#cloudlibrary

[ca-highway49]

Hawk Mountain by Conner Habib for Pride and Repeat Day (same background, and also I am having fun rereading it, foreshadowing) it is read by the author so how can you beat that? Okay okay, it’s horror/litfic so it’s kind of dark to say it’s for Pride but it’s about things people deal with

[npdclaraoswald]

Does anyone who frequently uses CloudLibrary know if there's a way to fix this in settings or something?

The little widget for playing an audiobook is normal and has the play/pause button when I'm actively listening to it, but as soon as I pause it, it goes away and I have to go back to the actual app to play the book again

[thefantasticone21]

Xtreme Sabotage Now Available For Purchase

I am happy to officially announce that my fifth book, Xtreme Sabotage, is now available for purchase! This has taken me almost four years to complete and publish, and I appreciate your patience while waiting for it to be available. Here is the description as shown on the back of the book:“It’s August 2022, and Arden Power and Ronald White, best friends from Carston who enjoy helping businesses…

[ameriereads]

[husker-fictive]

ummm list of stuff I pirated and where (if I remember) for inspo

Sims 4 DLC - sims 4 dlc unlocker by Anadius

TV shows/Movies - check the piracy subreddit

Tamadotchi Life - umm not sure. Same people who made the emulator Citrus I believe?

Multipile songs and audios - any yt to mp3 or spotify downloader.

Also if you don't want to pirate for safety reasons, see if your local library has any movies to rent! The one in my hometown rented out up to 5 movies/series on DVD or blue ray for 1$ each

Also check if your library does Cloudlibrary! It's basically a digitial library for free, all you need is your library card

I support piracy

Im just too much of a pussy to actually do it

[girderednerve]

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.

With Hoopla, librarians have to opt into Hoopla’s entire catalog, then pay for whatever their customers choose to borrow from that catalog. The only way librarians can limit what Hoopla books their customers can borrow is by setting a limit on the price of books. For example, a library can use Hoopla but make it so their customers can only borrow books that cost the library $5 per use.

“Investigating these authors, their book covers, their social media, etc takes A LOT OF TIME, especially with the volume of questionable material increasing month to month (and that's not including the sheer amount of legitimate books published each month in adult fiction that I'm looking at),” one librarian who asked to remain anonymous so she could talk openly about her job, told me. “Is it the best use of my time doing this work on top of my other duties when customers may or may not care? And with the rising multitudes of AI generated content, will there come a point where it just ‘is what it is?’”

This type of low quality, AI generated content, is what we at 404 Media and others have come to call AI slop. Librarians, whose job it is in part to curate what books their community can access, have been dealing with similar problems in the publishing industry for years, and have a different name for it: vendor slurry. While the term now encompasses what seems like AI-generated content as well, it predates the rise of generative AI, and also refers to the glut of low quality, often self-published ebooks or book “summaries” that are common on Hoopla. As some librarians told me, the sheer quantity of books in Hoopla’s service makes it seem more valuable because it offers such a large number of books, but in reality that number is misleadingly inflated by this slurry.

Several of the librarians I talked to said that they are worried about discussing [the problems raised by Hoopla's weak, unclear selection policies, including the 2022 inclusion of explicitly white nationalist texts,] because of the growing hostility towards libraries and groups like Moms for Liberty demanding that books about LGBTQ rights, race, and ethnicity be removed from libraries. One the one hand, librarians want to curate their collections and make sure their patrons are getting access to quality information. On the other hand, they don’t want people to think that they are trying to censor what materials patrons can access in way that’s comparable to what organizations like Moms for Liberty want. None of the librarians I talked to suggested the AI-generated content needed to be banned from Hoopla and libraries only because it is AI-generated. It might have its place, but it needs to be clearly labeled, and more importantly, provide borrowers with quality information.

[bereft-of-frogs]

God. Another relatively minor thing that sucks about this whole situation is we’re going to have to fight to keep library doors open so my campaign to get my library to use literally any other app system for digital lending is going to have to be suspended until the whole system is not at risk of being completely defunded or heavily censored.

❌ this user is anti CloudLibrary and ComicsPlus

Truly terrible interfaces. This could have been a hill I’d die on to get us onto Libby and Hoopla but instead we’ll have to defend their existence and all of their vital programming around new residents smh

[cappurrccino]

Y'ALL I found a version of the war of the worlds broadcast narrated by cast members from Star Trek & TNG...

[hollywoodbabylondean]

Do you know where ELSE you can get free reading material on ur gay little phone?

