#hybrid publisher

[cleverfoxpublishing-blog]

Procedures of hybrid publishing of a book

Hybrid publishing is a blend between traditional and self-publishing. It allows authors to maintain more control over their work while also benefiting from professional services typically offered by traditional publishers. Here are the general procedures for hybrid publishing:

1. Manuscript Submission

Process: You submit your manuscript to a hybrid publisher for review. Unlike traditional publishers, most hybrid publishers do not reject manuscripts based on marketability alone. However, they ensure that the manuscript meets their quality standards.

2. Contract Agreement

Collaboration: You’ll enter into a contract that outlines the division of costs, responsibilities, and royalties. In hybrid publishing, the author often pays for part of the publishing services (such as editing, cover design, and marketing) but retains a higher percentage of royalties compared to traditional publishing.

3. Editing and Proofreading

Professional Editing: The hybrid publisher typically offers professional editing services to ensure your manuscript is polished. This can include developmental editing, copy editing, and proofreading.

4. Design and Formatting

Cover Design: A professional cover design is provided, often in consultation with the author to align with the book’s theme and target audience.

Formatting: Your manuscript will be formatted for both print and digital versions, ensuring it meets the standards for e-books and physical book printing.

5. Distribution

Wide Distribution: Hybrid publishers often ensure wide distribution through major platforms like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online and brick-and-mortar retailers. Some even offer global distribution services.

6. Marketing and Promotion

Marketing Plans: Depending on the hybrid publisher, marketing services may be offered, including book launches, social media campaigns, press releases, and more. Often, authors are involved in their own promotion, but hybrid publishers provide support and guidance.

7. Printing

On-Demand or Bulk Printing: Most hybrid publishers use print-on-demand (POD) services, allowing authors to avoid upfront costs for printing large quantities. Some may also offer bulk printing options.

8. Royalty Payments

Higher Royalties: Authors receive a higher percentage of royalties compared to traditional publishing, typically ranging from 50-70%, as the author shares the upfront costs of publishing.

9. Ownership

Author Retains Rights: In most hybrid publishing models, the author retains the rights to their book, unlike traditional publishing where the publisher typically holds these rights.

Recommended Hybrid Publishers for Fiction Books:

She Writes Press: A reputable hybrid publisher with a focus on women authors.

Matador: A UK-based hybrid publisher that offers a wide range of services.

IngramSpark: Primarily a self-publishing platform, but it also offers hybrid publishing options for authors looking for both print and e-book distribution.

Clever Fox Publishing: A good option for hybrid publishing in India.

Conclusion:

Hybrid publishing offers a middle path for authors, providing professional support with the autonomy of self-publishing. It’s crucial to carefully review the contract and ensure the services provided align with your goals as an author.

[sewgeekmama]

Back to Work, Book Update, Hybrid Publishing and a Kickstarter

I took a bit of a break from blogging and constant social media posting over the summer. I kept things going at a minimum and popped online here and there when needed so things didn’t completely fizzle. But overall, it was really nice to get offline and spend time with family. My son starts preschool five days a week today and I plan to jump back into blogging and my book project, plus a pile of…

[pwrn51]

What type of Publishing did you use

  Cool Your Heels Host, Lillian Cauldwell, interviewed Abigail Wild, owner of Wild-Ink-Publishing. Wild-Ink-Publishing is a traditional publishing company that mainly publishes young adult manuscripts. The company is closed for submissions until January 2024. Abigail asks that the author get their manuscript edited before submitting and to make sure their manuscript meets all submission formats.…

[upside-garden-of-dreams]

In A Late Afternoon [Hybrid!Jake x Reader]

Genre: fluff

Warnings: none, just some mentions of undressing, kissing, and maybe a suggestive ending? But that ending interpretation is up to you

General info: Reader is kept gender neautral, Jake is a golden retriever dog/puppy boy, English isn't my native language excuse the typos

[More puppy Jake]

Aaaah.... I honestly didn't think this idea would extend like this Anyways, hope you enjoy! 🐶💛

Ears perked at the sould of keys fumbling with the doorknob.

A tail wagged, a nose sniffed, a heart beat faster at the prospect of what will happen next.

