#realized i need to figure out WTF to submit for publishing

[zombizombi]

gosh we're SO close to finishing this book. so close.

and we're at 80944 words!!

i think we've got. maybe 2-ish chapters to go.

[deliriumsetin]

So here’s the thing...

I’m really freaking hard to scare. Unlike my cat that just booked it into another room when our UPS guy dropped a package off at the door. Perfect timing, Percy. Perfect timing...

Anyways! I have NOT had a good scare in probably two decades. No matter what fiction I pick up that promises to chill and thrill me, neither happens.

Now keep this in mind.

As of right now I am launching a business and yes, this will tie into the weird opener. Be patient, please.

I am launching Vox et Liber, a publishing house for ALL kinds of stories and ALL kinds of voices. I started working on this in November 2019, what do you mean that was only 8 months ago?! I originally thought the publishing house up after learning a bunch of facts about the publishing world over the summer.

VeL publishing will be a new kind of publishing and I can say that with 100% confidence because I am building this beast from the ground up, with the help of @hazandlouwho​, my fiance, and a few other amazing people!

Because this business is getting started independently, which means no investors, we are working with a VERY small amount of cash reserved for start up. Initially all works will be published digitally. We do plan on launching a Kickstarter in September/October to get enough funds to keep this going and to do it right which means getting stories published physically and sold to both indie bookstores and Barnes and Noble. Please be on the look out for that.

If any awesome people want to donate to help us not break my own personal bank, which will be easy to do since Covid-19 forced me to quit my job working with the public because I’m high risk and unemployment has kept me in limbo for going on 3 weeks, you can tip us on Ko-Fi by clicking here. ALL donations and funds raised go towards launching VeL and all projects under the VeL umbrella.

Bringing it around to the scares. VeL is launching our first project and we need all you awesome writers’ help. As of today we are opening submissions for our first ever anthology, Graveyard Visits. It’s horror with the theme of marginalized voices written as Own Voice fiction. Meaning stories written by marginalized groups with their marginalized groups as main characters.

Submissions are going to be open from July 1st until August 12th 11:59pm EST. Stories are expected to be between 2.5k-5k words in length. We will be paying $.02 per word as well as giving you a digital copy of the anthology. Submission Guidelines can be found here.

Now the whole me being hard to scare; I want to be scared. Submit your best, your scariest, and most bone-chilling stories.

Also, not so subtly gonna add a nudge to @thebibliosphere​ because I feel like she might have something up her sleeve. If not for this anthology then definitely our erotica one that will be announced later this summer.

We also have a podcast series in the works but I will do another post on that once I or my awesome soon to be brother in law (that’s STILL weird) have a moment to do up some graphics.

Click below for my rant on why traditional publishing right now is a soul sucking leech on EVERYONE.

On average with hardcover books an author is lucky to make $1.50 off each one sold and that’s only AFTER they sell enough to cover their advance. I also found out the average advance is like 3k per book. Some (not including the wicked big names who get a shit ton more) can get as high as 5k but others can get as low as a 1k. An author is lucky to see that twice a year (selling 2 books) because they have to spend time MARKETING book 1 instead of writing book 2. 

Keep in mind fiction hardcovers are generally sold between 19.99 (usually YA) or 29.99 (usually adult). Wicked big difference, huh? I get there’s a lot that goes into making a book, trust me I do but the split between should leave the authors getting around $4 per copy instead of less than $2. That $2.50 is just extra that the publishing house takes because it can.

Then there are the mass paperbacks which an author gets paid 50 damn cents per copy. Yes, those books retail for anywhere between 7.99 and 14.99 per book and sell way faster than hardcovers. Take it from an ex-bookseller.

Most books take on average 500 to 1,000 hours of work put into them before they even get handed off to the publisher for the FIRST time. At minimum that author sees an hourly return wage of $6 which is BELOW the United fucking States shit-tastic minimum peasant wage. We devalue the arts so fucking much- arg! But that can be a separate rant for another day.

Then after doing more research I realized just how off balanced the publishing world STILL is in the year of hell 2020. Don’t believe me click the link. Sarah Park Dahlen did a great article with a great graphic on it. 

