#$400 a month

[thebibliosphere]

I’ve talked about this with some friends, but the whole Spotify/audiobook drama legitimately makes me want to cry.

If you are unaware, earlier in the month, Spotify, who now owns FindawayVoices -- an audiobook distributor and one of the only major rivals to Audible on the creator end -- announced that their ToS would be updating.

The ToS updates were horrendous and basically allowed Spotify to make royalty-free translations of our works, as well as create derivatives, and basically just fuck us all over and feed all of our hard work into AI.

The backlash was so swift that less than 12 hours later, Spotify sent out a panicked “Sorry our wording wasn’t clear!” email with a promised update. Less than 24 hours later they issued a statement walking back the changes to the ToS, and have since been pulling a “we never said that, you misread our unclear verbiage” when in reality the verbiage was very clear (Not Spotify trying to pull a “gaslight gatekeep girl boss ✌️”), they just didn't expect to get dragged out into the metaphorical court of social media and get publicly annihilated with authors withdrawing their work from the platform and customers canceling their subscriptions left right and center.

Anyway, the walk back was acceptable enough for me to not feel the need to remove my work entirely from FindAway -- which is good because I would have lost access to the global audiobook market if I had, not to mention global library access. Which, again, is good. A significant chunk of my audiobook earnings comes from Libby, and I’d honestly be lost without that $20 every month. (we get paid quarterly but it breaks out to about $20 a month.)

What the walk back was not good enough for, was for me to trust them to keep streaming Hunger Pangs on their Spotify streaming service. Because quite frankly, I don't trust them not to pull some more ToS bullshit, and this is the part making me want to cry.

Why? Because I’m going through my royalty reports, and for the single month of December 2023 alone, Hunger Pangs was streamed so often it earned $400.

In one month.

That's more than I earn from Audible in a year.

That's more than I earn from kobo, b&n, libby, libro.fm and several author distributors combined in a year.

I’m going to scream.

[nipuni]

Casanova sketches!

[chubbychiquita]

i am almost 40 lbs up since the beginning of september 😩

[redstonedust]

my stardew valley hot take is that sebastian is NOT one of the teenage coded characters he is a mid 20s king to me. he has stepdad angst which in my experience is really only a thing if you're old enough to remember the step parent coming into your life so he has to be at least like 5 years older than maru imo, who is also an adult. like i know he hangs out with abby and sam who are definitely on the younger end but small towns are just like that. who else is he gonna talk to, shane?? penny?? he's a 25 year old shut in who can only make friends younger than him because he's stunted by depression and i will die on this hill. it makes him relatable.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

For anyone wanting distraction...

A few general:

TV Writing

Script Slug

BBC Script Library

500+ Horror screenplays (1922 - present)

over 100 unproduced superhero screenplays

A few specific:

Charmed (1998) scripts

Doctor Who scripts: Classic Who, Whoniverse

Gilmore Girls scripts

Hannibal scripts

Highlander scripts

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia scripts

Kolchack: The Night Stalker scripts

Lost scripts

Rick and Morty scripts

The Simpsons scripts

Star Trek (TOS, TAS, TNG) scripts

Supernatural scripts (TV Writing mirror)

Xena: Warrior Princess scripts

The X-Files scripts

[zu-is-here]

Next part of rock band! Kross! Kross!

<– • –>

[saint-ambrosef]

"interest rates" this, "interest rates" that. you know what is also a major cost prohibition in homebuying for people? high property taxes.

[here-comes-the-moose]

*in the Rebellion inside Echo’s minivan ship*

Rebel, showing Echo some photos: Yeah these are my kids. A boy and a girl. I do this all for them. How many do you have?

Echo: I have five.

Rebel: Aw you must have your hands full! How old are they?

Echo: Four are 312 months and the youngest is 156 months.

Rebel: …

Echo: …

Rebel, trying to do the math: How old did you say you were again?

[e-turn]

That moment from Chapter 7 of IMBI

Oh it has my heart in its claws

hey @dandylovesturtles sorry it's me again

Do I express how much I love IMBI enough? Anyway, I love it with my whole heart.

[deoidesign]

Just some thoughts about recent WEBTOON discourse from an originals creator. I recognize my inherent bias in this situation.

But please recognize that saying "fuck you" to a company means supporting the workers, not making them out to be unfortunate suckers... "would have/could have/should have's" don't get people out of situations.

"I never would have signed with them" is an incredibly tone-deaf thing to say. "this is why you shouldn't put all your eggs in one basket" is true, but it doesn't help people who are contractually obligated into exclusivity.

Most of us are making merch, running patreons, trying to get book deals, etc... and most of us aren't able to stop working and still pay our bills. we're trying. we'd all love to, but we can't.

If you really want things to be better, maybe try not putting down the people who are in the bad situation? it ends up feeling like people using our pain and mistreatment as an outlet to advertise themselves...

Our company is getting worse and worse by the year and we're risking a lot to talk about it! Please listen! The only power we have is complaining about things, and it's risky every time!

[beaft]

multiple people came by my stall yesterday at the art market and told me i was lowballing myself and i should be charging way more, and i'm like, on the one hand Thank You and you're probably right, charging £15 for a sculpture or painting is ridiculous when you factor in the costs of materials and how long it took to make. but on the other hand this art fair is mostly populated by gay twentysomethings who would not spend £100 on an original painting even if they had it to spend

[bamsara]

Also why did July become of the most busiest, hottest and most expensive month of my life

I need August to become boring as shit. No more shit happening to me, no more emergencies, no weddings, no birthdays, no health scares, no more heatwave, no more social obligations, no nothing I just want to stay home, make stickers for my life blood aka patreons and write fanfiction in an air-conditioned space PLEASE

[mirakurutaimu]

all landlords die

[sphor-art]

Have some OCs

Doing artfight this year! I'll try and keep up pace :-)

[mickeysclubhouse]

"Hey, Goof, you know we can prove Pete's wrong about us if we just work hard and stick together."

[stealingpotatoes]

every year i think "there's no way I can draw as much as I did last year" and then then I make myself look like an idiot. ending 2023 with a genuinely disgusting number of arts this year:

anyway call me a tree bc i'm abt to get real sappy: thank you all so much for a genuinely INSANE year in terms of how much i drew, how much i improved, and how much LOVELY support i've gotten!!!!!!! like my followercount more than quadrupled from the start of the year and i just can't believe?? there's this many of u?? that like my art???????? dead on the floor i love you all SO much!!!! thank u!!!!!!!!