[npdclaraoswald]

I tried asking one of my librarians and she said she didn't know how the apps work, so librarians of tumblr: is there a way to get advanced notice that your library will soon no longer have a book on Libby, Hoopla, or CloudLibrary? I've had so many books I had tagged/liked/saved just disappear, and I'd really like to be able to prioritize books before that happens

[whinniebee]

We WILL be reading more this year girlies...

[ca-highway49]

Aziraphel : So if you don't know the differnce between good and evil, you deserve to be puniwhed!

Crowley not paying attention any more : Mm hm

Arizaphel : Wair wait wait no no no that's not what I meant to say,

[a-d-nox]

numerology observations

it's not your typical numerology - i get it - but i am a tarot girlie, i cant help it with the major arcana observations.

paid reading options: astrology menu & cartomancy menu

enjoy my work? help me continue creating by tipping on ko-fi or paypal. your support keeps the magic alive!

work ID number

number reduces to 14

my time at this job might require me to maintain balance - whether that’s balancing workloads (true, i often get multiple due dates for projects and mailers, while also dealing with other role responsibilities), navigating different personalities (very true my boss has a very different personality from me - but then again big personalities are difficult for me as a reflector), and/or having to blend my skills in a way that creates harmony (true again - my job blends my creative side with logical side). the energy suggests a job where adaptability and steady progress are key. i may not see immediate results, but over time, things will align as they should with my long-term journey.

number reduces to 21

this workplace is a major stepping stone in my journey - one where i gain significant experience, reach a peak, or even wrap up a long cycle of growth. it’s often a sign from the universe of fulfillment and recognition after hard work. maybe this job will be a place where i feel accomplished, or it will set me up for my next big chapter...

library card number

number reduces to 10

my experience with books, knowledge, and learning are deeply tied to the shifting phases in my life. i tend to come across books “by chance” that are exactly what i need at that moment. i am very much a casual/mood reader - that's why i like using my card though affiliated apps like cloudlibrary and kanopy (it's for movies, but you catch my drift - it's still a library feature). i do experience a lot of ups and downs in with my library related reading habits - sometimes i devouring multiple books in week, other times i'll be struggling to finish one and often i will dnf multiple in a week just because they don't interest me. overall, my library card number could symbolize the expansion of my mind!

phone number

number reduces to 9

a phone is all about connecting with others, but this could suggest that my phone is a tool for broadening my perspective (which is super true, it's more often for research than it is for talking with others), connecting with distant people (often the people i do text or call with are states away one upon a time they were countries away), and having deep, meaningful conversations (people only call me for a conversation, if it will indeed be longer than 30 minutes). i tend to offer emotional support, advice, and just generally being there for people at a distance (that's so hermit coded to say).

license number

my number reduces to 6

my traveling has more to do with maintaining relationships and helping others than anything else. driving to me involves many important choices - taking responsibility for travel and the transportation of others and also knowing multiple ways of getting around there's like 3+ ways to get everywhere i need to go and i never seem to gravitate to just one of those ways which is weird to me. the lovers is a nurturing energy, meaning my car or driving habits often involve family, friends, etc. i tend to drive people around, travel to see family, etc.

license plate number

number reduces to 20

car might be tied to significant turning points, whether that’s major life choices (the car it's on now was bought off the dealership showroom floor), new beginnings (my plate has been on a few different cars during my lifetime and once was my mother's), etc. travels seem to align with fated encounters (i have had a couple final destination moments - recently with a shovel in the back of a truck on the highway (don't worry, i swerved it)) or other significant events (that car got into an accident the day after we bought it within 10 miles of my home).

bank accounts and/or credit/debit cards

number reduces to 5

learning experience - i'm frequently exploring new ways to manage money, such as different investment accounts, cash back featured, and/or shifting financial priorities. might teach me important financial lessons, whether it's through mistakes, the unexpected, and/or new financial strategies.

number reduces to 7

research purchases, looks for the best deals, and avoid impulsive spending. this is honestly the MO of a credit card that can fast track to carry a balance long-term and even get max-ed out. this is another card/account that can present lessons for the carrier because often these holders need to have a plan/strategy for how this card/account will be use.

number reduces to 12

frequent pending transactions, financial stagnation, and/or needing to be patient for rewards is common (pretty typical for like CDs, bonds, and/or checking accounts). this account is likely to cause questions on how one manages their money.

have ideas for new content? please use my “suggest a post topic” button!

return to nox's guide to metaphysics

© a-d-nox 2025 all rights reserved

[modoggs28]

Before you point fingers, sit with the weight of your own. Before you run, sit with your thoughts.

