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thebibliosphere · 5 years

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The problem with Amazon and Indie Publishing.

Hey fam, this is just a heads up from myself and all the others involved with the Weird and Wonderful Holiday Romance anthology regarding the paperback edition.

It’s been brought to our attention that some serious nonsense is happening regarding Amazon and Amazon-owned distributors (looking at you Book Depository) stating falsely that our books are either out of stock (false) going to take two months to ship to you (FALSE) or allowing scalpers to set the price at ridiculous amounts such as these, instead of our actual price:

ID: An image showing the cost of our paperback anthology costing $45.25 instead of our set price of $17.99.

PLEASE DO NOT BUY FROM THIS SELLER.

The marketplace has been hijacked by a scalper who does not represent us or any of our distributors. The anthology should never cost more than $17.99 (+tax/shipping), and it should NOT take two to three months to get to you. It is in stock and ready to be shipped from our printer, Ingram Sparks, today.

As is evident from our Barnes and Noble link:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/weird-wonderful-holiday-romance-anthology-caitlyn-lynch/1133948930?ean=9780998168425

ID: An image showing the cost of our paperback anthology being sold through Barnes & Noble for $17.99, fully in stock and ready to ship and also available for delivery Friday 8th of November with Expedited Shipping, something they would not be able to do if the book was out of stock.

And also here from Ingram Spark themselves:

Sorry for the Potato Quality of this one, but if you click it you will see it is fully ready to ship/download without delay.

So what the heck is going on with Amazon then? Well, as I’m sure you’ll all be shocked to learn: Amazon is a complete bag of dicks and are actively throttling our sales because we chose not to use their printing service. Yep, I’ll say that again: Amazon actively throttles the sales of Indie Authors who choose not to use Kindle Direct to Print as their main printer and distributor and then tries to get you to buy the Kindle Version so THEY can get the sale:

ID: An image showing Amazon giving false information stating the paperback of the anthology “usually ships within 1-2 months. Why wait? Try the Kindle Edition instead and start reading now!”

And if you think that sounds like playing a game of Monoply with your hands tied behind your back, you’d be right!

So what’s the big deal, Joy? Why not just bite the bullet and print things through the KDP store? Well person who was no doubt going to ask this in the comments, I’m glad you asked. Here are multiple reasons:

Number one: Kindle Direct pays less in royalties than other more reputable printers. The difference is about a dollar and change less, but when you factor in the cost of production and how little the indie author actually makes in take home sales, that dollar matters.

Number two: Kindle Direct quality control is an absolute shit-show, and it’s not unheard of for books to be sent out either missing pages, printed upside down, with pages cut in half, or just plain blank! For an example, please check out this post from Nicole Autumns’s twitter dated Nov 4th 2019 to see what we’re dealing with, and also understand why many Indie Authors are starting to drop KDP like the rotten hot potato it is.

Number three: here’s a funny thing, there’s no reason for the KDP quality be be Like That, because with the exception of Australia, KDP’s main printer is (drumroll please!) Ingram Sparks! Yes, that’s right! OUR PRINTER. The one they are saying is out of stock. Now isn’t that interesting. (NB: The article is wrong about earning more through KDP and does not reflect the experiences of our authors or the publisher.)

Number four: we actually did submit for KDP after we realized they were going to throttle our sales, meaning we now go to print at a loss, and also risk shoddy quality control and

Number five: We Shouldn’t Have To! That’s it, that’s the tea. We shouldn’t have to use KDP for them to represent us honestly and act fairly as a distributor, but unfortunately for you me and everyone else who isn’t Jeff F*#!%$NG Bezos, Amazon has no such qualms about things like honesty, fairness or transparency.

So, why sell with Amazon at all? To put it simply: Because we have to.

Amazon is the #1 retail seller for books, and for a lot of us it’s the only chance we’ll get at gaining any real income from our work. Not everyone has the luxury of a book deal from a Big Publishing house that pays to keep the lights on. And even those are few and far between, and often not as much money as you think they are.

And in case you weren’t boiling mad already? Want to know what else Amazon throttles? Reviews! So if you’ve read our work and enjoyed it? PLEASE leave a review, either on the amazon page out of spite, Good Reads (also owned by Amazon, fyi) or wherever you got your copies of the books from.

Reviews matter so much to authors, they’re not just a nice way of letting people know you liked something, they also keep us relevant to the algorithms and not shunted to the side in favor of people who pay for their reviews, which yes is a thing, and maybe we’ll go into that another time.

So to bring this long ass and extremely worn out post to a close: if you were one of the people who contacted us about this, thank you.

If you were one of the people who expressed interest in the anthology but were put off by Amazon’s bullshit: please take a look at our other paperback distributors.

If you read our anthology: please consider leaving a review! We’re fighting an uphill battle against an unethical multibillion dollar conglomerate that’s got a stranglehold on the industry and we’re all very small and very tired, and speaking for myself, very queer and disabled, so you can imagine the kind of stress we’re under right now.

I dunno how to end this. Support your local author. Eat the rich.

Be excellent to each other.

#indie publishing #weird and wonderful holiday romance #amazon publishing #long post #text post #links #please boost #more folk need to know the kind of things amazon are up to

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sassyarchives · 5 years

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I knew this would happen. Which is why I copied and pasted into a Word doc for later use. The original link of the “fantasy issue” of Sassy for December of 1994 is not working. In the event that it does come back up, click here.

Recall that there was a three-month period where Sassy changed hands. There were no official magazines from December 1994 through February 1995. But someone was dreaming . . . word for word, with all of its typos, here is the text:

Hey there chump! welcome to SISSY, the secret lovechild of old $kool Sassy mag and BLAIR - and written entirely by celebrities. Does mayim Bialik count as a celebrity? ...uhm, yeah.

so check it. the story goes that our much beloved sassy was bought and sold and the entire staff replaced by a new child safety lock staff - a staff who chose the word guido as their first new Glossary word of the month. Yeah, racist and like entirely pre-82? ...at least it's not SUBVERSiVE.

anyhow, sIssy is the LOST dec'94 issue of sAssy - the last issue EVER, never published before, syquests still at the printers, etc. It was gonna be put out as a paper zine, but everyone was too bummed out, and where the fuck did those disks go?! blair got slipped the ratty 3rd gen xeroxes and the rest is all here, revamped for the web. woo hoo!!

read up kid.

(see signature at top)

special thanks:ex-sassy staff. mayim bialik (so lame she's kool), brent the boy model (yow.), billy corgan, mike D., evan "i wish i were him" dando, james iha (who actually volunteered to write his feature on lolla 94), thurston moore aka [email protected], rupaul queen of queens, chloe sevigny (ex-intern turn star), veruca salt (who hate all things "sickly-sweet and cloying").

thanks to contributers who didnt make the web issue: damon "i need yet another cover of the FACE" albarn, tyra banks who agreed to write her own fashion copy but whose xerox was so poor it could not be salvaged, naomi campbell whose SWAN novel was excerpted but then decided against cause #1 she didnt even write it herself, and #2 she snubbed her fans (me) at the barnes and nobles booksigning last winter, dr dre and ed lover, janeane garofalo whose HELP section was in lost pieces and right at the good questions!, lady kier who handed in her copy despite the fact there was a fire in her apt, ben lee, ian "he of affordable shows" mackaye, maki nomiya baby love child, ricky "beastie boy hanger-on" powell, michael stipe (did he really fuck kurt?), jenna "six" von oy (saw her doll at the flea market on 26th st), dean ween, wiley wiggins who answers email like a speed demon, dweezil zappa brother of the legendary moonunit.

NO thanks to:hope sandoval of mazzy star. she never showed up at the big fashion shoot she PROMISED to do. when mary called her, she didnt even apologize, but said she was going to get some custom leather pants made. oh. hope they give her a wedgie.

#sassy magazine #december #1994 #not really sassy magazine #sissy magazine #sassy fantasy issue #1990s #90s

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theonyxpath · 5 years

Link

Questions! We get questions every day, and while a lot of them start with “when”, as in “when is my favorite book coming out?”, a fair number are more about some integral things that aren’t obvious to folks if they haven’t been lucky enough to read this blog regularly.

Unlike you, my fine friend, who no doubt already know a lot of the following! But I bet there’s a few things in there even you can use brushing up on!

“In order to put out so many game lines, Onyx Path must be a big TableTopRPG company with lots of employees, right?”

Well, we work with a lot of talented freelance creators, but there’s only four actual staff members, so no, not really big at all. There’s myself, as founder and Creative Director, Mighty Matt McElroy as our Operations Director, Lisa Thomas as our Office Manager, and Mirthful Mike Chaney, our Art Director and primary Graphic Designer.

The hundreds of writers, editors, artists, designers, and developers we work with all around the world are all freelancers – that means that they are hired with a contract. Sometimes per project, sometimes for a time period to do a particular agreed-upon set of goals.

“You mean that those lovable scamps from the Onyx Pathcast – Dixie, Eddy, and Matthew – aren’t staff members?”

Correct! Although the Pathcast is one fun thing that they do for us, and their biggest responsibilities lie in shepherding our projects, all three of them are freelancers for us. Albeit freelancers who are part of our weekly meeting to cover how all our projects and the company in general are doing because they are just really great at what they do.

Being freelance also means that our creators can easily take part in other projects for other companies – which is something I encourage. More experience from any source means that a creator is building their expertise, and that means better and better projects for all of us.

We also hire consultants when needed – sometimes for long periods, sometimes on a project – to cover viewpoints or areas of expertise we need to have. Sometimes to cover the nuts and bolts, day to day needs of part of our business, like working with translation partners or like James, our Kickstarter concierge, that our usual crew don’t have the bandwidth for.

TC: Aeon Distant Worlds art by Michele Giorgi

“I heard Onyx Path was secretly still owned by White Wolf, and that you, Rich Thomas, were still with WW.”

That sounds like an internet rumor, and we all know how reliable those are!

So, no. I left WW a few years after the merger of WW with CCP and started Onyx Path Publishing in 2012. I am the sole owner. Other than being a licensee of the current White Wolf/Paradox, we have no other connection with them on a business level. Again, let me underline that no other company has any sort of ownership of or ability to control Onyx Path.

Also, Eddy Webb does not own Onyx Path, or even part of it. Because I’ve heard that rumor, too. He owns Pugsteady, which is a very good company all on its own.

M20 Book of the Fallen art by Michael Gaydos

“But you do own Exalted, right?”

Nope. Exalted, Chronicles of Darkness, and the World of Darkness books that White Wolf/Paradox allows us to publish under license still belong to them.

Beyond the fact of WW‘s ownership of those IPs, what that means for you noble readers and players is that Onyx Path has limits as to what we can publish based on what the owners of the game lines are comfortable with us publishing. For example, we get a lot of this sort of question:

“Why won’t you make Hunter The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, or, OMG, Mummy 20th Anniversary Editions?

And the reason is: we would – if it was cool with White Wolf/Paradox. Unless they give the OK, about these or any of the books we publish under the license with them, we have no legal right to just put out a book. This has been true for us going back to when CCP granted Onyx Path the license, so it’s not something nefarious, just how this license works.

The Realms of Pugmire game lines, Cavaliers of Mars, Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and Legendlore, are also licensed lines as well, with different sorts of contracts that specify different things as part of their terms.

The game lines we own, and therefore have a much wider latitude on how the lines develop, are: Scion, Scarred Lands, They Came From Beneath the Sea! and the Trinity Continuum. Without outside approvals, we can move a lot faster with our decisions as to what projects to do next, and how fast, and in what order, and where they are sold, and, well, just everything.

So if it seems like you’re hearing and seeing a lot more hoopla about our owned lines lately, that’s a huge part of the reason: we can just decide on Scion Pantheon Journals in a meeting Monday, and they can go on sale on RedBubble on Wednesday.

By Jove! That’s actually what’s happening this week! What a coincidence!

TC: Aeon Distant Worlds art by Sam Denmark

“You didn’t announce anything new at GenCon, and the First Draft section is getting kind of thin. What’s up? You guys out of ideas?”

Far from it! I think the Project Progress section here on the blog can be, or at least, has been, misleading in this regard. What we’ve had happening for the past year or year and a half, has been a kind of bloat brought on by us finally finishing a bunch of old Kickstarter and other projects, and being up-to-date on current Kickstarter and other projects.

Plus, we have multiple pitches that we’ve been waiting to hear on – relating to my notes above about approvals from our Licensors. Doesn’t make sense for us to get writers started until the projects have been given the green light.

Most importantly, we’ve several bigger projects still under wraps: from working out just what we want to do all the way to finishing the outlines for writers. For example, now that we ran the Trinity Continuum: Aberrant KS, we’re working on TC: Adventure! and actively discussing how to bring all that’s awesome about a pulp-genre setting to modern audiences, while dealing with the more problematic aspects of the time period.

Oh yes, there are still many games we want to create and we are all set to develop more projects for our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Keep an eye out in this space as well as on our social media for the Deviant: The Renegades Kickstarter that will be launching after August wraps up!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast features our Terrific Trio deep in anticipatory antics about upcoming games they’re excited about!

