Things Are Pretty Great

Paranormal entities like demons aren’t native to our reality, so I love monster designs where they look human but something’s clearly wrong: Jerky movements, fast twitching, floating off the floor, etc.

Concept: Demons who look just like humans but are clearly not:

Visually distorted even when up close.

Even if your vision is poor you can still see the demon far away even if everything else is blurred.

Shadows from the wrong light source.

Mimics your breathing and blinking.

Voice can be heard clearly no matter where the demon is.

Mouth not in sync with words. 

Somehow breathing while speaking, or not breathing at all. 

Features change every time you look away from them or blink. For example, a mole on the nose has moved to the forehead, or they’re suddenly taller/shorter than you. 

Subtle sounds like scratching an itch or cloth being rustled by movement is much louder than it should be, or makes no noise at all. 

Reflection/shadows are not matching. 

When asking other people what the demon doing right now, all accounts are different. 

Because demons aren’t from this world, anything they interact with becomes “wrong”. For example, doors that usually open from the outside now open from within, and ceilings being lower or much higher than physically possible.

For some reason, I remembered my mother’s words.    

“I’m sorry, Izuku! I’m sorry. I’m sorry!”

That’s not it, Mom. Back then, what I wanted you to say… The words I wanted to hear were…

                                                          “You can become a hero.”

In 2008, archaeologists discovered fragments of flutes carved from vulture and mammoth bones at a Stone Age cave site in southern Germany called Hohle Fels. They were carved and played by Homo sapiens. These flutes are ancient, dating back 42,000 to 43,000 years, making them the oldest flutes in the world.

The oldest Homo sapiens flutes, that is. There is at least one flute made by a Neanderthal that is older. Found at a Neanderthal campsite at Divje Babe in northwestern Slovenia, the Neanderthal flute is estimated to be over 43,000 years old and perhaps as much as 80,000 years old.

Islands by Yvan Duque.

Artists on tumblr

So yet another admin of a Facebook group has decided that copyright doesn’t apply to them; a particular group has over 2000 pdfs of pagan books, including a LOT that are still under copyright. I mean, for pity’s sake, some of them even have “no-drm” in the file name, denoting that someone originally knew that book had digital rights management software attached to it, which means DON’T STEAL IT. My publisher for my books that are affects is already dealing with the DMCA takedowns, so I am here being unhappy that in 2017 this sort of thing is still happening.

Let me tell you something: when I write a book, I put literally hundreds of hours of my time into writing, editing and research, and that’s before the manuscript even goes to the publisher. If I’m self-publishing, I put in even more time with re-editing, proofreading, layout and interior design, book cover layout and design, file preparation, marketing and promotion and, of course, direct sales. The Tarot of Bones deck and book? Easily has a four-digit number of hours attached to it, and still counting since I am the sole distributor and marketer for it.

And unless I’m fortunate enough to get an advance from a publisher or have a successful crowdfunding campaign for a self-published project, I’m doing all this up-front work unpaid. Once I do get paid, tallying up the royalties and the income against the expenses? I’m not even making minimum wage. We authors have to play the long game, hoping that our books stay in print long enough to keep selling enough copies to maybe break even. I don’t know of a single pagan author who makes a living solely on book sales. Everyone has either a side hustle or a day job–or both.

Just because you legitimately bought a copy of the book doesn’t entitle you to ignore copyright. People who pirate have this idea that sharing ebooks is exactly the same as loaning a hardcopy version to a friend, or making photocopies of a few pages and giving them to a handful of students. Wake-up call, chum: sharing ebooks is not the same as passing a paperback around your coven. It can take months for that one paperback to work its way around thirteen people (longer if one of them “just needs a little more time, honestly!”) An ebook posted in a Facebook group, on the other hand, is going to hundreds, if not thousands, of people who can access it instantly.

It’s also not the same as getting a book from a library. Your average library book is only going to get checked out a dozen or so times a year, maybe a little more or less. Again, this is nowhere near the same as sending the PDF to thousands of people at once. Nor is that PDF the same as someone buying a secondhand copy at a thrift store; again, it can only go so far, so quickly. Sure, maybe a few of those people who read the pirated PDF might buy a new copy of the book, but the vast majority won’t. I’ve had my books pirated before, and if those people were all buying paperbacks from me I’d have a hell of a lot more money.

If I wanted people to be able to have access to a work that I put hundreds of hours of effort into free of charge, I would have released it into the wild myself, not chosen to enter it into an arrangement where I get an agreed-upon amount of compensation for it. So when some entitled individual decides that they have the right to ignore copyright and post entire PDFs online without my and/or the publisher’s permission, you know what that person is saying?

They’re saying that copyright doesn’t apply to them. They’re saying they are above the law. Sorry, but there is no way to legally justify sharing the ENTIRE book without permission. Fair use applies to a few hundred words, that’s it. “Educational use” is only within certain educational establishments, and again is piece and part, not the whole damned thing. Sharing a bunch of PDFs to random strangers on Facebook? Sorry, your educational defense doesn’t work.

