Hi, I'm Noble. I'm a queer trans man who writes and self-publishes short romance and erotica, usually about various monsters and aliens, often queer. If you're under 18, this blog is probably not for you.
WHAT'S NEW:
My newest published work is Goblin Brides, a smut collection of seven short erotic stories about goblin bargains loosely inspired by the Christina Rossetti poem "Goblin Market." You can find that on Itch.io under https://ncwildwood.itch.io/ and find information about it under the tag #gobboween.
My current work in process is a yet to be named project under the working title Wizard Winter, which will be a collection of short erotic fiction about a sinister wizard putting people into Predicaments.
LINKS:
-I cross-post the vast majority of my work to Archive Of Our Own under the name Noble Wildwood.
-You can find my work on Literotica, also under Noble Wildwood.
-You may also want to check out my tag "My Writing" under unnameablethings.tumblr.com/tagged/my writing.
-All of my original posts can be found under unnameablethings.tumblr.com/tagged/original.
-I have a Discord server which is currently being revamped since it was dormant for a while. I will put up an invite link once I have the permissions correctly configured to protect against bots/malicious actors.
Hey, everyone; I'm sorry to be asking for help again, but it's that time. While I currently have an extremely limited and unreliable source of income to help with covering food and medicine (and I don't know how long that will remain viable), I'm still deep in the red mentally, physically, and financially. I wish I had been able to make this post with more of a runup to the deadline, but my current housing situation is extremely poorly equipped to handle the heat wave this area is experiencing, and I've been battling the resulting illness just to stay conscious a fair amount of the time.
For those who are unfamiliar with my story, more in-depth explanations of what has gone down up to this point are available here. To summarize the important parts:
I am a severely disabled queer trans person with long COVID, living in poverty after escaping a series of abusive living situations involving neglectful caretakers, physical and emotional abuse, financial and sexual exploitation, and domestic violence. The most recent of these, which I escaped earlier this year after a murder attempt which the law did nothing about, was my family who have mostly cut ties with me since.
I have almost no income, and since my escape have been living out of Airbnbs with the help of donations online. I have been trying to get into a more stable housing situation and apply for disability for quite a while now, but have been met with walls and obstacles at every turn; right now I am simply trying to a place where I don't have to lose sleep over where I'm planning to sleep next month, let alone how to pay for it.
My current housing is not safe for me to keep living in, for the reasons I mentioned as well as many others. I can't leave before July 26th, but if I can raise the money to return to my previous Airbnb--which, despite not being perfect, isn't Literally Falling Apart, and has a relatively trustworthy host who likes me and only ended our first tenancy due to a genuine misunderstanding--I will be back in a house with actual functioning A/C and plumbing, where strangers are not constantly cycling in and out in large numbers with little accountability for bad behavior, and where my host is not constantly trying to trick me out of hundreds or thousands of dollars.
I have severe autoimmune-induced nerve damage, including spinal injuries, and cannot drive, use any software not accessible from mobile, hold a steady job, or safely leave the house. I have to be extremely careful about even what position it's safe to lie down in without causing myself further injury, and because of this--combined with long-term abuse, neglect, food insecurity, and illness--I am severely weak and atrophied. I may have at least one abdominal hernia as a result, though jesus christ I really fucking hope not lol
The autoimmune aspect of my condition is extremely heat-sensitive, and my health spirals rapidly when I am too hot for too long. Not only does this cause pain, brain fog, and worsening nerve damage, it makes me prone to severe, dangerous repeat infections that have already caused me lingering lung damage and hearing loss. I am also extremely vulnerable to heat exhaustion and heat stroke, especially with the medication I am on to control the inflammation.
There is a horrendous heat wave going on where I live, and with the timing it will almost certainly segue straight into one of our godawful summers with no reprieve. We're talking regular heat indexes of 96Ā°F with humidity that has not gone below 70% at very minimum for weeks straight. It's really fucking bad, y'all. I am terrified at the idea of being trapped outside when I am already struggling this much indoors.