As soon as you opened the door to your home, allowing your bag to sling off your shoulders and pop down on the small shelf by the door, your greeting was interrupted by an excited voice:

"Jakey, I'm ho-"

"Honey! Hi, hello! Did you have a good day? I missed you!"

You were instantly hugged by your over-energetic golder retriever of a boyfriend, face nuzzling deep into your neck as he familiarized himself with your fresh scent once more.

Sure, the house was surrounded by your scent, but nothing compares to the one on your actual skin, you know? Or so he says.

Tiredness startled out of your mind, it took a couple seconds to process what excatly happened just now. Instinctively, your arms went to wrap around him in a confused hug.

"Darling, remember what I said?" You pat him lightly on the back to call for his attention.

"Oh! Yeah! Ah-ahem...Sorry, babe." He let you go, a tinge of bashfullness and shame coloring his face. His excitement bubbled down slightly by what his ears and tail showed, flattening against his head and slowing down its wag, respectively.

Jake fumbled with his hands in nervousness, eyes downturned but still taking peeks at you.

He was way too adorable for his own good. A small smile settled itself on your face as you admired the cutie in front of you.

The brunet's entire demeanor changed back to his characteristic joyful self once your hand went on to pet between his floppy ears. Jake stared at you with bright brown eyes, while an equally as bright smile shaped his lips.

Pushing the door closed, you talked again, "While I adore your hugs as a greeting, do allow me to fully come inside next time, luv." Once done with the reminder, you opened your arms expectantly.

The hybrid chuckled and dove into your arms, "Understood!"

"Hello, Jake. I'm home." You completed your greeting from before, burrying your face into his shoulder. The comforting warmth of his embrace permiated your soul, finally relaxing your tense body for today.

Jake turned to place a sweet kiss on your temple, "Welcome back, my love."

You remained in place for a while, neither of you willing to separate.

Alas, it was the puppy boy who broke the hug. Still, he kept his hands on your waist to keep you close.

"Let's get you comfortable, yes?"

Taking one of his hands and walking to you room, you agreed, "I'd love that."

Golden ears perked up once more, an excited yet shy smile coloring his lips, "Do...I get to help you?"

Turning around to answer, you could see his tail wagging slowly and picking up in speed as you talked, "Of course, silly puppy! I have tea to spill! You won't belive what Yuna said to the manager, like O-M-G my girl gives ZERO shits!"

As you talked and completed your after-work routine, Jake listened attentively. Occasionally, he would let out small hums of agreement and sounds of disbelief as he listened to the tale about your friend Yuna and her fight with that nightmare manager your team was cursed with.

His gentle hands helped remove some clothing articles, taking the time to sooth the skin with leftover marks from where your clothes hugged you a bit too tight. Your lover brought you close to his chest, circling your waist from behind, head dropping down to your shoulder to trail tender kisses all the way to your neck and jawline.

Giggles erupted from you due to his affections, hand going up to play with his hair and rub at the base of his left ear.

"Baby~" Jake whined in delight at the petting.

"Jakey~" You mimiked his tone, a breathless laugh at the end. "C´mon, put a shirt on me so we can cuddle on the couch for a while. I need my puppy to truly relax."

You could see the lightbulb atop his head from where he got an idea, "Wait here! I won't take long!"

With a sloppy kiss to your cheek, the dogboy quickly ran to his room.

In a matter of seconds, he came back with a black t-shirt in his hands, "Arms up! I have your favorite~"

Doing as told, you allowed your boyfriend to dress you up in one of his oversized shirts. It smelled just like him.

Bown eyes scanned you up and down with myrth, he loved how you looked in his clothes.

"You're so beautiful," he said, with a lovestruck look in his eyes.

Pecking his lips quickly, you answered, "And you're the cutest ever." Tugging on his hand, you led the way back into the living room.

Finally, the moment you desired most arrived: a moment to wind down and cuddle, catch up on Jake's day, and enjoy some time together.

Plopping down on the couch, you turned on the TV and let the random channel from last night play on the background.

A look thrown Jake's way sent you both into motion: the golden retriever laid down sideways on the cushions as you unfolded the light blanket hanging on the armrest. Your sweetheart gently guided you down near his chest while you flicked the soft cover over both your bodies.