They’re saying that I don’t deserve to decide how I will disseminate the book that I put hundreds of hours of work into.They’re saying “Fuck you, I don’t care what you want, and I don’t care how much work you put into this, because what I want is more important.” They ignore my choice to go through a publisher or to self-publish or to otherwise decide how to share what I’ve created.

They’re saying they don’t think my work is worth what I say it’s worth. When you give away an ebook of my work for free to thousands of people without permission, you are ignoring the price that I or my publisher put on that work. Again, few people who read the free version will actually buy the book after because they’re already got what they want, and all of that is lost potential customers. Which also means…

They’re saying that they don’t care whether I can afford to keep writing or not. As I said, I don’t make that much money off my books, certainly not enough to pay all my bills. A good month is one in which sales might pay one or two bills, or buy me some groceries. I have to do a lot of other things to make sure I can stay afloat. And at this level, the loss in revenue from lost book sales due to pirating hurts. Any pagan business owner, whether author or artist or shop owner, can tell you that the margin between paying the bills and not is pretty damned slim, so whether it’s piracy or shoplifting, theft makes it harder to get through each month.

They’re saying they’re entitled to my work. If you don’t respect my ability to be compensated for my work, but you think you should have access to it no matter what, you’re being entitled as all fuck. You wouldn’t expect your mechanic or your accountant or yourself to work free of charge. But somehow authors and other creatives are expected to create for free, and when we complain about theft we’re told we’re the ones in the wrong.

The sad thing is, there are people who will still feel that they have every justification for pirating books, whether pagan or otherwise. They’ll come up with excuses as to why they should be the exception. And they’ll keep wallowing in their ignorance and entitlement.

So as a way to counter that just a little, here’s my little bread and butter speech:

Yes, I get that a lot of you are broke AF and can’t necessarily buy the books you want. I am also a pagan author who is trying to make income in part through sales of my books and I am broke AF a lot of the time. The more people steal instead of buy books, the more we authors are prone to being broke AF.

Here are alternatives to stealing books:

–Only download books that you know for certain are public domain. Unless the book is the better part of a century old chances are it’s still under copyright somewhere; if the author is alive it’s almost certainly under copyright. Leland’s Aradia is public domain; Scott Cunningham’s works, even though he passed away decades ago, are not; in fact, pretty much all the books in this list are not public domain and most have living authors attached to them who are trying very hard not to be broke AF.

–Many authors have blogs that we use to share information, including some that may not be in our books. We also sometimes write articles for websites and other free publications. If you want info on a particular topic, just ask! We may already have something relevant that’s available for free. Many authors are also willing to answer questions via email. (Just give us a few days to respond.)

–Talk to other pagans online. Check out the #pagan, #witch and other related tags here on Tumblr. There are a lot of people writing a lot of good things for absolutely nothing.

–Ask your local library to order our books. This helps you and other people in the area because it means more book sales, and it gives the library a more diverse collection, and other library members can also then read the books.

–Ebook versions are often cheaper than paperbacks, but a LOT of those books above, especially older ones, are available secondhand really fucking cheap on Amazon. So it’s not like you always have to buy the paperback brand new.

–Yes, secondhand and library copies can be read by other people, same as books you borrow from a friend. But at least someone bought that paperback at some point, and only one person can read it at a time. A pirated ebook, on the other hand, can literally be sent to thousands of people in a matter of minutes.

–The truth is that books on spirituality are a luxury, not a necessity. You will not die if you don’t read the entirety of Judika Ille’s catalog. There is nothing in any pagan book, not even mine, that is so absolutely crucial to your practice that you absolutely cannot make things work without it. Yes, I get that reading can be an important escape from thinking about how broke AF you are, but there are SO MANY THINGS to read besides pirated books. I mean, here, you can start with this blog post I wrote a while back about specific ways in which pirating books hurts pagans.

–Like other luxuries, some books are worth saving up for. I have a HUGE wish list on Amazon, and every so often when I have the money I buy a book or two (usually from a small, local indy bookstore rather than Amazon.) So save up to treat yourself and read actual freebies (as opposed to pirated books) in the meantime.

–Think of actually paying for the books as being a way of showing gratitude to the authors who took the time and effort to distill their experience and knowledge into an easily accessible format. Industry standard royalties are 10%, so you’re really only giving us a couple bucks at the most, but when a lot of people who that, it adds up, and it helps us keep the lights on and not be quite as broke AF. (Or hey, buy the book directly from your author; we get to buy books at wholesale cost and resell them at retail, which means we get to keep more of the money!)

–Do you want us to be able to keep writing books for you to enjoy? THEN PAY US FOR OUR WORK. It’s as simple as that. Art theft of all sorts sucks giant owlbear balls, and that includes theft of books.

I’m in a comic anthology that’s currently Kickstarting! For The Love of Monsters is an Anthology about humans and the monsters they love. My story is about a scientist who goes into an unexplained phenomena to find her missing wife who had gone in on an earlier mission. It’s a little bit Annihilation and a little bit Roadside Picnic but with 100% more married lesbian scientists.

The book has four other comics by the amazing creators @sfemonster​ and @abby-howard​ and @irisjaycomics​ and @koricomics​! That’s TWO Kory/Koris for the price of ONE!! It’s a lot of great talent jammed into one little anthology, so check it out!