#at least you have the guarantee that the publishers and editors will keep the author on track

[gpedia]

There's a preconception about fanfic that it's likely to be abandoned or cast aside when the author's interest swings away from that particular phase in their life.

And i guess people that read fanfics find it easier to get too invested in a story written about the characters they love that talks about them in a way that they want these characters talked about.

So it hurts more when the story you've been following so rabidly just throws you off the cliff because the 13 year old writing it decided they were now more interested in — oh I don't know — harry × ron plat fics now — and so they decide to stop updating that draco × luna star-crossed lovers coffeeshop AU or whatever it is you've read like 515K words of already.

been seeing that ‘AO3 Should Notify Me When This Fic is Complete’ post a lot, often accompanied by a whole slew of 'omg yes I refuse to read WIPs’ and I gotta ask:

why is it that fanfiction seems to be the only thing people won’t interact with unless it’s complete??

like… people pre-order the next book in a series so they can read it as soon as it comes out. people go to midnight releases of the next movie in a franchise. people listen to singles from albums that haven’t been released yet. binge watching kinda ruined this for a while but people look forward to thursdays if that’s when the next episode of their show airs or wednesdays for the next issue of a comic or monday night for their sportsball.

and in between updates, we talk about those things!! we recap and speculate and savor and rec and all those fun things that build community around the stuff we enjoy!!

so why do so many people refuse to do that with fanfiction??

[thebibliosphere]

wrt the AI thing, the doom is in what is just good enough to no longer pay people for it. Machine translation isn't good! The sentences are nice and often grammatically correct, but the information hasn't been accurately transferred a lot of the time (genre doesn't matter, but DeepL is pretty good for news articles, less good for other stuff). AI text is sentences that are made of words likely to go together it doesn't understand any of it. Especially if you want to write something a bit experimental, if you want to use specific words to evoke specific things etc etc... true art will not die, no matter how much some people try.

I mean, yeah, but that’s also just a progression of what’s already been happening for years. Publishing houses and companies have been outsourcing to the cheapest bidder for decades now due to lack of labor regulation and the death of unions. That’s what the major Harper Collins strike was about. Even while publishing houses are making record profits, they’re not paying their editors a living wage.

When I worked for a medium sized mainstream publisher back in the late 2000’s to 2010s, they used to remind us daily that if we didn’t hit our editing quota there were people on Freelancer and Fiver who would do it for a lot cheaper— and I was already earning below minimum hourly wage, that you could “make up” by taking on extra work.

(The salaried editors were the only ones with guaranteed income, the rest of us were told we were just lucky to be there.)

And multiple times a month they’d eliminate someone to ‘cut costs’ and the work would land on your desk and you’d be told to get it done because they knew we had no other options. It was this or unemployment at the start of what would be the second global recession of my life.

Eventually we did all get laid off and they opted for the cheaper, subpar labor. And while it sucked to be unemployed at that time, the relief I felt was real. I was no longer self-medicating with caffeine and alcohol to cope with the work environment. I was no longer churning out 100-200k a week in edits and rewrites to keep a job that treated me like shit. I missed it, because I loved working with my authors and editing and writing was something I loved. But I did not miss the rat race they had us locked into for the sake of profit over quality.

The fact that Harper Collins staff, one of the biggest publishers in the world who contribute to the monopoly that creates that environment, were also not making enough to live, tells me things have only gotten worse inside the industry. Unless, of course, you’re near the top of the corporate ladder. In which case you probably can’t understand why all the peasants are so unhappy.

The machines will not fully replace us—at least probably not in my lifetime. But that doesn’t mean what’s already happening isn’t bad.

AI is just the next wrung on this sordid descent into exploitation and elimination. We need better labor laws. We need better protections. We need fucking respect.

[onewomancitadel]

I actually wrote a post yesterday about fandom critical posts on here going too far and deleted it because I felt I was fighting imaginary ghosts, but this is going too far, in my view; I wouldn't take it to the post because I doubt OP would care, though.

I don't keep a reading tally. I read. I thoroughly endorse reading as panacea to the soul and for developing the mind. To say that fanfiction don't count as books, is it because

Fanfic is published online

Fanfic is often of poor quality

Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Fanfic is derivative

I can't peer into OP's head, and this is really more about background radiation of fandom criticism (when I am often myself reflective on the matter), but these are the ones I can glean. 'Sour gummy worms' certainly suggests number 2 is the salient point.

Fanfic is published online

Is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect not a book for having been published online in 1994? It's a sci-fi cult classic which has never been officially published because it's too strange and offensive. Clearly, in the web age now, online is not the problem. Once upon a time RWBY was a "webshow", now it's just a show.

2. Fanfic is often of poor quality

Many popular releases are of poor quality. Masturbatory "litfic" navelgazing hyperrealism is of forgettable quality. If we lowered the bar to "literally unintelligibly written" like some fanfics are, then yes, I will allow that fanfic does not even have a base quality filter from the proofreading perspective or even indeed necessarily obeys the traditional literary form. At least if you pick up a published book, it's generally guaranteed to actually be legible. Fair suck of the sauce bottle. But is a published book with poor proofreading, or rejection of literary norms, now not a book? Is a book defined more by publishing practice or over actual discrete novelistic output? If it's the former, we can end the post here. If it's the latter, we can keep going.

3. Fanfic does not have a middleman (agent, editor, publisher) between author and reader

Are self-published books not books? This is another problem related to the first point; my favourite romance novel, The Land of the Beautiful Dead, is self-published. It had no middleman. It would've never been published if it had a middleman, I suspect: too long, too literary, too weird.

4. Fanfic follows predictable tropes, formulae, character, etc.

Take that up with the romance genre, and the historic science fiction conventions, and probably even fantasy too, whilst we're here. Genre fiction has never enjoyed the reception that literary fiction has, and is often intellectually demarcated, but genre fiction books are still books. That being said - I'm sure somebody has made the argument in the past that they don't count as reading, but consuming. I've certainly encountered creative writing teachers who don't just view genre fiction as silly, but actively hostile to real writing.

5. Panfandom practices mean you can be reading more about fanon-wide accepted archetypes as opposed to canonical texts

Panfandom practice is really something that makes me think about fanfic not just as a particular medium of creation but the cultural archetypes assigned to it. I think it's true that recent social media culture has forced more stringent and constrained interpretation of a given canon text and encouraged Migratory Slash Fandom-esque type approach to storytelling... but in some ways I think that's sort of inevitable? All practices have particular cultures. Anything that gets burrowed is repurposed within reason. If Spirk is the heritage of fanfic, the reason slash is predominant is probably because slash was the foundation from the beginning. That being said, I don't think that literary convention means it is not literary. By nature, it has a convention.

6. Fanfic is derivative

This is where you get those really embarrassing "Dante wrote fanfic" justifications when they are not meaningfully the same. But the impetus for this is the fact that transformative storytelling is normal, not aberrant, and not just fangirls wanting their dollies to smush together. When you have a story told to you, you get enjoyment from telling it to others. That's how folkloric traditions survive in part. There's a gross tradition there that I actually can't even really get into, but fanfic is certainly different in terms of cultural value (it is not of religious or philosophical or moral value, for one), medium, tone, genre, conventions, etc. and these are radical divergences from fucking Dante.

Like, let's be honest, it's not about fanfic not counting as "reading" (reading as in reading a book), it's about the embarrassment of fandom, the happy resurgence of cringe culture about fandom, the shittiness of crappy fanfic which flanderises and ruins the characters, and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish transformative fandom from the canon text and the poorly behaved fans who cannot distinguish the canon text altogether. The real accusation here is less that whether fanfic materially counts as a book and reading and more to do with the fact that fanfic is seen as childish and intellectually offensive, which is hostile to reading culture. I follow people on here who say they're too old for it at twentysomething. As a fellow twentysomething, I enjoy fanfic more now than I did as a teenager.

Relatedly there is an issue of fanfic readers celebrating the fact that they don't read books. So they themselves are somewhat responsible for this; there's a proud ignorance to it, that fanfic does things what published work doesn't or is afraid to, that fanfic is free, that they can access fic authors churning out work for them to binge when they want and just move onto the next thing without a thought. This is not a correct perspective either. Reading is good for you. Fanfic can function here as hyperpalatable convenience which supplants expanding your palate. To even know what your palate is, you need to develop that aesthetic and narrative language, which means not just reading the canon but being curious and reading as widely as you are able.

Part of the issue with fanfic, in my view, is that the practice is incestuous. Not just that it has its own conventions, but that it is largely limited by endorsing this very dichotomy that OP of this post is similarly endorsing. Fanfic practices beget fanfic practices beget fanfic practices. The gulf gets bigger.

Is fanfic, then, a book in the sense that it widens your palate? If it's an incestuous tradition, it can leave you out to the cold of broader literary narrative conventions. And that, to me, is actually where the most convincing argument can be made in that fanfic is a narrow corner of a field of infinite possibility. But fanfic doesn't just encompass a type of story, fanfic comprises self-published short stories, novellas, and novels, working with transformative IP (as is rather natural, bar for copyright disrupting this practice). Judgement of quality and convention is not really the same as judgement of the medium. I can readily make criticism of the former, but I can't really complain about the latter, especially because I believe that you get better at writing - irrespective of what constructive criticism you do or don't get - by just writing a lot. A lot of writing, and a lot of reading. This is why fanfic can be bad if it does not foster widely reading but it can equally help develop your skill by matter of writing a lot and having an avenue to pursue that (and a supportive community).

That is my spiel. I don't intend this as a vague about OP; I have criticisms of fandom myself, but I didn't take it to them because I don't think they would like to hear what I think. I am just interested when arguments like this have their real meaning nested in implication.

Also, I don't make a tally of what I read, so that angle of the argument holds little water for me. I read; what I read makes me read other things to follow the body of an idea; and then I read some more. Pretty straightforward. I think it's weird to gameify that stuff online, and I'll never quite understand it. It's somewhat related to the point OP originally made, because fanfic would "inflate" that book count, but maybe if fic readers thought of themselves as readers altogether, we could all hold hands and read Dostoyevsky and be happy forever.

