#diversity in publishing

[inkcurlsandknives]

I wanted to share a heads up that SAINTS OF STORM AND SORROW Preorders are 25% off 4/17 till 4/19, so if you've been waiting for a good sale to preorder, now may be your moment!

( Additionally international readers should check my linktree for bookstores with free/included worldwide shipping)

Every bit of support like preorders helps a BIPOC debut author so much. It shows our publisher and the larger industry that there are readers hungry for more diverse stories and perspectives.

Hi Tumblr I'm an Asian fantasy author fleeing the sudden death of all my other social media sites 👋 I've used Tumblr for years as a fandom lurker and rarely posted but in light of all my other communities imploding I guess I'll have to figure out how to be actually active on Tumblr and find bookish and writerly folks here 💜 say hi if that's you 🥺

If you love diverse filipino fantasy with bipoc leads, angry bi women clawing for space in a world that's always rejected them and soft boys who'd do anything for them, awesome elemental magic based on early Filipino shaman/ babaylan/katalonan mythologies and the Tagalog creation story, and the Bakunawa/Laho the 🇵🇭 sea dragon 🐉 and drowning colonizers then I hope you'll keep an eye out for SAINTS OF STORM AND SORROW coming in June 2024 from Titan Books

[haveacupofjohanny]

Sunday Hot Topic: The State of Diversity in Publishing: Progress and Challenges

📚 The publishing industry is making strides toward diversity, but challenges remain. Join the discussion on the progress and ongoing efforts to ensure inclusive representation in literature. Share your thoughts! ✨ #DiversityInPublishing #InclusiveReprese

The publishing industry has long been criticized for lacking diversity, with underrepresented voices struggling to find a platform. However, in recent years, there has been a noticeable shift towards inclusivity and representation. Albeit a forced shift from readers and book bloggers who demand a shift, a shift nonetheless. Today, I want to explore the progress made and the challenges that still…

[rasheednewsonauthor]

Pay assistants a living wage.

[kimyoonmiauthor]

The Lack of Diversity in US publishing (yes, intersectional post)

I get that some publishing pros might think this will fall into a hate piece, but it's not. It's looking at systemic, not individualistic problems and asking that everyone pick up the slack.

Someone's going to try to chase me on the idea that I don't know how publishing works and never worked for a publishing company, even if both are patently not true. But whatever. You want a biography of my life, pay me. I'm not going to info dump all my life experiences into my bio page.

Anyway, as usual, I majored in Anthropology, concentrated in systems and if somehow people haven't been paying attention to all of the material I've produced over the years–yes I know world lit fairly well (I'm not saying top mastery because there is no such thing with world lit). I *also* happen to collect and know how publishing systems in other countries work and their rough histories and stats, so I know that this is mostly a US problem and I'm calling it out because !@#$, really? You want to call yourself the best when other countries are kicking your butt?

I have the history of publishing in my head. All the way from the Invention of paper, the objections of Plato to writing to the common era. So no, not that ignorant, and yes, I think I could beat some publishing pros that say they know publishing well on errata knowledge of publishing history given what they post on Twitter sometimes. Which isn't boasting per se, but more, I think publishing pros *should* know more than me, like international publishing practices and story structures so they are ahead of the game and can sell, say a client's book to the *correct* international publisher with the correct proposal, but that might just be me. (Especially since time and again, it's said international gets more royalties than domestic).

That said, I'm *not* going to run down the history of publishing, etc. I'm just establishing I'm not ignorant in case people want to challenge, and if they challenge they can do so with more academic papers/articles, etc, rather than starting from the bottom.

What we know is that the demographics of the publishing industry have drastically changed since the 1980's with Pew Research Center pretty much publishing their findings since then about race, etc. But the publishing industry has failed to meet the demand with supply. I want to examine the hurdles of diversity faces in order to overcome these barriers and why, even after the call for diversity, the numbers have not changed, even when clearly the demographics of readership has.

