#but I can't seem to create the right header art for it

[estcaligo]

November always smelled so special. Maybe it was the dead leaves. Maybe the dead bodies. Maybe both. In any case, it was always the smell of despair. The scent of the end. Until your presence filled my world.

Now November smells like old books, like frosty air that bites, like warm mulled wine we drink together. Like the sweet sweat you wear after training, when you come for tea as you promised.

Like the stables where we spend time, tending to the horses. Like firewood crackling in the fireplace when we're cuddling after your long day of serving your king.

Like smoked salmon you bring over to share while telling stories about your fishing skills. Like the leather of your uniform gloves, wrapping around my neck when I yap too much.

Like the chill of your breath when you lean in close to whisper words meant only for me...

Now these are the scents of November I can bear. Maybe they too are the scents of despair, the smell of the end. But at least, it's the end I desire.

....

[elumish]

My Experience With Digital-First Royalty-Only Publishing (Part 2)

Disclaimer: just my experience, may not reflect other people's

Part 1 (What is this sort of publishing; how did I get published; what does the submission, contract, and editing process look like)

Book Release:

My [redacted] book came out in April 2024. It is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher's own website, where it is listed for a couple dollars less than on Amazon/B&N. It's available both digitally (in multiple different file formats) and for print (paperback).

I can't speak for whether this is standard across these sorts of publishers, but it probably isn't unusual. This does mean that the book can't be available on Kindle Unlimited, given how Kindle Unlimited's requirements work.

The timing for this sort of publishing is extremely fast compared to traditional or even small-press print publishing. I signed the contract in late August 2023 and sent in the final draft to my editor in late October 2023, and the book was released in late April 2024.

Book cover:

For designing my book cover, they pointed me towards where they pull stock images from and asked me to describe the sort of cover I would want, including possible stock images. They also asked for physical characteristics of my characters, which is when I realized that I had no clue what my characters look like.

The stock image website included AI art, as well as regular non-AI stock images. I specifically requested no AI art, including no AI-generated stock images. As far as I am aware, they respected that request.

Once they created one, they sent me a mock-up and asked about minor changes (typography, etc., from what I remember). I didn't have any changes. Overall, my cover looks like what I described to them, and I'm really happy with it.

Marketing:

My marketing experience with my publisher has been decidedly underwhelming. They seem to have started to revamp their marketing process right around when my book came out, so my book didn't receive/hasn't received a huge amount of marketing support from them.

What they gave me marketing-wise: a few marketing images for pre-release/post-release, including Twitter and FB header images, etc.; general marketing guidance for what I could/should be doing; a couple of mentions on their publisher Instagram post-release and a mention in their weekly newsletter

What they didn't give me marketing-wise: connection to reviewers, including sending an ARC or providing a list of reviewers that might be good to work with; marketing materials for sites like TikTok or Instragram; a meaningful amount of airtime/mention on their accounts; a large following of their own

Overall, the marketing is what is probably most like self-publishing--a huge amount of it is on me (and I am terrible at it). It will be interesting to see what their revamp brings, but they are starting from a minimal following and not a lot of previous activity on their accounts, and so they also need to build their reach to make their marketing on their accounts more effective.

Royalties/payment:

I get paid on a monthly basis through PayPal. I also receive a royalty statement that lists days, amount/type sold, etc. so I can reconcile with what they have paid me. From what I have seen this royalty statement is pretty standard.

So far, they've been prompt and haven't had issues with payments.

However, because of (among other things) their general lack of marketing, my royalty statements have been fairly low. So far (and, granted, the book came out less than 2 months ago) I have made very little money on this.

My Path Forward:

I've thought a lot about whether I will continue to do this sort of publishing. I am currently querying my "main" books, and I don't plan to publish them through this sort of publishing, even if the publisher would likely accept them.

My contract stipulates that my publisher has right of first refusal for the rest of the books in this series. I am currently writing book two, and I plan to also write a third, as I had initially discussed with them. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I don't mind working with them as a company, but I don't know if they have the processes in place for me to make money publishing with them.

One thing I will likely do is explore other romance publishers that accept unagented submissions. They have a much lower barrier of entry and they are often willing to accept books that trad publishers might not want to spend money/reputational risk on.

As such, I would likely submit to these publishers stories that I don't think traditional publishers/agents would likely to be willing to publish, including more niche subgenres and less standard lengths that are easier to publish digitally.

Why do I redact the name of my book?

Honestly because I'm a coward and because people are weird about romance, especially certain subgenres of romance. I also plan to use this account for my main agented publishing, if I ever reach that point, and I don't necessarily want those two pen names associated.

Any other questions about this sort of publishing?

