rubyjones

[rubyjones]

[rubyjones]

Syd Mead (1933 - 2019)

[rubyjones]

Please do more robots in love, yes, yes, yes.

Art by Philippe Caza for The Rest of the Robots (Isaac Asimov, 1987)

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[rubyjones]

I've had so many notes on this over the last few days that I didn't realise this nonsense was going on.

This is a post for indie authors. Also called self-published authors. Some self-published authors are international best sellers. One of them reblogged it and that's part of why it has so many notes.

'Vanity' publishing is an old-fashioned idea that doesn't really make sense in the modern publishing arena. Traditional publishing is in a state of collapse. Vast monopolies own the large publishing houses and bend to the whim of VC funding. This makes it harder than ever for unknown authors to get published, especially if the work concerns marginalized identities, has niche subject matter, or is raunchy.

The VC funding squeeze means fewer editorial eyes on the work, more use of 'AI' more celebrity book deals over debut authors, and an overwhelming expectation that the author will do more of the marketing themselves. With a lot of the labour that makes traditional publishing worth it falling on the shoulders of authors anyway, and far, far fewer opportunities, many, many authors are self-publishing. It is far from the vanity exercise it used to be considered, and for the most part this guide is not aimed at those who *pay a publisher* to publish their book, which is what vanity publishing means. I do not vanity publish, but if I did, the very least I would expect is that the company commissioned someone to do the damn cover.

I write niche erotica and romance. 20 years ago, when there were a lot of small presses publishing erotic romance, I was too repressed to be sharing my sexy stories. Now? Those presses are gone. Amazon KDP destroyed them. I couldn't get these stories traditionally published if I wanted to. The venues don't exist. KDP and Draft2Digital are basically my only choices.

Under my other name, I am a traditionally published author, and I worked for years as a freelance editor serving both traditional publishing houses and independent authors. I know the business. I am not speaking from ignorance and vanity, but from deep knowledge of the industry.

Things have changed. And yes, you should educate yourself before dismissing all the authors making their own covers as 'vanity' publishing. It is a thoroughly outdated phrase.

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

[rubyjones]

[rubyjones]

Totally agree that Igram sounds like a nightmare, but I was gonna edit my post to show, but you were too quick on the reply 😅 so I'll add them here.

I've been genuinely interested if anyone else had this issue, but haven't had a response when I talked about it on Masto.

First book: not a huge issue, but the blue is noticeably brighter on the test copy.

The test copy for Ruinous Attraction was weirdly pink instead of yellowy-beige?? It looked fine, so I didn't change the design, but the published version is definitely closer to the sepia tones it was meant to be. Not an issue in itself, but I don't know if every print is a different colour. (The photo has not captured the true colours, but you can see they are different.)

But Too Hot to Handle... just impossible. This is the eBook cover:

Which has good contrast and just the right amount of smouldery shadow. Butbi had to order two test copies because there wasn't remotely enough contrast for the first and it just looked murky. I brightened it up for the second and it still looked murky just more washed out, so the final design was an attempt to compromise between the two, but I'm not happy with any of them. 'Fortunately' people mostly seem to buy my stories as ebooks, but I would like to be able to know the cover comes out as expected if they do but the paperback book.

(Again the photo makes them look brighter than they are, but anyway.)

Do you have any opinions on draft2digital as a self-publishing site?

It’s the primarily place I use for ebooks and will be switching to for all my paperbacks for future releases.

I like how easy it is to use and that they are always expanding their market reach and their international reach for getting beyond the American market is great. The monthly break down of which online retailer sold x amount is also good. Easy library access is also excellent.

I’ve always found customer service to be quick and responsive though I’ve heard some people have had staff be unhelpful. I suspect like any company it depends on who you get. I’ve had helpful people at Kindle just like I’ve had unhelpful people. Both have better customer service than Ingram Spark who are forever on my shit list going forward.

If you want to know something specific I can try to answer it :)

[rubyjones]

Amazon has printed a different colour between the test copy and the final version every time. My first two books they still looked OK, but there was seemingly nothing I could do to get Too Hot to Handle to print right.

Like, it's still a professional-looking product, but the inconsistency is *marked* and I can see how that might piss someone off.

Do you have any opinions on draft2digital as a self-publishing site?

It’s the primarily place I use for ebooks and will be switching to for all my paperbacks for future releases.

I like how easy it is to use and that they are always expanding their market reach and their international reach for getting beyond the American market is great. The monthly break down of which online retailer sold x amount is also good. Easy library access is also excellent.

I’ve always found customer service to be quick and responsive though I’ve heard some people have had staff be unhelpful. I suspect like any company it depends on who you get. I’ve had helpful people at Kindle just like I’ve had unhelpful people. Both have better customer service than Ingram Spark who are forever on my shit list going forward.

If you want to know something specific I can try to answer it :)

[rubyjones]

Shout out to the next generation of yuri warriors

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well if this is the only thing

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saw a post today that was like "the Romans didn't invent steam engines because they were a slave holding society so labour was cheap"

are we talking about the same Industrial Revolution? The one generally pegged as starting around 1750? That one? What else might have been going on in the world at that time? Do you think the little kids under the machines were expensive? Who do you think was growing the cotton?

[rubyjones]

#fanficproblems

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Two days ago my husband said "...and he was pissed" and I said "don't say that around the kids!" so he corrected himself to "and he was liquid angry" and I've been laughing since

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Not now kitten daddy's googling his symptoms

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I was so busy admiring the excellent bottom that I did not even notice the Seattle Police.

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Me watching The Lord of the Rings: "They used borrowers for all the Hobbits then made them look bigger using camera trickery. Where the ring is in the foreground looking all big and they're in the background still in focus? That's the regular ring prop the human actors used. But they had to make a tiny, tiny replica ring for any scene when the hobbits hold it. They put the borrower actors really close to the camera whenever they needed to make them look half as big as the humans. Also, the reason Viggo Mortensen does such a good scream there is because he broke his foot kicking that helmet...