All The Pretty Things

It's not a stupid question! (How could you know if you hadn't seen it happen?)

So, first off, if anyone doesn't know what an "Imprint" is vs a "publisher" vs a "group", here's an explainer.

To be clear, using PRH as an example: While your contract may specify an imprint, your contract is WITH PRH. And PRH royalties (regardless of imprint) come from PRH, not from whatever individual imprint. At the end of the day, PRH is the one getting the publisher earnings.

(How they allot those earnings, whether particularly successful imprints get a budget commensurate with their books earnings, or what have you? No idea on that one!)

So OK, that answers your question: The money earned on the books goes to the publisher, who in turn gives the agent/author their cut.

But what happens to the books? Well, sticking with our example of PRH: When Dial closed recently, the books just got assigned to a different imprint within Penguin Young Readers Group. Many/most (possibly all???) of those Dial books will be Putnam books going forward.

Backlist books that are still selling will keep selling exactly as they have been, and the only thing that will change from the author's perspective is that the book, when reprinted, will have the Putnam colophon (logo) on the spine rather than Dial.

Books that were still in progress at the time of the closure will either have the same editor, just at a different imprint, OR, if their editor was laid off, they will be assigned a new editor. (It's also possible that a small number of books would be cancelled -- I haven't HEARD of that happening in this particular case, but it's definitely POSSIBLE, if there's nobody to take over!)

-- OF COURSE, there are other possible scenarios of imprints (or even whole publishers) closing, consolidating, or being bought. It happens with some regularity.

The publisher, imprint or list could be bought by another company entirely. In that case, the seller would "assign rights" to the buyer. (All publishing contracts should have an "Assignment" clause for this very reason - what happens when a publisher wants to sell their list, goes bankrupt, or gets bought out, or whatever? It's in the assignment clause!)

Examples of this: Disney sold a bunch of their Hyperion list to Hachette/Little Brown. Those books are now published by LittleBrown, and royalties, etc, go through LB.

Algonquin Young Readers was bought by Hachette and then subsequently got absorbed by LittleBrown and shuttered - those books that are still in print are now LB books. (No, it's not always LittleBrown lol. Those are just the two examples that popped into my head!)

assume people are trying their best, want to be good and treat others well, and that when their behavior doesn’t align with those goals, it’s because of outside factors that are pushing them to their limit

i have a patron who is mean as a snake. won’t respond when you greet her, barks orders at you, and is generally nasty

i couldn’t stand her & dreaded the moment she walked in the door, until i stopped one day & went “wow, to walk around feeling unhappy enough to treat people so horribly every day. what a difficult way to live.”

and so my tactics changed. i made a point to be extra kind & friendly to her. she changed her hair color one day & when i complimented her on it, she was very caught off guard & said “oh, thank you. my whole life i’ve thought i was ugly.”

now we’re at the point where she shows me pictures of watercolor paintings she made & says hi when she walks in the door. she’s not my favorite patron, but she’s perfectly okay. most unpleasant people aren’t inherently rotten, they’re just unhappy & coping with it poorly

and when they say "have you tried SHEIN" I have to say no they operate on slave labor and also the waste they produce is ecologically significant (and also I hate synthetic fibers)

and when they say "use chatgpt to write the marketing script" I have to say actually I'm anti-ai in generative capacity, it should be used sparingly by scientific/medical communities to streamline and improve accuracy but generative ai is actually Evil

And when they say!! Are you watching the new Harry Potter I have to say NO!!! JK Rowling is a cartoon supervillain trying to actually kill trans women!!!!!

the city of los angeles

the city of new york

sex

how drinking alcohol works

how getting high works

how a child of any age speaks

how nuclear physics work

how [my job] works

how debilitating being shot in the shoulder is

how hypothermia works

things I have never before seen someone fake their way through writing about, until today:

SHRIMP COCKTAIL:

banahbanah: #flashback to that one fic where Peter Parker frets about drinking shrimp cocktail because of the alcohol

generaldeliciousness: adding: what a prawn/shrimp cocktail is

#why is your character turning it down because they're under 21 #do you think prawn cocktail is a cocktail #this lives in my brain rent-free constantly #the rest of the fic was so normal #and good enough that i'll still re-read it #but bro

And then many, MANY, people wondering if this was actually authour mistake, since Peter really would do this!

POMEGRANATES:

zhajhassa: #haha where's that post that was like someone describing someone eating a pomegranate but they ate it like an apple

thornhands: #once someone wrote persephone biting into a whole Pomegranate #had to stop and stare at a wall for a minute

sungsingsanguine: I once saw someone very confidently write about a character eating slices of pomegranate.

FRUIT TREES:

zagreuses-toast: #given a very endearing glimpse into a writers blindspots by seeing them describe someone sitting under a ''pineapple tree''

salatrash: I remember something about picking watermelons... OF A FUCKING TREE

baander: #cranberry trees

DOUGH/BATTER:

maycelium: #I'm a chef so I'm really used to people not accurately describing how to cook food #But I was surprisingly flabbergasted when someone was writing making a cake and was kneading it. Which uh #Not necessary for cake. It was interesting for sure but just bizarre

livebloggingmydescentintomadness: #the one that drove me nuts was when a character set aside a batch of PASTA DOUGH 'to rise' #pasta doesn't have yeast!! #it does need to REST but it will never RISE #you do not want an airy crumb on your noodles

lovesodeepandwideandwell: #THE ONE WHERE THEY MADE COOKIES BY LADLING BATTER INTO A TRAY

Some other topics:

Indian Bullfrog (Hoplobatrachus tigerinus), mating, family Dicroglossidae, India

In the breeding season, the males turn bright yellow.

The heat’s been brutal this summer but we still gotta eat! If you’re like me, heat might suppress your appetite, and the last thing any of us want is to sweat over a hot stove and oven when it’s already boiling outside. Here are some of my favorite hot-weather recipes to keep hydrated and fed with when the weather is unbearable! (All recipes should be un-paywalled).

NYT’s best gazpacho (lives up to its name!!)

Persian cold cucumber soup (if you like tzatziki you will like this!)

Eric Kim’s cold noodles with tomato (infinitely riffable Korean flavor profile — for a creamier and less brothy take, try these cold sesame noodles too)

Vietnamese chicken and herb salad (this is an excellent time to get a rotisserie chicken so you don’t have to turn the oven on)

Radish sandwiches with butter and salt (and in a similar vein, if you dig this flavor combo you should try this Polish cottage cheese dip on some good rye bread or even crackers)

It’s still a little early in the season, but you can never go wrong with a BLT (or, if you don’t eat bacon, try this tomato furikake sandwich in its place)

Infinite iterations of pasta salad! You can use anything you got but here is a template I like.

Assorted dense bean salads. This back pocket canned salad is a weird combo of jarred ingredients but it slaps, this hoagie-inspired one is super satisfying, and cowboy caviar is a classic for a reason.

Poke bowls! Canned tuna mixed with some kewpie mayo and sriracha is a budget-friendly riff on the usual ahi and makes everything taste like a spicy tuna roll, but use whatever proteins you like, this is more of a loose template.

I HAVENT SEEN THIS IN A CDRAMA SINCE FATED HEARTS OMGGGggg *flails wildly*

AND THEN SHE THROWS HERSELF OVER HIM TO PROTECT HIM I —

THE WAY HE CLUTCHES HER TO HIM HELP

*sOBS*

Restarted my Fuyao rewatch and they are still my ultimate battle couple - competent x competent, deadly x deadly, metal x metal, force of nature x force of nature.