Sitting With Your Thoughts by Malik Mills—a raw, unfiltered journey into accountability, healing, and self-truth. Available now worldwide.

Find it on major platforms:

– Amazon

– Barnes & Noble

– Apple Books

– Rakuten Kobo

– Books-A-Million

– Bookshop.org

– Waterstones (UK)

– Blackwell’s

– Indigo (Canada)

– Booktopia (Australia)

– Smashwords Store

– Walmart.com

Also available in libraries through:

– OverDrive

– Hoopla

– cloudLibrary

– BorrowBox

– ODILO

– Palace Marketplace

Search “Sitting With Your Thoughts by Malik Mills” on your favorite platform.

This book won’t leave your mind until you face what you’ve been avoiding.

[johannestevans]

A Queer Indie Author’s Experience of 2024

Looking back on my top stories, sales stats, and best experiences of the year past, and looking to the year ahead!

Hello hello!

I’ve just been in the process of attending to my yearly tradition, ordinarily attended to in the last days of December and the first of January — I sit down with my new year’s calendar, and I write down all the vital dates and pieces of information. 

On the current calendar in front of me — a charming Peter Rabbit family planner with a little attached whiteboard, as I wasn’t able to get the Discworld calendar this year — I’ve transferred over the birthdays of all my friends and loved ones, written down some of the main conventions of 2025 I’m planning to attend like TeratoCon, and other already established professional and social plans, as well as deadlines for different submissions. 

As I’m looking ahead, I thought it would be worth looking back a little bit as well, for a nice bit of contrast!

Statistics for 2024:

Total Books Sold Through KDP (Amazon) in 2024: 1,548

1,265 of those units were eBooks and 283 were print books — my top performer was my first novel, Heart of Stone, which sold 637 units (396 eBooks, 241 paperbacks), and after that was Touch-Starved, which sold 209 total units, then Powder and Feathers, at 82 total units. 

Approximated royalties are at $2,288.42.

Total Books Sold Through Draft2Digital in 2024: 13,529

Draft2Digital is the company through which I publish to several platforms, particularly Kobo and Kobo+, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Everand, Smashwords, and then library programs like BorrowBox, Hoopla, CloudLibrary, etc. 

The sales are so incredibly high because it was the Smashwords End of Year sale, and all of my 99c shorts were discounted to free for most of December, so 12,548 sales were in December, and I only had 981 sales for the rest of the year. 

I unfortunately have absolutely no idea how to look at the breakdown between eBooks and paperbacks for D2D, but my top sellers were Touch-Starved, at 464 units sold, Sweet On, at 400 units sold, and Hitting the Books, at 369 units sold. 

Approximated royalties are at $1,117.56, with $354.52 of those royalties being in the last month. While obviously ten thousand books were free books sold, my advertisements for the free books and the freebies themselves drove a lot of traffic to my other works like Heart of Stone or Strange Liberty, etc.

Total Royalties from Medium in 2024: $1073.92

Medium pays out royalties based on views of subscribers and how much time subscribers spend reading each work. I normally tock up my top story for each month on Medium, but Medium has helpfully taken away the option to do that for months January through July, thinking that only the last six months are useful in the stats block for the Partner Program rather than the last 12. 

Nonetheless, for the months I can see:

August’s Total Earnings on Medium: $64.39 September’s Total Earnings on Medium: $47.33 October’s Total Earnings on Medium: $56.25 November’s Total Earnings on Medium: $57.27 December’s Total Earnings on Medium: $57.08

August 2024’s Top Performer was Yentl: A Trans Man Studying Talmud is Distracted by Gay Thoughts. It earned $3.80 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having been published in July 2023, stand at $163.36. It was also September 2024’s Top Performer, earning $3.79. It was also November 2024’s Top Performer, earning $3.71.

August 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was The Devil’s Mark, which earned $2.76, having been published that month, and has managed $3.12 lifetime earnings since publication. 

September 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Street Trade, which earned $1.15, and has managed $1.81 lifetime earnings since publication.

October 2024’s Top Performer was Passing Privilege: Through My Eyes, as a Trans Man Who Passes, earning $11.64 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having been published in June 2023, stand $138.04.

October 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Bred & Betting, which earned $2.09 that month, and has managed $3.10 lifetime earnings since publication. 

November 2024’s Top Fiction Performer was Divine Service, which earned $2.52 that month, and its lifetime earnings, having released on Medium in May 2024, stand at $32.99. It was also December 2024’s Top Fiction Performer, earning $2.21.

December 2024’s Top Performer was A Transphobe Ruined His Own Night Because I Was Existing Next to Him, which earned $13.42 and was actually a new piece, so that’s its lifetime earnings. 