[knuxify]

The Ultimate Test Post v2

Welcome to the ultimate test post, a show of strength, wit and only the finest in NPF parsing engineering. Well, as far as the editor will let me go, anyways. The docs for NPF actually have some stuff that you can't do in Tumblr's editor like skipping indentation levels in lists.

In case you don't know what NPF is: it stands for Neue Post Format, and it's the standard for Tumblr posts. Instead of storing post content as HTML, posts are stored as blocks - which pretty much match the ones you can create in the editor. This absolutely

HUGE VARIETY

of the format makes it very fun to parse.

Blocks cover text, images, videos, audio, polls and anything else you could think of.

Text blocks are by far the most common, though they can have many types:

Bigger, roughly equivalent to a <h2> header;

Biggest, roughly equivalent to <h1>;

Quote, mimicking the old quote type;

Chat, mimicking the old chat type;

Lucille, which shows up in a fancy font;

And a handful of indented types as well:

Indented, which is a block quote;

Bulleted lists,

equivalent to HTML's ;

And numbered lists,

for counting all the things, like HTML's .

All of the above are just text blocks with a different type. Separate from the type is the formatting - so, bold, italics, strikethrough, small and mixtures of them all.

Also, colors! The standard blog UI exposes red, orange, green, blue, yellow, pink and purple. As a fun fact - Tumblr's CSS actually has more colors, and these colors that are exposed have names - they're named after Friends characters! I've found that sometimes the old HTML API will return them; othertimes they return just the color code. Sadly NPF only returns the color codes, so this fun easter egg became forgotten.

Links are also formatting - for example, here's a link to your favorite website. Mentions are formatting as well - @knuxify.

Two fun easter eggs that AREN'T part of formatting are:

You can make the tumblr logo by using "[ tumblr ]" without the spaces between the brackets: [tumblr]

Tumblr's font also includes a Tumblr logo character in the reserved codepoint space:  (that's Unicode codepoint U+E022 for the curious).

These both utilize quirks in Tumblr's fonts.

Also, if you include up to 3 emoji on one line, they will become big, like so:

😀😄😅

Note that this also works with multi-codepoint emoji (oddly enough, it seems broken in the editor!):

👨‍👨‍👦👨‍👨‍👦👨‍👨‍👦

Also, using another type like "quote" will override the big emoji:

😀😄😅

Note that formatting counts one Unicode codepoint as one character; so, make sure emoji like 👨‍👨‍👦 don't break your offsets.

Also, if you're parsing text for display, you may want to escape HTML sequences, or else <style>body { background: blue; }</style> will make your site blue and <script>alert(1)<script> will make a popup appear.

Oh, and once you parse those, make sure that they don't break formatting. Though, after all, a safe website>>>>>>>a bunch of code execution exploits.

A text block represents a paragraph, but it doesn't represent every line break. As a matter of fact, multiple line breaks can be used in a paragraph, and they will all remain as part of one block. Crazy, right?

(I grabbed the first best GIF from the picker, didn't even read the original post. But hey, nice occasion to show off the attribution label, which is also carried in NPF's block data!)

A fun thing about blocks is that you can specify a layout, which contains a list of rows, each of which can contain more than one block. Here's an example:

Images below 300px (so, 299px and below) are displayed at their original size:

However, this is ignored for multi-image rows:

Here's the other block types:

In order: image with "link" attribution, link with header image, link without header image, audio, video, poll.

You can also add embeds:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by SEAVS (@seavsonline)

...and more that I'm probably forgetting.

Oh, and there's also "read more" functionality:

That's it for the fun formatting tricks. Have fun parsing Tumblr posts, and good luck - you'll really need it.

[tomiokasensei]

hello marilyn!! it's been a while, it's your secret santa! 🎅🎅🎅 i apologize i'm sending this message more late of this week, i had to finish a project this week so it was a little hectic for me! how are you? did your week went well for you? i saw you changed for a new header!! 👀👀👀 god it looks even more cuter! i love how giyuu looks in that outfit, his santa hat hanging that way it is so endearing. how can be look always so adorable each time? xD super pretty marylin! i really enjoy traveling too, i was lucky enough to go to spain (well it's our neighbors it's more close hahahah), england and to italy! i so recommend to go to italy, it's really beautiful and it feels so magical! the art, the place, the people everything is just so awesome, i felt so at home there so i bet you will enjoy it as well marilyn when you get the chance! :D ohh to japan how i wish to go there too! i'm so happy they open the borders and you're able to go, wish you a great time, to enjoy yourself and have a safe flight marilyn! 🥰🥰🥰🥰 nice! i still have to watch blue lock, there is so many anime this season that you can't have the hang of it all but for what i saw it's been pretty amazing! i'm so happy you got interested in blood+ i really hope you enjoy watching it ^^ thank you marilyn! it's always a pleasure to make your days more better and bring you a smile with these messages and interactions! sorry for being so late messaging hopefully i will be more active these next week, not being overflowed by projects for now ^^ if you don't mind what are you studying? do you have a plan in mind for what you want to work on the future? what is your dream job? :D may you have an amazing week marilyn be sure to take care of yourself! see you next time.😘😘😘😘