You sighed happily while nuzzling into his toned chest, humming in delight at the calming atmosphere surounding you two.

Jake carded his fingers through your hair to help you destress even more, tail tumping against the sofa with every volume spike in your hums of enjoyment.

"Missed you so much, Jakey," You mumbled into his chest.

"Missed you, too, my love," He answered back.

As you looked into each other's eyes, the same idea crossed your minds. In silent agreement, you leaned towards the other and gave in to your desire...

With loving passion and delicate sweetness, you locked your lips and indulged in one another to your heart's conentent

[ END ]

Thank you for reading ~!

Feel free to like, share, reblog, and leave comments in tags or under the post (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+🩷

[manysketchbook]

Firffels: the Wuzzles Competitor That Disappeared

Recently, I found this toy at my local thrift store. I thought it was an oddly cute nativity toy, but upon closer inspection the tush tag read "FIRFFELS. I'm glad to be a SHAMEL." I did a quick search online and the first result was this page on Ghost of the Doll, a toy collector's site that archives information about 80s/90s toys and includes a forum where anyone can seek help with identifying toys. This lead me down a rabbit hole of figuring out just what Firffels were: a failed line of toys promised to be the next hot phenomenon, with minimal documentation online and a handful of toys floating around in thrift stores.

Other than Ghost of the Doll, I found info about Firffels in this 2010 blog post by Trish Babbles (written in an edgy, mean-to-be-funny style that I think is too uncharitable, but it was a different time to be online lol) and this blog post by AF Blog. My other info comes from Othello Bach's website dedicated to the book itself (her personal site is no longer functional) and from a handful of youtube videos I found of a Firffels commercial. Many thanks to these sources, without them there'd be like, nothing online about these creatures.

Firffels are based on the children's book Who ever Heard of a Fird? by Othello Bach, first edition published in 1984 by Caedmon Childrens Books (upon Googling, it appears that Caedmon is owned by HarperCollins now and focuses on audiobooks). The story follows Fird, a fish-bird hybrid, as he travels the world to find other firds. Along the way he encounters a goofy, lovable cast of other hybrid animals who have all never heard of a fird. The story ends with fird learning to love his uniqueness and find peace with being who he is. As is apparent in the Amazon link above (not sponsored, just showing my work), a used copy is $86 dollars right now. An audiobook narrated by Joel Grey (an actor that I'm unfamiliar with who is apparently known for his role in Cabaret) was also released on cassette, listed on Ebay for $75+. Luckily, there is a youtube video of someone doing a complete read through of the book, but the camera angle is poor. This is the only visual record I could find online of the interior illustrations by Michelle Dorman, other than a brief look at a few in a low quality VHS promo rip I'll get to in a minute, and the image below from an Ebay listing. There may be a few more photos in some Etsy listings that I missed.

In Trish's blog post they complain that Shamel is an ugly monstrosity and there were a few comments on Ghost of the Doll's forum of the same nature about Shamel, but I think Shamel is the cutest one! It just looks like a new breed of camel, meanwhile Fird in the background here is...he's so cartoonishly goofy. Idk how else to describe him. He's so fuckin' goofy. He'd make squeaky Spongebob-esque sound effects when he walks, I imagine.

The book was allegedly a hit and Remco bought the merchandising rights. They went all in, as is detailed in the 5 minute promotional video below. Based on a cast of 6 characters, plush toys and posable action figures hit the market with a promise that Hanna Barbera would develop an animated tv show starring Firffels, housewares would be made, there'd be a clothing line, and Design-a-Firffel contests would be held. A few housewares seem to have been made and plush toy sewing patterns were released, but I was unable to find evidence that anything else moved forward.

Absolutely fucking insane fact: according to this video, Caedmon Publishing was owned by Raytheon at the time. Thanks Raytheon for these cuddly children's toys and also, uh, horrific weapons of war?

After I bought Shamel, I went back to the store to see if there were more. There were! I found Bertle and Elephonkey, who still had the original tags. I swear the day earlier I had seen a frog toy with butterfly wings but it wasn't there anymore. I remember passing over it and thinking "eh, butterfly wings on a frog aren't cute," and did not bothering even looking at the tags. My mistake. Turns out that toy was worth a decent amount of money and was part of this whole story.

