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On a more personal note: today one of my coworkers at my current, non-bookstore job needed to tape a UPS label to a box and I jumped up like "Oh let me do it, I used to do this all the time!" bc I miss doing returns so bad. She could have done it herself, of course, but then I wouldn't have gotten to relive so many moments of dispensing packing tape.
Also I feel like this should go without saying but don't buy books, read them, and return them to bookstores.
I'm guessing people think "oh, the bookstore will just sell that book to someone else, they don't actually lose any money." Perhaps with the addendum of "they're not technically losing my purchase, since I wouldn't have really bought the book."
There are multiple reasons this doesn't work.
First, bookstores decide how many books to order based on how many have sold recently.
These days, reorders can be submitted and shipped very quickly, while space and funds are at a premium, and the number of available titles is massive. So it's more cost effective to buy just a couple copies of most books and reorder when 1-2 of them sell.
This means that by the time you return your book, the bookstore may have already ordered more copies, expecting that if your copy sold, there must be enough demand for more. (Especially if it's a new release.)
But in smaller stores especially, a lot of books may ultimately only sell a couple copies, because the number of titles publishing every year is so huge. So the bookstore could very easily end up with additional copies of the book you returned that don't sell, because your purchase signaled a demand that doesn't exist. (Since, you know, you weren't *actually* willing to pay for the book.)
And what happens to those copies if they don't sell? The bookstore can usually return books to their publishers and receive credit towards future orders. But it's vital to note that this doesn't make the store any money, just helps cover its losses. And it still costs the store more than if they hadn't bought that book!
That last piece is crucial. Yes, the bookstore typically gets credited 100% of what they paid the publisher for the book they return. But the bookstore usually still pays the cost of shipping on the returns (books are heavy!), and there are significant labor costs involved in selecting, sorting, and packing books for return.
(This was 60-80% of my previous job. It's a damn complicated process that requires a lot of specialized knowledge and experience to do well. It's full of headaches, not to mention inherently Sisyphean. I miss it SO BAD.)
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.
Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??
Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??
Legolas please gain a sense of urgency
It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.
gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"
"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."
"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."
she
#oh SO true#discworld#you've nailed it op that's it exactly#she is a prophet of retribution set aglow from within by the fury of her righteousness#and he's in the dictionary next to the word 'scrungly'
this captures their kermit and miss piggy energy better than anything else i've ever seen
hypothetical titles if everyone had become a full lyctor in the trials:
harrowhark gideon, saint of grace
silas colum, saint of honor
dulcinea protesilaus, saint of aid
palamedes camilla, saint of perfection
abigail magnus, saint of love
isaac jeannemary, saint of passion
we already have ianthe naberius's saint name, so for this alternate timeline she's ianthe coronabeth, saint of charm
judith marta, saint of constance
saur for these I mostly wanted to fit the theme of "title is chosen for the cavalier and ends up being wildly ironic for the necromancer," and my rationales are as follows:
saint of grace
gideon's relationship to harrow is all about wanting to give herself to her, to grace her with everything she's got. their defining moment comes when harrow gives gideon permission to drown her and gideon hugs her instead, loving and forgiving her when she has every reason not to, an act of grace. I've seen sacrifice or devotion around as saint names for harrow, and those also fit gideon, but I think "grace" hits the irony note a little more given how fiercely judgemental and grudge-holding harrow can be.
saint of honor
colum's one sticking point of resistance against silas: clinging to the honor of his word. and silas would looooove to call himself saint of honor, but, well. yknow.
saint of aid
protesilaus often functioned more as dulcinea's personal aide than her knight, and he was one of the first to volunteer to follow nonius to fight the RB in the river. not hugely ironic a name for actual dulcie, she's not particularly un-helpful, but she was always so constricted by her life circumstances that I doubt she's ever been able to conceptualize herself as adding to anyone else's lives rather than taking.
saint of perfection
camilla is meticulous. her choice of weapon is data driven, she put that skull back together chip by chip, and she doesn't let go, it's her one thing. she does nothing by half-measures. ironic for palamedes because he's super into the idea of chasing perfection and always wants to think he's only just missed it, leading him to very imperfect results.
