I'm working independently on reworking my first published book due to some scams that happened with it's publication. (If asked I will go into more detail).
I am writing, editing, formatting, illustrating, and publishing all on my own as I have the time and resources to learn the tools of the trade. However, I am still human and prone to error.
If you would like to be of help with this, please feel free to sign up to be a Beta Reader. This is not an ARC Reader that gets the full finished story prior to publication, but the beta phase where you have a say in pointing out to me any errors I may have missed before setting it up for publication.
If you enjoy mythology, fantasy, queer characters, characters of color, and meta commentary on religion and politics, please sign up!
Thank you for your interest in becoming a beta reader! Beta readers help by reading early drafts and providing honest feedback to strengthen
Thank you to all that have signed up to become Beta Readers!! With all the sign ups I received, I have taken it upon myself to temporarily close the form for now. I will be forming the emails and sending replies shortly to everyone.
writing is so funny because i could write nonstop for 9hrs and then hit a block where im like "how do i transition between this moment and the next?" and then i just dont touch it for 6 months
Serious advice tho if this happens, it's likely because you already wrote past the end of the scene and wandered too far from the more logical transition point, and you should go back to the last time the writing felt "unforced" and cut everything after.
You can also just skip the transition. Really good writing can span years in a single sentence, like you can just authoritatively state fact and your reader will go with it.
This is not the first time I've gotten response like this. My own survey tells me when a response is the same word for word, but I have also gotten stuff like this on my Goodreads author profile after joining a group on Goodreads for ARC and Beta Readers. That being said...
I'M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU!!
These spam messages, because that's exactly what they are, are made to scare you and make you uncomfortable in the industry. Whether or not they happen to more than just authors, I don't know, but the fact that I am getting them and I'm I know how to recognize them is getting exhausting.
If you see random inserts or messages like this, just know that they are spam trolls. On some platforms you can easily report them amd block them, but in my case, I had to go through some detective work and find EXACTLY which fucker in my Beta sign ups this was.
Separating with warning: message includes sexual and death threats.
For the record, I have not accepted any promotion services and do not have an actual image of myself attached to my author alias, which, yeah, my name, Bailing Lue, is an alias and my Chinese name that isn't used on any government documents.
Secondly, I don't have any online promotions for my book or even my Ao3 stories. Aside from the grouped together indie author stuff from Book Funnel which are free to access and apply for, I don't have and never have used ny form of paid or serviced promotions. Just my own graphic design and illustrations and my own self created posts on social media.
Third, I have not begged for reviews. In fact, I haven't begged at all. All I want is my work out there in the world to leave something behind when I'm dead and gone and to show some of the weird stories that pop in my head. Reviews would be nice, money would be great, but I could care less and have been surviving just fine without it. Struggling, but surviving.
And lastly, this may have terrified me maybe a few years ago or more, but I'm fucking 30. If you are a follower and kept up with my life then you also know I've been a victim of SA in varying degrees. Have gone through a ton of mental relapses and suicide attempts. Have been divorced from a 14 year long relationship and lost my child in the process. And am currently traveling and not residing in just one place for my own safety and mental health.
I am not a child anymore.
I am not pushover fluttershy like I used to be that only turned mama bear when those around her were in trouble.
And I sure as hell know how to recognize a fake threat when I see one now from all my years of trauma and dealing with real predators and threats.
All that to say, to those who made it this far in the post:
Be aware
Be safe
If your info isn't anywhere attached to your socials, chances are messages like these are just bold face lies to make you scared
They are not real
If you can tell who they came from, report and block
This is one of my favorite illustrations that I’ve made. It was originally printed in an artbook about constellations, and later it was used as an illustration for an unofficial supplement to the DnD rules, in a book about birth signs.
