Someone:)

hey tumblr! did we know about the AI sharing option??

direct quote: "Prevent this blog's content—even in reblogs—from being shared with our licensed network of content and research partners, including those that train AI models."

to opt out of AI training on PC: on the left column, click on the "Account" tab. click on your blog's name/icon. on the right column click on "View blog". click the "Blog settings" button. scroll _all the way down to the last option_ right before "Blocked Tumblrs". hit the toggle button so it is lit up blue and the circle is on the right. on mobile: click the little person's head icon on the bottom menu (all the way on the right). click the gear icon in the top right. click on "Visibility" (instead of privacy for some reason??). hit the toggle button so it is lit up blue and the circle is on the right.

(if you do this on either PC or mobile, it will effect both. you don't have to do it twice for the same blog)

you are now opted out from your blog training AI. and make sure you do this for EVERY BLOG YOU OWN!

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.

if you are doing any creative project with someone else in which money will be involved, make a contract. Doesn't need to be super formal. Get something laid out in writing that very clearly indicates what the person you are asking to do something is responsible for, the timeline in which they're expected to complete it, and the compensation they'll get for doing so.

"oh but we've been best friends since eighth grade" make a fucking contract.

"oh but this probably won't make much money anyway" make a fucking contract.

"oh but I don't know all that legalese" there are tons of pretty accessible templates available online if you research, just make sure it's one that suits your needs and you understand what's in it (it can be written in normal language without legalese, as long as it's clear), and make a fucking contract.

>You see a strange creature dart under your car.

>CHECK UNDER CAR.

>You have discovered COTURNIX QUAIL CHICK.

>Side quest "WHY DID THE QUAIL CROSS THE ROAD" available.

>WHY DID THE QUAIL CROSS THE ROAD: Ask your next door neighbor about the COTURNIX QUAIL CHICK.

>NEIGHBOR: I haven't seen that before. Though I hear THE FARMER ACROSS THE WAY caught a strange bird on his property last week.

>WHY DID THE QUAIL CROSS THE ROAD: Ask THE FARMER ACROSS THE WAY about the COTURNIX QUAIL CHICK.

>THE FARMER ACROSS THE WAY: We don't keep birds. But you might want to ask THE FARMER DOWN THE ROAD. He has lots of birds.

>THE FARMER ACROSS THE WAY gave you two SWEET CORN and one CUCUMBER.

>WHY DID THE QUAIL CROSS THE ROAD: Talk to THE FARMER DOWN THE ROAD.

>THE FARMER DOWN THE ROAD: Oh! You found my COTURNIX QUAIL CHICK! He keeps escaping. Thank you so much!!

local matchmaker losing it over yet another unrealistic demand from the clientele 🤣🤣

To the Person Who Asked If I Was OK

Not as formative as Latin maybe but there were tones and cadences that would carry between concepts. Rocky’s ship had a sort of dictionary on it and Grace was slowly working his way through the “A”s now that he had enough of a basic grasp of the grammar and syntax. Which was more like thinking in octaves and rhythms. Their method of writing was even somewhat similar to what Grace knew of musical notation, sort of. Not with time signatures and bars exactly, but with octave and rhythm indicators similar to music notes. It was like translating into math but each equation sang itself to you.

Grace laughs to himself whenever he finds an Eridian phrase that maps onto an English translation “alphabetically”. Like how Agate begins with A in English and is part of the primary note group that leads this section of words (the equivalent “A” section of Rocky’s dictionary). So when he gets to the phrase for “Atonal” he is surprised at some of the alternate definitions.

In Eridian, the concept of “traditional” tonality carries with it cultural connotations. Notes are arranged and language constructed itself around that hierarchy so the lack of “reference to key or tonal center and using the tones of the chromatic scale impartially” had layers to it that Grace had had to pause in his reading to parse through.

The more he read, the more atonality sounded like an Eridian medical condition. A sort of unknowing transgression of social norms. An inability to copy and present accepted means of communication, a sort of mistranslation that can occur to Eridians with atonality.

The mental image of a piece of paper overlays the screen in front of him and the words Individualized Education Program drift across his mind’s eye. He thinks for a moment. Atonality reminds him of autism.

Grace has autism.

Grace has autism!

As he does for most new memories, Grace goes in search of Rocky. It will allow him to check if he’s right about the social ramifications of atonality and also test Rocky’s medical knowledge!

In all his excitement, Grace hadn’t been prepared for Rocky’s response to his revelation.