should be used to a slower consumption experience.

Apply this to time between installments.

Accept that if you get into a good series with multiple books to go, you are going to be following it for a decade or more.

[skiagraphe0-deactivated20250401]

A bad book published on schedule is on time once, but bad forever.

A good book published on a delay is late once, and then good forever.

Ultimately, you're getting a book either way. The question is, would you like something satisfactory that you can look back on fondly for the rest of your life, or do you want something that the author rushed out over the course of a bunch of sleepless nights that reflects the quality of those working conditions?

Good work takes time. If you're really pressed about authors not handing you a novel each year, go write fanfic - and find out for yourself how hard it is to produce a novel's worth of good, solid, well-paced, well-plotted story regularly.

[the-haiku-bot]

A bad book published

on schedule is on time once,

but bad forever.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[gollancz]

This is something a lot of authors sometimes struggle with - their first book they have had ages to write, and edit, and polish, because they HAD to in order to get an agent. And then the agent worked with them some more to edit and polish it, so it would stand out to get picked up by an editor. And then the editor works with them some more to really hone the final product into something phenomenal.

And then book two usually starts drafting somewhere after book one is sent to print, and it comes straight to the editor to do structural edits. No room for years of moulding, and no additional stage with agent (usually, although some authors can do this!). And it can feel wild and rushed and a very abrupt gear-change. PARTICULARLY because the lead times on publication are so long (the ideal final manuscript delivery is 14 months before publication) that if we want book 2 out within a year of book 1, you need to have book 2 finished before book 1 is even printed.

SOME writers can do this!! Miles Cameron, for example, is a writing machine who reliably delivers 2 books a year. BUT he has also written over 50 novels and it is his full time job. Very few authors are full time authors.

In 2022, The Society of Authors published findings that suggested the median annual income for authors in the UK is £7000. The majority of authors on our list have other jobs, and this is true for most authors publishing today.

So writing around a job, and then taking into account any Life Happenings that happen, PLUS the long lead times for books, means that publishing annually can be VERY tricky.

If you want to help authors earn more so they can write more?

Buy their books! I can confirm that hard sales data is pored over when renewing contracts and acquiring books and deciding print runs. All sales through digital retailers, bookstores and supermarkets are tracked by Bookscan, and that data informs EVERY DECISION we make. Editors desperately want to throw money at every book we acquire, but if the data doesn't support it we're limited in what we can do - if we offer far too high and a book doesn't sell enough to clear the advance rate, it becomes a big black hole in finances that can hurt author retention. Keep an eye on deals on eBooks and audio as well - buying cheap on a deal still helps!! Remember, an author won't start seeing royalty income until their advance fully earns out. Pre-ordering books is also a great way to support authors: it helps them chart better on release-week, which can support future contracts, AND it gives future you a lovely present of a book.

Borrow their books! In the UK at least, authors receive income via ALCS and PLR, which gives them money for use of their work and every time a book is taken out from a library. If you're an author who is published in the UK and not registered with ALCS and PLR yet - get on it!

Review! Review Review Review! If you have read a book and loved it, Amazon reviews, Goodreads reviews, and reviews on bookseller websites are incredible resources. The better a book rates on Amazon, the more it gets boosted. (algorithms, grrrr) Equally, if you sign up to Netgalley, we often put titles up there TOTALLY FREE in exchange for honest reviews. All Gollancz's books are listed under our parent company, Orion.

Engage with authors and their publishers on social media! Social media is THE WORST, we all know it. That's why we're here, in this bastion of what can only be termed anti-social media. However, social media is the main resource publishers have for promoting their books because it is FREE and can get to a lot of people. It's also another way of helping us track how excited people are for a book - particularly ahead of publication, when we only have pre-order numbers to work from. Not just watching/viewing but also actively liking and commenting on content about your favourite authors is hard data we can use to help, and - again, algorithms, ugh - the more content about your favourite authors is engaged with, the more it gets recommended to new people, to help them find new readers. It's a vicious cycle, but by god it's one you can weaponise to help your authors. Gollancz's main channel at the moment is our instagram, but we also have a growing tiktok that is being run for the girls, gays and theys by the phenomenal Millie and Corinne. And of course, there's muggins here running the tumblr, but given the nature of tumblr it's mostly feral boosting rather than actual announcements and it tracks very differently. If you are on any of those other platforms, AND we publish anyone you like, this sort of support is a great free way to help boost boost boost.

[outragedslime]

Just needs a zip which ill get over the weekend. Fox cardigan blast :)

[roseillest]

AFRIQUE, JE TE PLUMERAI // AFRICA, I WILL FLEECE YOU (1992) dir. JEAN-MARIE TENO

[northstareclipse]

"Some preferences have to be sacrificed for society" is such a broad statement that it can cover everything from

"Maybe not every household needs its own industrial-grade leaf blower."