Today in the media we’re mainly going to talk about our Twitch channel! As you can see from the schedule, we have games planned for Scion, Pugmire, TC: Aberrant, Scarred Lands, Vampire, and there’s so much more to come! Please do check us out and if you have an Amazon Prime account, and aren’t already subscribed to a Twitch channel, you can subscribe to ours for free for exclusive content! Here’s the channel for you, and thank you so much for keeping up with our content: https://www.twitch.tv/theonyxpath/

And if you missed it, here’s episode zero of Paws & Claws, our Pugmire actual play on the Twitch channel: https://youtu.be/Y519d9Cmx7g

We have of course produced videos beyond that, including this video here where Matthew asks for your They Came From ideas: https://youtu.be/ek8x-eoJ2Tc

And the Onyx Path News went live today. Find the link to today’s episode here: https://youtu.be/XE1kAsRYIJw Matthew talks all about new releases, Kickstarter, Backerkit, community content, our media, and his favourite authors!

We’d be remiss if we didn’t promote some of our favorites too. As our main focus is on our own Twitch today, we’re going to point you in the direction of only a couple more channels, but the big list of streams will return next week!

Here’s Occultists Anonymous (who are also appearing on our Twitch channel) with their Mage: The Awakening actual play: Episode 36: After emerging from Atratus’ soul and getting a frenzied call from Mammon, Wyrd the Seer and Songbird investigate their cabalmate’s disappearance. https://youtu.be/GopIcUu-rAU

And the excellent Story Told Podcast continues their superb Dragon-Blooded actual play here, so do tune in if you’re interested in Exalted: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/fall-of-jiara-episode-12

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find most of Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we’re offering a selection of Scion pantheon themed journals on our RedBubble store!

Conventions!

Save Against Fear: October 12th – 14th GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd PAX Unplugged: December 6th – 8th 2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Redlines

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Development

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

W20 Art Book (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Post-Approval Development

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

V5 Chicago Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Editing

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Post-Editing Development

Memento Mori (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e Companion)

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars – Contracted.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Contracted. Sketches already coming in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – Contracted. LeBlanc doing the splats.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Thinking I throw a bunch of this at Vince and Trabbold.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – Michele is doing the critters.

Deviant (KS) – Contracted.

Trinity RMCs – Getting Riley on these this week.

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Mark is in to do fulls and cover.

Chicago Folio – Lemme see who I got left post KS art buy for Cults. I am gonna try to get Paul Lee to do the fulls.

Mummy 2 (KS) – Got Matthew’s notes.

In Layout

CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel

Dark Eras 2 – Files with Aileen

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

VtR Spilled Blood – For Josh.

DR:E Jumpstart

Aeon Aexpansion

Proofing

C20 Cup of Dreams

V5: Chicago – Inputting errata.

Geist 2e – XX’s and then Indexing.

Signs of Sorcery – Inputting errata.

M20 Book of the Fallen

DR: E – Inputting errata.

At Press

Dragon Blooded – Deluxe at Studio2, shipping.

Dragon-Blooded Cloth Map – At Studio2, shipping.

Dragon-Blooded Screen – Shipped to Studio2, shipping.

Trinity Core Screen – At Studio2.

TC Aeon Screen – At Studio2.

Trinity: In Media Res – PoD proofs coming.

Trinity Core – Printing.

Trinity Aeon – Printing.

Shunned By the Moon – PoD proof ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Born on this date in 1921 – Gene Roddenberry, who, love him or leave him, got Star Trek on the air and set the stage for many, many, folks’ first introduction to science fiction – and utopian science fiction at that! Plus, because why not, this is also the birthday of William Marshall in 1924, who appeared on Star Trek as Professor Richard Daystrom, and whose amazing voice graced us as both Blackula and the King of Cartoons! Also, to continue the Star Trek theme: in 1938, Diana Muldaur, who appeared on both the Original Series, and on STtNG as Dr. Pulaski, was born, and last but not the least likely to get it on on an alien planet, William T. Riker’s portrayer, Jonathan Frakes, was born in 1952. (Bill Clinton was also born on this date in 1946, and while we all know he’d give Riker a run for his money, he was never on Star Trek – just a US President.)

#Onyx Path Publishing

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mostlysignssomeportents · 6 years

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#1yrago Touring, complete: what gear survived four months of hard-wearing book-tour?

I had the last official stop of my book tour for my novel Walkaway on Saturday, when I gave a talk and signing at Defcon in Las Vegas. It was the conclusion of four months of near-continuous touring, starting with three weeks of pre-release events; then six weeks of one-city-per-day travel through the US, Canada and the UK, then two months of weekly or twice-weekly events at book fairs, festivals and conferences around the USA.

Now I'm touring complete. There's one more event on Aug 10 -- a kind of victory lap presentation at my local library here in Burbank -- and then a trickle of events over the next six months, but that's more like my normal baseline of public appearances, a very different experience to the kind of thing I did from April until last weekend.

It's been nine years since my first book tour -- the Little Brother tour -- and as always, there were new facts on the ground to adapt to, as well as hard-won wisdom that saw me through.

Here's some new stuff: indie bookstores are doing better than they have in years, and they're expanding into lots of live events, which are better-planned and better organized than ever. In many cities, there is one thriving indie and three or four suburban Barnes & Nobles, and these have changed, too: seeing as they are the only game in town, these B&Ns attract some stellar booksellers who intimately understand marketing and also really, really care about books. Also: all the indie bookstores have devoted substantial floorspace to embroidered socks. I'm calling it: we are at peak funny-sock.

Here's some stuff that's still the same: "Never pass up a chance to take water or make water." That is hard-won, important touring advice, passed from serious traveler to serious traveler as gospel. Airports are worse than they've ever been...and it's easier to buy your way out of the hardship, between TSA Precheck and Clear, which require that you give up a ton of personal information (which I'd already given up when I applied for my Green Card, so I went ahead, and it was so, so worth it -- so much so that I presume that anyone who has the wherewithal will buy their way into these programs and cease to do anything to mitigate the traveling woes of the general public -- watch for travel to get waaaay worse for normals who only fly a couple times per year).

I've been changing out my travel gear for years, trying to find the optimal combination of flexibility and comfort. I check a bag, and my suitcase was not lost once on this tour (it's happened before, though, and had to catch up with me a city or two down the road). The suitcase was severely damaged, and more than once (more on that below).

Here's the gear that survived this trip, stuff that will stay with me on upcoming trips.

Coffee

This goes first. Life it too short for shitty coffee.

I use an Aeropress (but you knew that). I've stopped carrying around a hand-grinder. I have only so many duty-cycles left in my wrist tendons and then I will cease to be a writer. I'm not wasting them on a hand-grinder. Now I grind my coffee before I leave and put the coffee in a Ziploc Easy Open Tab quart-sized freezer bag (I keep a stash of these in my suitcase and resupply at coffee shops when I run out, having them grind for me; this means I can't buy Blue Bottle coffee since they, alone among coffee shops, will not grind their retail beans, boo) (I also bring along a handful of gallon-sized bags for various purposes). I've tried a lot of sealing bags, and Ziploc's easy opens are the only ones I can reliably seal well.

I heat water in the remarkably great Useful UH-TP147 Electric Collapsible Travel Kettle, a silicone collapsing kettle that has a thermostat that keeps water at near-boil so long as it's plugged in and on. It's multi-voltage and worked great in the UK, and it collapses down really small. The only downside: it looks weird enough on an X-ray that it is a very reliable predictor of having your bags searched by the TSA after you check them.

I am utterly dependent on the Orikaso folding cup to use with my Aeropress on the road. The majority of hotels supply paper cups, or glasses that are too narrow for the Aeropress. Carrying a rigid cup that decomposes into a thin sheet of plastic the size of a sheet of printer-paper spares me the awkwardness of holding the body of the Aeropress with one hand while pushing down on the plunger with the other to keep from squashing the paper cup.

For emergencies, I carried a stash of GO CUBES Energy Chews, a "neutraceutical" whose manufacturer makes a lot of extravagant claims for them. I think those claims are silly, but these are basically gummy-chews made from cold brew coffee (and stuff) and they work very fast and well, but did give me jitters (which were preferable to caffeine withdrawal).

Toiletries

I carried my favorite shampoo, conditioner, soap and a supply of generic woolite in a set of four Innerneed silicone tubes (which I kept in a ziploc). I've used a lot of different silicone tubes and these are my current favorites -- they have a locking mechanism that keeps the hard plastic lid more firmly in place on the silicone body of the tube, even when it's lubricated with slippery soaps, preventing the kinds of catastrophic breaches you get when the whole lid assembly just pops off the tube and everything comes pouring out.

I swapped out my old generic pharmacy rotary electric toothbrush for the Violife Slim Sonic Toothbrush, which is a AAA-battery-powered equivalent to one of those unwieldy, induction-charged Braun ultrasonic toothbrushes that my dentist wants me to use. It performs just as well as the Braun on my sink at home.

I suffer from really terrible, untreatable chronic pain and can't sleep or sit for any length of time without serious pain. I am absolutely reliant on my hot water bottle, with a knit sleeve. For my money, these are the best comfort items you can travel with -- I get them filled with boiling water by the flight attendants before take off and refill them hourly. At bedtime, I fill them from my collapsible kettle. The only downside: it's really easy to leave these behind in the bedclothes when you depart at 4AM.

I carried all my toiletries in Eagle Creek's Pack-It Wallaby Toiletry Organizer. It came highly recommended and after hard use, I see why: it has the best zippers I've ever had on a toilet bag, stores an incredible amount of stuff and still rolls up tight, and did a great job of containing one tube-of-goo breach that could have wrecked everything else.

Clothes

Before the tour, I did a bunch of reading on the best travel underwear and decided to try Uniqlo's Airism Low Rise Boxer Briefs -- they were so comfortable and so easy to wash out in the sink (and so quick drying!) that I threw away all my other underwear when I got home and ordered a half-dozen more pairs. I traveled with three pairs of these, which crumpled small enough that I could fit them all in a pants pocket (should I have a need to do so?) and I rinsed the day's underwear in the sink every night and hung them to dry, chucking them in the bag in the morning, dry and clean.

You might already know that I love the look of Volante's jackets and coats, so it won't surprise you to learn that I lived in an Augment hoodie for the first half of the tour (when the weather was cool), switching to a lighter-weight Peregrine for the second half, when things warmed up.

I started the tour with three different pairs of pants in my suitcase, but left two behind on a resupply stop at home, because I was only ever wearing my Betabrand Off-the-Grid pants, which have enough stretchiness in them to do some basic yoga in, have huge pockets that somehow don't bulge much even when overfilled, and a neat little discreet mid-thigh side pocket good for keeping boarding passes in. My complaint: these were not colorfast at all: they were basically gray by the time I got home, even though I only ever hand-washed them in hotel sinks with generic woolite.

I always travel with pajamas: when you're on long flights, you can change into them for comfort; they give you a way to interact with hotel staff from your room early in the morning or late at night without having to get dressed or put a towel around your waist. I've been buying deadstock vintage men's pajamas from Etsy all year, because they look awesome and are more comfortable than anything you'll get in stores today.

I've been using REI's Sea to Summit compression sacks as laundry bags for ages: there's no problem with wrinkling your dirty laundry, right? Compression sacks are sorcerous reminders of just how much space there is between molecules.

I lived in Native Jeffersons: basically a kid's croc shoe, but molded to look like a low-rise Converse All-Star. Super comfortable, and I could rinse them in the hotel sink every night and leave them upside-down against the wall and slip into them in the morning.

Comfort items

I traveled with a Stanley Adventure Flask that I filled with Jefferson's Reserve Pritchard Hill Cabernet Cask Finished, 15-year-old bourbon that's finished with a couple years of rest in old cabernet casks. Yum.

I always keep a couple dozen catering-sized sachets of Tabasco in my suitcase and handful in my carry-on. They don't seem to show up as liquids on TSA X-rays so you can keep them in your bag, and I've never had one burst in a bag. They make everything super-delicious (or at least bearable) and they are way more space-efficient than those cute, tiny, single-use Tabasco bottles.

Swimming

Swimming is the only way I can stay sane on tour. It keeps my chronic pain under control and burns some of the empty airplane-peanut and minibar calories.

I swim with an underwater MP3 player. After trying a lot of models, I settled on the Exeze players, which are only available for sale in the UK. However, I've since discovered that virtually the same players are sold under other brand names in the USA: one model I've tried and liked is the Aerb.

The reason I swim with an MP3 player is so that I can listen to audiobooks. I get through a couple novels per month this way. Audible's proprietary DRM format isn't compatible with MP3 players, so forget about getting your swimming audiobooks that way. Instead, try Downpour and Libro.fm, both of whom sell thousands of DRM-free audiobooks. Audiobooks and swimming are a magic combination. I couldn't make it through the tour without them.

Gadgets

I got my Calyx hotspot just over a year ago. It offers anonymous, unfiltered, unshaped, unlimited 4G/LTE wifi through Sprint's network, and supports the nonprofit good works of Calyx, who provide anonymity and privacy services to whistleblowers, journalists and many others. They are the good guys and this is a great product at a stellar price: $100 for the hotspot and $400/year for unlimited mobile broadband.

I continue to use X-series Thinkpads. I'm currently on the X270 and it runs Ubuntu very well. I didn't need any service on this tour, but I have on other tours, and I'm serene in the knowledge that the extended on-site next-day hardware replacement warranty (about $75/year!) guarantees that no matter what, I won't be without my computer for more than a day. My X270 took a lot of hard knocks on this tour and survived unscathed. My sole complaint: they screwed up the keyboards with the X230 (or so) and still haven't made a new chiclet keyboard that's half as good as the original Thinkpad keyboard. Please, Lenovo, bring my beloved keyboard back!