[literaticat]

Hi Jenn - My publisher has done literally zilch for my book. No Goodreads giveaways, no Netgalley ARCs, no pitches for festivals. I go to local bookstores and half the time my book isn’t even stocked. So far I have very few Amazon reviews, which is indicative of low sales in general. How are readers supposed to find it? :(

I mean - discoverability is a major problem for sure. (If you figure out a surefire way for how readers are supposed to find it, by all means let me know!) -- I will say that GoodReads Giveaways and whatnot are absolutely no guarantee that sales will be Anything At All, either. I'm not making excuses for your publisher, but perhaps they realized that those particular efforts were not moving the needle and decided to focus on things like school/library marketing (which can be quite lucrative and helpful, but also is generally rather invisible to the author)? I dunno.

What I DO know is, any "official" marketing window has passed for that book, and no publisher is going to all of a sudden whip out random promotions for a book that has been out for some time.

Things YOU can do:

-- Make friends with your local stores so they DO keep it in stock. Tell them, listen, every time I talk about this book or share it on social media, I'm going to put a link to this store and tell people to shop here for it, and I'll be happy to come in and sign any stock you want any time. (And then actually do SEND PEOPLE TO THOSE STORES to purchase signed copies, so the stores will re-order them!)

-- Do school visits if you are a children's book author? Befriend librarians and booksellers outside of your local range via social media? Make friends with other authors and see what THEY do (or at the very least, have other people to commiserate with!)

-- WRITE ANOTHER BOOK. And this time, start talking about it with all those new friends you have in the author, bookstore, library and social media community well BEFORE the book comes out! And talk to your agent and/or editor (again, six months or so BEFORE the book comes out) to ask about marketing plans etc. Your publisher will be more likely to be engaged and doing stuff if YOU are engaged and doing stuff.

[missparker]

Hiiii, I haven't seen you on the birdsite in ages, so in lieu of, like, conversation, here are ask meme questions!

14 how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

17 What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

66 How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

74 You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

Hiiii, the bird app and I are having moral and philosophical disagreements right now but you can always find me on threads, FB, and insta. 

14. how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

I am always surprised when people tell me they laughed out loud or cried or had any sort of big emotional response to something I’ve written. And while I know that’s like the goal, there’s no guarantee that what you connect to emotionally is going to hit the same note for another person. Which is to say, I think I do tend to get into the head of a character, or I let them into my head. Is that different? Who knows. I think you have to feel it a little for it to ring true. 

I draw a ton from personal experience, be it conversations I’ve had, situations I’ve been in, things that I’ve felt. I always say that if you’ve read my fic, you probably know me better than anyone I know casually in my real life. Also, it’s real terrifying when someone you know in real life wants to read your fic! Stop perceiving me!

17.  What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

This is so tricky, because there’s no good way that works a) every time and b) for every person. For me, sometimes I have to write through the block and just unclog it with some trash before the good words start flowing again, but also sometimes I need the break and pushing through it only causes more harm. It’s really a matter of knowing yourself and checking in with what you need to keep making good art. Sometimes when I get stuck on a particular story, I know that I need to delete a big chunk of it but I’m stubborn and don’t want to and I spend too much time trying to fix it before ultimately doing what I knew I needed to do all along and just delete it. I think you have to be willing to admit you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. And sometimes what needs to be deleted doesn’t need to be thrown away forever, but it’s just not right for THIS story. 

66. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

When it comes to fic, most of the pressure I put onto myself. I’ve learned to just ignore the comments that ask for more, demand updates etc because those don’t serve me in any positive way. I always appreciate when people read and comment, but fic is a gift we give of our time and effort and talent and it’s kind of a “you get what you get when you get it” situation. When I wrote greener grasses, I put myself on a weekly update schedule and I could do it but it was TOUGH. For my latest WIP, it’s months between updates and that’s okay too because it just has to be. 

Now, for writing that gets published, it’s sort of a different can of worms. Deadlines do matter, because you’re just one author working with editors who have their own deadlines and you’re part of a big schedule of authors and editors and if you’re late, it impacts a lot of people. I get a lot more strict with myself about achieving a certain word count every day, setting aside blocks of time to revise, etc. It takes priority over other things for sure. But I treat it like any other job - triage tasks, give it the time it deserves, do my best.

74. You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it? 

This is so funny because I think I do kind of have a distinctive style, at least people have said as such to me. One time another fic got posted and someone said it was written in a missparker style and I was like… am I so predictable?! But no, I think it was a compliment. Anyway, my style is domestic and character focused and probably someone is gonna drink coffee and probably someone is gonna go pee and probably it’s gonna start with song lyrics.

Thanks, @sarking!

Get to know your fic writer! | ask box

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I’m still pulling together all the notes from Bower and there are some inconsistencies between what Bower says happened and what Harry says happened. Just wanted to throw these out there in case anyone else is interested in some plot holes.

Plot hole #1: When did Harry and Meghan really get engaged?

Bower says that they became engaged much earlier than they said / announced. Bower’s sources / research says that Harry proposed while the Queen was at Balmoral and that the proposal happened before the Vanity Fair interview:

Jane Sarkin pitched to Graydon Carter, the magazine’s famous editor-in-chief, that Meghan should be offered not only an interview in the illustrious magazine but also a guarantee to feature on the front cover. Carter, famed as a man ahead of the curve, had never heard of Meghan or Suits. Nevertheless, he was persuaded that Harry’s latest girlfriend was destined to change the royal family. When the call came, Meghan was ecstatic.

[stuff about Sunshine Sachs]

Living with Harry had already transformed her life. The feature could even prompt Harry to announce their engagement - delayed, according to Harry, until the Queen’s formal approval on her return from Balmoral in the autumn.

[details about the proposal, the ring, and telling Thomas Markle]

The engagement was unknown to Keleigh Thomas Morgan as she gave a carefully measured response to Vanity Fair. Of course, Meghan would be delighted... 

[stuff about Suits and drama about commercial endorsement contracts, Harry’s instructions about what Meghan could/couldn’t talk about in the VF interview, and the VF author’s observations about Meghan’s house]

Meghan spoke, he [Sam Kashner, the VF author] realized, knowing that she had the winning ticket but avoiding giving an impression of triumphalism.

I don’t know a whole lot about magazine publishing, but the little I do know is that Vanity Fair would’ve needed at least 2 months’ lead time before publication to conduct the interview, source quotes from friends/family, do research and checks to verify claims about charity work, write the article, edit and fact-check the article, design the article and layout, send the issue for printing, and then publication and distribution. Then tack on another month for negotiations about the offer. Meaning that since Meghan was the September 2017 VF cover, she would have done the interview no later than July, with negotiations probably around May/June. Meaning that the proposal had to have been no later than June 2017. At least.

Now compare that to what Harry says in Spare:

One night, not long after Meg’s arrival in Britain, we were at home, making dinner, playing with Guy, and the kitchen of Nott Cott was as full of love as any room I’d ever been in.

[details about the proposal]

Oh, wait. Don’t you want to see the ring, my love?

She hadn’t even thought about it.

We hurried inside, finished our celebration in the warmth of the kitchen.

It was November 4. 

We managed to keep it secret for about two weeks.

So which is it? Were they engaged in June 2017? Or were they engaged on November 4, 2017?

I trust Bower’s research more than I trust Harry’s faulty memory. Not to mention...there’s been no lawsuits about Revenge. Clearly if Bower was wrong on any of his facts, we would’ve heard about it by now. And, well... *crickets*

Plot hole #2: Guy and his broken legs

In Spare, Harry says:

Days before Meg left Canada, Guy had run away from his minder. (Meg was at work.) He’d been found miles from Meg’s house, unable to walk. His legs were now in casts.

(then he goes into the proposal story and how he carried Guy in/out to be part of the proposal.)

Contrast that to the Daily Mail’s story about Guy. The Daily Mail article was published 23 December 2017 and says “Last night, sources close to the couple said Meghan was ‘distraught’ and ‘very upset’ about Guy’s condition,” suggesting that the accident happened on 22 December 2017, or around 22 Dec, and the level of medical detail in the article - specifically the vet specialist and the palace’s help - is too specific to be a lie. (And I feel like there was a palace communique about Guy’s accident, but I’m having trouble finding it.)

So which is it? Did Guy get injured in Canada in October? Or did he get injured in London in December?

My theory: Guy’s accident was in London, November / December timeframe. Harry and Meghan “recreated” their engagement some time later to have footage for the Netflix docuseries, but they did it when Guy had his casts on and then later changed the story about Guy’s accident to fit their “real” engagement story. (I do think Meghan wanted to change their engagement story because getting proposed to in the kitchen while making dinner wasn’t the candlelit romantic production she wanted.)

[krakaslaug]

Re that publishing post, as much as I totally agree with the critique of the capitalism aspect, I don't think it's very fair to antagonise publishing houses as much as people in the notes do. And maybe that's just my German perspective but from all the meetings with literary agents I've had and from my friends who work as editors the topic of needing a big social media following has never come up, only when it comes to self-publishing. And I also did get the impression that the agents are choosing who to represent by the quality of the actual writing.

The generalising antagonising of publishing houses is also ignoring that there's not only just the Big Three of Publishing Houses or something but that there are so, so, so many smaller ones that cater to whatever niches you want to write for, and even they are going to take only the books that they believe will make them money.

Because yes, capitalism bad, but you can't fault the people in the publishing industry for wanting to make money when the success of a book relates to their income. If they gamble with every book they might as well file for bankruptcy and then no one's helped.

Also if you want to self-publish so you won't have to do social media, go for it. But then you also cannot expect to be successful. If you just want your book out there and you're content with that, more power to you. But you probably want at least three people to actually buy it, so you're going to have to advertise it. From my experience and observations, if you're self-publishing you're going to do all the advertising yourself, pay all the expenses that go into publishing the book yourself.