Bertle's pink belly super bright in real life, like neon. There is a sunbleached spot on it's front.

Elephonkey is the only one with original tags. I also included an image of the tush tag. For each toy the tush tag is the same but displays the character's name.

Hybrid animals are not a unique concept. Wuzzles, a line of plush toys that were animal hybrids with wings and likely made to compete with Care Bears, are brought up in most posts and forums where Firffels are mentioned--usually to disparage Firffels as being knock off, less successful Wuzzles. Wuzzles weren't exactly successful either, though they definitely lasted longer and had more reach, likely due to the backing of a Disney/Hasbro budget. AF Blog in 2015 makes a good point that I agree with: it's unlikely that Wuzzles and Firffels were ripping each other off due to production timelines. Toy lines can be in development for years before any information is made public. It takes a long time to design toys, then get them to a manufacturer, then go through the revisions process. Not to mention the time it takes to ship things out, negotiate contracts at every step of the way, etc. And, as AF Blog notes, Whoever Heard of a Fird? was released in 1984, a year before the first Wuzzles tv episode aired, and Firffels hit the market a year later.

People draw hybrid animals all the time. For example, furry adoptable artists draw hybrids all the time (take a shot every time you find a closed species that is a feline with a fish tail or deer feet or some other animal's defining trait), the Lego movie had Unikitty, and I literally went to Walmart today and in the toy section there was a miniature rabbit-like rainbow animal with wings and a unicorn horn there. The thing that makes these toys potentially appealing, in my opinion, is that they choose safe and popular traits: sparkly horns and feathery wings, for the most part. Things that are easily marketable.

The thing with Firffels is that they combined animals with traits that are less immediately appealing. Image below from Ghost of the Doll.

Some of them are cute but the others miss the mark. Personally I like Shamel and Bertle (the plush version only tbh).

Worth pointing out is that the character illustrations do not match the toy designs. If you go back and watch the commercials included in the 5 minute promo video, you can see that the Bertle plush and action figure are brown and green rather than pink and blue, and that Shamel's hair is brown instead of purple. I saw varied photos of the Butterfrog plush: some were lighter green while others were darker. Could be an issue with differing cameras, but I don't know for certain. And then there's Elephonkey, who is the most inconsistent of the bunch:

The first image is the prototype toy as it appears in the commercial. It is grey and flesh colored, with odd looking plastic hair. The second image is from Ghost of the Doll, of how the Elephonkey action figure actually appeared in stores. Third is a photo of my Elephonkey plush. Compare it with the official character art...well, he's not my favorite design in any incarnation.

I think the toys in the commercials were prototypes that were changed to brighter colors so as to appeal more towards girls. In the 30 second plush commercial there are 4 girl actors and 1 boy actor, with the camera shots getting closer to and focusing more on the girls' faces, so it would make sense. In contrast, the action figure commercial features 1 girl and 2 boys, and most of the camera shots are of the kids' hands playing with the toys, giving off a more boyish, gender-neutral vibe. Classics of gendered marketing, am I right? lol. But I think the change was a good one. I wouldn't have picked up Shamel if I hadn't seen the purple hair, and I definitely would not like Bertle if he wasn't pink. It gives the toys more of a cohesive style, a unique identity, and they fit in more alongside the Wuzzles/Care Bears visuals with the vibrant, happy colors. There's more of a toy-like quality to them, which increases the cuddle-ability and inspires more of an urge to play.

Discovering and logging all this inconsistency has been pretty fun. But it makes me think that these toys were probably doomed by a chaotic, unorganized development process behind the scenes. And given that the book was published in '84 and toys hit the market in '85...the signs seem to point to production being rushed.

