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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 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....

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.

I swear to god if he keeps asking me these fucking stupid polls I'm just going to kill him manually. Now, I think I'll say frosted tips, since... no, he's not asking what Kira would choose, he's asking what I would choose for Kira. Right? And obviously I'd rather confess to being Kira than have to, eugh, ask for clarification. Okay, think... got it.

Primarily based on these images

But also because I want Holmes and Morticia to speak French, and for him to fence with Gomez, and teach the kids about poisons and criminals

Holmes folded down the top of the newspaper he was reading so he could see me. “A letter from whom?”

“Not sure.” I turned it over to study it as best I could. The envelope was thick and expensive, postmarked from America. The ink was rich and black, and it smelled unexpectedly floral, with an odd sulphuric note underneath. “Looks to be a woman’s writing, I’d say.”

“If you would.” He held out a pale hand. I passed him the envelope and he neatly sliced it open with his pocket knife. A single page slipped out onto his breakfast plate. He unfolded it with a flick of his wrist, then smiled. “Ah! Morticia.”

“Morticia?”

“Addams. She is my second cousin.”

I was immediately intrigued, for Holmes so rarely talked about his relatives. It had taken several years after our meeting for him to bring up the subject of his elder brother, who lived and worked barely an hour’s walk away. I wasn’t surprised that a second cousin in America had gone unnoted until now.

“Unusual names run in the family, I see.”

Holmes smirked. “Her grandmother was my great-aunt Séraphine, who met and married a quite singular gentleman named Algernon Frump while travelling. They settled over in the States many years ago, and dear Morticia now resides there with her husband.”

“Why does she write you?”

“She is arranging a sort of family reunion on All Hallow’s Eve. Apparently it has been far too long since we have all seen each other.”

“How long is that?”

“Several years at least. It was certainly before you and I met.” 

“And will you oblige her?”

“I suppose I will.” He folded the letter and placed it neatly back in its envelope, tucking it into his inside pocket. “You’ve been angling for a holiday, my boy. Would this satisfy you?”

“Wouldn’t it be terribly rude?” I asked, startled. “She has invited you, not me.”

He tutted. “Nonsense, Watson! Morticia knows we live together, of course.”

“How?”

“She will have read your book.”

“Oh! Well that is kind of her. But a family reunion, Holmes, I am not—”

The Dress - Part 9 - END

Grooming involves someone deliberately trying to gain a minor's trust and open them up for sexual abuse. The intent is important here, because a lot of the actions that can constitute grooming are superficially completely benign.

For example, being kind, listening to a child when they talk about their problems or giving them gifts can be grooming if the person doing it intends to abuse the child, but otherwise it is just being a decent person.

That's developmentally normal - there are always edgy teenagers - and it's something kids have been doing for as long as kids have had widespread access to recorded media.

I know a lot of abuse survivors - people who experienced serious harm and lasting trauma from things other human beings did to them. It's not the same as just being weirded out because you played a game or read a book or watched a movie that was a little too graphic for you.