Frankly, I find it very naive to think that you can just bury yourself in a hole, write a book, give it to a publishing house and they will immediately publish it no questions asked. Because of course you will have to market yourself to them, social media following or not. You will have to advertise to them why they should accept your book to publish (which an agency will do for you, if you're with an agency). It isn't gatekeeping by the publishing houses (which is a take I saw in the notes) to want to only take books that are somewhat guaranteed to make you money. It is basically like any other job interview where you have to advertise why this company should hire YOU out of all applicants.

Because what we all need to keep in mind that those big authors with a giant social media following are only 1% of ALL authors you see in a book store.

[mojave-pete]

What Would It Take to Convince You The Election Was Rigged?

By AL PERROTTA Published on November 10, 2020 • 2 Comments

Al Perrotta

Yesterday I laid out, with the help of the BBC and State Department, the six signs to look for when determining if an election was stolen.

There is some indisputable evidence — and many very suggestive indications — that each of those conditions for concluding fraud in this election has been met. But many still refuse to even entertain the idea that this election was as crooked as a witch’s nose. After she’s been in 100 MMA fights. And fell from her broom flat onto her face.

The media and Big Tech sensors are working overtime to crush the evidence. So a lot of people don’t even know what is being alleged in sworn affidavits. I desperately want to believe that people, if presented the evidence, will accept it. Or at the very least be open to it, awaiting further confirmation. Please tell me my belief is not unfounded.

But before we get there, I want to ask a simple question:

Remember that a) lying in a sworn affidavit to a court is a crime. And b) doing anything that is seen as helping Trump will subject you to all manner of hell.  In light of that, do you believe the countless witnesses who now have sworn to seeing illegal activity leading up to and through the election would lie?

Would Any of This Be Right?

Now, for those fair-minded people who support Biden, may I ask a few questions? Do you believe

It would be wrong for election supervisors to coach workers to correct mail-in ballots for Biden, but not for Trump?

That it would also be wrong for election workers to coach voters to vote for Biden and Democrats, and follow them to the ballot station?

It would be wrong for poll workers to go out to a Biden-Harris van in the middle of the night and fill out ballots?

That it would be likewise wrong for poll workers to fill in the names of people who hadn’t yet voted when a “voter” comes in who is not on the voter rolls?

It’s wrong for poll workers to ignore matching signature requirements?

That it’s wrong for counting centers to keep Republican poll watchers from observing hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots?

It was wrong for Philadelphia Democrats to ignore a court order that demanded poll watchers have their rightful access?

That it’s wrong for a Democratic- controlled ballot-counting center Fulton County, Georgia to tell GOP observers they were done counting for the night … then resume counting the minute the observers left?

It was wrong for Nevada voting officials to fabricate proof of residence data for non-eligible voters?

That it was likewise wrong for postal supervisors in several states to order workers to post-date late arriving ballots, so it would falsely appear they arrived on time?

It is wrong to cast ballots using the dead?

That it is wrong to count ballots from people ineligible to vote in a particular state?

It is wrong for a state supreme court to ignore state law and the U.S. constitution to change the voting rules right before an election? Rules guaranteed to make the process more susceptible to fraud?

Each of those statements is asserted in 131 sworn affidavits from poll workers, poll watchers and whistleblowers or happened in broad daylight.

Please Support The Stream

: Equipping Christians to Think Clearly About the Political, Economic and Moral Issues of Our Day.

So please answer me honestly: How many of these wrongs laid out in lawsuits are you willing to outright dismiss? Doesn’t fairness dictate you at least listen to what these people have to say? How many people must swear under penalty of imprisonment for perjury before you acknowledge the vote tallies are horribly tarnished?

Would Any of This Be Suspicious?

Now, my Biden-supporting (or Trump-hating) friends, can we do a little gut check? Aren’t you a little bit queasy about …

Tens of thousands of ballots suddenly appearing from out-of-state with only the presidential race filled out … and all filled out for Joe Biden?

Hundreds of thousands of votes popping up overnight election night … after the inexplicable halt in counting … in some places, 100% for Joe Biden?

Philadelphia, a city notorious for election fraud, absolutely refusing to let Republican observers anywhere near the people handling mail-in ballots?

In several states, piles of Trump votes suddenly getting taken from him, then the same exact number suddenly popping up for Biden?

Dominion, the company behind the election system used in these states, being connected to the Clinton Foundation and George Soros?

Dozens of states accepting Dominion’s system, despite its security weaknesses being so evident that Texas rejected it three times?

The Associated Press reporting just last year that Dominion and its sister companies “had long skimped on security in favor of convenience and operated under a shroud of financial and operational secrecy despite their critical role in elections.”

Lindsay Graham’s report on evidence of a ballot harvesting operation at Pennsylvania nursing homes which could have netted Biden 25,000 votes? (Ballot harvesting is illegal in Pennsylvania.)

Biden vote totals in specific swing cities … and nowhere else … exceeding Obama’s by up to 40%?

Vote tallies for Biden in Milwaukee exceeding Obama’s 2008 landslide … despite Milwaukee having fewer people than it did in 2008? (And despite Donald Trump greatly increasing his share of the minority vote.)

Joe Biden underperforming Hillary Clinton almost everywhere … except in a couple crucial swing state cities … and only after counting in those states was halted?

Joe Biden handily losing bell-weather states Florida and Ohio, but somehow defying history and won? This despite very little campaigning, a non-existent ground game, and a campaign message that ran counter to the economic interests of the American people.

Honesty is the Path to Unity

Yes, it is possible a good percentage of people could go, “I don’t care. Orange Man Bad.” But I want to believe that a majority of Biden voters will be honest enough to check their dislike of Trump long enough to acknowledge the reality of all the smoke, and the possibility of fire.

That they would rather have an honest count of legitimate — and only legitimate — votes. And they would want to see those who have committed fraud punished.

I hope they agree that the only path to re-unifying the country is the assurance of an honest count. And it is worth a few weeks of time to check it all out.

Even if Orange Man is Bad, a Stolen Election is far, far worse.

Al Perrotta is the Managing Editor of The Stream and co-author, with @JZmirak, of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Immigration. You can follow him at @StreamingAl. And if you aren’t already, please follow The Stream at @Streamdotorg.

[itsclydebitches]

Here's a quandary I've suddenly found myself in: where do you stand on writers deleting their own works, fanfiction or otherwise? I've had this happen to me on more than one occasion - I go to look for an old favorite and find it's since been deleted from whatever site I read it on.

On the one hand, I'm inclined to think that, "Sure. The author wrote it, it's their call. I don't own the work - I certainly didn't pay for it. It's their decision, even if it's disappointing."

But at the same time I can't help but consider the alternative - if I believe in death of the author (and I do), that an author's work fundamentally isn't solely theirs once it's been published, posted, etc., then it also seems wrong to have a work deleted. Stories aren't the sole property of their creator, after all.

But then I circle back. D'you think there are different obligations between authors and readers and the works being made in fandom space? I know if I had bought a book and the author decided they wanted it back, I would feel pretty comfortable telling them no, given I'd paid for it and whatnot. But that's a different world from fanfic and fandom space generally.

So. You're insightful Clyde, I'm curious as to what you'll have to say here (and to all y'all thinking about it, don't flame me. I haven't decided where I stand here yet - haven't heard a good nail-in-the-coffin argument for or against yet).

Val are you a mind reader now? I’ve been thinking about this exact conundrum the last few days!

(And yeah, as a general disclaimer: no flaming. Not allowed. Any asks of the sort will be deleted on sight and with great satisfaction.)

Honestly, I’m not sure there is a “nail-in-the-coffin argument” for this, just because—as you lay out—there are really good points for keeping works around and really good points for allowing authors to have control over their work, especially when fanworks have no payment/legal obligations attached. In mainstream entertainment, your stories reflect a collaborative effort (publisher, editor, cover artists, etc.) so even if it were possible to delete the physical books out of everyone’s home and library (and we're ignoring the censorship angle for the moment), that’s no longer solely the author’s call, even if they have done the lion’s share of the creative work. Though fanworks can also, obviously, be collaborative, they’re usually not collaborative in the same way (more “This fic idea came about from discord conversations, a couple tumblr posts, and that one headcanon on reddit”) and they certainly don’t have the same monetary, legal, and professional strings attached. I wrote this fic as a hobby in my free time. Don’t I have the right to delete it like I also have the right to tear apart the blankets I knit?

Well yes… but also no? I personally view fanworks as akin to gifts—the academic term for our communities is literally “gift economy”—so if we view it like that, suddenly that discomfort with getting rid of works is more pronounced. If I not only knit a blanket, but then gift it to a friend, it would indeed feel outside of my rights to randomly knock on their door one day and go, “I actually decided I hate that? Please give it back so I can tear it to shreds, thanks :)” That’s so rude! And any real friend would try to talk me out of it, explaining both why they love the blanket and, even if it’s not technically the best in terms of craftsmanship, it holds significant emotional value to them. Save it for that reason alone, at least. Fanworks carry that same meaning—“I don’t care if it’s full of typos, super cliché, and using some outdated, uncomfortable tropes. This story meant so much to me as a teenager and I’ll always love it”—but the difference in medium and relationships means it’s easier to ignore all that. I’m not going up to someone’s house and asking face-to-face to destroy something I gave them (which is awkward as hell. That alone deters us), I’m just pressing a button on my computer. I’m not asking this of a personal friend that is involved in my IRL experiences, I’m (mostly) doing this to online peers I know little, if anything, about. It’s easy to distance ourselves from both the impact of our creative work and the act of getting rid of it while online. On the flip-side though, it’s also easier to demean that work and forget that the author is a real person who put a lot of effort into this creation. If someone didn’t like my knitted blanket I gave them as a gift, they’re unlikely to tell me that. They recognize that it’s impolite and that the act of creating something for them is more important than the construction’s craftsmanship. For fanworks though, with everyone spread around the world and using made up identities, people have fewer filters, happily tearing authors to shreds in the comments, sending anon hate, and the like. The fact that we’re both prefacing this conversation with, “Please don’t flame” emphasizes that. So if I wrote a fic with some iffy tropes, “cringy” dialogue, numerous typos, whatever and enough people decided to drag me for it… I don’t know whether I’d resist the urge to just delete the fic, hopefully ending those interactions. There’s a reason why we’re constantly reminding others to express when they enjoy someone else’s work: the ratio of praise to criticism in fandom (or simply praise to seeming indifference because there was no public reaction at all), is horribly skewed.