To be fair to Firffels, it was probably a little harder in the 80s to hit it big with kids. You had to be lucky, you had to have connections with the right distributors, you had to anticipate what is universally appealing to children--one of the most unpredictable audiences out there--and you had to pay to air your commercials during prime child viewing hours. These are all things that are still true, but we have the internet now and the advertising power of the internet is scary. Going viral on TikTok has the potential to skibidi someone's toilet career. iPad babies are growing up into grade school kids who throw birthday parties every year and get toys as gifts. We are living in an era where mass-producing cheap little polyester plushies and plastic figures is easier than ever and corporations have massive budgets to pump into kids' eyeballs through every advertising avenue they possibly can. They don't even need to come up with the designs anymore, they can just partner with whatever Roblox game is popular right now and capitalize on that. Maybe Othello Bach should get on Roblox.

Actually, it appears that Bach was given the short end of the stick by the time Firffels were pulled. Though her personal website is no longer up, her other website dedicated entirely to Whoever Heard of a Fird? has some info:

At the height of Fird's success, with over 100 licensees cramming the store shelves with children’s merchandise and an animation contract with Hanna-Barbera, the book and all the merchandise suddenly vanished from the shelves.  Although she lost the rights to several other published children’s books at the same time, Othello has never received a reasonable explanation for what happened.

So this passage actually clears something up for me. This whole time something that hasn't really lined up is that I had assumed that Othello Bach published the book first and then was approached for merchandising rights after the book sold well. I actually think now it's possible that from the get-go the book was written with the intention for it to become a worldwide sensation. Not so much Bach's intent, though. I have some professional familiarity with licensing and other such creative publishing contracts, particularly with books. Based on what I know, I believe it's more likely that Bach pitched her manuscript to Caedmon Publishing and Caedmon, seeking to create popular IP, was like, "this has potential and we are going to sign you on not only for the book, but for more." That might be why the character designs are so strange: they were trying too hard to get famous quick and had instructed the illustrator (it is regular practice for publishers to pair authors with an illustrator and given how much was on the line for this IP, Bach might not've had much input here) to design characters that could also become toys. It's unlikely that Michelle Dorman, a kids book illustrator, had product design skills needed to make standout, awesome toy designs. Not a knock on her, illustrators just have niches within their field that they're best at it. It's why you see so many illustrators complain about how often they get approached to design logos--that's not what we do, thank you.

What's sad is that clearly Bach had signed a bad contract that gave away most of her rights as the writer to the publisher. She openly says so above. My guess is that Caedmon told her they needed more rights than usual to be able to conduct so much merchandising (like signing contracts with Remco, much easier to do when you don't have a third party also involved), and because they were pouring so much effort into it on their end. Bach is just the writer, so while the original idea is hers, Caedmon would have matched her with an illustrator and taken charge of all the licensing and merchandising. For a publisher this is a huge commitment financially and personnel-wise, so it makes sense why they would have put forth a contract that gave them so many rights. If Firffels had become as popular as they'd hoped, they don't want to not own the IP. They would have poured all those resources into it and not be able to reap all the rewards because that pesky author would own it. It's almost like contracts like these are predatory and only serve the interests of the publisher. Almost like publishers are companies existing in a capitalistic system and therefore only serve profit, not people. Almost like companies will never truly have artist's best interests at heart, and if you are ever to sign a contract with a big publisher you need to have a good lawyer by your side.

It makes me so sad to read that they didn't even give her a reasonable explanation as to why everything was cancelled. She does not even appear to have any of the merchandise on hand, as all the photos on her website are from Ghost of the Doll. In hindsight we can guess, obviously, why the cancellation happened but I'm in the moment it was probably upsetting. It's still upsetting, given that she has included this in her website for the...revamped book!

However, like Fird, Othello refused to give up. For the next 20 years, she tried to regain the rights to her work. Entertainment attorneys assured her it would never happen.  They said, "It can't be done!" But... it could be done and Othello did it, regaining the rights back to all her work.

Yeah, so, I actually think this is the saddest part about the whole thing. She managed to get some of the rights back and republished the book with...new art...that looks so fucking BAD. Image from her website:

Sorry to this illustrator, but got damn. There is no sauce to this art whatsoever. It is unseasoned, not even salt and pepper. This looks like ass and would never fucking fly with any editor worth their chops. It took me ages to figure out that the long yellow curved line is Fird's tail. Like, this is so unbelievably sad to me. I don't even really like the original art a whole lot, but compared to this...