Total Income from Patreon in 2024: $16,502.38

Of course, Patreon is always the bulk of my income, and I’m very grateful for my Patreon subscribers! 

On my Patreon, I publish all of my short stories and essays, barring a handful that due to Patreon’s guidelines can’t be cross-posted there, and the new benefit I’m going to be offering my patrons is going to be giving them voucher codes so they can always buy eBook versions of all my works on Smashwords as an additional benefit. 

I try not to look at my general new subscriber and unsubscription rate on Patreon each month, but my Active Subscribers currently stand at 420 (noice), with 104 new subscribers and having had 102 cancelled subscribers in the past year. 

People regularly unsubscribe on Patreon and come back later when they can afford it, or go between Medium and Patreon, depending on what works best for their income at the moment. 

What I Did in 2024

This year has been really good for me, and I’ve been absolutely delighted with the results, but the past few months particularly have been especially good, and I’m really excited with some decisions I’ve made and what they’re gonna look like for me in 2025. 

Firstly, in February I accompanied Dalton Harrison, author of The Boy Behind The Wall, and Kirsty from Bi+ Leeds to HMP Askham Grange to run a Q&A and read from some of our pieces in Transmuted to the prisoners there. 

It was such a privilege to be able to talk to some of the prisoners incarcerated there, especially other queer and trans people, and to advocate for prisoners’ queer identities to guards and staff in a way that prisoners often don’t feel able to approach in the same way for themselves, but mostly just to spread a little joy and talk about creativity and art to the prisoners in place there. 

In April, I delivered a talk with Romancing the Gothic about Crimson Peak as a modern Gothic Romance, and I of course ran my usual Monstrous May prompt event, although I don’t think I did enough promotion for it in 2024 and I don’t think my prompts were necessarily that enticing. I’m hoping to drum up more excitement and interest in 2025. 

 I went to WorldCon in August, and I had an excellent time, it felt really fulfilling as a creative professional, I loved being on several panels and also being able to moderate a panel, and I’m very excited to further cultivate my skills in the next year or two in interviewing and moderation for Q&As and panels alike! 

I didn’t unfortunately get to any other conventions in 2024 because WorldCon was very expensive between con tickets, travel up to Glasgow, and the AirBnB, but more cons is absolutely the goal. 

I also got involved in a few other projects that are going to be published in 2025 — I contributed a short story to Dudes Rock: A Celebration of Queer Masculinity in Speculative Fiction, edited by Jay Kang Romanus and published by The Circus Collective, and the anthology is currently open for preorder, due for release on January 10th! 

I’ve also contributed to SLAKE HOUSE, an erotic horror Choose-Your-Own-Ending anthology presented by Noah’s Ark and Radha Kai Zan that’s due for release in the next few months, and I’m very excited for that as well, it was such a cool project to be a part of, and I was so delighted to work along so many splendid and deliciously fucked-up creators, both other authors and amazing visual artists!

I made some changes to my social media presence — most notably swapping the bulk of my activity from the dying-a-swift-death X, née Twitter, to BlueSky, which has now added threading — enabling me to write my first ThreadFic on the platform — and publishing more actively to Reddit, especially in the fantasy, romance, and queer subs, as well as making a Threads account. 

And finally, the biggest change I’ve made in 2024, I went through my back catalogue of longer shorts, those that were in the 5k to 30k range, and made each of them available as 99c shorts, with new eBooks published in the 5–10k range to be published as 99c shorts, and ones closer to the 20k range or above to be priced at $2.99, apart from my serials that get re-edited and published as extended novels.

For a long time, I was quite reticent to publish shorts in this way, convincing myself that I absolutely had to publish shorts in big collections or otherwise I was somehow cheating the reader by giving them such a short piece, but I’m so glad I managed to shake off that anxiety. 

The response to all these 99c shorts has been overwhelmingly and absurdly positive, and I’ve reached a huge swathe of new readers even before the Smashwords sale where I sold off 10k of these shorts for free. Quite a lot of readers have been really excited at the short story, novelette, and novella formats for a lot of these pieces, especially because they’re so varied in their subject matter, genre, and characters, and obviously like…

Each of these books individually can work up its own popularity and readers who have affection for it, each of them individually being recommended on their own strengths, but having so many shorts available, people often recommend a handful in the same breath, especially those that play with similar topics or themes. 

Going from having a back catalogue of seven or so eBooks and paperbacks to 50 eBooks and 20 paperbacks makes a big difference, and it’s going to be great to be able to pick out paperbacks to bring along to sell at conventions and so on that exactly match the brief or the theme!