So I personally can’t blame anyone for deleting. I’d like to hope that more people realize the importance of keeping fanworks around, that everything you put out there is loved by someone… but I’m well aware that the reality is far more complicated. It’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s hard to keep something around that you personally no longer like. Harder still to keep up a work you might be harassed over, that someone IRL discovered, that you’re disgusted with because you didn’t know better back then… there are lots of reasons why people delete and I ultimately can’t fault them for that. I think the reasons why people delete stem more from problems in fandom culture at large—trolling, legal issues, lack of positive feedback, cancel culture, etc.—than anything the author has or has not personally done, and since such work is meant to be a part of an enjoyable hobby… I can’t rightly tell anyone to shoulder those problems, problems they can’t solve themselves, just for the sake of mine or others’ enjoyment. The reason I’ve been thinking about this lately is because I was discussing Attack on Titan and how much I dislike the source material now, resulting in a very uncomfortable relationship with the fics I wrote a few years back. I’ve personally decided to keep them up and that’s largely because some have received fantastic feedback and I’m aware of how it will hurt those still in the fandom if I take them down. So if a positive experience is the cornerstone of me keeping fics up, I can only assume that negative experiences would likewise been the cornerstone of taking them down. And if getting rid of that fic helps your mental health, or solves a bullying problem, or just makes you happier… that, to me, is always more important than the fic itself.

But, of course, it’s still devastating for everyone who loses the work, which is why my compromise-y answer is to embrace options like AO3’s phenomenal orphaning policy. That’s a fantastic middle ground between saving fanworks and allowing authors to distances themselves from them. I’ve also gotten a lot more proactive about saving the works I want to have around in the future. Regardless of whether we agree with deleting works or not, the reality is we do live in a world where it happens, so best to take action on our own to save what we want to keep around. Though I respect an author’s right to delete, I also respect the reader’s right to maintain access to the work, once published, in whatever way they can. That's probably my real answer here: authors have their rights, but readers have their rights too, so if you decide to publish in the first place, be aware that these rights might, at some point, clash. I download all my favorite fics to Calibre and, when I’m earning more money (lol) I hope to print and bind many for my personal library. I’m also willing to re-share fic if others are looking for them, in order to celebrate the author’s work even if they no longer want anything to do with it. Not fanfiction in this case, but one of my fondest memories was being really into Phantom of the Opera as a kid and wanting, oh so desperately, to read Susan Kay’s Phantom. Problem was, it was out of print at the time, not available at my library, and this was before the age of popping online and finding a used copy. For all intents and purposes, based on my personal situation, this was a case of a book just disappearing from the world. So when an old fandom mom on the message boards I frequented offered to type her copy up chapter by chapter and share it with me, you can only imagine how overjoyed I was. Idk what her own situation was that something like scanning wouldn’t work, but the point is she spent months helping a fandom kid she barely knew simply because a story had resonated with her and she wanted to share it. That shit is powerful!

So if someone wants to delete—if that’s something they need right now—I believe that is, ultimately, their decision… but please try your hardest to remember that the art you put out into the world is having an impact and people will absolutely miss it when it’s gone. Often to the point of doing everything they can to put it back out into the world even if you decide to take it out. Hold onto that feeling. The love you have for your favorite fic, fanart, meta, whatever it is? Someone else has that for your work too. I guarantee it.

So take things down as needed, but for the love of everything keep copies for yourself. You may very well want to give it back to the world someday.

[bloomking]

Beginners Guide to B2B Content Syndication

What is Content Syndication

Content syndication is taking an existing piece of long-form content and placing it on another web property to expand the content's exposure and to support your desired goals, especially if you are looking to generate leads.

Syndication a great method if you want to see an immediate impact from your content marketing efforts.

It can take several months for organic content to build backlinks and authority and start to see results.

In the meantime, content syndication is a proactive way to fill the short-term need for leads, branding, and credibility. Content syndication works in parallel with your organic traffic efforts to amplify results.

For B2B marketers targeting a fixed list of accounts, known as Account-Based Marketing or ABM, SEO is not as effective as paid content syndication. If you’re doing ABM, you need content syndication services.

According to Demandbase, 70% of B2B marketers will pilot or launch full-scale ABM programs in 2021.

Benefits of Free Content Syndication

Exposure - It makes sense that if you publish your content to more places off your site, it will get seen more.  

Authority - If you’re producing high-quality informative content that answers your target audience’s questions, this will increase your authority in the industry.  

Increased authority helps you move up the ladder of industry recognition, which amplifies your content further.  It’s a virtuous cycle.

Backlinks - You probably know that backlinks help fuel better search results. ��When you place your content on other sites, you will almost always get to put a link back to your site as the ‘original author’ of the piece.

With free syndication, there are two options:

Find sites that accept user-generated content such as Quora, Reddit, or LinkedIn and republish your content

Negotiate with the owner of a site in your target niche to republish your content or create an original guest post  

Benefits of Paid Syndication

Guaranteed results - You are paying for an outcome that is either a click to your content with a conversion widget or a direct lead itself through the Cost Per Lead (CPL) model

Guaranteed budget - You get to set a budget.  The paid services will stop when you reach it.

Leads to match ABM & Intent - If you are doing ABM marketing, paid content syndication is one of the most efficient ways to reach your narrow targets.

Paid syndication is performance-based and guarantees a certain amount of traffic or leads.  

There are 2 types of paid syndication:

Self-serve

Full service via publishers or agencies

Popular self-service syndication services are

Outbrain

Taboola

Zemanta

With self-service, you upload your content and creative, select your audience targets and set a budget.  The services generate and place the ads for you.  You pay for each click to your conversion page on a cost-per-click (CPC) model.

Publishers and Content Marketing Agencies

For B2B marketers, especially those with ABM lists, industry publications, and content marketing agencies offer custom, targeted syndication opportunities on a cost per click or cost per lead (CPL) model.

These programs guarantee results at a fixed budget.  For example, under a CPL program, a publisher can guarantee you get 500 qualified leads at $30 per lead.

Publishers and agencies can also set up retargeting efforts via their publications and partners.  

To set up a direct relationship with a publisher, go to your industry publications, find the number or email for advertising contacts, and ask them about their content syndication programs.

How to Syndicate Content

How you syndicate your content depends on how targeted the audience is and your potential syndication partners’ popularity and authority.

Targets and the web properties you choose can fall into three categories:  

Broad

More narrow

Very narrow

Broad - The platforms

These are the all-topic public discussion forums such as Quora, Reddit, Medium, Slideshare, LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Business, Hacker News, and many others.

These are communities that have groups of like-minded people with an interest in your industry.  

There are no shortcuts to success on the community platforms.  You need to pick the ones with your target audience and good reach and then commit time and effort (probably single to double digits of hours per week) to grow your reputation.

Once you have the right groups, you can’t start on the first day by dropping a self-promoting plug with a link to your blog.  You will be ignored, or worse, banned.  This is the driveby approach.

The drive-along approach is the only way.  Here you’re moving along with the group to answer common questions and solve new problems.  This is taking the content you built in your garage (aka your website) and running it out on the track to see how it performs.

To give thoughtful answers, you’re essentially guest blogging when addressing people’s issues.  You can undoubtedly repurpose ideas from your existing content.  Don’t just cut and paste the same blog in 10 Reddit forums that vaguely answer a question.

Do

End your posts with a link to your site

Offer something of value in your community profile such as a free assessment or consultation

Link to your posts with anchor text to relevant content on your site (or other sites if it adds value to the post).

Don’t

Plug your service as an answer to all questions

Be rude or inappropriate

Great For Content Ideas

As you get more engaged with the community, you’ll also start to see new or different problems buyers are struggling with.  Look at what is popular, then read the comments to find out why it’s resonating.  Use those insights as new ideas for content.

More Narrow - The Blogs

You probably know the prominent blogs and publishers in your industry.  These are ‘rich’ sites that keep getting richer because they have high domain authority and significant traffic.  Anything they publish is automatically amplified.

Your buyers know about these sites and spend time on them researching and downloading content. These are the ideal sites where you would like to get your content published.  They are also the most difficult for syndication partnerships (unless you’re willing to pay).

You need a practical list of web properties where your buyers go for research but are also realistic for getting your content published.

Start With Guest Blogging on Sites

To get published on big sites, you probably need to have big authority.  The people who run these sites get dozens of requests for syndication partnerships.  

The best way to start getting authority (if you don’t already have it) is to guest blog.  

Start with lower authority sites (60 and below is a good start) and build up over time.  A great discovery tool for blogs, communities, social accounts, and publishers in your industry is SparkToro.

Here you can enter some keywords that reflect your industry, and SparkToro will list all the places where it detects your buyers are going for information.

They have a feature called ‘Hidden Gems’, highlighting target audience properties with good traffic and authority, but not necessarily the biggest.  These sites will be more receptive to your pitch.

In the screencap above, using the keyword ‘content marketing’, you can see the ‘majors’ listed on top and the hidden gems next to them.

You can export a list of these sites, and SparkToro will provide the contact information for each one.  Send a short pitch asking for a guest blog opportunity along with some highlights of your best work to date.

Another way is to use Google to find sites that accept guest posts.

Assume your content is around email marketing. To build out your list of syndication partners, start with a search like this:

There are dozens of pages of similar results.  Record the sites.  If you have a keyword research tool like Ahrefs, or Moz, enter the domains and note their domain authority, traffic, and the keywords driving that traffic. If it looks like a good fit for domain authority and target audience, find the ‘Write For Us’ section’s contact information.  

A few weeks after your guest post, you can repurpose the whole post or key ideas to the content platforms like Medium and Quora.

Syndicate Your Original, Existing Content

After you’ve been guest blogging for a few months and you’ve had some wins, it’s time to start asking higher domain sites to syndicate your original, existing content.  