I use a Google Pixel phone and it's...not terrible. Everything about it works fine, but it has unbelievably shitty battery life. That is a killer on tour. The Alclap case solved that problem...for two weeks, and then it stopped working. I ordered two more, both of which were duds out of the box. The Scosche Magic Mount was more awkward to use, but also longer-lasting (it died last weekend, thanks to fraying in the wire that connected it to the phone).

Luggage

You know all those suitcases that come with ten-year warranties? They're all designed to have a ten-year duty-cycle...assuming that you travel once or twice a year. In decades of hard travel, I've yet to buy a suitcase that can live up to the punishment of daily flying.

So now I buy suitcases based on how easy they are to get warranty service on. I had heard great things about Rimowa, and I loved the look of their cases, so I bit the bullet and sprang for one (they're extremely pricey). I quickly discovered that their much-vaunted service was terrible -- in London, anyway. My options were mailing the case to Germany, or taking it to a service center on Euston Road where they were rude, deceptive, and all-around awful. I was ready to swap the case for another manufacturer when I moved from London to LA two years ago.

But in LA, the whole story is different. Rimowa's service here is handled by a place out in Beverley Hills called Coco's Leather and they're pretty good at fixing stuff (there's sometimes a week turnaround, but I've found that if I call them after messengering the busted case out to them, they can often turn it around in a day).

I needed it. My Rimowa case was seriously damaged three times on tour: twice it had wheels ripped off (the whole wheel assembly, including the riveted-on bracket, torn right out of the aluminum!) by Southwest's baggage handlers in San Diego. Another time, AA baggage handlers destroyed the latches.

I'm sticking with Riwoma for now. Every luggage expert I've spoken to says that there's just not anything that will survive the kind of punishment I put my bags through, so I'm buying based on warranties, and between Coco's Leather and Rimowa's long-lasting warranties, I can live with this situation.

I've gone through a lot of luggage tags over the years and have yet to have one last more than a few flights before it's torn off in the hold, caught in some grinding system. Now I use the TUFFTAAG Travel ID Bag Tag, made of hard-wearing aluminum with braided steel cables. Dozens of flights later, the tags are bent and battered, but still intact and still attached to my case -- that's a first.

https://boingboing.net/2017/08/02/hard-won-wisdom.html

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annarellix · 2 years

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The Edge of Summer by Viola Shipman - EXCERPT

Book Summary: Devastated by the sudden death of her mother—a quiet, loving and intensely private Southern seamstress called Miss Mabel, who overflowed with pearls of Ozarks wisdom but never spoke of her own family—Sutton Douglas makes the impulsive decision to pack up and head north to the Michigan resort town where she believes she’ll find answers to the lifelong questions she’s had about not only her mother’s past but also her own place in the world.

Recalling Miss Mabel’s sewing notions that were her childhood toys, Sutton buys a collection of buttons at an estate sale from Bonnie Lyons, the imposing matriarch of the lakeside community. Propelled by a handful of trinkets left behind by her mother and glimpses into the history of the magical lakeshore town, Sutton becomes tantalized by the possibility that Bonnie is the grandmother she never knew. But is she? As Sutton cautiously befriends Bonnie and is taken into her confidence, she begins to uncover the secrets about her family that Miss Mabel so carefully hid, and about the role that Sutton herself unwittingly played in it all.

Author Bio: VIOLA SHIPMAN is the pen name for internationally bestselling author Wade Rouse. Wade is the author of fourteen books, which have been translated into 21 languages and sold over a million copies around the world. Wade chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman as a pen name to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his fiction. The last Viola Shipman novel, The Secret of Snow (October 2021), was named a Best Book of Fall by Country Living Magazine and a Best Holiday Book by Good Housekeeping. Wade hosts the popular Facebook Live literary happy hour, “Wine & Words with Wade,” every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. EST on the Viola Shipman author page where he talks writing, inspiration and welcomes bestselling authors and publishing insiders.

Social Links: Author Website Twitter: @Viola_Shipman Facebook: Author Viola Shipman Instagram: @Viola_Shipman Goodreads

Buy Links: BookShop.org Barnes & Noble Amazon Books-A-Million Forever Books Powell’s

EXCERPT

BUTTONHOLE A small cut in the fabric that is bound with small stitching. The hole has to be just big enough to allow a button to pass through it and remain in place.

My mom told everyone my dad died, along with my entire family—grandparents, aunts, uncles, and all—one Christmas Day long ago. “Fire,” she’d say. “Woodstove. Took ’em all. Down to the last cousin.” “How’d you make it out with your little girl?” everyone would always ask, eyes wide, mouths open. “That’s a holi¬day miracle!” My mom would start to cry, a tear that grew to a flood, and, well, that would end that. No one questioned someone who survived such a thing, especially a widowed mother like Miss Mabel, which is what everyone called her out of deference in the Ozarks. Folks down here had lived hard lives, and they buried their kin just like they did their heartache, underneath the rocky earth and red clay. It took too much effort to dig that deep. That’s why no one ever bothered to check out the story of a simple, hardworking, down-to-earth, churchgoing lady who kept to herself down here in the hollers—despite the fact me and my mom both just appeared out of thin air—in a time before social media existed. But I did. Want to know why? My mom never cried. She was the least emotional soul I’d ever known. “How did you make it out with me?” I asked her countless times as I grew older, when it was just the two of us sitting in her sewing room in our tiny cabin tucked amongst the bluffs outside Nevermore, Missouri. She would never answer immediately, no matter how many times I asked. Instead, she’d turn over one of her button jars or tins, and run her fingers through the buttons as if they were tarot cards that would provide a clue. I mean, there were no photos, no memories, no footsteps that even led from our fiery escape to the middle of Never¬more. No family wondered where we were? No one cared? My mother made it out with nothing but me? Not a penny to her name? Just some buttons? We were rich in buttons. Oh, I had button necklaces in every color growing up— red, green, blue, yellow, white, pink—and I matched them to every outfit I had. We didn’t have money for trendy jewelry or clothes—tennis bracelets, Gloria Vanderbilt jeans—so my mom made nearly everything I wore. Kids made fun of me at school for that.

“Sutton, the button girl!” they’d taunt me. “Hand-me-downs!” Wasn’t funny. Ozarks kids weren’t clever. Just annoyingly direct, like the skeeters that constantly buzzed my head. I loved my necklaces, though. They were like Wonder Woman’s bracelets. For some reason, I always felt protected. I’d finger and count every button on my necklace wait¬ing for my mom to answer the question I’d asked long ago. She’d just keep searching those buttons, turning them round and round, feeling them, whispering to them, as if they were alive and breathing. The quiet would nearly undo me. A girl should have music and friends’ laughter be the soundtrack of her life, not the clink of buttons and rush of the creek. Most times, I’d spin my button necklace a few times, counting up¬ward of sixty before my mom would answer. “Alive!” she’d finally say, voice firm, without looking up. “That’s how we made it out…alive. And you should feel darn lucky about that, young lady.” Then, as if by magic, my mom would always somehow manage to find a matching button to replace a missing one on a hand-me-down blouse of hers, or pluck the “purtiest” ones from the countless buttons in her jar—iridescent abalone or crochet over wound silk f loss—to make the entire blouse seem new again. Still, she would never smile. In fact, it was as if she had been born old. I had no idea how old she might be: Thirty-five? Fifty? Seventy? But when she’d find a beautiful button, she would hold it up to study, her gold eyes sparkling in the light from the little lamp over Ol’ Betsy, her Singer sewing machine. If I watched her long enough, her face would relax just enough to let the deep creases sigh, and the edges of her mouth would curl ever so slightly, as if she had just found the secret to life in her button jar. “Look at this beautiful button, Sutton,” she’d say. “So many buttons in this jar: fabric, shell, glass, metal, ceramic. All for¬gotten. All with a story. All from someone and somewhere. People don’t give a whit about buttons anymore, but I do. They hold value, these things that just get tossed aside. But¬tons are still the one thing that not only hold a garment to¬gether but also make it truly unique.” Finally, finally, she’d look at me. Right in the eye. “Lots of beauty and secrets in buttons if you just look long and hard enough.” The way she said that would make my body explode in goose pimples. Every night of my childhood, I’d go to bed and stare at my necklace in the moonlight, or I’d play with the buttons in my mom’s jar searching for an answer my mother never provided. Even today when I design a beautiful dress with pretty, old-fashioned buttons, I think of my mom and how the littlest of things can hold us together. Or tear us apart.

#graydon house #NetGalley #excerpt #harlequin #blog tour #women's fiction

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cbk1000 · 6 years

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Jenn Recommends: Fantasy

All right, kids; it’s that time again. Time for me to babble on for an obnoxiously long time about books I have read and adored, and time for you to just shut the fuck up and take all my advice, because I have great taste.

Since this recommendation list concerns fantasy, all of the following books are actually part of a series, because it is illegal for fantasy authors to write standalone novels: they will be publicly executed for devoting anything less than 3,000 pages to Timmy’s sword and stones. You know this is true because you just read it on the internet.

If You Like: Political intrigue, really hot people, + everyone and their brother being canonically gay as fuck.

Read: The Kushiel’s Legacy series by Jacqueline Carey.

This series starts with Kushiel’s Dart, and there are actually two trilogies worth reading in this world: Phedre’s (the first trilogy) and Imriel’s (the second, which I may like even better). We do not talk about the third trilogy. In this write-up, I’m just going to talk about the first trilogy, but if you enjoy it, I definitely encourage you to read the next three books.

Phèdre nó Delaunay is a courtesan who was born with a scarlet mote in her left eye--a mark of the god to let others know that she’s into really kinky shit. You cannot spank this bitch hard enough. As a child she is sold into indentured servitude, and bought by a man who recognizes the mote in her eye for what it is and what it signifies--namely, that people who sexually enjoy having the ever-loving fuck beat out of them are pretty much up for anything, which means she will make a great spy.

So that is what she is trained in--not just the arts of the bedroom, but the arts of overhearing everything meant for non-State-approved ears. Of course because this is a novel and something has to happen in it, she stumbles upon a plot against the throne that gets a lot of people stabbed multiple times and throws her and her hapless goddammit-this-is-my-first-real-assignment bodyguard into a Perilous Journey that spans Many Lands.

Two things I really love about this series: the world building and the casual approach to homosexuality.

The various different countries are obviously based heavily upon European history and lore, but she’s done enough research to really flesh them out. We don’t just have a few generic descriptions here and there of vaguely European geography, but actual religions and languages and histories which are more than just given a hasty, passing mention to conjure the illusion that the world is more tangible than it actually is: you can taste and touch and hear Terre d’Ange.

As for the casual homosexuality: the main pairing is hetero, but Phedre takes several female lovers, because in Terre d’Ange, the one rule by which everyone must abide is ‘Love as thou wilt’. No one is really straight or gay; sexuality isn’t really a thing, labels aren’t a thing; people bone who they bone and nobody bats an eye. Kind of like Ancient Greece, till it came time for you to stop porking Archimedes during oily wrestling sessions and churn out a couple of brats. Sex work in this world is also considered in the service of the goddess, and those engaged in it are bestowing a blessing on their customers; it is an honorable and profitable line of work.

I honestly could not put these books down. I have two copies of the third book in this trilogy because I ordered it online while halfway through the second, then promptly panicked when I realized it wouldn’t arrive in time for me to immediately begin the third as soon as I finished the second novel. I actually drove an hour and a half to the nearest Barnes and Noble just so I didn’t have to wait two agonizing days for the next book to arrive. The writing can be a little heavy-handed (think purple euphemisms for a man’s steely pleasure wand, etc.), but overall it’s gripping and lush and I could barely stop reading long enough to take bathroom breaks.

If You Like: Bleak stories where probably nobody is ever going to get anything more than a brief glimpse of happiness before it’s cruelly torn away from them and legitimately creepy monsters.

Read: The Banned and the Banished series by James Clemens.

This series on the surface is your fairly generic Evil Dark Lord vs. Savior Newly Awakened To Their Powers. Elena is a thirteen-year-old girl who has just been visited for the very first time by the dreaded Aunt Flo. With puberty comes the blossoming of new powers: a red hand that shoots a lot of fire out of it, a power I would’t mind having while trying to navigate a bunch of idiot-inflicted traffic. Over the course of the five books in the series, she picks up her Adventure Party and they sally forth to do battle with the Dark Lord’s minions (of which there are a metric fuck ton, in scientific terms). Some parts begin to feel a little monster-of-the-week, as the protagonists barely have time to take a breath in between waves of tentacly evil.

So why I am I recommending this series? Because Clemens is not content with just scattering some generic tropes around the page and calling it good: he wants you to go, “What the FUCK, dude??”. A lot. This is probably the only book in which you will encounter a woman letting a bunch of spiders crawl into her vagina. Or later giving birth to those spiders, which have, upon the touch of the Dark Lord, transformed into a monster that smells like dead baby and eats people’s faces. I recently came across this series in Russian and have been rereading it as a 31-year-old adult, and there are scenes which even now thoroughly traumatize me; it really explains why I am the way I am, since I first read the beginning books when I was only 11-12.

This series is surprisingly hard to put down; I suppose it’s because you are compelled (or at least I am) to find out what the hell kind of nasty thing is next going to emerge from the forest and inspire you to check under your bed at night even though you’re a goddamn adult. This series is not for the faint of heart, obviously. But if you like dark fantasy, and you’re into the idea of reading something that on the surface seems a pretty standard fantasy tale before it suddenly starts hurling vagina spiders all up your business, check it out. Also, if you’ve read any of my work and you’d like to know just what the fuck is wrong with me, I believe this series can throw a little light on that.