This is mostly theory backed with academia. And no, it's not a 101 on diversity, DEI and publishing–it's going to assume you know all this coming in, but not use snobby academia words to get there.

If there is one thing that South Korea faced when it decided to push the dramas on the rest of the world is that the Google App and Apple Store rule is true–people like celebration of diversity and most of all in this global economy–kindness—this is the flip that was experienced in Story structure, as well (Which I've well covered with things like reality TV shows where commenters LOVE seeing cooperation, not just chaos and competition.)

So, Korean published a lot of the issues facing it honestly when creating dramas, which is a long-standing tradition stretching way back in Korean history (And no, this is not dividing North/South because both try it.) What? No one watched North Korean dramas? North Korean dramas also tackle social issues.

This very reason is why South Korean dramas are loved and hated-too much thinking some say. (Because people should be paying attention to audience reception–*cough* Netflix)

Chinese are also pushing contemporary literature internationally. And Chinese writers are also doing their best to examine social issues. (unfortunately don't always reach international audiences because of Mango's terrible subs. TT) Though international audiences might miss some of it because it–by design needs to be far more subtle to pass censorship.

But the US is mired in book bannings and people thinking that media is dangerous and might change minds rather than media literacy.

And I honestly think this is slowing down the US publishers on several levels, even if their money would increase if they actually met customer demand as the Pew Research center says–because bad marketing and the richest people are more concerned with the wrong demographics. So these are the rough barriers, I think we need to get across, in general, as disabled, ND, queer, PoC, religiously diverse, etc.

Education

The asshats don't care about education unless it makes people think, thus the book bannings-the biggest threat is media literacy to conservatives, who by far, are not likely to be college educated as a group and don't want others to be either.

In terms of literature–having experienced this myself, a lot of the diversity is pushed into classes on a college level and boxed into "specialties"

Latin American Literature

East Asian Literature.

Middle Eastern Literature

And I've gotten this complaint multiple times–World Lit sucks and tends to overly focus on white Europe within the US–PoCs queer, etc are token in the class and either pushed to first or last without an even distribution.

Queer Theory is barely touched upon most of the time and not intersectionally, with mostly lesbians and gay theoretical texts being analyzed over anyone else. Let's examine Foucault for a PoC queer text, for example.

Generally, I've experienced more analysis of queer, disabled, etc texts with theoretical texts that don't belong to that sphere.

This honestly means a bottleneck effect happens where people who might be interested in diverse literature never get it. People who want to teach it, never get to read it. People who want to write about it, can't find academic papers to back themselves up without hodge podging it together (and if you think I didn't face this–you have no idea how much I suffered). People who should probably get the exposure to it–never do and don't know how to approach it because own voices never guided them through it.

And even if you do manage to force all of the lit classes together to get all 6 livable continents' worth of material somehow (even though the South Pacific is really ignored), if you're a PoC, you're more likely to be graded more harshly on your English, the language, thus your literature papers than anyone else by virtue of your name. (Some teachers get around this by insisting no names, only student ID numbers–but there's other systemic problems with this, which include, but are not limited to, dialects exist and are called "wrong")

So the most well-meaning white pro-publisher might exit college and their entire school career and never learn how to analyze say... Zora Neale Hurston properly, and thus automatically think that all Black Creole-ish language is "wrong" "bad" and "Not worth it."

"The writing didn't grab me." But are you sure it's not because of racism? And no, we're talking systemic racism here.

OK, say the person does get to read a bit outside of the "norm" they might then model all of the "good" submissions on that tiny little fraction. Say, they only read Natsume Soseki–no doubt a great, but what happened to them reading diversity within that? What about Sei Shonagon? or Nijima Yae?