As of 2015, yes I’m paraphrasing to continue to rant, children’s books had ALMOST more books about anthropomorphic cars, household items, and animals than there were books about Black kids, Asian Pacific kids, Latinx kids, or Native American/First Nation kids combined. Talking teakettles and their kindred got a whopping 12.5% while if you add up all the groups above you get 14.2%. None on there own beat out the freaking Easter Bunny! Of course books about White kids are the highest at 73.3%. Yes, this was as of 2015 but as an avid reader who reads middle-grade and up books for fun I can tell you nothing much has changed. Books about black kids maybe SLIGHTLY higher since the BLM movement (fuck yes progress!!) but I’d be heartstoppingly shocked if they beat out talking fucking trucks.

And that’s just race. From what I gathered with all the publishing houses less than 100 books with LGBTQIAP+ main characters are published each year. Wtf? And among that as of 2015 55% percent are about cisgendered males and 31% are cisgendered females. (Thank you @malindalo​, you are awesome and I’ve enjoyed meeting you at the Boston Teen Author festival the last few years.) So, just focusing on those 2 first letters, huh? I want to read a story about a kickass transwoman that has to deal with transitioning WHILE demons have torn their way out of hell. That would be badass! Holy shit, someone trans write that!

Same goes for people that live with disabilities whether they are physical or mental, including mental illness and neurodivergents like myself. If you haven’t figured out by this rant just how ADHD I am than you might need an ADHD in your life. My brain works differently and I would have killed growing up to read about characters that have to deal with what I deal with. We have Percy Jackson now and his all ‘verse but it’s not enough and it wasn’t published until I was on my way to college.

All that aside we now have all the bs coming out about what’s been going on in traditional publishing. About all the dickweeds that have been using their power and pull to sexually harass new authors, most often the new authors are young women. I unfollowed people and canceled a pre-order because fuck that shit! Also, I don’t give a fuck how big a name someone is if the hate they spew makes all their trans fans collectively feel like shit for not believing the simple fact that transwomen are women then they deserve to get dropped like the bag of shit they are. TERFs can fuck right off. 

All the publishing bs has made me more determined to get VeL off the ground because no, no, no. We’ll have none of that. All the listed above reasons can go play in traffic. We will be paying our authors better and taking care of them from day 1. We will be making sure our catalog is so damn diverse that you’d have to be looking at the wrong website to not find a story that you can’t see yourself in and lastly, if we hear of any of our authors pulling a Myke Cole or a Sam Sykes than they are dropped. It is in the best interests of our authors futures that they aren’t shitbags. /end rant

If y’all have any questions about anything of this, I think my dms are open or if I’m wrong just tag me. My days lately have been chained to my shit dell computer with one or both cats pinning me to the couch. I finish this up as Percy settles in on my legs. Also, thunderstorm is starting up and both are sleeping through it? If only I could be so lucky when the fiance and I have kids...

[murfeelee]

CC Creators Questions

I saw this on my dash and got so excited -- a questionnaire for CC makers! :D

1. What was the hardest project you’ve worked on so far?

Y’all have no bloody clue how many unfinished projects I have given up on, and how much time I spend/waste on CC I never even finish. I often have no idea what I’m doing, and once I reach a certain point where the effing thing just won’t come out right, and I don’t know who to ask for help, or I do and never get a response, I just lose total willpower to keep going.

2. How long have you been creating cc?

2010-ish -- that’s when I first started uploading to TSR at least, ider. Early on it was just simple wall art (an effton of murals) but I kept reading the tutorials at BPS & MTS & TSR, and once I figured that out I started trying out rather craptastic conversions that are still up for DL, if y’all wanna point and laugh at me. :P Effing sad. Some of it turned out pretty okay though, IMO.

3. What’s your most favorite thing you’ve created?

At TSR my favorite CC uploads are the Clutter Bug and LOTR Scribe sets.

The admins gave me such a hard time when I first submitted this, and I had to throw out like half of the objects included in the set, cuz of the effing UV Maps and blah blah. But the rest of it came out cool.

I am constantly using those objects in my lots. Constantly. The LOTR period was also the very first time I learned about making Alpha Channels on .dds textures -- that opened up so many possibilities! Single objects I’m also really proud of over there are the Ivy/Flower Column, and the Vintage Art Collage, which I also use a lot.

At Tumblr this is a lot harder for me to decide on, since after I came here I could do and make so much more than what was allowed at TSR. I think I had the best time converting from The Witcher 3. I effing love that game. But I also think just the process was the easiest for me, cuz I’ve been doing this crap for a while now and finally knew wtf I was doing -- except the CAS stuff. O_O LAAAAAWD! I gave up on that junk quick fast and in a hurry -- NOPE! Not today, Satan! But yeah, I really like some of the stuff I did from that game, like the Peacocks (duh) and everything I shared for my Lupo Bianco gameplay.