My informed guess as to what happened is that Bach lawyered up and fought. As we know, Caedmon is now owned by HarperCollins. I can't say for certain but there was probably some case to be made that Caedmon being sold breached the contract, or nullified parts of it, or perhaps the contract expired. It could even just be that HarperCollins didn't care about an old, unprofitable IP and granted Bach her rights back. There is also Remco to consider: they also hold some of the rights, but probably just for the merchandise? Given how prominently their logo is displayed on the toy tags, they might actually own a significant share. Perhaps they were happy not to have anything to do with the book so long as the merch rights weren't touched. I don't know! There's no info about it on the site and this stuff is usually under NDA.

So Bach got her rights back, but she's just the writer. She doesn't own any of the art, so in order to republish the book she had to hire a new illustrator. She likely did not have a huge budget for it, maybe even paying for it out of her pocket because the Choice Books logo she has in several spots on the Fird website appears to be for a distribute on demand service, in place of a traditional publisher.

As the writer, she also would not have gotten the rights to use the original audiobook, so she had one re-recorded. It also appears like she does not have the rights to the name "Firffels" either, as the only places it appears on the site are in photographs of merchandise and in titles specifically referring to the work that is still owned by Caedmon. She carefully refers to her own work as "Fird" for short or the book's full title, probably because she cannot legally imply that she owns or made anything else.

I dug into this thinking it would be a quick look at some strange, forgotten toys from a bygone era. Instead I found a story about how an artist can so easily be shafted by publishers. Everything always loops back around to workers' rights, it seems. Stories like this about shitty publishing contracts (see: Webtoon if you want to get into something current) still appear so often, man. It's depressing, and indicative that the publishing industry needs some reforming ASAP. Like, Illustrators, when are we getting a proper union?

But I'm glad Bach got her rights back and got her book republished within her lifetime. I'm sad she didn't have the budgets for a better illustrator. Sorry to bring that up again, I work as an illustrator irl and I have opinions about craft, lol. Also I just think that given how hard Bach had to fight, she deserved to have better art made. That being said, here's another link to her current website. There's not much there but what is there is a monument to a battle she fought and won, and is proud of.

The lack of detailed, clear, centralized documentation of these toys frustrates me. One of the most frustrating things about the internet for me is that there are few easily accessible, publicly available archives of toys--even for modern toys. I've had to use Amazon reviews and Ebay listings and broken online stores to decipher publication years. With this in mind I decided to do a write up and provide clearer pictures of the toys that I have (I'll take hi res pics in natural lighting too someday). Archives are important to me and the internet kinda sucks for it, I say as someone who started this blog for that purpose. If Tumblr goes down, so does everything I've posted here. As an artist who works primarily digitally, one of the scariest things is knowing that I'm laboring over an ephemeral body of work. It's just not going to exist for very long unless I print it out on archival materials. Data is not the same as a physical object. My Firffels have survived for 39 years but the digital art I draw every day is unlikely to last past 10 years because websites die and files get deleted.

I bought the Firffels from my thrift store thinking I'd resell them. I'm low income so I sell many of the things I thrift. I prefer to buy the older toys or the ones that need cleaning because it makes me feel better about being a reseller (I don't want to take away options from low income kids in my area, ya know?). But I'm putting in the labor to freshen them up and I'm putting in the effort to make unavailable toys available again, at least for one person. And I don't have a whole lot of shelf space to display the toys in my collection...but for now I think I'll keep them.

[heart-forge]

Hiiiiiii. Now you know I absolutely adore this blog, the author and the games.

So no pressure when I ask this but I was just wondering about hybrid. I remember it being one of the very first IFs I ever played. I still remember where I was where I played it. Lmao on my way home from a trip with my husband in the car with my feet up 🤣

So I just was wondering if it's still in the works..o absolutely loved what was released and it just came up. I loved the characters so much.

Ja abso. It might have been a while back that I said this (what IS time) but Hybrid's getting an update after Bad Ritual because everyone waited really patiently and I saw a huge influx of Hybrid love last year.

The only special thing about Hybrid is that it's not formally in update order. On an official level I update BR, I update MH, then I update BR again, and on and on. Hybrid was released as an attempt to like, kill the burnout: as such, it gets an update when I feel the burnout dkjfsd. But like I said the latter half of last year really felt the Hybrid love and it's my stomping grounds for figuring out new mechanics (not that I need any right now but since it's only like two chapters long, it's easier for me to figure out stuff like progression and save states there instead of on the monstrous-sized BR).