All of this together is to say that if I am unhoused for even a day or two, I will almost certainly die or suffer serious, permanent injury, including loss or impairment of my ability to walk or use the bathroom unassisted. I do not have the ability to carry my belongings with me, either, so being unhoused for even one day will almost certainly mean losing everything I own and starting over. I absolutely cannot afford to do this. If it happens I am fucked.
The expenses I am currently trying to cover, in order of urgency:
$800 (the amount of this month's rent that I do not currently have, and do not foresee raising by the 10th without help. This is the top priority.)
$800 (first month's rent for the other place, which is due at time of booking. If I wait too long to do this, it may end up booked out from under me for months again.)
$150 (replacing the cushion of grocery money I've been lucky enough to build up for this month, which is currently earmarked for rent)
$190 (rent for the remainder of my stay in the current place, due July 10th)
$800 (rent for my second month at the other place; I am really hoping I won't be expected to start paying this before I've even arrived for the first month, but all my efforts to figure out how the fuck the payment scheduling works have failed, so better safe than sorry. May be due July 10th)
$130 (the rest of my grocery money for this month, which I may or may not be able to cover myself especially since I may have to start paying my own phone bill soon)
Every donation helps, and I am so unbelievably thankful to everyone who has helped me get this far. As hard as this year has been, and as hard as this summer will be if I live through it, I am alive because of you all, and for the very first time in my 30 years of life I am not actively being abused. I am struggling but I am still fighting, and I am so grateful for the opportunity to keep working toward a better life for myself instead of dying on the street.
Please help if you can. Moogle is my best and dearest friend and I am so grateful to everyone who has helped them survive this long. Please: I don't want to lose them now. Please signal boost if you cannot help directly.
not every mutual fits neatly into an archetypal medievalism but there are some mutuals that im like yeah addressing you as āmy liegeā would come strangely naturally
even before i lived in a place with a massive population of feral cats decimating the wildlife i had read the studies and knew the data said that TNR did not work and we need to be trapping and euthanizing feral cats but now that iāve lived in a place where there are an enormous number of feral cats itās like, inconceivable to me that anyone supports TNR, not just for the health of the world but for the sake of the fucking cats
nobody will even acknowledge it not even in most conservation circles. We have a solution to a massive, massive problem that is more humane, cheaper, easier, takes less time, prevents animal suffering, and saves valuable members of our disappearing ecosystem. And nobody is even willing to theoretically acknowledge that it exists outside of a few very small circles.
it works. It works. It is better for the cats. Itās better for the cats. Living in a place where you cannot drive 10 minutes without seeing a new roadkill cat almost every single day really makes you think about how much suffering could have been prevented if we just dealt with the problem we have created. Itās not a pleasant way to go, being hit by a car. Or being ripped apart by a predator, or eating a poison, or starving to death, of dying of an infection, or an illness, or any of the hundred thousand ways an animal in the wild passes without human intervention. Euthanasia is simply falling asleep. It is fucking wild to me that saying you think we should take responsibility for our mistakes and ensure that cats fall asleep peacefully instead of capturing them and then hurling them back out into the world SPECIFICALLY in order to allow them to die in agony makes people treat you like a fucking serial killer.
And if you donāt care about cats dying in agony do you care about the world around you? Thereās a species of bird we only know ever existed because someoneās cat brought home our only example. Thatās horrific. Weāve lost so much biodiversity because we simply wonāt listen to the research, which again, has proven that TNR is not effective.
