#marketing-a-book

[carebeardean]

Charles whose dad smashed his cassette tape with a hammer learns to navigate the backpack cause, like, he needs to be useful, yeah?

and this way Charles has everything Edwin needs, and if Edwin gets sick of him he’ll just.. he doesn’t know what he’ll do.

but then Edwin gets the record player.

he suggests, tentatively, that Charles might play some of his “queen” if he liked. after all, if they are to haunt potential realtors away from their new office, they may as well entertain themselves.

so they take turns, switching out; edwin likes opera. he shows Charles how to waltz, chiding Charles to stop looking at his feet til they’re gliding, whirling around like they’re in the movies. Edwin’s smile is small and pleased and lovely. (Charles attempt to get Edwin to headbang along to queen results in a sort of awkward rhythmic nodding. Charles loves him so much he could die again.)

And, like. Edwin doesn’t like clutter. he doesn’t bother with the random tidbits ghosts give them for solving cases.

until now, apparently.

now he comes back from trading at the goblin market with little useless things—a cursed rubix cube, records from bands Charles mentioned years ago.

Charles is so busy trying to subtly read his book on Edwardian courting rituals (disguised by Nikos discreet manga covers) that he doesn’t realize what Edwin’s set down in front of him. he stares at Edwin’s spiky handwriting, the tidy numbered list.

“I thought, perhaps, that we might—start a new tradition.”

Charles blinks, eyes stinging. “Mate, did you.. make me a mixtape?”

“Crystal assisted me, and while she was absolutely insuffer—“ Edwin staggers, catching him with a surprised little noise.

“I love you so much,” Charles says, muffled into his throat. “You’re my favorite person. I love you so much it hurts, sometimes.”

“Yes,” Edwin says softly, hands curling around his waist. He takes Charles weight like it’s nothing. “I believe I know the feeling.”

this is a longer fic on ao3 now!

[valtsv]

sure your book is a new york times bestseller with a diverse and unique cast of characters, positive reviews from multiple well known authors and agencies, "ideal for fans of [popular published work] and [other popular published work]" and rated 4.99999999/5 stars on goodreads but does it have, like, a plot

[equivocations]

Feira de Libros de Plaza Italia, Buenos Aires. After he saw the painting, one of the booksellers gave me a rose 🌹

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Out of sight, out of - wait.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[cy-cyborg]

Forgetting your character is disabled isn't a "good representation" flex: Writing Disability Quick Tips

[ID: An image with “Writing Disability quick tips: Forgetting your character is disabled isn't a good representation flex” written in chalk the colour of the disability pride flag, from left to right, red, yellow, white, blue and green. Beside the text is a poorly drawn man in red chalk looking down confused at his leg, one is drawn normally, the other is drawn to resemble a basic prosthetic. He has question marks above his head. /End ID]

For a while, I was involved in the booktok and Tik Tok writing communities, specifically parts of the community focused on more diverse books and authors. During this time, I noticed a reoccurring pattern when people were highlighting stories featuring disabled characters, or even promoting their own books, and that was how often people would say "I kind of forget they have [insert disability here] because they're such a badass."

The intention behind this statement is (usually) good, with people trying to show that their disabled characters are self-sufficient and don't fall into the tired old sad/helpless disabled person trope, however, you can - and very much should - do that without erasing your character's disability. If you find yourself forgetting your character is disabled, or your beta and pre-release readers are commenting about forgetting it, then there's a good chance that's exactly what you've done - and as a disabled person myself, if I see that statement being used in your marketing in particular, it's a giant red flag and a sure fire way to make sure I give the book in question a skip.

Remember, disabilities (especially major ones) are a part of your character's identity, and they're important regardless of the character's personal relationship with it. Even if your character doesn't specifically identify with the label of disabled or doesn't really care that much, it's should still be impacting their daily life, even in small ways. If you're finding yourself forgetting about a major part of your character's identity, it might be a good idea to check and make sure their disability is having an impact on the character.

I see this comment most often with amputee characters, and to me, it's a pretty consistently good indication that the author has treated their character's prosthetic as a cure rather than the mobility aid it is. It's far from unique to amputees, mind you (I talked about this a lot when I was discussing the character of Toph from Avatar), but it's when I tend to see it the most. Remember that mobility aids and other forms of assistive technology and assistive magic (if it's a fantasy story) are just that: they're aids, they assist, they shouldn't be cures.

