lostvoidling

[lostvoidling]

when people are like “the hunger games just stole the plot of battle royale” like listen everything steals from the plot of everything the lion king is just furry hamlet westworld is jurassic park but sexier lost is edgy gilligan’s island there are no original stories and the only good piece of media is jennifer’s body

[lostvoidling]

"i hate spamlikers" "spamlikers dni!" "spamlikers are so annoying" "spamliking = blocked" SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UUUPPP MAYBE I JUST LIKE YOUR POSTS

[lostvoidling]

How do you make people fall in love with you

challenge them to a duel 

[lostvoidling]

so can we start hunting down white liberals now or what

[lostvoidling]

tumblr users’ obsession with self-reporting (especially as a weird form of penance) needs to be studied

[lostvoidling]

Hnngh. The Audible "hack" is making the rounds again, with people claiming you can use your Audible credit to listen to a book and then return it "for free." While I am the first among many to say "fuck Amazon and we should gullotine Jeff Bezos," I need you all to know it's not Amazon refunding you.

It's the authors.

They take that out of our royalties. And that's after they take 80% of our royalties on sales we do make.

(Note: Also, do not assume that your credit is worth the price listing that Amazon shows. Amazon does not pay us the cost of the listing. ((WHICH THEY PICK, we cannot set our own prices on audiobooks and then that forces us to use the Amazon price for the rest of the market!!)) What we get is 20% of the credit's value, so my book might appear on Audible for $20-30. However, if you received an Amazon credit for one of those $4.99 deals, I'd get 20% of $4.99. Yes, it's fucked, it's all fucked. Yes, other audio retailers do the exact same thing. This is one of the reasons authors don't make half as much money as people think they do.)

This became such a big issue that they had to make it impossible to return books after a certain point without talking to a customer service representative, because people were using Kindle/Audible and Amazon's return policy "like a library," and some authors (myself included) were getting royalty checks that showed negative income.

At this point, I don't even know if the Audible "hack" still works (Amazon has made changes to protect authors from this kind of thing at a glacial pace), but I need you to know it's not Amazon that's refunding you. This isn't a fun little "fuck Amazon" thing. The way Amazon has it set up, it's directly fucking the authors over.

So, yeah. Obviously, if you download something and can't get into it, or if something pops up on the author's side that makes you not want to support them anymore, yeah, process that return. Yeet the bitch. But please don't use it "like a library."

It's really harrowing to see your predicted income based on sales and then find out you're getting one-tenth of that because of refunds. And it's not even because people didn't like your book. They're just using the wrong place like a library and fucking over your algorithm as well, because once you get too many returns, you stop getting promoted.

Try using a library. You can access places like @queerliblib for FREE provided you have a US library account that you've hooked up to Libby. It's a little bit of work, but once you've got a card number, you're golden.

Just, y'know, throwing it out there because I don't think people realize this is how it works. You're not taking something back to Walmart, and Walmart is eating the refund before dumping the item in the garbage. Amazon takes the refund, turns to the author, and takes it off our plates.

Note: this does not affect Kindle Unlimited. Flip through the end pages to give the author maximum pages read, and then return that bad boy so the author can get paid. But also, please, maybe think about switching to a Kobo+ account instead. It offers the same subscription-based membership without demanding exclusivity, so authors aren't locked into just Amazon the way they are with KU. (Royalty rates are roughly the same, but it's a better deal in terms of allowing broader market access.)

This has been a rambling and exhausted PSA from your local peddler of weres.

[lostvoidling]

tonight i swore a blood oath to the minimum wage workers at my local subway

[lostvoidling]

that was,,, easier,,, than i thought it would be,,,, :/

[lostvoidling]

[lostvoidling]

I feel so bad for the annoying women at work. Like I actually feel sick when we’re interacting and I feel the annoyance occurring in my brain like she really doesn’t mean to be this way and she just doesn’t want to feel alone or rejected. you can tell she’s experienced being an outsider everywhere she goes it’s only a matter of time. And it’s not cool chic or edgy but in the ugliest most desperate and dehumanizing way. They always start hopeful. they want to connect and they go searching for someone receptive to her so she can find her people but everyone turns away from her slowly and u hear it in her voice. It’s happening again. she starts hesitating to speak and when she does you hear a shaky child ending every sentence like it’s a question. Testing the waters to know if she’s wrong for even trying. And then I realize I took her smile for granted now that it’s gone.. I have to make it up to her I can’t let something like this continue. Life is so hard for people everywhere, so building a tolerance for being irritated is nothing in comparison especially if the reward is less pain and loneliness in the world I will always be the bestie you have my word

[lostvoidling]

[lostvoidling]

daniel radcliffe calling out j.k. rowling on her bullshit is big dick energy

[lostvoidling]

as a librarian, i can't encourage you enough to check out stuff you don't think you'll get around to reading

like other institutions, at the end of the day we have to use numbers to justify our existence and inform our financial decisions

check out that novel by that author you like even if you know there's no time to finish it. check out a movie you like even if you can't watch it. check out a sewing machine even if you don't have time for a project. we don't check if you finish anything, and it all adds up.

support your local library by checking out things you don't need

[lostvoidling]

Talking to friends with inept parents is crazy. No wonder they’re like this if their parents kept fumbling

[lostvoidling]

violence and death and dying and blood and guts and gore and violence and viscera and fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you

[lostvoidling]

STOP assigning pre-modern characters the trait “would commit tax fraud” without understanding how hard tax fraud was back in the days when a tax collector would physically come to your estate and assess your sitch. Do you have any idea how easy kids these days have it? You can just claim a few fake deductions or lie on a form and be a tax criminal. Your ancestors and fantasy faves had to work for those pennies.

Look at this house. This house has no mortar so it can be collapsed or moved to avoid taxation. That’s the sort of innovation I need to be seeing before you can call anyone in a feudal society a tax fraudster. They need to be hiding warehouses of goods, shoving grandpa in the basement to dodge the censusman, starting small regional wars, fleeing their villages in a constant semi-nomadic race against the forces of government, registering twins as a single child, or putting their life on the line to sell blackmarket bread. Come back when you have some tax fraud I can respect, not just a guy who looks kind of sleazy and sometimes does paperwork.