https://ask.ifas.ufl.edu/publication/UW468 āHow Effective and Humane Is Trap-Neuter-Release (TNR) for Feral Cats?āĀ
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6523511/ āA Case of Letting the Cat out of The BagāWhy Trap-Neuter-Return Is Not an Ethical Solution for Stray Cat (Felis catus) Managementā (also has a thousand references attached that are handy)
Not a reference so much as the human society actively admitting that TNR does nothing to decrease population, actively contributes to harming wildlife, and doesnāt actually help the cats in any way, just reduces some of the nuisance behavior that people complain about: https://www.animalhumanesociety.org/resource/real-impacts-trap-neuter-return
Unscientific from here on out as i donāt feel like trying to find the studies i read in like January of last year:
https://hahf.org/awake/the-trouble-with-trap-vaccinate-neuter-return/ āThe Trouble With Trap-Neuter-ReĀ (Abandon!) from the hillsborough animal health foundation, articles also link to studies
https://abcbirds.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/The-Evidence-Against-TNR.pdf from the american bird conservancy, has scientific articles quoted.Ā
Even More Sources on TNR being non-viable and ways that cats are impacting the world from birds to *hawaiāiās monk seals*
Animal Emergency and Referral Center of Minnesota. (2022, October 26).Ā Indoor cats vs. outdoor cats. Animal Emergency & Referral Center of Minnesota. https://aercmn.com/indoor-cats-vs-outdoor-cats/
Campbell, V. (2017, January 25).Ā The Obituary of the Stephens Island Wren. All About Birds. https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/the-obituary-of-the-stephens-island-wren/
Castillo, D., & Clarke, A. L. (2003). Trap/neuter/release methods ineffective in controlling domestic cat ācoloniesā on public lands.Ā Natural Areas Journal,Ā 23(3).
Coe, S. T., Elmore, J. A., Elizondo, E. C., & Loss, S. R. (2021). Free-ranging domestic cat abundance and sterilization percentage following five years of a trapāneuterāreturn program.Ā Wildlife Biology,Ā 2021(1). https://doi.org/10.2981/wlb.00799
del Hoyo, J., Collar, N., Kirwan, G. M., & Sharpe, C. J. (2022, October 25).Ā Guadalupe storm-petrel (Hydrobates Macrodactylus), version 1.2. Birds of the World. https://birdsoftheworld.org/bow/species/guspet/cur/introduction
Dickman, C. R., & Newsome, T. M. (2015). Individual hunting behaviour and prey specialisation in the house cat Felis catus: Implications for conservation and management.Ā Applied Animal Behaviour Science,Ā 173, 76ā87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.applanim.2014.09.021
Edge. (2019, June 19).Ā Guadalupe storm-petrel. EDGE of Existence. https://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/guadalupe-storm-petrel/
Galbreath, R., & Brown, D. (2004). The tale of the lighthouse-keeperās cat: Discovery and extinction of the Stephens Island wren (Traversia lyalli).Ā Notornis,Ā 51(4).
Hawaiāi Department of Land and Natural Resources. (2025).Ā Feral cats. Feral Cats. https://dlnr.hawaii.gov/hisc/info/invasive-species-profiles/feral-cats/#:~:text=Feral%20cats%20on%20islands%20have,kill%20approximately%202.4%20billion%20birds.
Loss, S. R., Will, T., & Marra, P. P. (2013). The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States.Ā Nature Communications,Ā 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2380
McGregor, H., Legge, S., Jones, M. E., & Johnson, C. N. (2015). Feral cats are better killers in open habitats, revealed by animal-borne video.Ā PLOS ONE,Ā 10(8). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0133915
Medina, F. M., Bonnaud, E., Vidal, E., Tershy, B. R., Zavaleta, E. S., Josh Donlan, C., Keitt, B. S., Corre, M., Horwath, S. V., & Nogales, M. (2011). A global review of the impacts of invasive cats on Island Endangered Vertebrates.Ā Global Change Biology,Ā 17(11), 3503ā3510. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02464.x
National Research Council. (1992, January 1).Ā Scientific Bases for the Preservation of the Hawaiian Crow. U.S. National Library of Medicine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235935/
NOAA. (2024, August 29).Ā Toxoplasmosis and its effects on HawaiŹ»i Marine Wildlife. NOAA Fisheries. https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/pacific-islands/endangered-species-conservation/toxoplasmosis-and-its-effects-hawaii-marine
Read, J. L., Dickman, C. R., Boardman, W. S., & Lepczyk, C. A. (2020). Reply to Wolf et al.: Why trap-neuter-return (TNR) is not an ethical solution for Stray Cat Management.Ā Animals,Ā 10(9), 1525. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani10091525
Reed, L. (2022). The effects of free-roaming cats on native wildlife populations.Ā Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin,Ā 40(1), 17ā21. https://doi.org/10.53607/wrb.v40.250
Salano, E. (2024, October 5).Ā Eliciting the effect free roaming cats have on Native Hawaiian wildlife using stable isotope analysis. UKnowledge. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/biology_etds/103/Ā
Steele, J. H., Thorpe, S. A., & Turekian, K. K. (2009).Ā Encyclopedia of Ocean Sciences. Academic Press.Ā
science says itās long past time to stop prolonging the suffering of feral cats, for the sake of the people, the native wildlife, and the goddamn cats themselves.