This is where education becomes selecting of "What's good" in academia. And I'm going to say this—own voices for disability in academia for taught literature is absolutely miserable. WTF. I mean the best I ever got was maybe Holden Caufield from Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men—both taught at my preppy high school neither of which are own voices and we barely talked anything about what disability rep meant. I don't know if you can count The Sound and the Fury for autism rep, because he wasn't autistic... but again, just stating the fact he was without examination into the implications.

This leads to what I'd call privilege qualifying. I have a degree—and the submissions will show me how to analyze the text–I've run into this where I said the work was in qichengzhuanhe (A particular Chinese drama) and thus not conflict narrative 3-act and then white people particularly get upset at me and even slap down they have a college degree, and EVERYTHING is an 3-act conflict narrative. Then it devolves into "You're not being nice." towards me for pointing out the truth.

It becomes harder, too, when they don't know how to find books that escape the publishing norm of books that privilege qualify enough to be translated.

So the first summit is education. No matter what, if agents, editors, etc are not willing to educate themselves about other literary traditions and their frame of reference for analysis, they are never going to be able to properly sell the work in the first place or argue the importance to the core demographic.

(Really, though, they should be paying attention to the world market).

2. Come Back~~~ Mentality

Since the 1980's, the male demographic of readers has been falling sharply. First to 60/40 female/male (NBs not included in Pew Research center), then 70/30 in the 2010-ish. Then a sharp fall to 2023. This means that for cis males, they get an advantage in the market as the number of female readers, and thus writer increase. The number of writers is not surprisingly proportional to the number of especially repeat and avid readers. There is nothing like mass consumption to make you think you can, too, make/do that thing.

Watch enough how-to-make-a-chair youtube videos and you will think you, too, can make a chair.

The thing is that for all those decades, from what I've heard from multiple author interviews–publishers have been chasing the male demographic and failing.

Not only that, they've lost the white demographic overall such that the largest population of readers neck and neck is Black college-educated women and White women, who historically, from what I've observed are Liberal, and LOVE, love diversity and thinking about it. These are also the more likely repeat readers and consumers of things like audiobooks.

You'd think that publishing would try to hit this demographic harder, especially as publishing is losing money, but instead they are super focused on groups that don't matter: Conservatives, why don't you read more? White men, why aren't you reading more?

Instead of trying to figure out the core demographics likes and dislikes, they are spreading themselves thinner and more likely to choose books to appeal to a wider base.

But in doing so, they ironically lose the core demographic that actually wants to read the books. Because the rule is: In the specific is the general. People will find things that resonate with them in specific experiences, especially when they are educated to look things up.

But pro-publishing doesn't seem to care about the numbers and doesn't seem to want to hit the core demographic and then expand outward.

Instead publishing tries to blame video games, TV, streaming services, the internet—the long wait times to deliver books to market, self publishing, etc. It's everyone else's fault, even if this competition of attention was true also in the past with things like radio, playing outside, household chores and so on.

And thus in chasing the wrong demographic they never can grow. In marketing terms, this is like trying to set up a franchise when your core business isn't set up yet. You have no revenue–oh, let's set up another store to a different demographic.

And thus trad publishing is leaking money as it tries to chase the wrong people into reading books–with one exception–Teens have the most disposable income–though this is creating a bottleneck because they don't want to "risk" putting diversity into the *rest* of the bookstore. (I've covered this before.)

3. Abusing their employees and anyone below the owners.

Agents don't get paid until the writers get paid. And white abled cishet writers get more money, but agents are abused by the system because now they have to do the work of a publicist, the marketer, the editor, acquisitions and everything else US publishing doesn't want to pay for. This is not true internationally, as often the editor is the person doing acquisitions, as in Japan, Korea, and China. And the publisher might hire a manager for the more famous authors to work as a publicist and marketer. Thus the job is stressful, not very lucrative, and with a poor education system in place about diversity–sometimes hubris of the agents, they don't know what's good outside of their basic education. They might even hate PoC work without knowing it–the work that's too-PoC they abhor, but the work that white qualifies is absolute proof they aren't racist.