If You Like: A protagonist who won’t take your shit but also is allowed to be emotionally vulnerable, Chinese history, detailed military campaigns.

Read: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang.

Rin, a war orphan raised by shitty foster parents in a backwoods village, is accepted into a prestigious military academy where pretty much everyone, teachers included, hates her because she’s a peasant and this school is for the sons of rich people, goddammit. Rin is talented in the nearly lost art of shamanism because she’s the main character of a fantasy novel, and it is only her newly-found powers that have a chance of halting the advance of the Federation as they march upon the Nikara Empire, intent on conquering (and graphically torture murdering) everything in its path. On the flip side: her powers have also been known to turn literally all their wielders into raging loonies who have to be imprisoned for the good of everyone.

My ignorance of Chinese history is absolute, so I’ve no idea where the author (herself Chinese, and an historian, I believe) is pulling from in order to build the foundations of her world, but it’s obvious she has done a lot of research and painstakingly agonized over every little detail. It’s nice to finally step away from the usual Euro-centric world of much Western fantasy, and into one so fully fleshed-out.

This story actually reminds me in some ways of Mulan: the unlikely protagonist bests nearly everyone in all of her training--but only because she works three times harder than anyone else, and no one particularly admires her for it, saving her from Mary Suedom. She’s intelligent and determined, but nothing comes easily (especially when one of your masters is more than a little unhinged). She has exactly one friend, and spends most of her time trying to read her way to a better martial artist.

This is not, however, a school story; and though the characters are 16-17 when they first enter the academy, it is not a YA story either. It is a story about war, and the author has no interests in presenting war as anything other than it is: revolting, traumatizing, horrific. There are some very graphic depictions of violence, so if you do not have the stomach for that, this is not the book for you. Neither massacres nor first kills are glossed over; everything is presented exactly as it looks, smells, feels.

Because life is never one long angst-ridden slog, however, and there was always something, before war, there are moments of legit humor; I actually laughed out loud at several lines. And that leads me to something else the author does very well: dialogue. Much dialogue is an excuse for the author to sound worldly, wise--poetic. It also often hardly sounds like human speech. Real humans, even articulate, intelligent humans, do not shit a fucking Keats verse every time they open their mouths. In The Poppy War, people, wonder of wonders, actually sound like people; perhaps even more notable: teenagers sound like teenagers.

Stylistically, this book is utilitarian; I won’t be highlighting any phrases because they’ve left me awestruck. But it is not lightweight fantasy; the main characters wield terrifying powers with immense consequences. They are mangled, tortured, killed; some of them are drug addicts because only in opium can they find a momentary release from what they have survived. It’s a hold-onto-your-balls-kids kind of story. This is the first novel in a purported trilogy, and I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the rest of the series.

#books #jenn recommends

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brilliantorinsane · 7 years

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Stoll Pictures, 1921–1923)

Inspired by @devoursjohnlock‘s amazing meta about The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, I’ve embarked on an exponentially growing meta about the changing portrayals of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson’s relationship in film, beginning with those produced in Doyle’s lifetime straight through to today. But I quickly encountered a problem: some of the films I’m studying for this meta are just too darn fascinating to be confined to a short blurb in a larger argument.

So while I work on the overarching meta, I intend to periodically post about little-known Sherlock adaptations, the ones that catch my interest and don’t seem to have been analyzed on Tumblr. I’ll be discussing each film’s contemporary reception and current standing, its depictions of Holmes and Watson respectively as well as its portrayal of their relationship (and any potential Johnlocky-ness disguised within), and will end with my personal endorsement of the film.

Please keep in mind that although I am trained in literary analysis and am doing my best to fact-check, I am not a film critic. These analyses are the opinions of a fan, not someone who’s actually qualified for this sort of thing. And with that, read on—I hope you enjoy the discovery even a fraction as much as I have!

Note: all references to Alan Barns are taken from Sherlock Holmes on Screen: The Complete Film and TV History. For any other resources, links are provided within the text.

Production and Reception

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, produced by Stoll pictures, stands as the most prolific Sherlock Holmes series with a total of 45 short and 2 long silent films starring Eille Norwood as Holmes and Hubert Willis as Watson (with the exception The Sign of Four, in which Watson is played by Arthur Cullin). Decidedly literal in interpretation, these films were released while Doyle was still churning out Holmes stories. In fact, Doyle sold Stoll Pictures a license to adapt the stories after apparently being so fed-up with the previously authorized Paris Éclar Company that he “bought the film rights back for ten times the amount he’d sold them for” (Barns 14). The Stoll films “proved a huge hit” among its contemporary audience, and according to Motion Picture News, “they automatically became classics of the silver-sheet” (Barns, 17).

Nevertheless, one rarely hears of these ‘classics’ today. This is not entirely surprising; if one is speaking of silent Sherlock Holmes films it seems natural to default towards William Gillette’s 1916 production, a direct translation of the 1899 play which he likewise produced. After all, in addition to being the first major trans-media Holmes production, the play/film had considerable influence on popular perception of the detective and boasts—as far as I’m aware—the most significant contributions from Doyle of any adaptation. (For the record I won’t be writing about Gillette’s film, because @heimishtheidealhusband has already assembled this gem discussing its content and influence).

Additionally, as Russell Merritt relates, feuds over film rights and difficulties with an American distributor kept the Stoll films from making any headway in America, despite their popularity in Europe, Australia, and Japan (x).

With the exception of The Noble Bachelor, all of the Stoll Picture films have been preserved, but as far as I can tell only three are currently available to the public: The Man With the Twisted Lip, The Dying Detective, and The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot. Fortunately for us, these three ‘instant classics’ are available on YouTube, and this past week I watched the trio with considerable enjoyment. Having done so, it is not difficult to understood why critics consistently identify Eille Norwood’s imposing depiction of Sherlock Holmes as these films’ core strength.

Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes

According to Barns, Norwood was “obsessive [in his] determination that his Holmes should be true to the character created by Doyle,” and he admirably captures his own interpretation of the character, which he vividly described:

Holmes . . . is absolutely quiet. Nothing ruffles him, but he is a man who intuitively seizes on points without revealing that he has done so, and nurses them with complete inaction until the moment when he is called upon to exercise his wonderful detective powers. Then he is like a cat—the person he is after is the only person in all the world, and he is oblivious of everything else till his quarry is run to earth. The last thing in the world that he looks like is a detective. There is nothing of the hawk-eyed sleuth about him. His powers of observation are but the servant of his powers of deduction, which enable him, as it were, to see round corners, and cause him, incidentally, to be constantly amused at the blindness of his faithful Watson, who is never able to understand this methods (Barns, 16).

My own reading of the character differs from Norwood’s on a few points, but it is certainly a compelling image, and one that is strikingly achieved on screen. According to Merritt, Doyle himself loved the portrayal, saying that Norwood “has that rare quality which can only be described as glamour, which compels you to watch an actor eagerly when he is doing nothing. He has a brooding eye which excites expectation and he has a quite unrivaled power of disguise” (x)

Speaking of disguise, I cannot resist relaying a brief anecdote from Barns: It only took one screen-test for Norwood to deeply impress his employers with his ability to disappear into the character of Holmes, but Stoll’s co-managing director Jeffrey Bernerd remained skeptical that Norwood’s distinctive figure to convincingly transform into the cabby Holmes masquerades as in Scandal (15). As a result one can imagine his embarrassment after “attempting to have a ‘common-looking’ cabby removed from the set of A Scandal in Bohemia, completely unaware that the insalubrious ‘cabby’ was none other than Norwood wearing one of Holmes’ many disguises” (15)!

Hubert Willis/Arthur Cullin as John Watson [Spoiler for The Dying Detective]

As you have probably gathered given his virtual invisibility in the discussion thus far, Watson does not fare nearly so well in this production. Although a contemporary critic praised Willis for “[resisting] the natural temptation to burlesque this character,” the lack of burlesque is replaced with . . . nothing much of anything. There is a stolid composure to the performance which is decidedly Watson-esque, but it is not surprising that Burns has no more to say of Willis than that he is “a white-haired and slightly redundant Dr. Watson” (16). Merritt is more actively critical, going so far as describe Watson as the series’s “Achilles heel”—although in fairness, he extends this critique to the few silent-era Holmes films which include Watson, rather than leveling it at Willis’s portrayal in particular. Merritt goes on to say that “In these pre-Nigel Bruce days, [Watson] barely registers as Holmes’s partner, and the theme of a famous friendship, so important in all post-Rathbone films, is, here, all but ignored” (x)

In Willis and Cullin’s defense, this blandness appears to be more the fault of the script and direction than their performances. Watson is frequently on screen shadowing Holmes, listening to him talk, and occasionally stumbling across dead bodies; but for the most part he is just . . . there, and one is at rather a loss to determine why. In the admittedly limited selection I’ve watched the most striking demonstration of this is The Dying Detective, which necessarily includes Watson’s initial conviction that Holmes is dying, but skips entirely over the moment in which he discovers that it was all an act. After all, in the film the audience knows that the illness was feigned from the beginning, and Watson’s discovery of the same is relevant only insofar as it is a significant moment in the relationship between him and Holmes—a relationship in which it appears this series is largely uninterested.

Nevertheless, the duo is not utterly devoid of partnership, and given the state of matters I found myself smiling at their interactions surprisingly often, for the following reasons:

So . . . What about Johnlock? [Spoilers for the The Dying Detective and The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot]

By this point it is transparent that if you’re looking for top-tier Johnlock material, the Stoll films are hardly a goldmine. But if you’re willing to dismiss probable authorial intent and enjoy what’s there, you’ll come across some unexpected gems.

The thing is, a much as we the audience feel excluded from the secret of why Holmes wants this iteration of Watson along on his cases, it is clear that he does want him. Despite scant acknowledgement of Watson’s existence in the script, Holmes periodically includes him through look, word or gesture. Turning to address a few words to Watson that do not appear on screen for the audience, waiting for him at the gate, gesturing for him to come forward when trailing behind Holmes and an Inspector—in little actions and mannerisms Holmes demonstrates that while the audience may have half-forgotten about Watson, he has not. Rather less subtle is the miniature tantrum which Holmes throws when Watson doesn’t have time for him in The Dying Detective—an event both amusing and familiar to BBC fans, but surprising and notable for an iteration of Holmes who as a general rule is “absolutely quiet” except when on the tail of a criminal.

Added to this is a definite air of protection which Holmes exudes towards Watson. It is genuinely touching to see Holmes gesture for Watson to allow him to enter a potentially dangerous room first, shove Watson out of the poisoned room in Devil’s Foot before exiting himself, and grab Culverton’s poisoned box from his friend with startled urgency. And while I would have preferred to see the office of protector devolve more frequently to Watson, if only to give the poor man something to do, in The Dying Detective it is indeed striking to see his repeated attempts to get close to Holmes and care for him despite having been informed that his supposed disease is “horribly contagious and invariably fatal.”

This mutual care allows the audience to on some level accept them as partners, even if they do not understand why. It also lends credence to a certain familiarity and easy coordination that is visible in their interactions, perhaps most notably in the way they frequently stand and walk closer together than strictly necessary. Small as it is, I also find myself fixating on a moment in Devil’s Foot when the police walk in on them investigating three bodies. Due to a deviation from the cannon Holmes and Watson have stumbled across the bodies by accident, so being found with them now doesn’t look at all good. But Holmes continues his investigations without a hitch, and after only a negligible start Watson calmly begins to explain their presence. When a potentially uncomfortable circumstance arises Holmes implicitly trusts Watson to handle matters, Watson does so without instruction or hesitation. In that moment one thinks: “Oh, these two know each other and understand how to function in tandem.”

I know of no reason to suppose that those involved in the production imagined any sort of romance underlying their series. Yet thanks to the details above, somehow even making Watson a veritable wallflower was insufficient to prevent it from being rather easy for those of us who are in on the secret of every Holmes and his every Watson to a imagine private intimacy far deeper than they are free to reveal to any prying eye.

In conclusion: far be it from me to assert that initiating physical contact with a friend who has nearly died through one’s own rash actions is inevitably gay—it is no more than any human who isn’t emotionally constipated would do. I’m just saying that when the lion-hunter approaches the country cabin at the end of The Devil’s Foot, knowing that Holmes may well have deduced that he is a murderer, the first thing he sees is Holmes holding Watson's hands in one of his and gently touching the side of his friend’s head with the other. And there’s just no way he didn’t at least consider that if Holmes really did accuse him, he just might wriggle out of it by blackmailing the doctor and detective with the threat of sodomy charges.

Conclusion: Should You Watch It?

I’m not going to insist that these are films everyone must see. To be honest the preservation quality of the films is poor—at times the white glares blindingly, and at others it is nearly too dark to see. The soundtrack is just classical music played in a loop without any attempt to sync with what’s happening on screen (The Dying Detective soundtrack in particular is interminably repetitive, and you’d be best off just muting it while playing your own classical music), and flashbacks which cut away to show the crimes being committed tend to drag.