I was at a friend's house to check on carcasses I had macerating in his yard. A little grey cat ran up to me, yelling her head off in friendliness and wanting nothing more than to be pet. I had nothing to give her but let my friend know he should catch her since she was so friendly. I am ashamed to admit I didn't give her much thought beyond that, finishing my work and giving her a last pet before going home.
My friend told me how he'd seen her before but she always vanished before he could catch her. He works far too many hours and is always tired so he couldn't prioritize catching this cat.
Three months pass with no sign of her. I go back with my partner to check on carcasses and this same little grey cat appears. This time, however, a tooth has been snapped off and her tongue is so badly cut that she can't keep it in her mouth. She was thin and dirty and screaming to please be given some food.
This time I couldn't look away. I asked my friend's girlfriend if I could borrow a cat carrier. She loaned me one and a tin of wet food that the grey cat willingly followed into the carrier. She didn't care at all about being put into the carrier - all she wanted was a hand on her. She'd arch up against the top just so my hand would rest on her back for a moment.
We drove through rush hour traffic to the only shelter still open. We knew we couldn't keep her and I couldn't stand the thought of putting her back out on the streets to die slowly.
The shelter couldn't take her. Her ear was clipped so she was a "community cat" and outside their ability to help. They tried desperately to offer alternatives to me as I cried over her carrier, knowing I couldn't take her home but also that if I didn't I couldn't live with the thought of her back on the streets.
I made a Hail Mary call to a local friend who is very connected in our city. They didn't have my number saved but answered all the same to hear me sobbing about a cat I'd found and to please help me find a place for her. Please. If I don't find something then she'll be alone on the streets again to die.
My friend came through. I could keep the cat in their garage overnight and in the morning my friend would be back in the city and could find someone to help the cat.
The shelter folk gave me a crate and some food - their hands were tied but they didn't want to leave me with nothing. They were good people doing the best they could in their own system. Community cats were ones they weren't allowed to "waste" resources on. Ostensibly they'd been dealt with and their fate decided. There was nothing the shelter folks were allowed to do for them.
I took the cat to my friend's garage. She was settled into a crate on towels, happy as a clam to be warm and safe. This was a cat made to be loved and to love, as she immediately began trying to groom one of my friend's roommates. He stayed in the garage with her, giving her food and water and in exchange having no say on whether she was in his lap or not. She was always in his lap.
Nobby Nobbs (so named for the only other character known to man that is as scrungly as she is) was then formally adopted by my friend. Her tongue has healed, her fur remains scrungly, and she's every bit the rabid love bug I suspected her to be when she came to me yelling to be pet.
She's a TNR cat. Someone thought they were doing her a kindness in that and if nothing else she didn't add kittens to the world but that doesn't negate the pain she suffered before I found her - the broken teeth, the lacerated tongue, the ulcerated cheeks, the flea-bald patchiness of her coat.
I say this as someone who adores this cat and has the privilege to see her loved and cherished: I wish she'd never had to suffer what she did. I wish people were alright making the harder call that leads to less misery on the side of the cats.