Here is where you can move up the authority hierarchy and generate exposure and backlinks on quality sites.

Asking For Elite Sites to Publish Your Content

The bloggers and editors who run these sites get hundreds of pitches every month to post content to their site.  The problem is that the relationship is one way.  You get expanded traffic, and they don’t.

The best way to pitch elite DA sites (80 or greater) with good traffic is to offer to co-author a blog post and then work on syndicating to new audiences for them by sharing credit and backlinks with the high DA site and helping to expand their audience.

By ‘co-author’, you don’t need to be locked up in a room writing away with them for 8 hours. You can interview them over the phone, Zoom, or email, whichever they prefer. Offer to collect their insight on a particular topic.  Add your insight, create a piece of content and syndicate it with credit and backlinks to their page.  

You do the work, they get the benefit, and you get exposure and a backlink from a high DA site.  It’s a win-win.

Asking High DA Sites

You always want to pitch to sites with higher authority than you, and a DA of at least 50.

Similar to the process for guest blogging, research syndicating your existing content to other web properties.  

Use SparkToro or Google Search to find sites or both.  If you use Google, start with the phrases:

"originally published in"

"republished with permission"

"originally appeared on"

And then use the Google search parameter INURL:{your topic} to find pages that have your keyword in the url.  For example:

Do your DA, keyword, and traffic research on the sites you see.  Your keyword research tool should have a browser plugin that can help you decide which sites have good potential by showing you DA and traffic within the Google search results.

Here is how Google search looks with the Ahrefs browser plugin if you were looking for sites that accept syndication requests on the topic of ‘b2b marketing’:

There’s information about the site’s domain rating called DR (Ahref’s version of domain authority) how many backlinks they have and so on.  You can export the results to Excel for as many results pages as you need to track opportunities.  

Start clicking through to the articles on sites you want to partner with.  You’ll typically find a link that invites you to submit posts for syndication:

Highly Targeted - Publisher Email Lists

If you’re doing ABM or need leads quickly, you can pay publishers to syndicate your content directly to their targeted audience on a Cost Per Lead (CPL) basis.

It works by taking an authoritative piece of content like a white paper and putting it behind a registration page hosted by the publisher.

They often use their high-value direct opt-in email list to place your offer in front of a targeted audience using filters specified by you, such as company size, industry, and job role.

Give your ABM/Intent list to the publisher or agency and have them do a direct email campaign for you that only returns leads from these accounts at a guaranteed price and volume.

Cold Email

Cold email usually involves building a targeted list and then sending out requests for a meeting.  Five years ago, it was more effective than it is today.

If you don't offer something of value, 99% of cold email ends up in the trash.

Writing an authoritative content marketing piece and turning that into a cold email offer is a great way to increase the response rate for cold email.

Mailshake is a great platform for cold email.  They also have a comprehensive set of educational videos to learn how to build lists, and how to best craft and send cold emails.

Newsletters

For B2B, especially new companies starting out, it's difficult to build a meaningful newsletter subscriber base right away.

You should always have a newsletter sign-up option on your content pages, but it can take months or even years to build a meaningful audience in B2B.

Today, there are other options via newsletter discovery sites to have readers find your valuable content.  The most prominent is Substack.

Substack has been growing steadily since 2017 and now offers thousands of newsletters people can search for on their site.  Ahrefs estimates they get over 326,000 organic visitors per month.

If you're worried about having enough content each week to do a newsletter you can take your original content as the headliner piece, and then add curated content from other web properties.

You can do this by taking the web properties in your industry that you normally read, and save the articles you like in a repository like a spreadsheet or a document.  Then assemble a weekly 'best of' newsletter for your industry that you can post on Substack.

Conclusion

The goal of content syndication is to get your ideas off your site and out into the world so you can be 'seen everywhere' by your target buyers.

A comprehensive content syndication strategy requires a written 'media' plan ahead of time to decide where to put your time and effort.

Use your tools like Google, community forums, Sparktoro, Substack, and your industry knowledge to ask as many sites as possible to publish your content.

If you don't have a budget don't worry, there are plenty of great free resources.

To get on high-quality sites, be persistent, and always offer to add value to the elite sites.

If you can pay, do so to guarantee a certain level of leads for your sales team.

With a broad, consistent effort both free and paid channels will start to position you and your website well for authority in your industry.  You have to earn it, but it's well worth the effort.

[swissmissing]

@honeybeemotorcycles said to swissmissficrecs:

Hi, I have  a question for you and your followers, Why can fanfiction writers does a better  job of writing fix-its, then the writers who were being paid at least 100k a year to write?  Thank you very much.

Reply: Answering on my main blog because this isn’t directly related to fic recs. I’m not sure which 100K writers you mean. Are you talking about the writers of television shows, or novelists? Either way, none of them are writing “fix-its” because a fix-it is ipso facto fan fiction. It originates in fans not being happy with the source material, and creating their own happy ending.

I think perhaps what you’re really asking though, is why do some fans find fan fiction more satisfying than the source material.

There are probably as many answers as there are fans, but here are some ideas I’ll just throw out there:

- Mainstream creators are trying to please everyone, or at least major market segments. This means that they may tend toward cliches, non-controversial themes, or open-ended endings. Fan fiction authors write for an audience with very specific interests, and fulfill all of the wishes of that audience. To take Sherlock as an example, neither Sherlolly, Johnlock, or Adlock was confirmed, but all are possible at the end of series 4. This is dissatisfying to some because that part of the story is left unfinished. Fan fiction fills the gap.

- Mainstream creators adhere to formulas in order to guarantee publication / broadcast. Publishers and networks are only going to finance something that they are fairly certain in advance will sell and make money. These formulas may come across to consumers as predictable or boring. Fan fiction authors are not bound by convention. They can write 100K of conflict-free pillowtalk. Lots of dopamine for fans, no money in it for publishers.

- TV and movie scripts are generally the product of an entire team, not just one person. Even if only one person gets the writing credit, the script has been tinkered with by multiple people along the way. Changes and compromises will be made from the original vision, and at worst it will come across with a piecemeal effect, plot threads may be toned down or left on the cutting room floor. The effect is less for books, but editors will also have a say. Fan fiction authors can go whole hog on whatever specific itch they are trying to scratch, and no one can tell them they can’t.

- Mainstream entertainment only gets one chance at telling the story. Fan fiction authors can tell the same story hundreds of times with slight variations. I don’t like every fan fiction I read, but I can keep reading until I find the combination of tropes, characterizations, plot, and emotion that satisfies me. If I don’t like a movie, I can’t go to Netflix and find 100 more endings.

Finally, I think it’s important to realize that not everyone is unhappy with the source material. There are plenty of people who genuinely and unironically enjoy the same series, books, and movies that others find problematic. More power to them and their canon-compliant fics that don’t try to fix anything, but extend the time they get to spend in their favorite places with their favorite characters.

[literaticat]

I keep reading about how everyone in publishing is paid terrible a wage that they can only really live on if they have significant other income sources and it’s making me sad to think that an an industry I’ve grown up thinking would be so magical to get involved in is just so unbalanced. I’m thinking about how to be a good ally to others in publishing as an author and also sometimes wondering how on earth I’ll ever have a chance of earning anything as a low-income person. Your thoughts?

Entry level and “early career” positions in publishing are (and always have been) very poorly paid. Like, I for example made zero (0) dollars my first several years as an intern/assistant. Once I became an agent, it took a couple years to really make a living wage -- because many agents are commission only, and it takes a long time to accrue enough commish to live! And brand new baby editors at publishers get paid very low salaries (particularly given that most of them have to live in NYC).

The good news about agents is -- though it is FOR SURE a rough start -- when an agent builds their career and has some successes, their income can be very good indeed. The good news about editors is, well, they do get pay increases as they are promoted. (Of course, in both cases, they have to LAST that long, which it isn’t necessarily easy to do.)

This is a known problem, and lots of people are thinking about solutions. For example, nowadays, most internships are at least paid -- my agency stopped allowing unpaid internships some years ago, and most companies have likewise. Also, editors are starting to get somewhat better pay (though it is still like NOT GREAT for sure!), and as the pandemic has taught us that you don’t NEED to live in NYC to work in publishing, hopefully some of that stringency will go away post-pandemic, so that young editors in particular are not tied to a city that will drain them of their income.

I don’t actually think this needs to be a worry for you, unless you are also looking to get a job in a publishing house or something? It’s not the AUTHOR’S responsibility to control what a corporation pays its employees. It’s nice that you’re a sympathetic ally, but I’m not sure that it needs to be something that you need to take direct action about.

Like - it’s also hard for authors to make a living, but I don’t think it’s the same deal as editors or whatever. You aren’t employees - you can do whatever you want. Editors are limited by their actual salary - they can’t just work for multiple publishers -- whereas writers can... like... write more books. (There’s no guarantees that every book will sell, obviously, or how much money you will make on each book, but there IS potential for other income as a writer, whereas people with a salary are sort of stuck).

[swannkings]

Do I want to wade into the murky waters of Ye Old Fanfic Vs Original Fic wars? Yes.

I don’t know who amongst Twitter or Tumblr needs to hear this, but your edgy as fuck takes on whether fanfiction has value or not aren’t new or enlightened. I tend not to get public with my takes on writing, because I was there 10+ years ago doing this exact thing on Quizilla & Mibba, and an individual’s medium of writing and impetus is their own damn business. Any and all writing has value. Sometimes it’s meant for personal indulgence or for small communities or friend groups, other times it has to pass muster for professional publication (which is a whole other shit bag of contention) or mass public consumption.

These arguments (they are never discussions) are also exhausting and pointless. Nobody wins these things.

I agree that Cassandra Claire/Clare and E.L. James are poor examples of professional writers having begun their careers in fanfiction. But, I’d also point out that actual literary agents and publishing houses signed and printed them, and professional editors did at least skim over their works. The authors aren’t the only ones to get blame for shit writing. And let’s not forget Anne Rice, infamously unfriendly toward fanfiction, chucked professional editors out of her equation altogether because she didn’t like them having opinions on her work.