hi, hello, secret santa~! ! ! 😍 don't worry about about late messaging we all have things to do in life and i hope you are going good on your end despite your hectic projects! 😅

thanks for the comment on the new header 💜 i always love how ufotable, as deadpan as he mostly is, still makes giyuu quite expressive! 💙 i noticed that sometimes he would have his hand under his chin deep in thought and yet still could look super adorable as the new christmas art shows that 🥰 

that's right! portugal and spain are neighbours and that is really neat to be able to see how the culture and people are there! i hope to get my chance to vibe there, the architecture there is like a whole work of art! and i can picture the festivities there!! 💜 you are so fortunate to be able to see italy!! wow i do want the opportunity and from what you said about it that it is like i dreamed about 😊 i hope that japan will be an unforgettable experience (it would definitely be an escape cuz it is literally anime central lol!!!) but i want to see the real japan for it's beauty...

i agree so many animes this season and kinda hard to consume it all, i also recalled that another part to spy x family was out at some point but i have yet to watch it ( i only saw the first 10 episodes or so i think lol) and blue lock instantly got my interest cuz i am a football fan and an anime about it seemed so fun! 😃and i love getting recommendations to anime because there are times i find it hard to start a new show and end up rewatching something like 5 times or so... so when my secret santa from last year (shout out to @anyaaforger 🥰) for telling me about blue period because its premise resonates with me so well i would have never heard of it until then lol💜 i will definitely start blood+ soon and i am excited to watch it!

btw i am majoring in graphic design 👀 and through it i am able to utilize most programs outside of photoshop, i have learned more about typography, logos, design concepts, and branding/ how to be more communicating though art... however, my dream job is in concept art/ animation... or just being a full time artist! i dream of being able to create works of art that i want to create rather than what is needed through a company, being able to draw what is fun rather than the "boring" stuff all the time lmao i respect artists like artgerm in being able to create licensed art and anything he wants for a business and i hope to be able to do the same sometime 🥰

thankyou for your lovely messages, secret santa! 🎅 i do mean when i say that they bring a smile to my face, i hope you are going to do great in this coming week! stay safe, hydrated, and have a ton of fun! unil next time!! ✌️😊

[xfand0mfr34kx]

little introductory post cuz why not

I'm new to tumblr so I wanted to have a little intro post (and so that my perfectionist brain can leave me alone.)

I'm MintFox, but you can call me Minty. I have been making art for a long time but my artstyle is still evolving, so I apologise if it changes every 5 posts. (I don't trace and I can show proof)

I'm quite a huge STH fan but I'm kinda shy so when someone IRL starts talking to me about it I get overly excited but only internally. I am part of other fandoms tho, it's just this particular one that seems to stick the most. (on the note of being shy; if I don't respond to an ask or message pls don't get mad I'm very socially awkward.)

Yes, I did draw my pfp. Yes, I am aware that I forgot to draw Kit's backpack despite drawing the straps. Yes, I am dying inside about it. Yes, I could fix it if I wanted to. Yes, I keep procrastinating about fixing it.

(fyi my current header is just a pic I took after a mall trip.)

my blog is not suitable for anyone under 13 because I swear often (the content I create also usually has vulgar language) and I sometimes draw unsettling things. blood, disturbing imagery, gore, and other potentially triggering content. (I may make a separate blog for only not triggering content for accessibility in the future.) If you are under 13 or if any of these make you uncomfortable please go find another blog to follow instead. (I mean this in the nicest way possible I don't want to accidentally ruin someone's day with my AU concept art)

I might post potential Sonic Movie spoilers but as of now I can't think of anything spoilery to post. (do we still have to tag spoilers it's been 2 freakin months)

Oppression is not allowed on this blog. Do what is right and treat people equally. Treating people equally doesn't mean a loss of individuality.

I think that's enough rambling now. Sorry if I seem very random, I'm not that great at keeping a solid conversation point.

Always remember to take care of yourself. Live your life to the fullest so that you won't have regrets. Don't let the past haunt you, what happened back then doesn't have to define who you are today, or in the future. If you feel stuck right now, remember that things do get better eventually.

Stay positive, drink a glass of water, and maybe treat yourself to something nice. But remember self care is preserving yourself, not wasting away doing things that make you feel good but are damaging in the long run.

To whoever is reading this, have a nice day/night.