TNR is a polite fiction, nothing more. Just so the humans can pretend they've done right by the same cats they're letting loose to die miserably somewhere else. As long as the humans don't see it it's fine.
The shelter folks told me she's a community cat and that I could take her home and release her by my house. Then I could feed her myself and keep up with her and know where she was! I could still keep her, after a fashion.
I am not proud of how I snarled back that I would never exchange a quick death for a slow one. I would be giving her a different funeral plot, not giving her a life. Even near me she'd be just as vulnerable to the innumerable predators that find cats quite delicious, let alone cars and poisons and the other cruelties humans practice on stray cats.
She's the second stray cat I've met that when I held them the cat melted in my arms, purring and so desperately wanting to be loved. The first cat I was able to trap and take to a local shelter only to find when I called to check on him a day later that his health had been so terrible, so beyond help, that he'd been put down. All the love in that tiny body lost because the people I lived beside didn't care enough to trap the cats they had.
My partner was asleep. I woke her up to crawl into her arms and sob, my heart breaking for the stupidity of the humans who hadn't cared enough to grant this poor little cat the chance to be either an indoor cat, loved and cared for, or to grant him a quick death long before I met him. I've other stories of the cats they kept around, essentially feeding the poor souls to the predatory birds and wandering dogs that frequented our area.
TNR doesn't work. It is a lie humans tell ourselves so we can pretend we haven't failed these animals on a massive scale. Cats are invasive and cause massive harm in their turn. It is humanity who needs to deal with this crisis, this horror we've made, and I pray one day we look it square in the face and vow to make it right.
Love that Ryland Grace is the opposite of so many male protagonist "heroes" in media and yet he's still so incredibly brave, resilient, and strong. That flimsy little science teacher saves the day.
But he also,
Throws fits when things don't go his way. Not a "I'm a bad bitch" destroying everything-type fit, but tossing a trash can, breaking a screen-type fit.
Cries. A lot.
Pleads. He begs.
Doesn't answer the call to action.
Shows weakness. Being a coward and being fearful are two things he defines himself with.
Doesn't end up with the girl. In fact, that girl isn't even interested and he isn't, either.
Cherishes friendship over a romantic plot or something stereotypically brave like, "I'm going to save Rocky so I can save his world." No, he wants to save his friend, first and foremost.
Squeaks. He squeals. He screams, loudly and very high pitched. He whines. He complains. He physically struggles to open a jar. He's clumsy as hell. He makes some of the least graceful noises one can make.
Is not afraid to be the primitive species lowkey.
I love him and everything he stands for as a male protagonist. Men need to know that they can be just like Ryland Grace and still be just as much of a hero and a man.
the thing about growing up with siblings in an abusive household is that ultimately you're each other's jail wardens and whipping boys and that does things to you no matter how much you sincerely love each other and understand why it happened the way it did and wish you could have been big and strong enough to save both of you
it's just inevitably going to be difficult to reconcile the love you feel for the other half of a bear trap clamped around both your legs. is the thing.
Iām at the doctor office and this baby keeps yelling āI want donowā (mcdonalds) and the big brother (I assume) said āall the mcdonalds burnt down, thereās no more mcdonaldsā
noncon erotica/smut/hentai follows the monomyth/hero's journey as described by campbell and then vogler HEAR ME OUT IM RIGHT:
THE ORDINARY WORLD. The protagonist is going about their regular life. unfucked.
THE CALL TO ADVENTURE. The protagonist ends up in a Situation
REFUSAL OF THE CALL. The protagonist says they do not want to have the sex
MEETING WITH THE MENTOR. mentor in this one is a euphemism for penis
CROSSING THE THRESHOLD. the protagonist's protests are in vain. the Sex Begins.
TESTS, ALLIES AND ENEMIES. the protagonist fights against the pleasure they are experiencing against their will. they call on their internal reserves of willpower and remind themself why they dont want to have the sex. they try to escape.