Not all writers want to be published nor want fame.

It does seem to baffle when those words enter the ears of pretentious writers, readers, and others who don’t write at all. Some people write because it’s fun, like a hobby. Sometimes those people, who write for fun, will edit their work and sometimes they let it go as is because it’s just for catharsis.

My big personal project is to track down all digital and hard copies of my writing and catalogue them. I’ve been doing it for 10 years now. I’ve been writing and sharing my writings for the last 18 years. I have a hard copy of the very first major piece of fiction I wrote (a Lord of the Rings fanfic from 2002/2003) and a hard copy of the last piece of fiction I worked on (an AU fic for a Japanese otome game) and a hard copy of my first original novel (a urban gothic from 2017). There is an absolute difference in my writing from age 11 to age 28. And looking at my catalogue of writing, most of it is fanfiction. Do I have original works in there? Yes. Are they good? I think they are, and my friend thinks they are, but whether or not those works are up to snuff for a book deal—that’s up to an agent I haven’t sought out.

Improvements to my writing can be attributed to age (I’ll be 29 in a little over a week), to a university education (a BA in Performance Art from a STEM based offshoot of a way more prestigious school is the most I could afford after 3 years of community college), and alternating writing fanfiction online with a built-in audience/community and sharing original works online (where they got much less attention) and with writing groups/friends.

The truest rule of any endeavor is: you get better with practice.

Does fanfiction enable bad habits? Sure, but so does being educated at an Ivy League school. There’s no shame in acknowledging our own shortcomings. I mean, fuck though, I’d take overusing the phrase “carded his fingers” or inexperienced writers with funky grammar over being a snob with a Linguistics degree and a podcast.

What makes me, an unknown writer, a maybe valuable voice in this here shitkicking?

Because I’ve been doing this for half of my life and because I love stories. I’m an advocate for education and reading, and libraries and accessible information. I’m all for kids (anyone really) picking up comics or graphic novels, or reading fanfiction or webcomics, reading whatever genre or medium floats their boat if it means they’re engaging their minds and imaginations. This extends to film and video games and podcasts and audiobooks too because not everyone has the same level of literacy or ability to physically read or stay engaged with written text.

I don’t have a lot of experience in many things, and I am by no means a fabulous writer, but I am old enough to recognize an old argument and threadbare talking points coming from the mouths of unhappy people.

But is there really merit to writing fanfiction? Yes.

It’s a great way for people new to writing to learn how and practice creating engaging narratives.

It’s a great way for young writers to deconstruct their favorite worlds and characters in order to better understand both the creation of fiction and the types of fiction they enjoy writing. (Heads up: published literary fiction also uses tropes and archetypes)

Fanfiction has a built-in audience. This is perfect for any writers who a) are unsure of their abilities and wish to get feedback, b) wish to remain anonymous for various reasons such as being made to feel embarrassed for writing fanfiction but want a modicum of acknowledgment, c) have rich and engaging lives and just want to share some raunchy fantasies because they most certainly aren’t alone, and d) simply enjoy writing things that make others happy.

Have you seen the goddamned news? Let people have some silly little pleasures.

But what about... you know... brain rot?

That’s a real thing. Twitter has it too (have the last 5 years shown us nothing?) And have you met A Dude From Film School?

Let’s be clear: age doesn’t negate brain rot, neither does only writing original fiction. Young people who are Extremely Online, y’all can have brain rot too, it isn’t just Fandom Olds or your Uncle on Facebook.

You should never let your age dictate whether you are able to engage in fandom or fanfiction, but absolutely should in the ways you engage. Not every piece of fic is meant for you to read and not everyone has to praise the things you write, not even your friends.

For the record: writing tropes, even squicky ones, isn’t brain rot. Not believing fandom is racist or gate keeps is though.

The big take away...

Listen.

If you are a writer who primarily writes fanfiction and you want to someday be a published author of real live books, you do need to create original works and engage with writers outside of AO3, Tumblr, Wattpad, or whatever site is still hosting fic when you read this. It’s imperative you see other parts of the creative world. Stretch your wings, experience other ways of doing. Allow yourself to grow beyond what you know.

There is no guarantee you’ll have a career in writing. There is no guarantee your magnum opus will get you a publishing deal, or will even make it out of the slush pile. Writing to a career endgame can be just as detrimental as writing to a trend.

None of this is even getting into the gate keeping that exists in publishing already and only allows in diverse voices when it’s profitable, making fanfiction and online communities all the more important to marginalized creatives.

It’s perfectly alright to just write because you like writing, and it’s perfectly alright if you like playing in other people’s sandboxes. No one but you gets to place value on your hobbies or take merit from you for not writing like you have a MFA in Creative Writin. Writing a 100k Slow Burn fic takes just as much dedication as writing a 60k original novel, they just stretch different muscles.

[childotkw]

Can you give us tips to write better?

Okay, here goes. This will be a big one, just a warning.

Writing is, in my opinion, a craft that you can never fully, truly master. It’s an ever-evolving thing, and no matter where you are sitting as a writer–whether it’s your first time actually giving it a shot, whether you are young and feel like you haven’t experienced life enough to write, or you are a published author with multiple awards to your name–you can always, and will, get better.

Writing is a skill, which is a fact that I feel some people either misunderstand, or simply don’t realise. No one is born a writer. It’s something you pick up along the way because you like it. Sure, there might be some people who just seem ‘naturally’ gifted at writing, people that are just inherently creative and have a knack for putting words together in a certain way that resonates with people. 

But no matter how amazing an author is, I guarantee you, that somewhere they’ve got a story stashed that they wrote when they were five, or seven, or eleven, or however many years old, that just makes them cringe. I’m taking a full-bodied, head-ducked, face-creased cringe. A story that they view as an embarrassment to the world and would honestly die if anyone read it. Everyone has one, and if they say they don’t, they’re smart enough to lie about it, so that no one tries to find it.

Mine was something that I wrote when I was in primary school, so around the 10-11 age. I had to do it for a test, and it was awful. God, just thinking about it now makes my soul shrivel a little bit. It was about some astronauts that went to Mars, and encountered hostile aliens. It had every cliche you can think of stuffed into it, filled with over-the-top drama, and weak characters, and dialogue that was so stilted and robotic it makes me cry. 

I found it the other day when I was cleaning out my room and decided to read through it–and I was torn between face-palming at how bad I was, and smiling fondly, because no matter how terrible I thought it was–it was one of the first stories I had ever written, and it showed me just how far I have come since then. 

What I’m trying to say is that everyone started somewhere, and no matter how ‘terrible’ you think you might be at writing, you can always, always, get better. Writing takes perseverance and passion, so as long as you have that drive to improve, you’re already on the right track.

Now, onto your actual question anon, I can’t give any specific pointers on how you personally can improve, because I don’t know how you write, and it would be arrogant and patronising of me to assume your skill level. I’m still a fledgling writer myself, and while I’m certainly honoured that you consider me good enough to ask advice from, I can’t promise that what I say will work for you. Everyone’s different, and writers more so than most.

But I’m more than happy to share some things that I use to keep myself motivated, or to improve my own techniques and style. Be prepared for an essay, my dear, and be warned that some points might overlap or be in a weird order. I just wrote them down as they came to me.

READ

I can’t stress this enough. If you want to get better as a writer, read. Read fanfictions, read novels, read poems and screenplays and whatever else you want. There’s no such thing as a writer who doesn’t read. Reading is a way for you to expand upon your understanding of writing in general, it teaches you different tricks and trades that makes everything flow better. Reading gives you a broader foundation from which to build your own skills on. I spend a significantly larger portion of my time reading other people’s stories than I do writing my own. It gives you perspective and guidance.

RESEARCH

If you are going to write a story that’s got any significant sort of plot points or grounding in actual reality, you need to have your facts straight. If you’re writing a period-based piece, make sure what you’re writing about is historically accurate for that time. If you’re writing a fanfiction based in someone else’s world (i.e. Harry Potter, Naruto, BNHA), then make sure that the rules you write within that world either adhere to the pre-existing ones, or are fleshed out enough to work. If you are writing a completely new story, with a new world and new rules, then make sure you don’t contradict yourself. Treat your new world as something that’s always existed. Research similar ideas and see how other authors handled certain aspects. Are you making a completely new religion for this world, are there gods? Are you dealing with magic, if so, what are the rules? Angels and demons, what are their powers? Research is key. Know what you’re talking about.

DON’T JUST WRITE

This might seem strange, but don’t just write. Have other creative outlets. Try drawing. Try digital design. Make a game. Do something other than writing to keep your brain from not exhausting itself on one medium. Be creative, don’t limit yourself, expand your skills. I help my mother with digital design and I’m a gaming student, so I make assets and levels. It’s a great way to keep yourself from burning out.

DON’T FORCE IT

Writing is not easy, and there will be some days where the words just don’t want to come. That’s fine. Don’t force yourself to write if it’s not coming to you. All you’ll end up doing is taking yourself down a road of frustration and anger. Just leave it for a bit and come back to it, or jump to another, easier section. Don’t push too hard.

TAKE BREAKS

Very similar to the above point. Take breaks. Take regular breaks. Take a few days off. Take a week off. Hell, take a whole month off if you need it. You need down-time, so give it to yourself. And don’t feel guilty about it either. Writing takes time, and if you are going at it 24/7, all you will do is turn something you love into something you hate because it’s all you ever do.

HAVE INSPIRATION

Some people make mood boards with themes and pictures that represent what they want. Some people just have aspirations or idols they want to live up to. A published author you admire, or you a novel you want to complete, or just that one fanfiction idea you really want to take a crack at. Have a goal of some sort, it will help keep you motivated and focussed if you’re actively working towards something. For me, I want to have a published book under my name within the next two years.

SUPPORT

Have people you can talk to. Even just that one person you can prattle to about your ideas. I have my sister and my mum that let me throw ideas at them and help me flesh out plot points. Have someone that encourages you and supports you.