"Maybe we should accept denser housing and shared infrastructure."

"Maybe private lawns should become community gardens."

all the way to

"You don't get control over your schedule."

"You don't get privacy."

"You don't get to choose your own aesthetics."

"You don't get to decide who has access to your emotional life."

"You don't get to opt out of communal activities."

"You don't get to have tastes that aren't socially approved."

Those are not remotely the same category of thing.

Some people treat all preferences as interchangeable units. They imagine a giant pile labeled "individual desires" and then talk about reducing it by 15%.

But preferences aren't equal.

Wanting three power drills when one shared drill would do is different from wanting control over your schedule.

Wanting a third car is different from wanting a bedroom door that locks.

Wanting a private yacht is different from wanting the ability to listen to music nobody else likes.

Wanting a 10,000-square-foot mansion is different from wanting to spend an evening alone.

The fact that these get lumped together is what makes the discussion so frustrating.

Because someone says, "Well, people will have to make sacrifices."

And I ask, "Okay, what sacrifices?"

And they think I'm being difficult.

No, that's the entire question.

A society that says, "You can't own six lawnmowers because we have a tool library" is making a very different demand from a society that says, "You can't go to bed when you're tired because the wellness committee has determined that lights-out is at 10 PM and not a minute earlier or later." The first one is actually a functional society. The second one is a "therapeutic" boarding school for adults.

[hyperlexichypatia]

Food. Clothing. Manual labor. Medical choices. Sexuality.

There is a vast difference between "You can't get out-of-season produce on demand, because the resources needed to make that available are unsustainable" and "You can only eat food obtained locally or grown yourself or cooked yourself."

There is a vast difference between "We don't need multiple iterations of the exact same product under different brand names" and "We don't need gluten-free or high-protein or low-fat or vegan or kosher or other specialized food because those things don't' matter."

There is a vast difference between "Fast fashion with oil plastic fabrics made in sweatshops with quasi-slavery conditions needs to be abolished" and "People should only wear handmade bespoke clothing."

There is a vast difference between "Everyone should have the free time and space and resources to pursue hobbies like gardening, canning, cooking, sewing, knitting, and other crafts" and "People should have to rely on small-scale crafting to survive."

And sexuality and medical choices... well, I talk about those all day, so.

[peridotic-table]

The UK having some weird political stuff going on (local fascist fights a bin - and might lose), only to look over the pond and see the US apparently doing Weekend at Bernie’s with a senator. Interesting times indeed.

[mediasideblog]

[exquisite-peculiarity]

In the last few years, I moved from the southern US to the northern US. People always joke that people in the south can't handle the cold, or that people in the north can't handle the heat, but I would argue that while upbringing affecting preference is a factor, the more important factor is infrastructure. In Texas, we had lighter, draftier houses that breathed. This helps with heat, but in the winter, if it got down around 15⁰ f (like it usually did up to a couple of times a year), the houses couldn't keep up. It was impossible to heat the indoors over 60⁰, even with blasting the heat. Alternatively, buildings up north don't always have air conditioning, so if it gets up over 95⁰ it is really difficult to handle, especially for prolonged stretches. Climate isn't just personal preference. We have architecture from over the past 100 yrs that is adapted to handle the temps it was before global warming. The architecture in Europe is even older. If people say the temp is untenable, believe them.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

There's this notion that being able to stream professional theater shows will hurt the industry, because people won't go to the effort to support live theater anymore, and this is based on the anxieties of the film industry, but live theater isn't a film. The better analogy is sports.

Look me dead in the eye and tell me that people being able to sit at home and watch The Game -- the fandom that encourages, the ongoing investment over the years, the memories and traditions of Watching the Game with family and friends -- harms the ticket sales of real live go-to-the-stadium sports. Of course it doesn't. Of course all that *is the reason* that people care so much about sports they'll invest a small fortune on not only tickets but often travel costs to be part of it all in person. And the people who aren't doing that *can't* do that and weren't going to regardless, but their at-home participation and investment still boosts the profile of pro and NCAA sports as cultural institutions.

Maybe it's possible to fall in love with film and be immune to the romance of Going to the Cinema such that you'll just freely choose the same film in the comfort of your living room. It's not possible to fall in love with something that happens live and not want to be there to experience it. The consequences of procasts, for theater just like for sports, can only be A) more people motivated to make live theater part of their worlds, aka more money, when theaters everywhere could desperately use more money, or B) more love. Which is worth arguing for because reasons I assume I don't have to defend.