And with abhorrent education, it doesn't get better for anyone else up the chain, such as editors, copy editors, etc as more and more cost cutting from publishers comes as they insist so, so hard to chase after demographics that don't bring them money. I'm not talking about Talk Show Host book–but unknown, unproven white male cishet author, getting more advance and more royalties over a proven PoC author who did make back their advance.

This is true for other diversity too.

And that's a terrible business model, if you think about it---in basic business terms: If you have 1,000 sprockets you want to sell to market, and then you spent 500 dollars to get them, say. And know your core demographic is Sprocket buyers. But you also spend 2000 dollars on a spricket, because you think that you need to sell sprickets which you have no numbers in demographics to back up, and the number of spricket buyers is plummeting drastically, but try ONE MORE TIME, and this product repeatedly fails, people would rightfully yell at you, what are you doing? And this is the current model for publishing.

This means that editors, etc are getting paid less and less while the majority of the profit goes to the top of the food chain–the owners of the company.

The incentive to take "risky" books, therefore is less. Because diversity is seen as "risky" and these people really, really can't afford to lose their job to go with the book they really want to publish, but might be a total loss. (This is OK with foreign companies because their costs while suffering the same problems, they also learned how to adapt somewhat and still be able to publish the riskier books).

4. But Agents can't find the clients?

I think as more, and more agents do this as a side hustle, the cold marketing sell goes down the drain. Diversity books become that stretch book. This means more agents want "books that I really connect to" to sell rather than "Books that I just want to cold sell on merit."

The job of editing and acquisitions is down to them—they are barely getting money from it, so how are they going to sell a book they think has a chance in market, but probably will sell to a publisher?

As books have become less profitable for authors, as well, authors need to do side hustles, too, and so it becomes much more difficult to find career authors versus those who are interested in one-offs on a bucket list. (I know some writers might get mad at this, but I've met those people as well, and no hate to them, but this is difficult for agents)

Agents also have uneven submission guidelines, making it harder to put books in front of them for ND people as well.

So it's not just safer bets, but curated to what the agent likes, instead of thinking about what they can cold sell.

This is what is leading most likely to the push towards comps, which are "proven" though there is no such thing in art since the very thing that humans love in art is novelty.

For example, the major complaint on the Love You Seven Times drama version is that it was forced away from the book version which was unique. But the drama version is very Cookie Cutter. What people loved was the newness–the pushing boundaries, it wasn't solely the characters. It was also the way that events were chosen and constructed.

But when you're not getting much money in the first place, doing this as a side hustle, effectively doing a ton of other jobs that don't allow you to do only your job, taking risk on novelty goes down and since they don't know the international demographics, international market, how are they supposed to know what the core demographic wants?

5. Marketing

What marketing? Oh, you're white cishet male.

Oh, you have built-in marketing. Then let's give you more.

Lower risk taking is death to art. Art by it's very nature is risky. It's supposed to push boundaries and the boundaries of other people. But when you're betting everything on it, why should they push the money towards marketing?

How do we fix this problem?

YA is doing really well because people like diversity. LET IT BREATHE. Let that diversity out into the rest of the bookstore. Take a risk on at least a few more books.

Educate yourself after college on classics the countries themselves say you should–not just contemporary. Read theoretical texts from a variety of intersectional own voices. Have you read Audre Lorde? She has queer Black theory in her works. Find own voices from the past and read those. Publicize it.

Stop saying the present comps only count. Open it up to all of history–if someone reads a book you don't know and uses it in their comp, then shouldn't you read that book? That's my attitude. You never read the biography of Helen Keller, but you saw that Helen Keller had feedback into the one listed? Then read it. It must have resonated wit that person to the present era for a reason. You have never read about Sun Wukong in Journey to the West? Then you should know about it and read it. If authors are expected to read everything, then publishing professionals should also do so, especially if they want to publish books from that region.