As each of these shorts and novelettes gain reviews, I’m excited for them to gain more of an audience over time as readers find them as their favourites, similar to the response Heart of Stone has received over time, and that I hope Powder and Feathers and other long novels in future to receive, such as the next expected release, An Uncommon Betrothal. 

I’ve come on leaps and bounds with my own ability to design book covers, working with a pared back vintage style that incorporates a lot of public domain etchings, sketches, and block prints, the sort I grew up seeing in adventure novels and so on, and also in editing and formatting my books for paperback on KDP! 

My Goals for 2025

Most of what I want to achieve in 2025 is more of the same.

I definitely feel that because I was working on a lot of longer pieces this year, and then because I was working on making eBooks and paperback versions of various pieces available, that I didn’t publish as many fiction pieces overall, but I’m very proud of what I have published!

I want to attend more conventions, as I’ve said, and involve myself in more literary and author-run events where I can, as well as maybe selling books and merch at pride events. 

I haven’t focused that much on merchandise this year, but now that my printer is up and running, I’m excited to design new badges in a few months, as well as maybe make some bookmarks, postcards, stickers, and similar. Depending on how my income looks in the next few months and how significant a difference my back catalogue makes, I think I’d also like to have some business cards printed.

I’ve definitely made more money business-wise this last year than I ever have before, and I’m keen to keep those growths doing, but we’re hoping to get a cat this year as well as do some home repairs, so I want to be modest about how I’m reinvesting that new income as I keep it building up. 

I want to be more creative about how I’m advertising to new readers and meeting new people — I actually put up some posters around Leeds last month to advertise the Smash sale, and I definitely think I want to get into the habit of regularly putting up posters advertising my work in queer spaces around Yorkshire, both around Bradford and Leeds, but also if I’m going out in York, or even if I’m going farther afield to Manchester or Bristol or London. 

And my biggest goal I think is that when I finish An Uncommon Betrothal, I want to do an official in-person launch for the paperback and do an event where I’m reading from it, selling copies, and signing them as well! 

That would most likely be in Leeds, and I just think it would be a really fun event if I can do it, and would drum up a lot of support and sales both online and in paperback. 

Thank you so much for all your support, and wishing everyone a happy new year! 

[girderednerve]

i saw the post fighting about whether or not it's bad to fraudulently get an online library card. the two sides are: information should be free & libraries' budgets rely on usage statistics vs. it's stealing from taxpayers. the first camp are clearly & obviously correct that it's fine to sign up for a library card that you plan to use, but i'm a pedant & this is my blog: let's think about the other claims sloshing around in this argument.

ebook usage numbers aren't obviously useful to libraries. they don't hurt, certainly, but it depends on what kind of case you're trying to make; some services charge the library per use (hoopla, kanopy, some titles in libby & cloudlibrary) so increased usage might not be an obvious boon; state funding to libraries is usually reliant on the population of their service areas, not circulation statistics (good policy! preferable to alternatives!), while libraries' operating budgets are generally drawn from local taxes (city, county, or school district, usually) and have more to do with residents' perceptions of the library & the budget than any one number. so signing up for a library card as an out-of-state resident isn't necessarily doing anything for the library that you sign up with. about two-thirds of americans have library cards (it is, for various reasons, extremely difficult to get an exact figure). the reason library workers want you to sign up for a library card is that they think what they do is worthwhile & they would like you to agree, not because your card represents an addition to the budget line.

none of the preceding commentary is meant to suggest that people shouldn't sign up for library cards, even fraudulently; i don't care & you shouldn't either, information ought to be free. but i think it's pretty telling that the 'don't do this' arguments come from some library workers, because for all of our self-congratulatory positive press, most libraries already have a restrictive attitude towards library access & many library workers internalize that perspective, some from the sympathetic posture of the frustrated customer service worker and some from the conservative viewpoint of the self-identified taxpayer. public libraries usually have residence requirements for library cards that require people to present authoritative documents demonstrating their address; some libraries are better at making sure that people who do not have permanent addresses are able to get cards, but most are not very good at making sure that vulnerable people are connected to library services. thus if you do intend to sign up for a library card to a library that does not serve where you live, expect your access to be time-limited. meanwhile, people are all the time annoyed at libraries for not doing more: not offering whatever exceptional thing was written up on NPR, not having more books and more services and more open hours. sometimes they're right & sometimes they're deeply out of touch, like the patrons of any institution.

it frustrates me to see libraries mystified. the public library as it exists is already worth defending, and there is no need to lie or imagine that the library is any grander than it is