saint of love
we know why magnus would be dubbed as loving before anything else. only really ironic for abigail in this alternate timeline because she'd only be called it if she gave in and ate her husband's life.
saint of passion
jeannemary's terror after the fifth die and her drive to run after him after isaac dies are both expressions of intensely personal emotional extremes, aka passion. ironic for isaac because he's not the "stupid" one, between the two of them he's believed to be the one who's cautious and careful.
saint of charm
coronabeth is charming. we know this. she's charming in the way of a house stateswoman and charming in the way that make insurrectionist cells want to promote her immediately. and ianthe? is made entirely of creepy slime.
saint of constance
I tried on a few more military-esque sounding words to represent marta, but none of them really worked. she's thoroughly disciplined and a career soldier, yes, but she's not an "ate the duelling rulebook for breakfast" style fighter like naberius, she's looser and quicker from practical experience, and she went a little bit mad with grief briefly when she thought she'd seen judith get murdered. I think she's less rigid and more stable, she'll do stupid crazy stuff like anyone else but she'll do them calmly and consistently. ironic for judith because she's been in her wretched losing era for years now and probably hasn't been physically or emotionally stable for more than a few hours at a time since canaan house.
[Spoilers for Gideon the Ninth]
Funniest part of my The Locked Tomb experience was getting to the end of GtN and seeing Gideon's death flags pile up into an undeniable flag-mountain and going "damn. the fanart really hard me thinking Gideon was gonna be a prominent character for the whole series. no she's just the coffee shop au favorite who gets iced in book 1."
To THEN be proven both right and wrong as Gideon bites it only to be tacked up like a wet blanket over the clothesline of the narrative's meanest possible facsimile of undeath. She's hanging out to dry like beef jerky and two subsequent books have not been enough to convince the narrative to let this girl die for real. She goes to bed every night cursing the good luck of Naberius Tern, the guy who got cannibalized to death, which should really tell you a lot about the relative badness of the hand Gideon has been dealt here.
To be compared on the flipside to Harrow, who has maybe technically not even died yet, but whose mind and soul have gotten flayed into a different kind of ground beef every book such that calling her alive starts to feel more like a bad referee call. Looking at her makes you look back over at Gideon and go "well that thing is basically fine. it's literally just got one fence-post hole in it."
Next up someone is going to claim that the Narnia series isn't kids books.
Kids books is probably not the best way to word it, you can enjoy them at every age, including your childhood, as you get older you may find new truths in them, but they're still good for any age.
I want you to understand this. I NEED you to understand this. My mother read me the hobbit as bedtime story, and I started pushing myself to read before pre-school so I could in fact read the hobbit for myself instead of having to wait for bedtime.
I didn't do so right away but jesus wept I PUSHED myself to learn to read SPECIFICALLY so I could read The Hobbit! It is, in fact, a children's story! And children only see page count as 'there is a lot of this fun story to read!'
you know, i don't remember
this short story just mugged me
this is fucking incredible
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Amazing moments in Dads: my friend’s dad’s critique of Frankenstein was, “I just don’t think the author had read science fiction before.”
I can't believe it took me this long to post these I finished this like nine months ago
An idea I had for Blood of Eden propaganda/recruitment posters featuring some of our favorite guys - combo of digital-print cyberpunk graphic design style with oldschool Saturday Morning Post covers like you'd see Leyendecker paintings on
I was gonna post these ahead of tabling at a small con and selling prints of them but ended up not tabling because turns out grad school is hard
maybe next year... figured tumblr would like though
writing tip #4200:
advertise your book by highlighting its best attributes: paper quality, the weight of the paper, the texture and finish of the paper,
it's a good thing mensah is already married with kids by the start of all systems red because can you imagine trying to make a new longterm relationship work when you have to explain to potential partners that murderbot will be there. no not romantically or sexually. but it is there.
They could never make me hate you, complex female character whose reaction to trauma was not pretty and digestible like how people think it should be.