Understand the fanships, even niche fanships of international media–there are literally forums and comments sections–that's your marketing research and proof. Find out why they feel disenchanted with US media that they feel they need to go to other countries? Find out why they like that media and what the US is missing, and then when you pitch the books to the higher ups in the food chain–use those words as evidence that the higher ups are wrong and need to do surveys and it will result in better profit.

Pitch on what is novel, and unique and show how it fits into the market. Because of X and X I think this trend will hit in X number of years is literally your jobs. I understand the drudgery–I do. The words floating when you close your eyes, but your job isn't just editing the work, but also being able to actually meet the market–the future market.

An example of this would be... Because of the popularity of Spider-man and the fact that Marvel seems to be pushing more and movies such that they made a board, I think books will attempt to make a superhero genre–which then happened.

Another example. I think because of the push for diversity books that Westerns might get a revisit and we should have more Black cowboys and women instead of only white men which matches the current demographics–which then happened. (But books missed that trend? Or at least didn't show up in the bookstore when I went looking.)

And the thing with predicting trends is if you're the first one out there, you get the most cash over anyone else.

You need people to run surveys and present it with the pitching of books. Don't leave it only to the writers. You have to also put in that work. I get that you're overworked and underpaid, but literally beating people to the punch such that people want your magic–that's how we're going to get diversity in the rest of the bookstore and more cash. Present a stronger argument.

[emeryleewho]

I keep seeing posts talking about the WGA/Sag-Aftra strike, which yes, good, but in all this "support writers" sentiment I'm seeing no one talk about book writers, which I think is something people should know more about right now.

We are at an all-time high for book bans, namely targeting queer & PoC-authored books. This means that a lot of schools and libraries are no longer stocking diverse YA books, and if you're not in publishing, you may not realize this but school & libraries are by far one of the biggest markets for diverse YA books.

This means that in 2023, YA book sales are down. This is also in part because Barnes & Noble (the largest physical book retailer in the U.S.) is no longer really stocking YA hardcovers. This means that marginalized authors and debut authors are struggling to sell books.

But it's a LOT worse than that. In the past couple of years, marginalized authors are *really* struggling to get new book deals. Most books are acquired by a publisher about 2 years before they release to the public, so this isn't all that noticeable yet, but a LOT of marginalized authors I've spoken to (myself included) have been unable to sell a new YA book since 2020. So while I had a book out last year, even if I sell one right now, you won't see it until 2025-2026. That's three to four years without a new release or the income I get from publishing those books.

On top of that, Big 5 publishers have started closing imprints (namely their diverse imprints) and have started telling their marginalized YA authors to just go. I've had multiple authors tell me their publisher basically said, "eh, we don't care to put in the work for you anymore. You can just go somewhere else". Of the authors who *are* getting offered new contracts, we're being offered pay far below the cost of living and we're being handed contracts that split our payments 4 or 5 ways and require we sign over our work to be used to train AI so they can replace us a few years down the road.

Authors are freelancers who own our IPs, which means we can't unionize the way Hollywood writers can, and despite authors showing up in droves to support HarperCollins employees when they went on strike for fair wages, we're being hung out to dry when it comes to our own rights.

If you enjoy diverse books, especially diverse YA, please understand that many of the authors you loved over the past 3-5 years are being forced out of the industry. We're being exploited, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Our books sales are drying up thanks to anti-queer legislation, our rights are being eaten up by AI, and our publishers are degrading us while profiting of us and refusing to share those profits with us.

Within the publishing industry, we've all been watching this decline happen over the last decade, but outside of it, I know most people have no idea what's going on so please spread the word. And if you care about diverse books especially in YA, please support marginalized authors in any way you can. The industry needs to be reminded that it needs us before we're all eliminated from it.