But if you are even a little interested in seeing one of the earliest depictions of Sherlock Holmes, quite possibly the favorite of Doyle and audiences alike—hell yeah you should watch them! Then come tell me what you think—it’s not as if I know anyone who has seen them. You can watch all three in an hour and a half; and if you watch only one I recommend The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot—in my opinion it has the best pacing and the best Watson/Holmes interactions, even if a few plot alterations make the climax a bit nonsensical. And if nothing else, watch the first 1.35min of The Dying Detective, for reasons ;)

A final note, since clearly I don’t know how to shut up: If you watch The Man With the Twisted Lip, don’t get overly excited like I did over the fact that Mary is erased from the story. After a bit of research I discovered to my disappointment that Watson does still get married in The Sign of Four. Fortunately Sign is relatively early in Holmes and Watson’s relationship chronologically speaking, and the fact that as far as I can tell she doesn’t appear in any other Stoll films allows us to continue imagining what we will. Yet the part of me that at times just finds it so damn sad that through such an endless train of retellings creators seem compelled to find ways to bury and deny an love that should be celebrated cannot help fixating on the fact that Sign was the final Sherlock film released by Stoll Pictures. After three years of a bound partnership that not even the near-absence of agency on Watson’s part could entirely obscure, their public image was jerked to a conclusion with the purportedly hollow (x) ringing of hetero wedding bells. But we need not dwell too long on such depressing images. Regardless of whether you continue to hold out hope for BBC Johnlock, it is my increasingly firm opinion that we are charging headlong towards a doorway, and any moment we will burst into the green fields where beauty is joyously vaunted.

If you continue to follow my ramblings, I’ll see if I can’t convince you of the same.

#The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes #Stoll Pictures #1921-1923 #Eille Norwood #Arthur Cullin #Hubert Willis #film adaptation #Sherlock Holmes #John Watson #film analysis #johnlock #meta

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opepin · 7 years

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june: week five

26: kevin woke up earlier than i did today o__o i rolled around bed and i was just so tired. i did wake up at like 6 am to pee and drink water because my mouth was so dry. kevin left to go to work and then realized he left his laptop and id at home LOLOLOL. so he had to train back and get them. i ate cereal for breakfast and then went to work and caught up on all the stuff that happened over the weekend. i also caught up with my financials and i’m so thankful that july is here so i can properly sort out my moneys lol. then i went back to work and started recording videos. i recorded and edited for the rest of the day. then i did ab exercises and snuck in a low-impact cardio workout...which i don’t think i should have done. ugh. :/ then i put chicken in the oven and made rice. i showered and got out just as the chicken finished baking. kevin got back from climbing and then showered while i chopped garlic and cilantro.

i ate dinner while he cooked. i got hungry so i finished leftovers and a chicken thigh by the time he was done. i asked kevin to take a quiz for me and he got real judgey about it -__-” like c’mon, it’s just a quiz. so then i just left him be and watched ‘crossroads’ in the bedroom. lol it was a good way to spend my evening <3 kevin apologized and then actually tried to take the quiz and them steamed soup dumplings for us. my mom called me and asked me about my foot and yelled at me out of love and asked me to move home LOL (that’s not happening). then i finished watching the movie, jammed out to britney’s old school music, and then brushed and went to sleep.

27: merp. i don’t feel like myself. i feel like something is wrong but i’m not sure? i woke up and went straight to work while eating breakfast. we had all-hands today so i took that time to do some internet errands. phil also said i didn’t need to work on monday so woot. i might work though. i was very productive and made one pagers for all the videos as well as exercises if necessary and i also pinpointed the next videos i could record and practiced using the new tools and ui. then i went straight into my arms and back workout. i talked to my mom for a bit and then baked chicken and showered. kevin got back and then showered and i ended up eating a chicken thigh and then we just went straight into making spring rolls and eating dinner. i told kevin how i’ve been feeling like we haven’t been spending quality time together as in time without reading fanfic or doing something else when we’re with each other. so we planned on doing more of that in the upcoming days. i watched some youtube videos and snuck in a 15 minute low impact workout to get my heart pumping a bit. i felt pretty bloated and sluggish today. i did my pt stretches and iced my feet as well. then i got into bed at 11:30 pm and started re-taking personality quizzes because why not? i got INFJ again for two quizzes and then a very confused one on the last one. apparently, i was on the cusp of extra/intro and intuitive/perceiving. i took it again and it said i was an ISFJ. hmmm. i got on the phone with hillary for a bit and then ended up sleeping right after. zzzz.

28: lol at this day... kevin and i slept in a bit and then i recorded a video before heading out to my doctor’s appointment. my appointment was super short because she saw my foot and ordered an x-ray for both my feet (just in case). then kevin picked me up and when we got back, i spent a good amount of time just finding imaging and radiology places to get my x-ray. the list using mycigna was crap because more than 3/4 of them were closed or did not do x-rays -__- why the eff were they on the results page when i looked up “foot x-ray - 3 sides”?! omg. i ended up just googling and finding a place close by and calling cigna to double check if they are in my network, which they were! i got on stand up and then made us spring rolls with the tonkatsu kevin cooked during my hunt and stand up. kevin went to get his hair cut when i was on my stand up and brought back bubble tea :3 then we ate together, i recorded another video, and then called cigna to make sure this location was in-network as well (i found two close by and i chose the closer one that i didn’t call about previously) and then i called the facility to make an appointment.

the receptionist told me i had to have a pcp at the location so she sent me to the registry and i got my information put into the database and called again to make an appointment. note that i was put on hold every time i called to make an appointment. the lady (didn’t know it was the same one) asked me if i was registered and i said yes and then proceeded to ask me who my pcp was... i told her i don’t have one with them and that i have an x-ray order >_O” she told me i needed to choose a pcp in order to make an appointment and sent me back to registry...wtf. i told registry what was going on and the lady was so nice and tried figuring it out. the thing is, that it was almost 5 pm so they were all about to leave but she took my call anyway. she tried getting in touch with the receptionist but rq’d and told me that they’ve been hard to get in contact with anyway and asked if i wanted to talk to the other location and patched me through. omggggg, that receptionist though. anyway, the radiologist actually picked up and told me that i didn’t need an appointment and i just needed to come in and it’d only take like 10 minutes LOL. omg gg me. she was really nice so i didn’t mind but it took me 30 minutes just to not make an appointment...

i went straight to work after and managed to edit my videos and spot another one i could record tomorrow. i feel partially productive but still... ugh. kevin also wasn’t that productive either. hmm i’ve also been noticing a rise in my resting heart rate again so there’s that. -__-” ugh, i’m feeling really negative because i can’t do my regular exercise routine. i’m gonna find a way around it though! kevin chilled on the couch while i did some low-impact cardio with my sneakers inside the apartment. i think they helped but it feels so weird not being barefoot :( then i did oblique videos and i got super tired. after my workout, i did my pt stretches. kevin and i made spring rolls with the leftovers and then we relaxed for the rest of the night. i watched the latest episode of world of dance while kevin cleaned up. then i showered and put ice on my feet while watching youtube videos and etc before falling asleep.

29: i’ve been having weird action-packed dreams ahha. well, i got up and then kevin and i ate breakfast. kevin drove me over to the medical center to get my foot x-ray after. it’s located inside this nice shopping center / mall thingy in the middle of quincy! :O there is also a five guys, jimmy john’s, and barnes and noble in there. we found out that quincy college is right there as well. anyway, it was a breeze checking in and kevin joined me after he found parking. the x-ray was much like getting them at the dentist. the lady helping me was super nice and told me i should get my results by tomorrow. kevin drove me back, i went straight into the tech time call (wasn’t necessary). i did drop out at some point because of the audio. i worked after i dropped and kevin went to work at fitbit after that as well. i managed to record two videos and edit them before the day was over. then i chopped up some kale and garlic while watching the newest episode of masterchef and then i did a low-impact and leg workout. my feet are feeling better! they feel safer in gym shoes now when i work out. then i showered and kevin made fried rice and saucy pork belly with lotus root. we ate dinner while watching gordon ramsay videos.

then i went into the room and did some online shopping at american eagle. after debating on which tops to get, i checked out and found out that 3 of the tops i wanted were sold out T_T so i rq’d and blech. i spent my whole night doing that... then i did my pt stretches, iced my feet, and then stayed up reading stuff on snapchat news...ahaha. kevin got into bed while reading fanfic and i wanted him to just go to sleep so i tried distracting him and bothering him until he was tired but it didn’t work and i just ended up sleeping ahah...

30: ...we woke up to the sound of the fire alarms blaringgggggg everywhereeee -__-” so we went outside and i was half blind lol. today was the fire alarm drills in deco and we thought it would only affect a few floors, but nope! so we went back, tried to go back to sleep but then the alarms went off again so we went back down and then we went back again and i brushed up and everything so i didn’t go outside blind again. the alarm went off so we decided to get into the car and get breakfast or something except that kevin didn’t brush his teeth yet so he went back up after the alarms stopped and then we drove to the townshend where we found out that brunch is only on sundays... so we told the waiter we thought we could get breakfast here and he was super nice and understood. we left to go to craig’s cafe down the street. i got tea and the last order of eggs benedict ;D kevin got two breakfast sandwiches. mmm the food there was good and so cheap! our meal was only around $20 haha.

we drove back and all the drills were done so i went straight to work. i had a food coma so i did some internet errands before returning to do work. kevin went climbing and i got the work i wanted to get done, done. then i prepped food for dinner and exercised until kevin got back. i continued exercising while kevin realized that we didn’t have coconut milk to make the kale coconut fried rice so then we just ate leftovers from yesterday. i showered and then i plopped myself down on the sofa and played some bravely default... i’m trying to get all of the genomes i can for the vampire class before heading into the ending, which is superrrr long apparently -_-” haha. it was like 1 am when kevin joined me and he tried playing ff-x but switched over to hollow knight. omg, kevin started playing ff-x on steam and it is beautisss! i have so many memories <3 then we both got really tired and went to sleep at like 2:30 am.

july01: we woke up at like 11 am and stayed in bed until 12 pm. we ate breakfast and then drove to get tickets to see wonder woman and then we went shopping at the mall! we were planning on going to faneuil hall and shopping at uniqlo but kevin was lazy and just wanted to drive over to the mall. we went to j crew first and got nothing there. then we stopped by auntie anne’s to get pretzels <3 i was very disappointed in the garlic parmesan one because it was literally just all powder :( we got cinnamon sugar nuggets so that kind of made up for it. we stopped by gap where kevin got two pairs of pants and then we stopped by the food court to eat the pretzels. then we went to american eagle and aerie. i got kevin to try on these joggers he was looking at and he fell in love with them LOL. i tried finding the shirts that were sold out online but i couldn’t find them so i rq’d. i walked into aerie and told kevin he could wait outside if he was bored and didn’t want to follow me. i managed to find the sports bra i wanted and got it :) i got one sports bra without needing to pay for shipping / buy more stuff for free shipping -- yay! then we stopped by express on the way back and i did my best looking for things to buy but everything had the cross over lacing trend and/or drop shoulders and i’m not about that life right now. i tried on a pair of scalloped shorts and i fit a xs at express o_o’ i didn’t get them because the scallops were too big. kevin managed to find 3 tees and a collared shirt that he liked :O he had a good shopping trip.

we went to target after and got some cherries, noosa, and i got some insoles. then we drove back, kevin changed into his new clothes, cleaned out his t-shirt drawer, and i tried on my sports bra and chilled until we needed to leave for the movie. oh, we snacked on some mantou and chicken strips and stuff before heading to the movie. wonder woman was awesome -- it was so action-packed and i was never bored. kevin kept laughing at the awkward scenes LOL. whenever i watch a movie with kevin in theaters and he laughs, i realize that i am with one of those people who obnoxiously laugh at the movies. i’ve gotten used to it now and it’s actually endearing to hear someone laugh that hard in the movies. anyway, after that, we drove home, i snacked some more and then got in a 45 minute dance cardio workout. my feet are healinggg but i’m still avoiding hard jumps and stuff like that. i’m so happy <3333 i showered after and then remembered i had to do pt stretches and then ice my feet so i did that and then quickly got ready for bed and ko’d at like 1 or 2 am...zzz. oh, kevin got hungry before we went to bed so he made himself a breakfast sandwich and i asked if he could toast english muffins for me so i could put jam on it. he did that and put jam on it for me. lololol, he put a lot of jam on it so it became so sweet and i couldn’t take another bite after taking my first. lolololol. so that’s how kevin gets through jam so quickly...

july02: we got up at 11 am or 12 pm again. then we ate breakfast. kevin was still doing his morning thangs so i went into the bedroom and called to make a reservation at the envoy hotel for his birthday (: i got us a room and then i put our bedsheets into the washer and took some surveys until it was time to leave for our monthly massage. actually, i made us leave later than we were supposed to because the washer wasn’t done and i didn’t want to leave our sheets in there, but i looked it up and stuff doesn’t grow mildew until 24 hours later so we were good to go. we actually got there at 1:31 pm, which was on time :OO it felt soooo good. my masseuse, who is also the boss lady, worked on my back and shoulders today and it felt great. she cracked my back twice and my right foot (injured foot) and was worried she was breaking me but all was well! kevin and i were so relaxed and tired after that. we drove home and then kevin gamed until i asked him when we were going to go grocery shopping. i was super tired and had low energy. i just wanted to sleep. it was a struggle getting out of the apartment again.

we went to kam man and i tried looking for tiger balm but they didn’t have any. kevin got most of the groceries and we picked up ingredients to make che thai because kevin was craving it. then we went to bj’s and looked through two coupon books while picking up paper towels and juice. we drove back home and then i made che thai while he put away groceries. we put chia seeds in there and made it with coconut milk and then set them in the fridge. kevin and i cleaned the apartment right after that. i did a deep cleaning of the kitchen and the bathroom. oh, i also started washing our laundry. just as i finished cleaning, kevin started cooking. i managed to find the zodiac dog crystal for my mom’s birthday. i hope it gets here in time before we fly out to chicago on the weekend. nancy invited me, mindy, and hillary to help celebrate ryan’s birthday so i’m excited (: i hope hillary comes~ it’ll be fun. i started stressing about what to wear though. i’m pretty sure i’m going to stick to wearing my adidas because i don’t want to wear shoes that my feet aren’t comfy in. it was a pretty productive sunday. i still felt tired and grody though.

we ate dinner and then i folded the laundry and helped kevin wash some of the dishes. then we cleaned up and showered and i spent my night watching cutscenes from ff-x while doing my pt stretches and icing my feet. kevin came to the sofa to play hollow knight and i ktfo on his shoulder. i woke up and then brushed my teeth and made part of the bed while kevin brushed his teeth. then he put he covers on the blanket and we went to sleep at like 2 am. @_@; lolol my sleep schedule.