APPROACH. oh fuck im gonna come!!! no!!! the protagonist enters a crisis point
THE ORDEAL. the protagonist orgasms despite their best efforts and faces a crisis. DO they like it?
THE REWARD. The protagonist succumbs to pleasure. they are now Enjoying the Sex.
THE ROAD BACK. the sex itself has ended for now. the protagonist has the opportunity to escape and/or renew their protestations of non-consent.
THE RESURRECTION. the protagonist faces a crisis of realizing that they would like the nonconsensual sex to happen again actually. they are fundamentally changed by the realization
RETURN WITH THE ELIXIR. the protagonist either voluntarily returns to the villain's clutches or is permanently altered by the experience of the nonconsensual sex
this is why nonconsensual porn is hotter than consensual porn. consensual porn doesn't have that same natural narrative arc built in to the sex itself. consensual porn's tension resolves when the consent is given and then the sex happens after that.
taylor titmouse's guide for improving your itchio store page
(The Night Guest)
a few years ago i wrote a big angry post about how bad people are at marketing their own work and what they can do to be better at it. since then, the advice about twitter has largely become unnecessary and irrelevant, but the advice about what information you should be putting on your product page is still important and [through gritted teeth] nobody's fucking doing it.
so this post is going to be a step by step break down of what you can do to improve your itchio store pages to make them more informative and customer friendly. you're reading this because you š«µ want to learn and improve. or you're just curious and/or like it when i yell. but either way taking my advice is your choice and if you don't feel like doing any of it you don't have to, much like nobody has to buy your books. if you've ever lamented why nobody buys your work but you're not making it easy for them to do so, it's š«µ your fault and you annoy me immensely. take responsibility for your bad business practices.
anyway, let's make you better okay?
(and also note that all the store pages i'm using as examples are for adult works, but there's no explicit images in this post. you'll only see anything if you click through the links)
BANNERS
you probably already clicked and read through that image up there, because it was big and eye-catching and at the top of the post. i fucking Got you. that is, ideally, what the banner will do. while the banner is not strictly necessary, it's a "well, why not have one?" situation. it makes the page look more deliberately designed, and it's a great additional sample of what the customer can expect from your work.
if your product doesn't feature art, simply making an image with the title will also work well, as i've done here for A Hundred Hungry Mouths. that book didn't have enough interior illustrations to justify burning one for the banner, so i left the cover out of the "screenshots" field and edited it to be the banner instead. simple!
(if you don't want to figure out a good banner size yourself, mine are 1120 x 325 pixels with transparent, rounded corners)
BOOK COVER
i think this one is a no brainer. i hope to god it is a no brainer. if your book has a cover, make sure it's set as the first screenshot (if you're not doing the banner tech i mentioned above). i won't advise you on what a good book cover is, because that's a whole other post and wildly subjective. but you should have one. even if it's a sketch collection. even if it's just an illustration from the sketchbook with a title edited on. it will look so much better than nothing.
hopefully you also already know that though, so here's some itchio specific advice. what itchio considers the cover is actually the thumbnail that displays elsewhere on the site. you are much better off making a discrete edit for this rather than uploading the actual cover. compare the thumbnails i made by hand for r/l monroe's books vs the thumbnails for the early books i didn't bother with.
one of these looks professional. one of these looks lazy, and there's a reason that section is relegated to the very bottom of my page. if you don't want to go the length of a bespoke thumbnail, take your book cover (or whatever illustration you want to use) and set your square selection tool to a fixed aspect ratio of 6.3 W to 5 H. find a good crop, then resize it to 630x500. perfect thumbnail.
SAMPLES
this is the thing that makes me the angriest. it makes me SO angry. so many of you are out there making your store pages, trying to sell me prose writing or your comics or your artbooks, and then not showing me any of your work. i'm grabbing you. i'm shaking you. what is your fucking problem. what are you THINKING. have you ever bought a book at the store without reading a little first? would you buy a graphic novel without flipping through the first few pages to see if you like the style? no?
