its literally the year of Apollo Justice btw

"Look how free I am!"

ten years ago as part of my creative writing degree we had a class on professional development where we learned how the publishing process works for different mediums and how to choose an agent and what the role of a publishing house is and back then, the advice was "self-publishing has its advantages but a traditional publisher will provide editorial support and market your book and if your book sells well enough they want to invest in your future" and now basically none of that is true anymore. books make it to shelves with noticeable errors and structural issues that could be addressed with one or two more rounds of developmental editing, authors are expected to do more and more of the marketing themselves to the point that they are expected to be social media influencers in their own right, and publishers appear to be prioritising flashy debut novels with huge advances they don't outsell, which means the author is less likely to get a follow-up deal.

you see an old post of yours thats dated like a month after you got introduced to Media and it says like “huh im kinda liking Blorbo Bingus? but he’s not really my favorite. he seems sillyyy though he’s neat i’m sure he’s nice :)” and you just