4. What’s your most hated thing you’ve created?

Things I hate don’t get uploaded. XD Y’all think I complain about the crap I DO upload -- that’s cuz I’m being honest when I tell y’all that my work has flaws that I don’t know how to fix, or don’t have the energy to work on anymore. Practically all of my CAS CC is a raggedy amateur mess. I hold on to a lot of crap that I just can’t upload in good consciousness, cuz I know how I react when I install others’ CC and I’m using it thinking wtf, did they upload the wrong file by accident? :P

5. What inspires you to create?

When I first started, it was cuz it was still early in TS3, and the game was still pretty empty, and I didn’t have any of the EPs/SPs/Store CC yet, so I was desperate for content. Then once I started converting, and realized that I could extract stuff from other games myself, I immediately knew that I wanted to recreate my favorite games in TS3. I’m inspired by the fandoms I’m part of, and  my style of simming mostly revolves around me trying to create my own extended version of other games and shows I like.

6. What gets you unmotivated to do anything or to delete your project?

Failure. When things start going wrong, I quickly get frustrated and lose patience. I post WIPs sometimes that I don’t even end up revisiting. I just can’t fix the crap, so I rapidly lose the energy or desire or interest in the entire project. I often blame it on laziness, when really I just give up.  :\

7. What’s one thing you wish you knew how to do/do better?

I generally just stick to what I know and am comfortable with, which is why y’all don’t see me making build mode stuff, or much functional buy mode cc, or mods/scripts, or creating skintones or poses, or any of the cool stuff I’d love to make but just can’t figure out for the life of me. U_U

8. How long does it usually take you to make something?

Depends on the project, and my motivation to see it to the end. Some stuff will sit on the back-burner for literal years before I finally go back to it. I’ll tell myself I’ll work on it later. Lies, mostly. ^_^

9. Is there a certain schedule you stick to when publishing?

Unless there’s a certain holiday/event going on, where the CC needs to be finished now! now! now! (Halloween & Lunar New Year are my busiest times), I just do what I want. I get so distracted, and often I’m working on a zillion things at once. Sometimes I’m running on pure adrenaline and not sleeping, to make sure I finish the CC on time. I feel bad if I miss something going on that I could’ve participated in, but most times I just tell y’all the CC’s still in beta, and it’ll be ready when it’s ready. :P

10. Your favorite programs to work with?

Crazy as it sounds, Milkshape. :P I effing hate Blender. I don’t understand it -- there are too many buttons and controls and everything’s just a confusing mess. 3DS Max is easier for me! O_O I legit can’t even figure out the frikkin view/camera in Blender! And you constantly have to switch between modes, and everything’s buried under all those effing THINGS on the sides, and I can’t stand it. >_<

11. Who do you look up to (creator wise)?

For CC in general, I worship Sandy/AroundTheSims; always have. Everything they make is just so clean and professional and works splendidly in game. Jelly.

12. How many projects do you have at the moment?

An ungodly number, half of which will no doubt be abandoned before y’all even get the chance to hear about them. :P

13. Screenshot your wips folder (if you have one)

Cute of you to assume I have just one WIPs folder, in one fixed location. XD

That’s what my backup’s thematic specific folder looks like, but that’s not where I keep any of my other game conversions WIPs -- those are all over the place. I’ve had to restart several projects after my external harddrive broke, and now especially I’m keeping everything in different locations and on different drives.

14. Do you plan on creating for a long time or is there a certain period you know you’ll stop?

Dunno if I’ll ever stop, but I know I’m slowing down; I have been for a while now. I’m tired. I hate making CC. It’s stressful, exhausting, time-consuming, and no dang fun, especially when crap is going oh so wrong and you have to keep quitting the game, doing crap over, loading the game, seeing if it’s fixed, and trying not to cry when it’s not. I do this crap out of desperation, when there’s something in particular that I want that I can't find a good substitute for in the game or community at large. So as long as I’m still simming, I know I’m gonna keep being forced by necessity to make crap. But I doubt I’ll ever go back to the workhorse nonsense I was up to in like 2015/6 or whenever my “heyday” was, when I was still experimenting like mad and learning everything.

15. What helps you keep focus during your creating process?

I play a lot of music, that fits the theme of the CC I'm working on, or is lifting my spirits at the time. I can’t work in silence. IDKY, it just makes me bored and tired.

I tag all y’all who ever made anything for us poor unfortunate souls!