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sophygurl · 7 years

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10,000 Worlds; 10,000 Feminisms: What Even IS Feminist Science Fiction Anyway? - Wiscon 41 panel write-up

These tend to be long and only of interest to specific segments of folk so click the clicky to read.

Disclaimers:

I hand write these notes and am prone to missing things, skipping things, writing things down wrong, misreading my own handwriting, and making other mistakes. So this is by no means a full transcript.

Corrections, additions, and clarifications are most welcome. I’ve done my best to get people’s pronouns and other identifiers correct, but please do let me know if I’ve messed any up. Corrections and such can be made publicly or privately on any of the sites I’m sharing these write-ups on(tumblr and dreamwidth for full writings, facebook and twitter for links), and I will correct ASAP.

My policy is to identify panelists by the names written in the programming book since that’s what they’ve chosen to be publicly known as. If you’re one of the panelists and would prefer something else - let me know and I’ll change it right away.

For audience comments, I will only say general “audience member” kind of identifier unless the individual requests to be named.

Any personal notes or comments I make will be added in like this [I disagree because blah] - showing this was not part of the panel vs. something like “and then I spoke up and said blah” to show I actually added to the panel at the time.

10,000 Worlds; 10,000 Feminisms: What Even IS Feminist Science Fiction Anyway?

Moderator: Julie C. Day. Panelists: Jackie Gross (ladyjax), Lauren Lacey, (Kini Ibura Salaam was listed, but unable to make the panel due to travel issues)

#10000Worlds - lots of livetweets if you want to see more, also lists of recs including stuff I’m sure I missed

Julie introduced herself, saying this was her first WisCon, she is a writer, and “I am weird.”

Lauren introduced herself and talked about teaching at Edgewood college - teaches contemporary speculative fiction and directs the women and gender studies program. She recently taught a class on contemp. global feminisms.

Jackie introduced herself as a writer of fanfic (ladyjax on AO3), and also teaches at UC Berkley. Used to work for a women’s bookstore. Motherlands was the first feminist book she read at age 13. She said she started out as a feminist, and then a black feminist, and then a lesbian black feminist.

Julie started off the questions about SF as feminism being a broad category, so make it personal, and asked the panelists to list off a couple of best/worst works of feminist SF.

Lauren said a not-fave of hers is Sheri Tepper’s work, specifically Beauty. Revised fairy tales are ways that SFF writers were re-appropriating fairy tales. As feminists, we should be asking ourselves what do we keep - not just in our fiction but in general (example: the institution of marriage - what’s good about it, what it isn’t, etc.).

Lauren listed Angela Carter’s work as an example of her favorite feminist SF.

In regards to Tepper’s work, Lauren said that instead of re-working fairy tales, Tepper was just doing the same things. She also talked about dystopian narratives as being about how everything sucks, and thinks the point of feminist SF should be about giving hope.

Jackie brought up Daughters of a Coral Dawn by Katherine Forrest, which she hates with the fire of a thousand suns. It was hyped up, but she thought it was bad, although she likes Forrest’s other works.

Julie talked about feminist fiction as a reflection of how things are vs. pathways forward to something better - not necessarily perfect but better as opposed to the dystopian/utopian paradigm.

Jackie discussed the idea of entry points where you find yourself in a narrative. She references Suzy McKee Charnas’ Holdfast Chronicles, which brings you from the past to the present to the future, and Shelly Singer’s The Demeter Flower - “we seem to go to the woods a lot!” It’s like something goes wrong, women pack it up and head for the woods. There are lots of similar stories, you read them to see how this story does this kind of narrative differently. Charnas has others in this genre, also Motherlands.

Jackie laments that dystopias now are for the sake of the dystopia vs. being commentary on where we’re going wrong and how to change that. [I disagree but get where she’s coming from]

Jackie tells us that the director of Moonlight, Barry Jenkins, shot a film series with the idea of slow dystopia called Futurestates.

Julie asked the panelists about the function of YA dystopias. The teen state is about identity and rebellion, coming of age and opposition to authority.

Jackie posited that there is a difference between a dystopia and a distaster.

Lauren said a story doesn’t have to be just a dystopia or utopia, it can combine elements of both. She mentioned Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Octavia Butler’s Parable series as dystopias that represent the hope of resistance/rebellion.

She also brought up the New Wave 70′s stories where there was this narrative of women just entering SF (when actually we’ve always been here). At this time, there were a lot of feminist utopias - all female societies where men show up. Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gillman is an earlier example of this type of feminist utopia.

Lauren talked some more about the timelines of these kinds of stories - the 90′s had an explosion of the more dystopian type, but they always existed as well. The dominate culture latched on to this kind of prepatory dystopia around that time.

Jackie said that she feels differently about Handmaid’s Tale now than in the 80′s when it came out. “All of this has happened to My people already.” Can/should the show give us stories of the people who were wiped out instead of just saying “they’ve killed all of these people” as part of the narrative. For example, in a conversation with a friend, they were wondering - how would the hood react when this started - because the hood is armed up.

She also talked about Womanseed by Sunlight, which has this idea of different people and groups of people who left society at different points eventually finding one another and joining up. Another example is Steve Barnes’ series that begins with the book Streetlethal about 2 different extremes of people working together.

Julie brought up Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea as examples where the narrative makes us relate to the main character so much that we’re pulled in to their reality. The real victim is the mad woman in the attic, but we don’t see that at first because of the point of view character.

Lauren said that a good writer will flag those silences so that we see who isn’t being represented by the main narrative. James Tiptree does this well. Literary theory asks the question - who can speak, and how can they speak.

Julie talked about feminist SF as being intersectional. An example is Ursula Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness and how reading this, she was exposed to ideas of gender identity much sooner than she would have otherwise. SFF leaves room for more expansion of ideas - gives permission for more and lets you experience things and transforms you in different ways.

Jackie emphasized getting away from the mainstream - especially look for gay and lesbian publishers. She mentions Return to Isis by Jean Stewart - things go bad, a new society develops, but there is war with others. Also Swords of the Rainbow, and Gilda Stories. Basically, seek out things that won’t get published by mainstream publishers.

Another example she gave was Space Traders by Derrick Bell, which asks the question - what happens when aliens show up and say they’ll solve all your problems if you give us all of your black people. It’s told as a fable that’s already happened.

She talked about how early copies of Octavia Butler’s Dawn featured a white woman, so it took awhile when reading the book to realize the main character was black. There was an another example like this that I missed the title and author of, but when the publisher was asked why they did this with the cover, the response was that 1) black people don’t read scifi [UGH] and 2) white people won’t read a book if there’s a black person on the cover [DOUBLE UGH].

Lauren brought up the fact that Indigenous fiction is sold as “Native American” fiction even if it should be put in other genres. She agrees about looking outside the mainstream. The mainstream is what publishes think sells, so we have to seek this other stuff out to find it, and also to send the message of what we want to see more of.

Julie talked more about gay and lesbian publishers still being very necessary.

Jackie added that Barnes and Noble might sell a book by one of these publishers, but it’s the only copy they have, and if it’s a book in a series they won’t have the other books, plus it will be shoved into the LGBT section in the corner. On the other hand, when Jackie was hand-selling books in a feminist bookstore, it meant being able to say “this is book #5 - do you want me to get 1-4 for you?”

Amazon’s name was taken from a woman’s bookstore - it’s important to remember our history. Mama Bear’s was the last woman’s bookstore in California.

Lauren brought up that on Amazon, it can be harder to find certain things because people can bid to be at the top of search lists. Amazon and Google are rigged - making smaller publishers and self-published books harder to find.

An audience member shouted out - “Library catalogs are not rigged!”

Julie stated that there are many narratives to tell and asked the panelists if things have changed?

Lauren said it’s dangerous to historicize the present, but there are ways in which the dominant popular culture has embraced SFF and it’s interesting to look at the ways that has contained the genre.

She added that we should check out WisCon’s Guests of Honor and Tiptree noms for examples of all of the great stuff out there right now. She said that 10 years ago when she was studying SF, people were surprised that it was a thing you could do - but now people are getting it more.

Jackie said she was fortunate to have studied the golden age of SF. She added that she was a Tiptree judge a few years ago - it’s not all necessarily feminist, but there’s a lot that is. She recommended All That Outer Space Allows by Ian Sales. In this story, women write SF but it’s seen as sort of housewife stuff. This ends up meaning that only women can see spaceships when they come.

Jackie also said that reading everything for the Tiptree judging showed her that while not everything she had to read was great - yes, there are indeed 10,000 narratives out there.

Jackie and Lauren discussed how people are looking for more Hunger Games-like stories, but that doesn’t work for everyone. Authors can’t keep telling the same thing over and over.

Julie discussed how publishers, editors, etc. may not connect to certain narratives, but that has more to say about them and their own biases than about the stories not getting published.

An audience member asked if there was a word for created societies that are neither dystopian nor utopian. Julie offered heterotopia. An example is Le Guin’s Dispossessed.

Another audience member said they are looking for publishers of contemporary feminist SF - not feminist fantasy and especially not romantic fantasy.

Jackie suggested Aqueduct Press, but also said not to discount the romantics. For example, Romantic Times reviews a lot of SF. Romance can be a gateway genre to SF.

An audience member brought up Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy as having a balance of dystopia and utopia, where the utopian society is based on reproductive technologies. (Either this audience member or Lauren on the panel - my notes aren’t clear which) stated that their students love that, as well as Octavia Butler’s work.

Another audience rec is Rachel Pollack’s Unquenchable Fire. Jackie seconds this rec and added that it’s a real mind bender.

Jackie said that utopias can get so boring, whereas many dystopias are like - well that’s kinda how life is.

An audience member said that as a male, he enjoyed the wave of feminist utopias because he found they were the only ones he actually wanted to live in - not like the male-written ones he’d previously read.

Jackie mentions The Wanderground by Sally Miller Gearheart as another in this genre.

An audience member asked Lauren about finding feminist SF on a global level. Lauren said it’s out there but in the US, we don’t tend to like reading stuff that comes from elsewhere, so it’s harder to find.

Jackie said that everything nominated for Tiptree is easily findable on their website. Also manga is get-able.

Lauren talked about how a lot of work from writers in India gets described as fantasy but there are genre issues there due to people writing about Hindu traditions and getting labeled “fantasy.”

Jackie mentioned the discussions that happened recently on twitter in regards to Justine Larbalestier and Magical Realism genre issues - post-modern female authors just tend to get labeled that way and it can be problematic.

An audience member brought up Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing. Jackie talked about it as coming from the SFF and woman’s spirituality movements, and added that San Fransisco SFF slipstream fic is a whole thing.

At this point of the panel a ton of recommendations got tossed out, but I’d stopped taking notes because I had to hurry off to the green room for my own panel in the next time slot. Do check out the twitter hashtag as the livetweeters were pretty diligent about getting those listed.

#10000worlds #wiscon #wiscon 41 #wiscon41 #wc41 #10000 worlds #10000 feminisms #wiscon panel write-ups #feminist science fiction

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thesassybooskter · 7 years

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THIEF’S MARK by Carla Neggers: Excerpt & Giveaway

AVAILABLE AUGUST 29TH 2017

A murder in a quiet English village, long-buried secrets and a man’s search for answers about his traumatic past entangle FBI agents Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan in the latest edge-of-your-seat Sharpe & Donovan novel

As a young boy, Oliver York witnessed the murder of his wealthy parents in their London apartment. The killers kidnapped him and held him in an isolated Scottish ruin, but he escaped, thwarting their plans for ransom. Now, after thirty years on the run, one of the two men Oliver identified as his tormentors may have surfaced.

Emma Sharpe and Colin Donovan are enjoying the final day of their Irish honeymoon when a break-in at the home of Emma’s grandfather, private art detective Wendell Sharpe, points to Oliver. The Sharpes have a complicated relationship with the likable, reclusive Englishman, an expert in Celtic mythology and international art thief who taunted Wendell for years. Emma and Colin postpone meetings in London with their elite FBI team and head straight to Oliver. But when they arrive at York’s country home, a man is dead and Oliver has vanished.

As the danger mounts, new questions arise about Oliver’s account of his boyhood trauma. Do Emma and Colin dare trust him? With the trail leading beyond Oliver’s small village to Ireland, Scotland and their own turf in the US, the stakes are high, and Emma and Colin must unravel the decades-old tangle of secrets and lies before a killer strikes again.