STAY ORGANISED

Write your ideas down. Doesn’t matter if they are just little snippets or novel-length story ideas. Write something down so it’s not sitting in your head cluttering things up. Or if you are like me, then just keep your story ideas organised and know how to shut them out so you can focus on your current project.

FRUSTRATION

It’s perfectly fine to get frustrated when you’re writing. If you don’t get frustrated, either you are some form of deity that doesn’t experience human emotions or you are so far above me. The most important thing about getting frustrated though, is don’t be too hard on yourself. Don’t get angry at yourself, because that is a slippery slope to go down. Work through it in a constructive way.

PREPARATION

Be diligent with your work. Know what you want to write, have something planned. Know who your characters are, what their dreams are, their personalities and history. Know what your plot is; it doesn’t have to be all of it, but at least know the critical turning points of your story. The more you know about your story, the more well-rounded it will read, and the more intriguing it will be to your audience.

WORLDBUILDING

In terms of worldbuilding, remember that your story is only a small drop of a larger world. Even if it never makes it into the story itself, the more you understand the elements that are happening in the background of your story (i.e. the religions of the world you’ve created, the gods that exist, the politics, the hierarchy, the science or magic), the better it will be for readers, and the easier it will be for you to keep everything neat.

DO OTHER THINGS

Don’t let your writing consume you. Do other things that aren’t related to writing. Go out with friends, go for a walk, go to the beach for a day or to the park. Do things that make you happy, that isn’t writing.

MUSIC

This definitely doesn’t apply to everyone. But for me, music is great background noise. I don’t even listen to the songs I have anymore, I just need something blocking out the rest of the world so I can enter tunnel-vision for my writing sessions. I don’t have a set playlist, I just shuffle all of my songs and write. Listen to whatever works for you. Sometimes I listen to japanese koto music just to shake things up. Go nuts.

PERSISTENT

Be persistent, be fierce, be steadfast with your work. Your story is your idea, it’s yours. Nurture it however you want and don’t let other people try and take control from you. Of course, if you have an editor, listen, but remember it’s still your baby, and you should have the final say on how things proceed.

BE SURPRISED

Sometimes your story will throw you a curveball. Sometimes a random idea will blindside you, and will completely change the end of your story. You don’t always have to stick to your original plot idea. It can change and evolve over time, and it should. If it feels like a natural change, go for it. Don’t be afraid to let your idea grow into something more.

CHARACTERS

Treat your characters as real people. Ask yourself if a real person would talk the way your character talks. Ask what a real person (with the character’s background) would feel in certain circumstances. Give them dreams and aspirations and hopes and relationships. Make them three-dimensional, give them a favourite colour or food, even if you never mention it in the story. The more real they are to you, the more real they will feel to your readers.

PRIDE

Be proud of your work and what you accomplish. Never delete your stories, they let you look back and see how far you’ve come. One of my greatest regrets was when I deleted the first fanfiction I ever wrote because I got some rude comments. Being able to track your progress is one of your best tools, it lets you reflect on your skills in a meaningful way.

CRITICISM

Following on from the previous point, criticism. You need to be prepared for it. There is no way you can avoid criticism as a writer. There will always be people that won’t like what you’ve made, or will potentially try to tear you down. You need to have fortitude to battle through the emotional and mental challenge it can be. You should never let what other people really think get to you, or even better, know how to cut through their words to see what were the issues they had with the story. Sometimes, even the rudest, most harsh criticism can have some insight. Don’t focus so much on how they say it, focus on what they are saying. If they point out plot holes, or character flaws that make no sense, use it to improve upon yourself.

In my opinion, there’s nothing more satisfying than being able to look at the people who once insulted you and say “look at me now, bitch”. I often wonder what those few terrible people would think of me now, the people who left me such harsh reviews that it literally drove me from the fandom for a long time. I kind of wish I could walk up to them and show them what I have done with myself, and that their little tantrum at a little eleven-year old girl and her first story, didn’t break me. It’s an empowering feeling.

PERSPECTIVE

This is a more technical aspect of writing, and it has to do with perspective. This is just a general warning when it comes to picking either first, second or third perspective to write from. In my opinion, try to avoid first and second perspective. They can be incredibly difficult to write with, and sometimes the story will come across as stilted or uncomfortable to read if you don’t know how to do it well. By all means, if you prefer writing in those perspectives, then stick with them. Just make sure you can convey everything you need to. I just find third perspective easier because there is a type of detachment reading and writing from it that isn’t there with the other two.

PACING

Again, on a technical note. Pacing is key to an effective story. You need to know when and how to balance action and inaction. If you are writing a novel-length sort of story, be careful of falling into the pit of “I need to have something important happening every single second”. The kind of high-strung story needs a very specific kind of genre to work, such as crime, or horror. But even in those stories, there are moments of respite for the characters and the readers. Often these little drops in tension act as great moments to show the softer sides of your characters, or have a nice emotional bonding moment. Inaction can be just as, if not more, effective than action. 

VOCABULARY

Synonyms are your friends. Use them. Get a new word, then synonym that word. You expand your vocabulary by doing this, and the more you do it, the less you will actually have to use the thesaurus, because you will have built this complex web in your head of words. As well as this, I can’t stress how important it is to know the definition of the word you are using. Look up words you don’t know or are unsure of. It takes a lot of pressure off of you if you know which words make sense for the context of your story.

FOREGROUNDING

Foregrouding is an interesting skill that most writers use, but not many might actually know the name of. It’s a funny little technique, and even I didn’t know the technical term for it, even though I had been incorporating it into my writing for years. Foregrounding is essentially making something stand out in your writing by suddenly changing the style. For explain, for most of the piece, you might have been using long, flowery sentences, with a lot of description and emotion behind the words. A way to foreground this, would be to make your key sentence, or the “most important” part of the piece just a simple, harsh sentence with no embellishment. Many writers use foregrounding to shock or jolt their readers when something happens. Another way to do this would be if there was a death scene, you could spend a lot of time describing the wounds of the victim, what the blood looks like, what it smells like, the clothes they are wearing, what the other character is feeling, and then cut right to the victim dying. Here’s an example of something I’ve written with it:

The blood welling out the cuts reminded her of paint, thick and so incredibly bright as it slid out of the corner of his mouth and down his pale throat. She reached out with a trembling hand, carefully curling her fingers in his jacket and tugging until he was on his back. The sight was somehow worse now that she could see everything, but she didn’t let herself falter at the smell that hit her or the fact that she could see the white of his ribs through the shredded remains of his chest.

He wasn’t breathing.

That was really basic, but it shows the essence of foregrounding. Cutting away from a really in-depth, descriptive piece to something simple and plain is jarring in all the best ways. Or vice versa. If you have written something that lacks any significant description or emotion, then have a sentence brimming with the stuff. It’s shaking up your usual style to create a very specific reaction.

WHITE SPACE

White space is also known as negative space. It’s the parts of the page that aren’t filled with text, like the gaps between paragraphs. You should never underestimate the power of having white space in your stories. If I click onto a story that is just massive blocks of text, I immediately hit the back button. It’s just an automatic response for me, because I can’t actually handle having to slog through that much text in one go. Breaking up your text is a really efficient way to keep a reader’s attention, because that white space is like a little reprieve for your eyes. Try to avoid having huge paragraphs, or if you do need to have them, try and make them sparse. 

GRAMMAR

Grammar is super important for a lot of reasons. Grammar holds the story together, and poor grammar can put people off of a story immediately. Most people have their own standards for grammar, but punctuation is a big thing for me. You need to stick to your guns with punctuation. If you use ‘ ’ (single quotation marks) for a character speaking, then later on use “ ” (double quotation marks) for a character speaking, then flip between the two, it can be really distracting. It’s the same with commas and semicolons and hyphens–most of us probably don’t have a concrete grip on what punctuation is ‘correct’ to use in most instances, but somehow you can immediately tell when it’s wrong. Grammar is, unfortunately, a key aspect to writing. You need to get it right or everything can fall apart.

HAND WRITE

A good practice to get into is hand-writing some of your passages. I have a notebook that I will just randomly start writing in, even though I might have my laptop open in front of me. It doesn’t matter if your handwriting is terrible, using pen and paper is actually one of the best ways for you to process information. Plus there is less margin for error, since it takes significantly longer for you to write, whereas it is very easy to miss words or make mistakes when typing. I’m sure I’ve made a few myself in this post already.

READ ALOUD

Read what you write aloud to yourself, or other people if you feel comfortable doing so. This really helps you to smooth out any lingering awkward phrasing or pauses and a whole plethora of other tiny things we all miss. Reading your work aloud pushes all those issues to the front. It can be an annoying process, but it’s really effective. Also, make sure to regularly change your font whenever you are reading through your work, and potentially the font size as well. These changes make your eyes and brain pay more attention, because even if you have gone through the same piece several times, they don’t know that, and will automatically refocus because it all looks ‘new’.

MIGRATE

If you get stuck on a project–jump to another. There’s nothing wrong with hoping between stories, or even side projects. Sometimes one story is just being stubborn, and going to work on something new helps get your creative juices flowing. I tend to find it most helpful when the projects I jump between are vastly different, either in terms of tone, or the fandom they are based in. 

WRITE v EDIT

Try not to write and edit at the same time. Your brain needs a chance to switch between the roles, and if you try and force yourself to do them both at the same time, you will just end up going around and around and feel like you’re getting nowhere. Make your writing and editing times completely different, so that you’re avoiding that horrible spiral.

REWRITE

Don’t be afraid to rewrite things. I sometimes get to the end of a 7,000 word chapter, read over it, then rewrite the whole damn thing because I either didn’t like it, or forgot something, or there was one section that wasn’t clicking with everything well enough. Rewriting is great, and it can be fun too. It helps you to smooth out the crinkles in your story flow, and makes everything seem neater and ordered. Plus, I find the process extremely satisfying for some reason. 

DAILY

Try and write daily. Set aside even just ten minutes a day to just writing something. Even one new word is another step you have taken towards the completion of your story. And if you find you can’t, that’s fine too. Maybe just use those ten minutes to read over what you already have. That’s how I get my writing spark back, I read what I have written, get sucked in, then get annoyed when I get to the end and become determined to finish. I fall for it every time and it’d be embarrassing if it wasn’t the entire reason I update my stories.