SO WHY DO YOU EXPECT ME TO? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?
this is so basic. i should not have to keep telling people this but it keeps happening. PUT A FUCKING SAMPLE UP. TAKE SCREENSHOTS OF THE FIRST PAGES OF YOUR WRITING. GIVE ME THE FIRST FEW PAGES OF YOUR COMIC. SHOW ME AN ILLUSTRATION OR TWO FROM THE ARTBOOK.
they don't even have to be the full thing! with my artbook collections, i'll pick a few crops and make one condensed promotional image. or i'll take one good one and slap a banner over it. i put something. you can check out different examples/styles of this on The Womanulet, Poker Night with the Arizona Dogs, and Return to Shadow.
for all of my prose writing, i include at least the first 1-3 pages of the book. you are actually delusional if you are a prose writer and you're trying to sell your book on the cover and pitch alone. you have to show me that you can write, and give me a chance to tell if i'd like it. i cannot think of a good reason not to. if you're embarrassed to have any of the writing public, you should not be selling it. if you don't want to give any of it away for free, get your head out of your ass. who do you think you are. there is no good reason not to include a sample and i don't know why so many of you don't.
OKAY THINGS GOT A BIT HEATED THERE SO LET'S TALK ABOUT TEXT
we're going to cover sales copy now. it's hard to write. it is absolutely miserable to write. but you have to. if you're trying to sell me a story, you have to tell me what it is and who it's about. who is our protagonist? what challenge are they facing, or what are they setting out to do? who will they encounter, and what might happen to them? you don't have to tell me the whole story, but you should set my expectations. let's break down the example pictured above, from The Night Guest.
Ever since the death of her husband, Mrs. Arakawa has run her inn alone. There's never been a guest the seasoned innkeeper couldn't handleā¦ but she's never had to host a hungry oni. It'll take all her wits and wiles to survive the night in his service--or else she may find herself in his mouth.
in three sentences, i've established who the book is about, the conflict, and the sexual hook. there's a sexy widow, there's a scary oni, and they're probably going to fuck nasty style by the end of the book. that's enough to get the idea of what this is and whether you'd like it. it can be difficult to know how to pitch a story without spoiling it, so this is something that takes observation from other books, and practice. it is hard! i hate doing it! but it's vitally important to getting the reader onboard with your work.
but mr. titmouse! you cry. i'm not selling a story! i'm selling an artbook!
okay. you can still tickle my balls about what's in there. here's another example from my hades 2 artbook Return to Shadow.
Sometimes there are games that, had we been born into a better timeline, would prominently feature awesome sex. Bad endings, romance scenes, flagrant eroticism.Ā Hades 2 is one of those games--beautiful, fun, and with monster designs that deserve to be appreciated for the fantastic fuckmobs they are. Together, we can imagine this better timeline.
it's a bit more slick, a bit more sales pitchy, but that's fine. there is no narrative here beyond 'boy i sure wish hades 2 had porn in it'. i'm enticing you into a space. it's a book of hades 2 porn. don't you also want to look at hades 2 porn? wouldn't that be awesome? i think it's awesome. i want you to also think it's awesome. you (as author) should be convincing your potential customer that what you want to share with them is awesome.
THE INFORMATIONAL PARAGRAPH
whether you find this one necessary depends on the work. i think it's always a good idea to have somewhere to give contextual information about your thing, and if you're working in erotica you've got to have somewhere to put your features and warnings. this is also a good place to put your comps and inspirations--a good way to set your reader's expectations. basically, anything that doesn't fit into the narrative pitch, you'd put here.
here's an example from Chique: The Sunken City:
Chique:Ā TheĀ Sunken CityĀ is inspired by RPGs and hentai games, andĀ contains three short stories, each an encounter with a denizen of Sodden, exploring different associated kinks and fetishes. Books in this series have no reading order.
tells you what vibe the book has, that there are three different stories within the book, and that it can be read without reading any other books in the series. straightforward, easy to understand. no problem.
for adult books you don't have to be 100% thorough when listing out the featured kinks, it's okay to just hit the highlights. i've become somewhat agnostic about this in the era of "if you even mention a naughty word we'll Get you" internet. but i would suggest you put as much as you feel comfortable revealing, and what would be most attractive to a reader. you don't have to list every individual sex act, just remember that this is part of your advertising. you want the person who's really into what you're cooking to know that it's on the menu.