[webmarket01]

we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more

New Post has been published on https://weightlosshtiw.com/we-got-weight-loss-tips-for-womens-history-month-interviewer-thought-i-was-lying-and-more/

we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. We got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month

This happened months ago but it’s still bugging me. I work for a large corporation that promotes diversity in the workplace. In celebration of Women’s History Month, we received an email with info on women’s health issues .. with tips like maintain a healthy weight, lose weight, having a thick waist ups your risk of stroke, consume less sugar and fat, and don’t smoke. There’s also information that women are more likely to experience urinary tract problems due to the way the female urinary tract is structured.

Am I wrong in thinking … WTF??? I can’t recall ever seeing an email with info about my male coworker’s urinary tract. Or suggestions that my male coworkers lose weight, eat less sugar, etc. How does this celebrate diversity? This whole thing feels really tone-deaf. I want to say something, but then I stop and ask if I’m overreacting. I need perspective, please.

You are not overreacting. Observing Women’s History Month by talking about diet and weight (and urinary tracts — WTF?) is bizarre and frankly kind of insulting. They would have been better off doing nothing! How about donating to a women-focused charity, seeking out women-owned businesses for your vendors, sending women on staff to leadership events, doing a pay equity analysis and releasing the info, and/or designing and implementing family-friendly policies around things like flex time and parental leave? “Eat less fat” isn’t it.

2. I think my interviewer thought I was lying about my degree

I had a very bad interview experience the other day. I am currently seeking a better opportunity for myself while working from home. I’m in my late 20s and I have been at my current job for two years. Unfortunately, the money isn’t good and I don’t enjoy the job either. The good news is that I just completed my second bachelor’s in business administration in May. Previously I received my B.A. in psychology. When I was updating my resume, I only included my business degree.

This brings me to the awkward moment of my interview call. I have been having severe connection issues during the entire period that I have been working from home. I was on a phone screen with a recruiter at a company in my industry. We seemed to be having a great call. She made a comment that my work history was very diverse and so I told her that my degree was in psychology and I worked at a shelter but didn’t feel it was my calling. Then there was this absolute silence (from her being confused about my major) and we lost the connection. I tried calling her back but it said “call failed.” About one hour later, the internet was restored and I opened my email only to find a rejection letter.

Because second degrees are a bit rare, I’m sure she thought I was lying about my background and presumed I hung up after realizing I was caught up in a lie. The rejection email said I don’t have the “qualifications and background needed,” which is not true. I haven’t sent her a follow-up or thank-you email but now I am wondering if I should reach out and explain the situation. Would you recommend I reach out to her and explain?

Yes. It might not change her decision, but you have nothing to lose by trying. I would say, “Thank you so much for your time talking with me. Our call was disconnected while we were still speaking — my service went down for an hour at the worst possible time! — so I didn’t get a chance to explain that while my resume lists my recent business degree, it doesn’t list my earlier bachelor’s degree in psychology from NYU (received in 2007). I think I may have introduced some confusion by referencing the psychology degree without explaining it’s not on my resume — and then we got cut off before I could. I realize you likely have many qualified candidates, but if this affects your assessment of my qualifications, I’d love to keep talking. If not, I wish you all the best in filling the role and with the work you’re doing. I appreciate your time!”

For what it’s worth, it’s possible that she didn’t think you were lying but tried to call you back, couldn’t reach you, rejected you for other reasons, and moved on. It’s still worth clarifying — it won’t hurt and could help — but I wouldn’t assume your interpretation is definitely what happened.

Also, any reason you don’t have the psychology degree on your resume? There might be good reason to leave it off, but if you ever bring it up in an interview, you need to quickly explain it’s not on your resume, or people are going to be confused.

3. Former boss is asking me about assignments I don’t remember receiving

I left my previous job in the midst of COVID-19 in March to start a new position halfway across the country. My boss at my previous workplace was great — very supportive, clear communicator. She assigned work, and I would complete it well. I would usually submit work on time (95% of the time). My boss was very happy to be my reference for the position I’m currently working in.

Fast forward to four months later. After months of not hearing from her, she is now emailing me (four times in the last two weeks) asking me for the file location for work that she claims she asked me to do that I never submitted. I have no recollection of her assigning this work to me. It would be out of character for me not to complete work as assigned, even on my way out the door. However, COVID-19 and moving across the country was stressful and weird. It would be out of character for me but I suppose it is possible this work was assigned to me and I didn’t do it (although I have no memory of that).

