Stoic Wanderer

I wanna eat a meal with you like other couples.

Seriously.

Ai-generated garbage is flooding the self-publishing market. It works as a numbers game- put out ENOUGH fake crap and eventually someone’s aunt will buy them the ebook as an unwanted gift, and you’ll have made two dollars. This tactic works at SCALE, which means real independent titles are now a needle amongst a haystack of slop.

If you have read a book this year that has less than 5 reviews, your rating is an algorithmic spotlight on that needle.

A one sentence review helps. Really. A star rating helps if you really can’t think of anything to say, but if you can muster up even “I laughed at the part about the tabby cat” you are doing indie authors a favor like you cannot believe.

Marriage Equality Achieved!

Today, January 23, the marriage equality law officially takes effect. Thailand now recognizes the right of all couples, regardless of gender, to legally register their marriage.

At 6.15am, the first couple, 33 year old Ploynapas Jirasukon and 32 year old Kwanporn Kongphet arrived, hand in hand, to register their marriage. Together for 17 years since high school, the Bangkok-based couple radiated joy as they became Thailand’s first officially recognised LGBTQ+ married couple.

Ploynapas shared her excitement, “We’re thrilled to be the first couple to register our marriage. It’s a proud moment, but there’s still more to achieve, like equality in child custody and legal titles.”

Sumalee, 64, and Thanaporn, 59, became the first same-sex couple to register their marriage at Bang Rak today.

Traveling all the way from Phetchabun, they chose Bangkok's "district of love" for this special occasion.

Permsap and Puangphet, the second couple to register their marriage in Pathumwan District, shared that they had waited 17 years for this moment, calling it a meaningful achievement.

Although they could have registered in Pai, they chose Pathumwan to express pride in exercising the same legal rights as other Thais. They wore traditional Tai Yai attire from Mae Hong Son, reflecting one partner's heritage, to make the occasion special.

They described the milestone as a collective success for the LGBTQ+ community, achieved through shared efforts.

They hoped future legal changes would address honorific titles for transgender individuals, ensuring fairness for all. The couple encouraged others to stay determined in the fight for equality, believing that persistence leads to success. They also urged countries without equal marriage laws to continue advocating for change.

Reflecting on a past accident, they shared the difficulties caused by the lack of legal recognition. Despite being together for eight years at the time, one was unable to sign medical consent due to the law, underscoring the need for equal marriage rights.

Submissions will be open through next Sunday, January 26th.

You can submit as many times as you want.

Submission guidelines:

Must be queer

Must be fiction

That's it. Those are the requirements.

Accepting all genres: literary fiction, contemporary, romance, horror, mystery/thriller, SFF, historical, works that transcend the concept of genre itself, etc

Accepting all age categories (e.g., adult, YA, middle-grade)

Accepting all years of publication

Can be a standalone work, a series, or a novella

For series: usually it'll make the most sense to submit either the series as a whole or just the first book, but not each book individually. There's exceptions of course where it makes more sense to submit individually (e.g., books that are marketed as a "series" but have no plot/character overlap)

The google form will not collect any personal information such as email address

What “counts” as a queer book?

I’m not going to get overly prescriptive, but: For modern books, something that features queer characters/perspectives/themes in a significant or substantive way.

My guiding principle is: if someone is looking for queer books in a particular genre, would they be satisfied with this book as actually fulfilling that promise?

BREAKING NEWS

We have extended our deadlines for Issues 11 and 12!

Send us your short stories and novellas!! We're looking forward to digging in.

Happy New Year!

I won't be going anywhere.

Duck Prints Press will continue to publish books.

We will keep amplifying LGBTQIA+ voices.

We will keep publishing kink and porn.

nonny im gonna be honest: it is WILD to me to hear you say. I feel like im doing garbo ar social media at the moment, struggling to get any eyes/interaction/feedback on my tarot store, let alone any significant traction with customers. So like, its sweet of you to say, but very untrue in my opinion. "Good at social media" - im not even on any other platforms aside from this one.

So. Let me take another run at it.

My best tips for social media are to invite yourself into spaces. I go through tags I find interesting and just start engaging. Folks who find it weird/off putting make it pretty clear right away that they don't want to play ball. I don't take it personally and just move on.

As far as things like optimal posting habits, tagging and networking and things like that? I got no clue :P I wish I did; I would love to know how to drive engagement.

Finally, I would really recommend checking out @thebibliosphere. If anyone can be said to be an "influencer" on tumblr, Joy has got it figured out. She also has writerly advice from her time as an editor, and her experience writing and publishing Hunger Pangs (which is a fabulous book that everyone should definitely read).

And honestly, Nonny, the advice you are seeking will vary depending on which platforms you use. What works here on Tumblr doesn’t work on Instagram.

But from the Tumblr perspective, one of the best thing you can do is curate authentic friendships with other creators and be unapologetically hyped about their work.

Don’t just consider it in terms of marketing or reach. I’m talking about finding genuine happiness in other people’s success and creative endeavors. Create the supportive environment you want to be in, build friendships, not just networks.

Networking is important—publishing notoriously runs on who you know, even in self-pub and indie circles—but some people can be very jaded and cynical about it and come to regard other people as a means to an end, and no one wants to be known as that person.

Make friends with other authors. Make friends with artists. And if you’re someone who struggles with social stuff and friends is too much, be someone who shows up and hypes other people up regardless. That energy is eventually returned to you, even if it doesn’t feel like it at first.

Also try to post consistently and use the tags relevant to what you’re posting about, but honestly I’m shit at that too. My book turns five this year and some people who have been following for over a literal decade still don’t know I’m an author. That’s just the nature of the beast 😅

Remember that the most important part of authoring is not to be good at social media. The most important part is to tell a good story.

If you can do that, and you can do a little bit of social media about it (you don't have to be perfect and polished about it at the beginning! Or the middle, tbh!), then all the promo stuff will get easier over time. A trickle of people will discover your Really Good Book and stick around, and then you write another one, and another trickle of people come in because the first group said "hey, this was good", and then you write another one, and the trickle starts getting bigger... And so on.

If you CAN'T write a good book, then even if you're doing the best social media work in the world, it won't really matter in the long run.

Was armour really as useless as it is in fantasy?

Remember, if armour was easily pierced, it wouldn’t be worth the cost and weight, but if it was NEVER pierced, it wouldn’t have been worth the effort and cost of making and training with weapons. The truth must always lie somewhere in the middle.

Check out my curated collection of books and graphic novels featuring LGBTQ characters and themes and spanning various genres, from science fiction to the supernatural to fantasy and beyond.