[m-c-easton]

Submission Spotlight: Blackbird

A lot of literary journals have closed until fall. This gives us months to dust off old stories and see if we can whisk them up into something tasty. When that happens, the online journal Blackbird is a great place to send stuff. #writing #publishing

Okay, so the bad news is that a lot of literary magazines have closed their doors until fall. The good news? You’ve got a few months to pull up that piece you’d given up on, dust it off, and see what you can make of it. If it fluffs up into something pretty tasty, Blackbird might be the literary magazine for you. Since 2001 (or 2002—different places on their website name different founding…

[barbaragenova]

“Antiracism puts pressure on mainstream white people to try and diversify their lists, and it gives them more leverage when arguing with acquisitions boards that they should make an offer. Without that pressure, the editor might think ‘this topic is too niche’ or, if they did try to acquire it, the acquisitions board might shoot them down.

So, there’s a push and a pull. Antiracist types are generally uninterested in my work, but they create an environment where their colleagues feel more incentive to buy it (which is maybe the reason antiracists don’t like my work. They think, even a straight white person could love this).”

[bloodsuckingviolet]

Stay for the summer...if you dare.

My new book "Summer in Horseheads" is available now! 🐴🦴

A creeptastic summery story that follows Negasi Zane as he moves to America with his mother and her new husband to a small town named Horseheads, New York. There, Negasi discovers that all residents flee the town when the neighborhood 'freaks' return from their peculiar boarding schools abroad. With an entire summer in a strange, foreign place ahead of him, Negasi has little choice but to befriend the same murder of teens whose mere presence is enough to scare away an entire town...

📖Link in bio📖

[valtsv]

sorry if you’ve read this before and i just haven’t seen you post about it, but the book “hell followed with us” by andrew joseph white seems right up your alley

i need some kind of faq with a section where i explain that i consider andrew joseph white to be a poor writer except when it comes to describing excesses of body horror and gore because people keep suggesting hell followed with us to me and i'm sorry but his books are not good. aside from the vivid descriptions mentioned above they're incredibly devoid of compelling narratives, fleshed out characters or immersive worldbuilding. the guy can come up with some amazing concepts for a story, but his ability to execute them is consistently disappointing. i'm glad he's making money and having fun pursuing his creative passions but his stuff just does not appeal to me at all and frankly makes a hater out of me.

[healymatthews17]

Hello!

My 🖋 name is Healy Matthews. I'm an up-and-coming author who enjoys writing queer romance novels, usually of the historical and/or fantasy varieties.

I've decided to take the leap and dive into the early stages of self-publishing my debut novel WIELDER. I'm still deciding precisely what the next steps will be, but it's likely that I will be initially publishing through a Kickstarter campaign sometime this summer.

Meet Mona and Pippa, the main characters!

WIELDER is a sapphic fantasy novel that walks the line between young adult and new adult. The summary is as follows:

Time is fragile. It is cracking, breaking, and coming apart at the seams, and Pippa Pennippa has no idea. As an aspiring journalist from Chicago, Pippa sees the past as her muse. She draws inspiration from it, looking to its stories to forge her future. Little does Pippa know that nearly two hundred years earlier, another girl is looking to forge in her own future. Mona Spirea’s dream is to be a Forger- a blacksmith who creates weapons for supernatural cult of time-travelers that call themselves Wielders. It is her sacred duty, along with others of her race, to utilize their magic and the weapons at their disposal to prevent time from collapsing in on itself. Mona enjoys the rituals and regimen of the Wielders, and she believes in her mandate. She certainly does not expect Pippa, a girl from the future, to break into both her home and her heart. As Pippa discovers her identity as a Wielder, the Anarchists, a group of rogue time-travelers, begin to close in. Both Mona and Pippa must fight through betrayals brought by those they love. They will need to overcome oppression from those taking advantage of their own authority if they want to keep time itself from disintegrating… and save countless lives. But it seems that Pippa must face another obstacle as well: the fact that she is unwittingly in possession of one of the most powerful - and dangerous - magical talismans in existence.