Buy Online: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

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Excerpt

“Granddad could be overdramatizing and the break-in isn’t a big deal,” Emma said as she and Colin approached her grandfather’s town house near Merrion Square. They’d decided to walk after checking in to the hotel. Wendell had staked them to an elegant, third-floor room with a view of St. Stephen’s Green. “It’s still possible we can have a good last night of our honeymoon.”

“We will no matter what,” Colin said.

She smiled. “You’ve turned into a romantic.”

“The Ireland effect.”

“Not being with me?”

He winked. “We’ll see what happens when we get home.”

Home was her tiny apartment in Boston and his house in his hometown of Rock Point, Maine. Now their apartment and house. She loved being married to him and had relished every second of their time together in Ireland. She looked at him now, her broad-shouldered, dark-haired undercover-agent husband with his ocean-gray eyes and sexy smile.

But her mind was on her grandfather. “I don’t like the coincidence of a break-in and our arrival in Dublin,” she said.

Colin gave a curt nod. “I don’t, either. Do you think he has a suspect in mind?”

“I don’t know. He’s being slippery, that’s for sure.”

“I’m not touching that one.”

“Best we stay on our toes when Granddad is in full obfuscation mode.”

“Not regretting joining the family business instead of the FBI at the moment, are you?”

“Not at the moment, no. Not ever, actually.” She sighed. “Granddad didn’t look hurt or freaked out to you, did he?”

“No, but he never does.”

True enough, she thought.

When they reached her grandfather’s redbrick building, he pulled open the door before she could knock or ring the bell. “I suppose you want to go straight to the crime scene,” he said. “Come on in.”

Without waiting for an answer, he led them through the entry and front room back to a ground-floor bedroom. He moved aside, and Emma stood on the threshold, Colin to her left and a bit behind her. The room was small and square, with two twin beds, a nightstand, a dresser and photographs of Skellig Michael on the wall opposite the window, which looked onto a terrace at the back of the house. The only sign of a problem was a spiderweb of cracked glass emanating from a fist-size hole in the window.

“Bastard unlocked the window and came right in,” her grandfather said behind them. “Used a gnome statue on the terrace to break the glass. You remember it, Emma. It belonged to your grandmother. Otherwise I’d have left it in Maine. It’s a homely little thing. Anyway, I think he went out through the back door. I don’t know if it was a man. Could have been a woman.”

Colin pointed at the bare tile floor in the bedroom. “No glass.”

Wendell shrugged. “I swept it up. There wasn’t much.”

“You shouldn’t have touched anything,” Emma said.

“Yeah, I know. It would have been easier if I’d left the doors unlocked and he walked in and out again. Less of a mess to clean up and I might never have known anyone had been here. I’d never have looked if…” Wendell stopped abruptly. “Never mind. Doesn’t matter now.”

“If what, Granddad?” Emma asked.

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I spotted a piece of broken glass on the kitchen table when I got back from the pub. That’s why I checked in here. The intruder must have taken the glass with him after he climbed through the window. If I’d been here and put up a fuss—well, you know. He could have threatened me or slit my throat.”

Colin angled a look at him. “But you didn’t see anyone?”

“No one, in here or outside. I wasn’t here when he broke in and I didn’t get my throat slit. And,” he added emphatically, “the glass could have been a practical consideration. A tool rather than a weapon, in case he needed to cut something.”

Emma frowned. “Cut something?”

He motioned with one hand. “Come.”

Emma felt Colin’s tension as they followed her grandfather to his study, now his home office and where he spent most of his time. When the weather was dank and chilly, he’d have a fire going, but not today, given the lingering warm, dry June weather. It had rained only a few times during her and Colin’s stay in Ireland, but the occasional lazy, drizzly day hadn’t gone to waste.

“I turned over most of my physical files to Lucas when I shut down my outside office,” her grandfather said. “He went through them when he was here last fall and took what he wanted back to Maine with him.”

Lucas, Emma’s older brother, had taken over the reins of Sharpe Fine Art Recovery and worked out of its offices in Heron’s Cove, a picturesque village on the southern Maine coast. He’d just completed a massive revamp of the offices, located in the same Victorian house where a young Portland security guard had launched his career as a private art detective. Six decades later, Wendell Sharpe was world-renowned, and Sharpe Fine Art Recovery was a thriving business, but still small in terms of staff. His only son—Emma and Lucas’s father—had cut back on his role with the company after a fall on the ice had left him in chronic, often debilitating pain.

“Lucas is considering reopening a Dublin office now that I’ve retired.” Wendell shrugged, waved a hand. “More-or-less retired, anyway. I work when he needs me or I land on something interesting on my own. The rest of my files are here.” He tapped his right temple. “I told Lucas what he needs to know for the business. Everything else can go to the grave with me.”

“The stuff you want to hide,” Colin said.

Wendell snorted. “Damn right but not from the FBI. You and your lot wouldn’t be interested. Neither would my family. Most of it’s memories, ideas, suppositions, speculations, conspiracy theories…mistakes I’ve made, people whose reputations might be harmed unfairly because of their association with me. I’m an old man. I’ve done a lot.”

Emma sat on the couch. She’d spent countless hours here in her grandfather’s study when she’d worked for him before she’d left Dublin for the FBI. She’d wanted to learn everything—about the business, art crimes, his contacts, his methods, his resources. She’d been a sponge. But she eyed him with measures of skepticism, anticipation, curiosity—the usual mix when she was dealing with her grandfather. “What do your files and memories have to do with the break-in?”

He hesitated. “Maybe I jumped the gun.”

“Granddad, just tell us everything, okay? Don’t make me pry it out of you.”

“Rusty after your honeymoon?”

Colin took in an audible breath. “Quit stalling, Wendell.”

“All right, all right. It’s tricky timing, dealing with a break-in and having your FBI granddaughter and her FBI husband show up. It looks as if my intruder had a look around in here. He didn’t toss the place, but there are signs.” He pointed to a small, dark wood box on a shelf by the fireplace. “He got in there. It doesn’t have a lock but there’s no label saying what’s inside. Never occurred to me anyone…” He didn’t finish, instead plopping onto a chair across from Emma.

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About Carla Neggers

Carla Neggers is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 60 novels, including her popular Sharpe & Donovan and Swift River Valley series. Her books have been translated into 24 languages and sold in over 35 countries. Whether creating stories of friendship, family and love or razor-sharp suspense, Carla always takes readers on a captivating journey. Her books have been called “smart and satisfying” (Kirkus), “extraordinarily memorable” (RT Book Reviews) and “highly entertaining” (Publishers Weekly), and she has been praised for her “unerring knack for creating compelling, sympathetic characters and vivid, realistic settings” (Library Journal).

Growing up in a small town in western Massachusetts, Carla developed an eye for detail and a love of a good story. Her father, a former Dutch merchant marine, and her mother, raised in the Florida Panhandle, arrived in New England just before Carla was born. Her parents’ stories and the many adventures Carla had with her six siblings honed her imagination and curiosity, key to the complex relationships, fast-paced plots and deep sense of place in her books.

Carla landed her first book sale not long after graduating magna cum laude from Boston University with a degree in journalism. An accomplished musician, she studied with members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and freelanced as an arts-and-entertainment reporter—always with a novel in the works.

Active in the writing community, Carla is a founding member of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America and has served as vice president of International Thriller Writers and president of Novelists, Inc. She has received multiple awards for her writing and is a recipient of the RT Book Reviews Career Achievement Award for romantic suspense.

In addition to writing, Carla is a dedicated runner, recently completing the Covered Bridges Half-Marathon in Vermont, a whiskey enthusiast and avid traveler. She and her husband are frequent visitors to Ireland and divide their time between Boston, home to their two grown children and three young grandchildren, and their hilltop home in Vermont.

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THIEF’S MARK by Carla Neggers: Excerpt & Giveaway was originally published on The Sassy Bookster

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toomanysinks · 6 years

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These ad execs have a venture fund they’d like to sell you

Mike Duda comes from the world of advertising. In fact, he spent 13 years at the renowned ad agency Deutsch, becoming the youngest partner in the company’s history until another creative, Brent Vartan, came along and stole the title. Little wonder that in 2010, when Duda struck out on his own to create Bullish (formerly known as Consigliere Brand Capital), he stole Vartan, later making him the firm’s second managing partner.

It isn’t that the two wanted to outgun their former employer exactly. Instead, the idea from the outset was to create an ad agency that also happens to be an investment firm. In a way, they stole a page from many Silicon Valley service firms that, beginning in the go-go dot com era of twenty years ago, worked for pay and, when the right opportunities arose, for equity.

It’s turned out to be a pretty good approach. Bullish, which is based in New York and works on a pay-for-performance compensation model, has managed to sneak checks into some of the biggest consumer new brands out there, including Warby Parker and Peloton and Harry’s and Casper, companies that have happily agreed to include Bullish as a syndicate partner including because of its advertising know-how.

In the meantime, to keep the lights on as those privately held companies have continued to operate privately, Bullish has also managed to land more traditional big-league clients, including Anheuser-Busch, Pepsi, Nike and Walmart. It also counted GNC as a client and reportedly turned heads when it dropped it in order to invest $250,000 in the three-and-a-half-year-old vitamin supplement startup Care/of.

With Bullish now contemplating fund two, we decided to sit down with Duda last week to learn more about how the whole things operates, and where he and Vartan are shopping now.

TC: You’d spent your career in advertising. What circles were you traveling in that you were also seeing seed-stage startups — good ones — in need of funding?

MD: It was through outlier circles. Like, Peloton struggled to raise money, so it got104 angels to invest, including high-net worths, and us, who looked institutional, though I laugh at that now. [Founder and CEO John Foley] didn’t know how to play the VC game. He’d been the president of Barnes & Noble and he had this idea that people thought was crazy. He had a PPM for his fundraise — he didn’t have the [traditional] ten-page PowerPoint. So a lot of people in New York passed, and those same people now funding the Mirrors of the world and Tonals of the world.

It was a similar situation with Birchbox. It trouble raising money because its founders are women, and most of the guys they were talking to were like, ‘Well, my wife would get bored of this after a couple of months.’ But the target audience doesn’t have a seven-car garage in Palo Alto. It’s a mom of two in Cleveland who subscribes to the New Yorker.

On the agency side, we worked on Revlon for two years, so we get that a consumer doesn’t have to be like just someone we know. It isn’t, ‘Oh, it’s a product for women; let me ask my wife.’ We actually do focus groups to [find] consumer insights.

TC: So the pitch is that it isn’t just money you’re bringing but a full marketing group, too.

MD: A marketing group with people from places like Deloitte and A.T. Kearney and Goldman Sachs and RBC who try to understand what’s really going on among the says 330 million Americans out there – – not just in New York, San Francisco, L.A. or Boston, which are the hotbeds for consumer investment in VC. We look at stuff that could be disruptive for the normals, which is sometimes unsexy stuff like a stationary bike with a TV.

TC: A $3,000 stationary bike is for normal people?

MD: There were 1.6 million stationary bikes being sold in the U.S. every year [when Foley first began pitching investors]. Harry’s taking on Gillette before Dollar Shave Club came along [is another example]. The jeans I’m wearing are from a company called Revtown in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded by Henry Stafford, who was the North American president of Under Amour and [previously worked for both] American Eagle and Gap. So this was a first-time entrepreneur who had corporate experience was paranoid about raising too much money and promising investors too much too soon. And we’re attracted to entrepreneurs who don’t want to raise tons of capital before they build a profitable business.

That’s not the case with all of our investments, obviously. Casper and Peloton have both raised a fair amount of money, but their growth kind of followed suit.

TC: Why jeans?

MD: I think [Stafford[ was kind of ticked off and wondering why do people have to choose from either the Gap or a $200 pair of jeans. He wanted to build a great pair of jeans that sell for under $100 and that he can sell through great advertising. The pair I’m wearing right now is $75 and it’s a great pair of jeans. Not that I have the ability to stretch, but if I could put my foot over my head without them on, I could do it with them on, too, because they’re stretchy and durable and well-made. Also, from an operations from business standpoint, this is an adult who has built up businesses before and brings that sensibility so that we can get the scale right. Though a direct-to-consumer brand, it’s not too precious to go into physical retail earlier, either.

TC: Most direct-to-consumer brands are showing up in the offline world faster.

MD: DTC 2.0 is definitely going to be more about going where your customers are. When Harry’s went into Target, it was a genius move, because there are people in Overland Park, Kansas who may not see its digital banners, but they’re in a Target, and they’re like, ‘That’s new, that’s interesting.’ So it’s another form of marketing.

TC: What about social media? All the platforms are already saturated. Who’s doing really novel things out there, in your view?

MD: I’ll maybe start with the stuff that just annoys us. First, I think a lot of VCs and other people involved with early-stage companies think marketing is a customer acquisition cost and it’s not. If you have to rely on Facebook and Google, you’ll never grow because your [costs] never go down.

When we think of DTC companies, we’re looking for is, what can you do that gets talk value, not just at your initial PR launch but that [produces] advocates in a kind of flywheel talking about you. People do talk about this stuff. People like to be the one to discover something before anyone else and like to talk about it.

TC: What about TV spend? I’m always astonished to see fairly new brands spending what I’d guess is a lot of money on television ads.