Is it unreasonable that she’s contacting me to ask where this work is four months after I left, seemingly irritated that she thinks I didn’t do what she asked? If it’s not unreasonable, what do I do? I have no access to my previous files. If she did ask me and I didn’t complete the work as assigned, I wish she could have contacted me sooner because wow I don’t remember much pre-COVID. Should I worry about my reference now around this?

It’s not unreasonable for her to ask about the location of one or two items a few months after you left in case you happened to be able to easily answer, but it’s not reasonable for her to sound irritated if you no longer remember (and four separate queries is too many).

I wouldn’t get into “hmmm, maybe I didn’t do it, it’s possible, I’m not sure” — that won’t serve either of you well! Instead, say something like, “I really wish I could help! So much has happened since I left that I don’t remember many specifics about projects I did for you before I went. I know I tried to be vigilant about getting everything done and it was really important to me to leave everything in good shape — but at this point I don’t have many of the specifics still in my head. I’m sorry I can’t help!”

As for how much to worry about it affecting your reference … it’s hard to say with certainty. If you’d always done good work and you sent me that email, I’d be inclined to just move on (figuring it was on me for not looking for the work sooner). Some managers would be more put out. If she knows for sure that she assigned it (for example, if she still has emails she sent you assigning the projects) and the work was important … well, she still should have looked for it earlier, ideally before you left! I can’t speak to how reasonable she is or whether it will affect her reference, but I can say that it shouldn’t, at least not unless there are more details than what’s here.

4. Should we offer severance to a belligerent, hostile employee?

I am a board member of a condo who recently had to fire our resident manager for a belligerent, profanity-laden outburst during a zoom board meeting. He has not been doing his job and has been suspected to be drinking or have been drunk while working (although no proof). He has gotten into heated arguments with owners. To further complicate things, our property manager has not done his job by documenting his complaints and appears to be protecting him rather than the board/owners. The property manager is pushing for some sort of severance for good will however the board is opposed to it. We feel we have a termination with cause for insubordination (lots of “F” words directed at us and calling names). What is your suggestions on whether we need to pay severance in this instance? He is talking to a lawyer regarding a possible hostile workplace or wrongful termination lawsuit.

As a general rule, it’s both kind and wise to give when you let someone go, because (a) it’s the right thing to do when you curtail someone’s source of income, (b) it’s likely to make your other employees feel better about the situation, and (c) you typically have the person sign a release of legal claims in exchange for the payment. The first two aren’t as compelling when you’re dealing with such egregious behavior (as opposed to, say, firing someone whose work just wasn’t up to par even though they were trying), but that release of claims is always a good idea, especially if a hostile workplace claim might have any legs. (Even if it doesn’t, you might not want to deal with the hassle of a lawsuit you expect to eventually win.)

Talk to a lawyer though. If he’s speaking with a lawyer himself, it’s likely that he’ll try to negotiate any severance you offer for a higher amount, and you should have a lawyer guiding you on your side as well.

5. Grouping jobs by functional area on your resume

I noticed that you’ve written about college career centers not being so helpful to students in their advice and how hiring managers dislike functional resumes. I have a question that combines these two things: my college career center advises students to organize their work experience on their resume by creating functional headers with experiences listed reverse chronologically below. (For example: as someone with a lot of editorial experience looking for communications jobs, I’ve been advised to create a “Communications Experience” section with my past relevant internship/job experience listed in reverse-chronological order below the heading. I also have one with “Project Management Experience.”) This format still involves listing out specific companies, positions, and dates—it’s just not lumped under one large “Work Experience” section.

Is this a new phenomenon that’s acceptable? Or just a mutation of the functional resume that still frustrates hiring managers?

That’s fine to do! The functional resumes that are awful are the ones that list skills and accomplishments without connecting them to specific jobs — just a list of things you did, without any context about when you did them or who you did them for. That makes it impossible to assess your experience in the way hiring managers want to, and looks like you’re hiding something. But what you’re describing is fine; it’s the same thing as a chronological resume, just with the jobs grouped according to subject area.

That said, I question whether it’s really serving you. It can make sense if you have a lot of varied experience and want to highlight one or two areas over the others. But if you’re a student or a recent grad, it most cases that will be unnecessary and will just make your resume a little harder to follow. If you have some specific reason to do it this way, then carry on — but if your career center is just telling everyone to do this, then ignore them.

HR director’s wellness program is invasive and sexist

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we got weight loss tips for Women’s History Month, interviewer thought I was lying, and more was originally published by Alison Green on Ask a Manager.

This content was originally published here.