TREAT YO SELF

The title says it all. Treat yourself. If you finish that chapter that you’ve been stuck on for weeks–celebrate! If you plot out a character’s backstory and have figured out where you will be going with them in the future–celebrate! The little milestones are just as important as the finished project, and they deserve to be acknowledged. Have a reward system for yourself. Mine isn’t really big, it’s just the dopamine hit I get every morning when I wake up after posting a chapter, knowing I get to spend my morning laying in bed reading everyone’s comments. 

FOCUS MODE

I find it very useful to write with the focus mode activated in Word, or on Full Screen mode in Google Docs. The lack of distractions on the screen makes it easier for me to concentrate and get my work done. I also tend to write with a black background and white/grey text–it’s a bad habit that I need to get out of, but it really helps me power out my chapters.

CRY

Sometimes writing can get really difficult, and that’s okay. I have been driven to tears sometimes when trying to write a chapter. Not because the part of the story is particularly emotional, but just because I need to get rid of some of my pent up frustration and exhaustion. Crying is an absolutely fine response to being overwhelmed, and no one should ever be ashamed of crying because of their story. Once you release all that build up, you will feel so much better.

EXERCISE

This is something I have to get into the habit of doing, but exercise is so important to writing. You need to make sure you stay on top of your health as a writer. Too often we just sit in front of our computers for hours at a time, not moving, poor posture, neck cramping and eyes dry. Get up and move every half-hour, even if it’s a lap of your house. Go to the gym if you can, just like with editing, you should set aside some time of your week to just exercising. It will improve your mood, and make the writing process so much easier.

BREAK PATTERNS

You’re a writer. You’re a creative thinker. We are not made to be confined in boxes and labelled and categorised. Go out there and write whatever the hell you want to write. Break conventional writing patterns, flip the rules on their heads. Every great author out there did something fresh and unique with their art, and you should too. Don’t be afraid to branch out of your comfort zone and give something a go. Be different.

——–

There is so much more to being a writer than just being good at writing sentences, or coming up with an idea. You’ll notice that a lot of my tips aren’t even directly linked to the act of writing, and there’s a reason for that. You are your most important asset. You are the one doing the writing. Take care of yourself, take your time, stay strong, keep your goal in mind, and just write. Write and write and write, and then write some more. The more effort you put into it, the harder you push yourself, the better you’ll get.

This is all I’ve got for the moment, and while it might not have been what you were looking for, I still hope this helps you in some capacity. And if nothing on this list does–great! You’re different from me and so many other authors out there, which means you’ve got something I don’t, and you will make something new and special.

You do you, my dear. Find what works for you, rip apart my advice and twist it into whatever suits you. There is no one way to become a better writer.

[blogpressrelease-blog]

News Release Layout - Learn Just How to Properly Write One Today!

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 First off, you need to keep in mind that you are targeting 2 target markets. These are the media and also the public. The media is composed of individuals that lag the devices that you require to utilize in order for you get your press release reach the general public. These are the editors, press reporters as well as the reporters. You need to go through them before you obtain the possibility to reach your second target market which happens to be the public. The general public is composed of individuals you intend to get notified by the event or affair that you have. I think that I have actually made it clear that you need to pass the qualifications of the media in order for you to survive the public. These people are busy, stern as well as pressured towards job. And their task occurs to be to assess if your press release is newsworthy or otherwise. In order for you to earn the authorization of the media, this is exactly how your press release layout must go. visit the site

 You require to offer your release date. This will certainly allow the media recognize when your press release should be published. Next to the launch date is your headline. This needs to address at the very least 3 of the WH questions. The heading in your press release style needs to be catchy yet brief. It ought to be catchy to make the media stop from scanning and take notice of your press release.

 It needs to be brief for the media not to obtain pissed and tired of reviewing what you are trying to say. What you need to have next is your call information. Your get in touch with information must supply to whom must the media contact after they have actually ended that your press release is relevant sufficient to be released. Alongside the contact info is the body. The body needs to give all the information concerning your occasion. The very first paragraph must have the basic details while the being successful paragraphs have to provide supporting truths regarding your occasion. Your firm profile must be the following. This must include a sentence or 2 that supplies information about your business and your business's objective.

 This is additionally known as the boilerplate for others. The pound sign is few of the last things that you require to show in your press release. This will function as the cue to the media that your news release has finished. It normally goes as the word "END" or the sign "###". Finally, you need to give a much more detailed get in touch with information at the very bottom of your paper for added information in support to the media. Having a logo design on the paper you will use will include procedure and feeling of credibility to your press release.

[jameslatimerwrites]

So, SPFBO has concluded for another year, and, I presume, is getting ready to launch again. As someone who once rushed to get a never-published book into the first SPFBO, I realised I had taken a step back from SPFBO and indie/self-publishing over the past year or so. My reading list has been mostly traditionally published (trad) books this past year, in part because I burned out a bit reviewing for last SPFBO and in part because my own priorities have shifted towards the trad route. I’ve also found that, by and large, it suits my taste better, and when there are so many great books coming out of trad publishing all the time, who needs to look elsewhere?

HOWEVER

I did, like a smug hipster, read The Sword of Kaigen last March, before the SPFBO hype started. I can remember it catching my eye on Rob J Hayes‘ monthly newsletter, and then I think an early review (and sale) got me to take the plunge. To start with, like many, I wasn’t fully convinced, but the quality of the writing and intriguing worldbuilding kept me going until – wham! – the story hit like an avalanche and swept me away. For the sheer, unexpected emotional impact it will stand out as one of the most memorable, and cherished, books I’ve ever read. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect, however, and while no book ever is, there are definite ways you could sharpen this sword further. And yet I’m not sure if I would change anything.

In this regard, SoK perfectly encapsulates the risk and reward in self-publishing for both reader and writer. Authors have the freedom to put out whatever they want, meaning books can be different, risky, challenging, and so very special when it works. 

HOWEVER

They can also go to print with fatal flaws – there’s usually one SPFBO finalist that bombs with the other 9 reviewers, for example, though I suppose it still had one ringing endorsement. Even amongst the top-ranked finalists (and winner!), there were comments about what might have been improved by even more rigorous editing. This doesn’t just mean spelling and grammar, but smoothing out (or speeding up) the pacing, cutting down the infodumps, or making sure it starts in the right place.

When even the good ones often have room for improvement, you start to see the advantage of traditional publishing – and there are now a few examples out there of books that have lived in both worlds, like Senlin Asecends, Grey Bastards, The Wolf of Oren-Yaro, and the forthcoming We Ride the Storm. Sometimes, not much changes at all, but I was fascinated to read both versions of Wolf and see how a big-house edit smoothed some of the rougher edges while preserving (and enhancing) the story – though I did like some of its edginess the first time round, I must admit. I’ve heard WRTS is similarly improved, and it was already good enough to come second in SPFBO 2018/19. (The impact on covers is a bit of a mixed bag, though!)

So, trad pub does add value, even to very good books. After all, that’s the whole point of the process – taking something exceptional enough to get noticed and polishing it until it shines, making it more readable for more people. And while the selection process isn’t perfect, at least they are starting to pick up the ones that slip through the cracks. This selectivity and (often brutal) editorial gauntlet means you do get a guarantee that each offering from a trad publisher is at least the best book it can be.

Whereas the lack of “gatekeeping” and stringent (if any) professional editing means there are the legions of self-published books that are just…not very good. Whether this is because they are a generic tale we’ve all read before, or a decent concept but poorly executed, or an idea the world is just not ready for, they aren’t all rough diamonds. A flashy cover and a hired editor can give a bit of reassurance, but is no guarantee when the “publisher” is making the decision on their own baby. Is it any surprise so many book launches don’t live up to their author’s dreams when there are so many equally…average books out there?

HOWEVER

Even amongst the “average” books, even the ones without professional artwork and editing, I’ve found some really enjoyable reads. After all, what often matters most is matching the right book to the right reader. When that connection is made a few typos and rough edges can’t dull the joy of reading something that could have been written for you. This is what happened when I picked up Eternal Knight, on a whim, almost seven years ago. I think the author will be the first to admit he’s not the world’s most poetic prose stylist, but he can tell an engaging  tale with compelling characters. And, he knows his arms and armour, which is what spoke to me specifically at the time.

The fifth and final book, The Emerald Gate, came out yesterday, and I am so glad to have been along for the ride. I believe the first book is currently on offer, so now’s a great time to go check it The Orb Series by Matt Heppe if you haven’t already. And watch out for what he’s got coming next, too!

  It can be hard sifting through the oceans of books out there to find the ones most worth reading. Not every “good” book is successful, and not every successful book is “good” (even accounting for subjectivity). Of course, the measures of success can vary as widely as “good”. Some authors might value connecting with a handful of readers who really “get” their book, sales be damned. Others won’t care if it’s the most derivative, critically-panned piece of cynical marketing, as long as it sells. In this sea of polished turds and ugly ducklings, word of mouth and efforts like SPFBO are vitally important in getting your hands on the right indie books – for you.

And yet, at the end of the day, is this so different than for trad pub offerings? Yes, they may be more consistently edited, more professionally produced, and, depending on your taste, more frequently reaching a particular threshold for originality and quality of writing. Then again, it’s not like trad publishing is averse to the odd cynical, big-money bandwagon, damn-the-critics-full-speed-ahead sales steamroller from time to time. There are no guarantees, especially as it still ultimately comes down to taste – and your taste may not match what the publishers are offering!

So, if you are looking for something really different, something that trad pub is often too risk-averse or too jaded to offer, you may find it among the indies, if you know where to look. Keep an open mind, and open ears – and every now and then, trust your gut!

Revenge of the Indie So, SPFBO has concluded for another year, and, I presume, is getting ready to launch again. As someone who once rushed to get a never-published book into the first SPFBO, I realised I had taken a step back from SPFBO and indie/self-publishing over the past year or so.