MD: With digital marketing, the accountability is not there as much as people thought. And that’s why about a year ago, you started see the [men’s wellness company] Hims start spending $6 million or $7 million a month on TV advertising during March Madness. Was that a flawed strategy? No. TV works. That’s why you see companies that reach a certain size go to TV; it’s like some sort of validation that this a real company. TV is a storefront for companies that may not have one.

TC: I do wonder how these brands, many of which are great, deal with fickle customers. There are some old brands that I will always love — Patagonia, Hermes – – but a lot of newer brands that I love but I will throw over in two seconds for a newer, shinier brand when it also has a compelling product.

MD: It’s more like someone is probably not serving you well enough. They’re letting you forget about them. Is it Amazon’s fault that RadioShack and JC Penny are going out business? Probably not. They weren’t serving the customer. If you build a relationship with your consumer rather than advertising to her, you have a much better chance of keeping that person as a customer longer term. Patagonia makes great stuff, but so do other people. It’s that the company’s values are bigger than the product itself [that keeps people coming back].

TC: You’re going to start raising a fund later this year. How it will it be different than what you put together the first time around?

MD: We undershot our proposition the first time around. Being an executive at an ad agency, I wanted to be more conservative rather than sell the dream and not achieve it. It was actually harder to raise $10 million than what I was told it would have been if I’d been raising $25 million or $30 million. But we wanted to show proof of concept. Now, a lot of people have left the seed and pre-seed area as investors have raised bigger funds and we see a great opportunity, in a world where there is literally trillions of dollars in play, to get in as early as possible, then play pro rata defense [to maintain our stake]. And in our case, we’ll probably offer up later rounds to the [limited partners] who support us.

TC: A lot of seed and pre-seed deal flow comes to investors from Series A investors. Which are those firms in your universe?

MD: By and far, the most helpful firm to us was First Round Capital. Without their time, we wouldn’t be where we are.

I’m dating myself, but back in 2009, they did office hours. They were commercializing this angel VC investing thing. And I went to one of their office hours and [firm founder] Josh [Koppelman] spent 10 minutes with me and gave me his card and it was like a ‘Dumb and Dumber’ moment. I called my wife, and I was like, ‘He’s saying I have a chance!’ Then I flew to San Francisco to do another office hours . . .

TC: You flew cross country expressly for another of these office hours?

MD: Yes. And 78 people showed up. And it was like the land of broken toys. There were older gentlemen in three-piece suits, and a 19-year-old guy who showed up with a Rock’em Sock’em Robot and people who flew in from San Diego and Portland. And they just gave every one 10 minutes and I was like, ‘Here’s our proposition. It’s a marketing agency with a fund.’

And 75 of of the 78 people got 10 minutes, and two got 30 minutes, and one of them — me — got an hour and a half with Chris Fralic and Kent Goldman, who were kind enough to spend time with someone who kind of wanted to do what they do in a different way. Really, they’re the ones who gave me the confidence that this could work.

Photo above, left to right: Mike Duda, Brent Vartan. Courtesy of Mike Duda.

source https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/19/these-ad-execs-have-a-venture-fund-theyd-like-to-sell-you/

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theonyxpath · 6 years

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Yes, I’d say the creation of the 2nd Edition of Scion has taken the most thought (and Thoth) of any of our projects to date.

From the years spent iterating the Storypath System that powers Scion, to the years and years we and the Scion community dissected and recombined the first edition rules and setting, to the extensive amount of care the writers and developer Neall Raemonn Price have put into improving first edition in every way they could.

Like the Netjer (Egyptian) pantheon pictured above, all the pantheons have been researched and re-researched and run past experts in the myths and cultures they represent. You don’t in any way need a doctorate to use and enjoy them in your game, but now they more accurately reflect our current understanding of the gods and their cohorts.

Neall goes into this in his interview with Eddy and Dixie on last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, and it is well worth your time to check it out if you’re a Scion fan. He goes into his thinking on Scion, as well as some of the often torturous steps we have had to take to get the first two game books created. If you’re not a Scion fan, he also reveals how Beckett’s Jyhad Diary was developed and written, and so basically, it’s a great overview of how RPG books are created.

You can check it out on your favorite podcast venue or directly on PodBean here: https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

This Friday on the Onyx Pathcast, the Wraith Curse rears its ugly head, and the gang have to recreate an entire episode where they only mention Wraith in discussing TTRPGs and how they affect our non-game lives. Listen in to find out how the Wraith Curse manifests this time!

Dragon-Blooded art by Yiyoung Li

Now for myself, I too have thought a lot about Scion. From green-lighting the first edition and realizing that without something wahoo going on, the sales distribution system was going to under-order Scion: Hero, (“We need new games to sell!” “Here’s a new one we made.” “Wah? It’s new and has no sales history, how can we order that?”), to getting a copy of the book put into every retailer bag at that year’s GAMA trade show. Retailers who then ordered the game in such amounts that we had to do a second print pretty much before the book hit stores!

I’ve thought a lot about the dedication of the Scion community during the (very) lean years when almost nothing new came out, yet WW‘s old Scion forums were still getting more posts than entire other gaming websites. I read your posts you magnificent bastards, and incorporated that thinking into what we needed to do to elevate Scion for second edition.

I’ve ground my teeth in frustration during the time Storypath was iterating and while Scion: Origin and Scion: Hero have been incubating, and thought long and hard about the iterations and improvements that slowed things down. Were they worth it?

Well, the answer is yes, as far as I can see. Storypath is the simple base 10-sided pool system that can be expanded depending on your table’s interest in more shared storytelling that I hoped for. It is so flexible that we can add tweaks to it to emulate a post-apocalyptic scarcity game with zombies in Dystopia Rising: Evolution, and reflexive and meta humor mechanics in They Came From Beneath the Sea!.

And it enables play from man on the street to god levels of power for Scion and the Trinity Continuum.

VtR2 Guide to the Night art by Sam Araya

Scion has a built-in setting now, with the World, yet it is so designed that you can pull back on that and keep the god stuff hidden, or dial it to 11 and make the presence of the gods even more impactful on our normal world. I thought about whether adding the World was the right way to go – and had probably far more discussions with Neall than he wanted to have about it – but in the end, I think the default setting combined with the very easy options to alter that if you so choose hits the right spot.

It’s there and it’s rich and deep with history, but still open enough that your characters matter. Which is a big part of Scion, as I see it.

And one more thing that I’ve thought about A LOT, and have mentioned before, is that to me Scion is just getting started. The 4 book core of Origin, Hero, Demigod, and God is really the central spine of the possible ways Scion can be played. There’s the “Children of the Gods in Modern Times” that defines that spine, and we can provide a lot more projects that help build on that. We already have the Companion, Jumpstart, Ready Made Characters, and Bestiary being worked on.

But let’s change that to “Children of ____ in Modern Times”, or “Children of the Gods in _____ Times”, and we open up a huge range of possibilities if we start filling in those blanks!

Whew! I get pretty fired up thinking about all that.

Now, on to the Notes from our Monday Meeting today! We talked about:

1- We are all over the place online right now! It’s great! On this Tuesday night at 6pm Pacific US time, Pugmire: Homeward Bound begins on the Saving Throw Show Twitch channel. Here’s the intro video (it is amazing and beautiful!): youtu.be/qMpNHXjbZK8

And the link to their Twitch channel: twitch.tv/savingthrowshow

2- I did a wee little interview that surprisingly covered all sorts of Onyx Path and classic White Wolf stories and yet did not go into my love of pudding. Why is that surprising? Because the podcast interview was for Everybody Loves Pudding, and I was lured into this because I thought I’d be able to expound on the virtues and wonders of pudding. But, even without the pudding, it’s a pretty good chat – the guys were very on target with the questions. Not sure if you can say the same about my answers, but judge for yourself: http://www.everybodylovespudding.com/podcast/season-1-episode-22/

3- Eddy Webb is flying up to my neck of the woods and we’ll be going together to Save Against Fear, the convention that benefits the Bodhana Group, whose mission is to use tabletop gaming in their therapeutic efforts. Links are below in the Convention News section of The Blurbs, but we recently added that I’ll be there on Saturday signing Magic Cards and working on some artist proof sketches. So if you are near there and want your cards signed and to help a great group – come on by and meet me and Eddy!

4- On a related topic, Monica Valentinelli is working with Extra Life on a fundraiser where she’s playing D&D5e to help sick kids. Onyx Path has donated Scarred Lands PDF rewards at various levels of contribution, so here’s your chance to help a super cause and dig into Scarred Lands! https://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&participantID=326323

M20 Gods and Monsters art by Claudio Pozas

5- If you missed the Prince’s Gambit casual Vampire card game by Justin Achilli Kickstarter campaign, we have copies of the card set available to buy from Studio2 and your local retailer, see below, and the basic set and booster pack will go on sale on Wednesday from DriveThru. The retail card set is all the cards from the Kickstarter in one box, and the DriveThru cards take all the cards and divide them into a basic set, and then the added cards from the KS in a booster pack. And, because we are asked this, Prince’s Gambit is a different type of game than VTES, it is not VTES, was not intended to replace VTES, and lots of us here are VTES fans and glad that new VTES cards are being made.

6- Finally, we have a fantastic sale going on at IPR for our Deluxe and Prestige books from our Kickstarter print-run overruns! Half off until the end of October, it’s our HalfoWeen Sale! The Mummy: The Curse Prestige Editions have sold out as of this writing, which means there are no more of them available for sale anywhere in the world! (Except EBAY, I’m sure. But other than that…)

I’m not finding a clever way to lead in to out tag-line this time, no wait, I just did. Damn:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Lo the darkness that lies like a pall over Chicago. The V5 Chicago By Night Kickstarter arises in October!

We’re also working on the Kickstarter for They Came From Beneath the Sea! (TCFBtS!), which has some very different additions to the Storypath mechanics we’ll be explaining during the KS. They take an excellent 50’s action and investigation genre game and turn it to 11!

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

And our latest, the dice for Werewolf: The Forsaken 2e:

ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

And we’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

The Prince’s Gambit basic card set and the added cards from the PG Kickstarter booster pack will both be available on DriveThru this Wednesday!

CONVENTIONS!

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will also be a featured guest (and RichT will be there at some point, too) at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

Dixie Cochran will be at High Level Games Con in Atlantic City October 12-14, running a Women in Game Design panel, Eddy’s RPG Developer Bootcamp, and possibly making a surprise appearance at another event!

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion Jumpstart (Scion 2nd Edition)

Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)

Second Draft

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Development

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)

Manuscript Approval:

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Editing:

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Post-Editing Development:

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau) (With Eddy)

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Jumpstart (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

Indexing:

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Dystopia Rising: Evolution

M20: Gods and Monsters – AD’d and Contracted.

Geist 2e

The Realm

Trinity Continuum (Aeon and Core) – Tracking down Core finals and going over Aeon Sketches.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Chicago By Night – KS art finals in.

Pugmire Roll of Good Dogs and Cats

C20 Player’s Guide

Aeon Aexpansion

They Came From Beneath the Sea! – Got KS artnotes out.

Marketing Stuff

In Layout

Trinity Core – Working on symbols this week.

Trinity Aeon – Fancying up my Opnet images.

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Proofing

Scion Hero – Inputting Neal’s 2nd proof changes.

PTC: Night Horrors: The Tormented – KT has Steffie’s corrections in.

Scion Origin – Doing Neall’s errata changes, and swapping out the font.

VtR: Guide to the Night – Danielle is getting me her p.xx stuff on Monday and I’ll be wrapping this one up for approval by WW shortly thereafter.

Fetch Quest – Package design done

At Press

Monarchies of Mau and Screen – At Studio2. Dice and buttons getting ready to ship to Studio2.

Cavaliers of Mars – Backer copies all shipped out.

Wraith 20th – Printing the Deluxe interior, proofing cover.

Wraith 20 Screen – Printing.

Scion Dice – At Studio2.

Cav Talent cards – PoD proof coming.

Lost 2e Screen – Prepping files.

Scion Screen – Prepping files.

Prince’s Gambit core deck and booster PoD – On sale at DriveThru on Wednesday!

Changeling: The Lost 2e – Prepping files for printer.

TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: OK, celebrate this one or don’t as you see fit. I know a lot of my South Philly buddies do and will. All I know is today I didn’t get my new fancy brush recommended by Jeff Miracola today because no mail on the Monday holiday. And the last kid has off from school, so I get to hear him shouting at his friends as they multi-play a shooter. Some holiday.

#Onyx Path Publishing

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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 years

Text

Touring, complete: what gear survived four months of hard-wearing book-tour?

It's been nine years since my first book tour -- the Little Brother tour -- and as always, there were new facts on the ground to adapt to, as well as hard-won wisdom that saw me through.

Here's the gear that survived this trip, stuff that will stay with me on upcoming trips.

Coffee

This goes first. Life it too short for shitty coffee.

Toiletries

Clothes

Comfort items

Swimming

Swimming is the only way I can stay sane on tour. It keeps my chronic pain under control and burns some of the empty airplane-peanut and minibar calories.

Gadgets

Luggage

I've gone through a lot of luggage tags over the years anhd have yet to have one last more than a few flights before it's torn off in the hold, caught in some grinding system. Now I use the TUFFTAAG Travel ID Bag Tag, made of hard-wearing aluminum with braided steel cables. Dozens of flights later, the tags are bent and battered, but still intact and still attached to my case -- that's a first.

https://boingboing.net/2017/08/02/hard-won-wisdom.html

27 notes · View notes

fmservers · 6 years