Of course, this wasn't unique to Booktok, I've seen it on nearly every other social media site with a writing and book-focused community at some point, but Tik Tok was just where I spent the most time and it seems to be where I see the most people specifically gloating about it.

[ruegarding]

i never want to read annabeth being surprised percy is intelligent ever again in any way at any point for any reason.

[night-market-if]

Merripen

Meet Death. The Night Market's age old friend. The one who played in the stars with them. Romance the male or female version of them and learn more about their past in the Night Market series.

Art done by @mooreaux

🪷✨🪷✨ If you want to support me 🪷 ✨🪷✨ 

🌿Book 2 WIP🌿 Book 1 Free Demo 🌿Book 1 Steam🌿Book 1 Itch.io🌿🌿Patreon 🌿Discord🌿FAQS🌿

[thebeautifulbook]

THE GOBLIN MARKET AND OTHER POEMS by Christina Rossetti (London, [1862]) Art binding.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Vegan leather is a plague.

[egophiliac]

I want your opinion on something. Do you think it's better to try and the the cards of the character you like or skipping some to brench out? Like, say you're a fan of Leona. Should you try to get all of his bday card and stuff or stick to one and get other characters ssr?

personally, as much as I would like every single card...I gotta ration my keys, so I focus on my favorites!

which isn't to say that I only pull for certain characters no matter what! more that I take a good long look at every card that comes out and go "do I really want this one? like...really really want it?" (the answer is usually yes, but -- look, the art in this game is very pretty, okay)

honestly, from a gameplay standpoint, I think it doesn't matter too much whether you focus on pulling for specific characters or not. there are very, very few points where actually having a good mix of characters is important (Those Two Stages in episode 6, where I think you can use retry tickets for the easy mode? and also guest room battles if you care about those) and you'll probably end up with at least one halfway decent card per character just from doing 10-pulls and events. so even if you're only pulling for Leona cards, you'll still end up getting a bajillion other characters as well. follow your heart! chase that grumpy lion bliss! ✨🦁✨

[outerspacess]

I think about this more often than I’d like to admit.

“Whoever you have loved, and however you loved them,” said Jem, “anyone you loved would be lucky.”

[fictionadventurer]

We laugh at sci-fi for how it over-explains technology, but we also need to make fun of how Victorians describe any time period that takes place more than ten years before the book's publishing date.

It's like if we wrote like this about the '80s or '90s.

According to the curious fashions of the day, she wore a shirt of tie-dye print. It may seem quaint to our modern sensibilities, but such colorful styles were a common sight in any public street of those times.

At the time this story occurred, it was not uncommon for young men to wear their hair cropped closely around the face, but allow the hair behind the head to grow until it brushed the level of the shoulders.

In those days, the information superhighway was little more than a crude unpaved path, full of hazards and beset by brigands, so it is not strange that our heroine, instead of entering her query into the search bar on her browser, went to the public library and scoured the books on the shelves for the information she sought.

She and her friends went to the theater to see E.T. How strange to think that film was once at the heights of popularity and acclaim, as well-known in its day as films like The Hunger Games or The Avengers have become in the intervening time.

I get that the lack of video and audio recording made it harder for future generations to experience the details of the past, and that technology was changing their world at a faster rate than ever before, but also, dude, it was only, like, forty years ago, so maybe chill out a bit.

[evydraws]

The next Dracula illustration I want to paint: Still only a thumbnail...

[ruegarding]

Wait what's the tea on Wotg makin' Percabeth even worse? /gen /nf

tldr; rick is continuing his trend of having annabeth imply that she thinks her bf is stupid (u can see what i mean by trend here). this is coupled w a lot of ableism: acting like percy is too stupid to function and removing annabeth's disabilities so she can be a girl boss while refusing to address their mental health. this is supposed to make percabeth look cute, somehow, but instead comes off as mean-spirited at best.

first, to establish context, percy's incredibly overworked,

(he's also on the swim team) and bc of this percy is falling asleep in class and waking up in a panic. this is never addressed seriously despite being a series abt disability. as if that wasn't enough, percy also is never shown to enjoy any of his classes and is frequently written to be stuggling w his grades, just in case u forgot he was stupid (he also is written w the ableist stereotype of being lazy abt school work, too, instead of, you know, disabled). his main motivation is that annabeth will be successful with or without him so he better not be a stupid failure.

