Ruth is writing...

I say I don’t think people realise - the truth is I hope they don’t, because the alternative is that they don’t care. That’s certainly the impression I’ve got from Twitter, where a truly horrifying number of people are arguing that copyright on  all books should expire after thirty years, and you should be able to acquire books for  free after that. This … would not just mean that everyone gets free books. It would mean if you write a book at 30, not only do you lose any royalties from it at 60, but Disney can take it, make a franchise out of it, Scrooge McDuck it up in a pool of money while you starve because writers don’t get workplace pensions.

Some threads on the unintended (?) consequences of this. I can’t go over it all again. John Brownlow NK Jemisin Michael Marshall Smith Me Marina Lostetter Kari Dru and others William Gibson and others

There are plenty of others. It’s not that this actual idea will actually happen, but I do think it reinforces the idea that it’s not only okay, but sometimes actually virtuous to search for ways to enjoy writers’ work without paying for it. Like it’s somehow a step towards a better world. Not just at the reader end, to be fair, at the employer end too. And I do see a lot of people here too who are all about supporting workers unless the workers are writers in which case fuck’em. 

read indie titles and buy directly from the press or bookshop.org

if you can’t afford books, rent them from the library. i don’t know an author alive who doesn’t support their books being rented from libraries. you get the book for free, the author gets your support. it’s a win-win

other than a few huge titles a year, advances for debut writers are in the 4 digits, and that payment is spread out over an entire year. so i might spend 2 years writing a book and make a $2000 advance on it

15% of that advance goes to the agency who sold the book. now i’m at $1700

the advance is disbursed over an entire year, so that means i’ll make $425 every 3 months for a year

this is where you, the reader, come in: if i don’t make back my advance in sales, i don’t get royalties. plus, printing physical books isn’t an on-demand endeavor. if i get a $2000 advance, there might only be a first-run printing of 5000 copies or fewer, and if it doesn’t sell, my book won’t get a second printing, and i might not get a second book deal

let’s say the book costs $35 in hardback (which is a lot, i know) and my agent negotiated a 25% royalty rate. that means i get $8.75 per book. but again, i have to give 15% of that to the agent. i’m now at $7.43 per book

that means, for a 5000 print run, if i sold *every book* (and that’s not possible), i would only make (with 15% given to the agent) around $29k

BUT if a book doesn’t sell off the shelves, a book store has the option of returning the book to the warehouse, where it’s destroyed and recycled, so really it’s not even a circulation of 5000

that means a GREAT selling book, one that gets on the NYT bestseller list, nominated for awards, etc. may only provide a gross revenue, ever, of less than $30k

most books, a grand majority of books, are not even close to being this successful

if i manage to publish one book every other year, and if i’m massively successful, that means i’m still only making maybe MAYBE $15k per year

but again, this scenario is a near best-case exception to a very dismal rule

You just now cannot sue if you are not told your rights.

Unfortunately, this will mostly harm those unaware of their rights. So will deeply, and mostly, effect uneducated people and those unfamiliar with U.S. laws (such as new immigrants).

They (cops) are not only further protected, but now are allowed to not tell you when you have that right. Which honestly can just be confusing for anyone.

It’s fucked up and definitely targets marginalized individuals, in addition to protecting cops. Double lose.

If you are taken into custody for Anything, you invoke your right to a lawyer (“I am invoking my right to a lawyer. Here is my lawyer’s number/Please assign me a public defender.”)

Then you shut the fuck up. “I am invoking my right to remain silent.” Do not make small talk. Do not answer ANY questions. If at any point you do (like to ask for the bathroom, a drink, etc) immediately repeat that you are invoking your right to silence. They will try to get you to talk. They’re allowed to try to get you to break your silence, and they will do so. They’ll make you wait for the lawyer.

Monoke redraw of my D&D ocs Eros (top) and Amino (bottom)

Backstory under the cut

INTP personality types

Vampire the Masquerade clans

D&D classes

RPG Alignment chart

your fave lil drinky drink or coffee order

your main in LOL/WOW/Overwatch

Monoke redraw of my D&D ocs Eros (top) and Amino (bottom)

Backstory under the cut

Zoos don’t look like this anymore.

They look like this:

Good zoos do not keep their animals in “tiny spaces” with no enrichment.  I’m not pro-roadside zoo.  I’m pro-accredited zoo.  Zoos are incredibly important for conservation and education.