If you're a fan of weapon-obsessed Vicrorian autistic lipstick lesbians, bisexual accidental-time-travelers who really just want a cup of coffee, pretty dresses from different time periods, disaster sunshine musicians from 1920s Harlem, stories that explore trauma, general timey-wimey weirdness, or gossamer-and-gothic vibes, this book is for you.

[zeequicks]

Hello everyone! I posted a while back about my Indonesian superhero comic ROSANA! and it's now LIVE on Kickstarter! You can now back the project to get rewards featuring digital editions, print editions, a range of merchandise (scroll below to see some examples), custom art and sponsorship credits for the comic!

Our Kickstarter will run for 2 more weeks and close on August 15, so get your orders in before then!

A new Indonesian superhero has arrived on the scene. 

ROSANA! The Origin Story Anthology contains issues #1-4 of this action-packed, sci-fi inspired comic, about our superheroine’s fight to save her island and her family! It will also feature a digital preview of issue #5, which means you'll be getting 80+ pages of comic and art!

Artists featured in the cover previews below include @bajingoarts, @curlytsunamiart and @shaccharin ✨

ROSANA! The Origin Story Anthology will explore the beginnings of Rosana’s adventure, which starts when her island receives a visit from a mysterious pilot, the first outsider in decades. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic future where very few people remain on Earth after the most successful fleet of space colonists left twenty years ago. Their departure was supposed to allow Earth to restore and replenish its ecosystems, but something has gone wrong – and Rosana will soon find out about the space organisation’s nefarious plans for their surviving islands.

Issues #1-4 will introduce us to Rosana, her superpowers, her family and her first encounter with the International Space Organisation - and someone on the inside might hold the key to her origins. 

Here's a preview of sticker variants you can get, designed by @shaccharin!

Check out our full Kickstarter page for more info! You can follow us on Twitter, Instagram, or sign up to our mailing list for future updates after the campaign!

[the-gamling-dog]

OMG I don't know Bysshe Fields, but I know that she's right!

A 2014 post, but still (I think) right on the money.

[saym0-0]

i cant find the post now but a while back i made a post about how the hc recap crew are watchers that technically do their jobs by reporting back to the main watchers or whatever whats going on on hermitcraft, but they exclusively do it through recap episodes. which the watchers deem immature and never actually. you know. watch.

so anyways i just want to say that this is canon to my mcyteu, and also that they also post this to youtube (an in-universe youtube equivalent?) where the general public regardless of world/server can see it, which is the main reason the general public even knows about hermitcraft, because the recap got just so massively popular. i reckon a few hermits also post or stream? but i dont have that super figured out yet i just know that its not many. maybe its content more geared towards building or redstone tutorials rather than smp content? idk

[m-c-easton]

Submission Spotlight: The Chicago Review

Submission Spotlight this month at The Trailer Park MFA: The Chicago Review. They've been around since 1946, are affiliated with the University of Chicago, and will definitely bump up your rep—but you won't earn a dime. Your call. #publishing #writerslife

Their door is open for fiction and poetry submissions until June 15 (nonfiction submissions are open year-round), so if you’re looking to publish a story, now’s the time! The Chicago Review accepts work through their Submittable page, where you can also set up a free Submittable account if you haven’t got one already. The downside? They charge a steeper-than-industry-standard submission fee of…

[barbaragenova]

“Antiracism puts pressure on mainstream white people to try and diversify their lists, and it gives them more leverage when arguing with acquisitions boards that they should make an offer. Without that pressure, the editor might think ‘this topic is too niche’ or, if they did try to acquire it, the acquisitions board might shoot them down.

So, there’s a push and a pull. Antiracist types are generally uninterested in my work, but they create an environment where their colleagues feel more incentive to buy it (which is maybe the reason antiracists don’t like my work. They think, even a straight white person could love this).”