completely ignoring percy was the one who wanted to go to nru. also, zero mentions for the accommodation percy is receiving for his disabilities (nor annabeth's, but she's written like they don't exist so).

and then percy says that annabeth's friend, hana, doesn't like him bc she doesn't think he's good enough for annabeth, going on to think yeah that's fair. this is never addressed bc it's supposed to be a cute percabeth and #girl boss annabeth moment. then percy makes a joke (?) that annabeth's friends are gossiping abt how annabeth can stand to date him when he's too stupid to understand architecture when percabeth walks away to talk. this is not a percabeth win and i'm genuinely not sure how anyone on rick's team thought it was.

then there's this:

just in case u forgot, percy is the stupid one and annabeth is the smart one. teehee.

and, in relation to ignoring their mental health, annabeth talks abt putting spider webs all over hecate's mansion (bc she wants to make a haunted house), which rick says is ok bc it's not spiders. except part of annabeth's huge traumatic fight w arachne was being covered in spiderwebs that literally pulled her into tartarus. so. weird plotline. similarly, percy has a bit abt having nightmares abt cereberus, which is equally stupid. i talked abt it here. not necessarily percabeth but worth mentioning for context. oh, and percy also bodily-fluid-bends later in the book w no comment except annabeth's shocked expression. correction: while percy does bodily-fluid-bend w no fanfare, annabeth is not there. percy poison-bends in front of annabeth w no comment.

rick then keeps poking fun at how percy and annabeth would make great parents. which. they're seventeen. btw. but yeah anyway percy would make a great dad bc he's got the funny dad jokes (bc he's stupid. haha get it). annabeth would make a great mom bc she's soooooo nurturing what w taking care of a puppy who decides to call her mom and taking care of her stupid idiot useless boyfriend. i wish this was a joke. more on this later.

the line "[annabeth] looked surprised—me comforting her, kind of switching things up" is self explanatory and written specifically to piss me off.

this passage,

which sucks for many reasons, but especially bc this is rick trying to rewrite book canon w show canon despite very easy ways to include this without acting like percy is an idiot who just didn't notice for the past THREE BOOK SERIES (like a war that took place recently where chiron was injured idk just an idea). instead, percy has to take the fall for rick's error and annabeth has to act like her bf is the stupidest person on earth.

btw, did i mention that annabeth is ahead in her classes and percy sucks at school? teehee.

wow, it's like annabeth's dyslexia isn't even there!

now, it may seem that i'm exaggerating percy's incompetence.

this is a real quote from the book.

so is this!

and this.

and—u get the point. rick is acting like percy hasn't outsmarted his opponents bc his personality is stupid and annabeth's personality is reduced down to having the brain cell.

then, percy has a moment where his empathy shines thru and he's allowed to succeed at something (for the first time in the book), except he has to put himself down to make annabeth feel better. bc we can't have percy feeling good abt himself since it makes annabeth look bad. or something. idk.

again, there is no exploration of percy's self-esteem or their myriad of trauma.

to make up for all the times percy was treated like an idiot, annabeth says percy is "a pretty smart guy,"

which is a surprise to her despite them having known each other for five years.

furthermore, rick is writing percy w a sort of incompetence towards household tasks that is, quite frankly, sexist. here is a good post on how it mirrors weaponized incompetence and here is another one abt the disturbing nature of mom-ifying annabeth. i should make it clear annabeth provides percy food in multiple scenes while percy does adjacent to nothing. she also tucks him into bed like a child in one scene and gets nicknamed "mom" by a dog that pees on her (AND she cleans up the pee while percy does nothing).

so, wottg is essentially 300 pages of mean-spirited bullying from all sides. none of the humor shines through these jokes, none of the facetiousness, like hey isn't it funny that percy is really smart but sometimes completely oblivious, is there. there is no comedic disparity between percy's power and skill and his ability to trip over his feet bc there are no impressive feats of power and skill (anything that would count are immediately brushed off). comments abt percy learning to tie his own shoes w his newfound octopus tentacles don't land in a book where he's acting like he cannot have thoughts without annabeth. and there's no grace to be given bc at no point in any of this handled as a serious exploration of percy's insecurities despite the ample opportunity to do so.

then, when percy isn't being hounded w vitriol, annabeth is being reduced to a sexist caricature of a woman. it does not make percabeth look good in any way.

finally, i need to make it clear that however bad this breakdown makes the books seem, it is worse. i summarized and skipped over a ton of stuff for my own sanity.

[happyheidi]