Are Zoos Necessary?

The Importance of Zoos: Resource Post

Why Zoos and Aquariums Matter: Assessing the Impact of a Visit to a Zoo or Aquarium

Why I Want to be a Keeper

Except the sea lions are blind. One was found as an adult after suffering a gun shot wound to the face that destroyed his eyes. The other was found as an adolescent, weak and starving because it had been blinded and unable to hunt. So they were rescued and introduced and the zoo built them a nice pool where they can swim and sunbathe and people toss them fish. It’s not the biggest exhibit, or the fanciest. But it’s a home for them, where they’re safe and well fed. Sea lions aren’t the most romantic of animals, but they’re a part of SF culture and a lot of us have a soft spot for the loud, bulbous things. And because of zoos, these two get to live long, happy lives.

They also do work with camel populations because the local human population use the camels for food sources the zoos help monitor the camels health.

Another zoo, I want to say it’s the Oregon zoo but don’t quote me on that, is helping female inmates. The zoo works with the female prisons by encouraging the inmates to assist in the breeding and raising of endangered species of butterflies. They plant the specific plants that the butterflies and catapillars need, raise them, and release them. These inmates get noted in any scientific journals that get published. They are giving these inmates a sense of accomplishment and validation.

Zoos not only save species but bring together and assist communities in an effort to save the environment. Zoos, good zoos, are essential to the future and I will fight anyone who tries to say otherwise.

HOWEVER

Nothing good comes of the idea that ONLY queer folks should tell queer stories or portray queer characters, or that it’s okay to critique and harass straight folks purely for telling queer stories.

Why?

1. Segregation is not going to work in our favor. We know how “well make your own, then” plays out when the other group has the resources and institutional power. Especially if there’s no one even making them pay lip service to “separate but equal.” It’s not going to be any better if the segregation is self-imposed.

2. Saying straight folks can’t make queer media gives them a convenient excuse to simply not include any queer characters at all in the majority of stories, and I thought we hated that? I thought that was explicitly a bad thing? We WANT straight creators to be doing their best to write us well so we’ll be represented in a full range of mainstream media. Saying they can’t do it right and shouldn’t try lets them off the hook.

3. It puts closeted queer creators in a bind. Either they stay closeted and be harassed by angry queer folks, they come out and expose themselves to harassment from bigots, or they simply never tell queer stories, their own stories. The world gets worse for some subset of queer folks and fewer authentic queer stories get told. Net loss.

4. It makes the small pool of out queer creators the arbiters of queer narratives, which sucks for people who don’t see themselves well represented. There is no single definitive queer narrative and the smaller the pool of Approved Creators the more we risk instating a false one.

5. It opens the door to further divisions within the community. If a straight person can’t possibly understand a trans person well enough to write about or act them, can a cis gay person? So should a cis gay man ONLY write characters who are cis gay men? Ridiculous. No, all queer people are not alike and do not have the same experiences. So either we need to overcome that to learn about and empathize with other people and stand in solidarity, or we’re all going to splinter off into our own little bubbles which, again, is explicitly bad for both our real-life community and our fiction.

you've been struck by

If someone adds your fic to their collection, they can hide it! They can mark the collection as unrevealed and your fic will be unreadable to anyone other than them! If you're writing works for a surprise event, like a Secret Santa, this is really nice.

But if you're just writing and someone adds your fic to a collection for their own personal use and marks it as unrevealed, that. . . really sucks.

I bookmarked this fic in 2017, almost 5 years ago. Knowing me, the fic itself was probably at least a couple years old at the time I bookmarked it.

This is a 5+ year old fic that is completely inaccessible now because it was added to a collection that, as far as I can tell, is literally just for the collection owner's own reference. There's almost 30 fics in the collection, all of them unrevealed.

If you're the creator of the work:

1) Select the "Edit" button from the work's page and scroll down to the "Associations" section.

2) Select the red (×) beside the collection name you want to remove next to "Post to Collections / Challenges".

3) Select "Post" to apply the change. The work will be immediately removed from the collection.

I'm not sure if you get an alert if your fic is marked as unrevealed though, so keep an eye on the collections that your works are part of.

Author: Austin Chant

Synopsis:

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it is no longer out of print!