THE OTHER LITTLE INFORMATIONAL PARAGRAPH
this is self explanatory. please tell me how many pages there are of your comic or art book. tell me the wordcount for your prose. MOST of you are already good about this and don't need me to tell you to do this. but if you weren't already doing this, a) i don't understand you b) start doing it.
I THINK THAT'S MOSTLY IT
you've been so brave and tough for letting me yell at you this far down your dashboard. i hope you've learned something and will change your behavior for the better. i want you to make money. okay? i yell at you like this because i want you to make money. i want to GIVE you money. but you have to make it easier for me.
to wrap up, here are my other general pieces of advice to make your itchio page look and function better
if there are multiple books in the series, put a link to the rest of them somewhere on the page. i put them at the bottom, as you can see on this Roger book from the middle of the series.
i personally prefer itchio pages that are styled for dark mode. black always looks good in the background, and #232323 gives you a nice neutral gray for the text area. however, making the page match the palette of your book cover is also a good choice, so long as you keep it legible. no white text on light backgrounds and vice versa.
bare minimum, make the links the same color as your cover. it will immediately tie the page together and make everything look more deliberate. the less 'i made this in two minutes and left everything default' you can make your page look, the better. have some pride, you know?
not an itchio specific piece of advice but ohhhh my god put your links in your bio. put your links in your BIO. PUT THEM IN YOUR PINNED POST. PUT THEM SOMEWHERE!!!! you cannot expect me to scroll your account to find links you posted a week ago! or even an hour ago! put it in your bio or pinned post!! do not make me work to give you money! you are wasting valuable self-promotion space on DNIs that nobody cares about.
okay that's it. that's everything. you made it all the way to the bottom. i'm so proud of you. slaps your ass. now get back out there and fix your shit.
(if you found this helpful, how about buying one of my freakin' books?)
so are we just supposed to ignore kendrick lamar having lyrics about killing trans women? ātoupee drop and a dude just popped out t of that tank top and bra / and when i say du du du du, bitch that be k-dotā ? heās talking about shooting and killing a woman when he finds out sheās trans aka trans panic. heās a vile transphobe, why are you platformong him?
Kendrick noteably has a song about his uncle (a trans man) and his cousin (a trans woman) that is probably up there as one of his most heartfelt songs of all time, but I remember on an old blog where I once posted one thing about Kendrick and someone immediately jumped into my inbox berating me for talking about an antisemitic artist (and similarly to the above anon, they had completely confused their information).
I know Kendrick isnāt perfect, but I used to talk about a lot of artists on my old blog and coincidentally it was only the Black artists that had multiple people explaining to me exactly why I shouldnāt listen to them, with baseless and incorrect information that they hadnāt bothered to look up properly. I donāt just think this anon is being racist, I know they are because the second you mention a rap artist, it seems like every white person on tumblr has to crawl out of the woodwork and try to hide their overall disdain for Black artists with random excuses as to why those artists are the most dangerous and violent people alive.
Youāre not slick. You couldāve spent five seconds searching up āKendrick Lamar and trans womenā into Google and youād immediately be linked to Auntie Diaries, but you decided to choose a misheard lyric in a song that didnāt mention trans women once and berate someone for sharing a single Black artist. Iāve seen these games before, anon!!
And not just any Black artist, either, but one who is likeā¦ actively trans supportive! Iāve said it before, but Kendrick Lamar has done more for me as trans man than pretty much every white popstar that tumblr loves to put on a pedestal for simply saying āprotect the dollsā once in an interview. Kendrickās not the perfect ally, but he sure as hell is a genuine one.
Anyway, go listen to Mr Morales & The Big Steppers.