[regicidal-defenestration]

One thing about China Miéville is that he loves a city

[kaikikyoufu]

HORROR ANTHOLOGY COMIC SHIKAKU: CAGED BIRD

By Osada Not

[cookinguptales]

a few times I've had anonymous asks like "you should start a patreon!" and I am always like "what would I even make one for" and those anonymous people never tell me so idk if they're interested in my meta or my tarot readings or my fiction or my essays on religion/folklore/history or what

that said I did actually make a placeholder patreon a thousand years ago before they upped their fees (because they said that anyone who made a patreon in like the next day would get grandfathered in lmao) and I just never. used it. because I was like "well, patreon is for people with talent SO."

but I have to be honest like -- with this new story I'm writing, I really love it! and I fully intend to release it for free like I do all my stories, but I find myself wanting to write all these little extra scenes and essays on historical context and artistic influences and stuff as well as just wanting to be able to give like... basic writer's commentary...

and I keep thinking "maybe this is actually a good use for the patreon? you could release a base version for free and if people are interested in extras they could go to the place where you're posting them?" and then I think "no, no one would ever pay for early access to your work or to your ramblings about how the story of the minotaur is really likely just propaganda reflecting the historical attic frustration towards (and eventual triumph over) a semi-foreign naval power they'd been paying tribute to"

and then I think NO there are plenty of people with no talent who have thriving online presences you have plenty of talent!!!! and there has to be someone who wants to learn about ancient greek sacrificial customs as couched in h/c romance.

and if no one does want that, well like. it's not like you'll be out anything for trying. you're writing it either way because you've got fucking brain worms, so you might as well experiment with a new way of posting it.

and yet I do kind of have a weird mental block when it comes to charging money for much of my work, and I don't know if that's because I spent most of my life writing fanfic or it's because I have an aversion to the life of a professional writer or if it's just garden-variety imposter syndrome!

...so idk, that's what my brain's been doing lately lmao.

[hotwraithbones]

4D/5D portraits of the alien wraith self from x( )-id</3 by Ami J. Sanghvi (Trickhouse Press ‘22) 💚👽💙

[little-elena]

From Stefan

"This is so cute. Princess peach smoothie banana rama is in good hands I promise!!"

[witchern]

wait omg sorry, i'm still thinking about the debut author fuckup and after looking at the goodreads page i went to the website for her publisher because i'd never heard of sparks press and i'm YELLING because it's a VANITY PUBLISHER

girlie paid almost $10k to publish this thing!!! lulu dot com is free, y'all!!!

[volucerrubidus]

this guy is the inspiration for my monster au and i just wanted to post pictures of him

[amanda-n-newman-author]

What books* and/or characters* of mine are you interested in learning behind the scenes info and facts about?

*This includes my upcoming Shrouded Curses series.

I’m considering doing a video series on YouTube and/or blog posts dedicated to behind the scenes lore, worldbuilding, behind the scenes character facts/info, and behind the scenes info/facts about my books in general.

That being said, is there anyone or anything you’d want to learn more about or are curious about?

Also, if you have any specific questions or specific characters you’d like me to cover, feel free to let me know either in the comments or in DMs. 

[madlovenovelist]

Is building a home library contra to being environmentally conscious?

DISCUSSION POST: Should we be moving to e-libraries to save the planet, or are there ways to keep our books made of recyclable material and environmental impact down? I always make a concerted effort in my life to re-use, recycle, and re-purpose to minimise my footprint on our environment. Even in product choice to limit the amount of forever chemicals that enter the household. But then I turn…

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

The First Chapter of New Book “Substack Mastery” for Beta Readers

Why I wrote this book and how freelance writers and content entrepreneurs can benefit from it Introduction to My New Book for Free A few months ago, when I publicly announced that I would dedicate 80% of my time to Substack, 15% to Newsbreak, and just 5% to Medium, I received an intriguing call from one of my book publishers. This serendipitous encounter was inspiring, much like one of my…