#selling books on Substack

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

Inspiration: 61 New Paid Subscribers on Substack in 10 Days & Sold A$8K Value of Books with ZERO Ads

I explained how freelance writers can become book authors on Substack and book authors can sell their books with great success. This article aims to inspire aspiring writers to benefit from Substack’s serendipitous sales engine and book authors to use it deliberately.  Self-publishing experts advocate for paid advertising through platforms like Google or Facebook. They can be costly, producing…

[author-mandi-bean]

Outsmarting Quitter's Day

Did your resolutions survive Quitter's Day? Did you make any for 2025? Comment and join the conversation :)

I’m sure we’ve all seen the commercial for the Apple Watch that talks about Quitter’s Day, the second Friday in January. The commercial encourages viewers to look up the day and, sure enough, it’s real: “Did you know that today is officially referred to as quitters day? It’s the second Friday of January and research shows that today is the day where millions of people drop their new year’s…

[mxjackparker]

Tired of reading leftist theory that degrades sex workers, misunderstands the nature of our work, or ignores us altogether? Or maybe you've never considered what sex workers' experiences might reveal about capitalism and gender and policing? This book covers all the ways that selling sex can give hookers an insight into the systems which control us all, revealing why so many of us become radically left-wing after we start selling sex.

Hooker Mentality is a book containing thoughts on society from a sex worker perspective.

Sign up here to be updated when the book becomes available to pre-order (aiming for early March 2025):

Getting the word out about a book like this can be hard on social media with all the censorship around sex work, so signing up to be notified when it's out and sharing this post is hugely appreciated.

If you'd like to read my free articles about sex work or check out previous published works, you can find them on my website!

[kenyatta]

Kanakia isn’t the only one playing with fiction on Substack. The National Book Award winner Sherman Alexie posts fiction, poetry, and essays on his Substack, and Chuck Palahniuk (of “Fight Club” fame) serialized a novel on his. The renowned Israeli author Etgar Keret (who, like Alexie, is a frequent contributor to this magazine) posts fiction on his Substack. Rick Moody, one of the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful literary authors of his generation, recently published a nearly twenty-thousand-word “non-fiction novella” on the Mars Review of Books Substack, and the Times columnist Ross Douthat has, since September, been using the platform to publish “The Falcon’s Children,” a fantasy novel, at the rate of a chapter per week. This is to say nothing of the many names—including George Saunders, Mary Gaitskill, Catherine Lacey, and Elif Batuman—who have popular Substacks where they publish nonfiction about literature and life. These are writers who already enjoy considerable levels of professional success and are using Substack to experiment with new styles, build direct connections with their readers, or make a few bucks selling premium-tier subscriptions to their biggest fans. On the other end of the spectrum are passionate amateurs who post stories, serialize novels-in-progress, commiserate about the joys and agonies of writing, talk smack about the literary establishment, and cheer one another on. In the middle sit writers who have, like Kanakia, acquired some of the markers of professional success without becoming names. Their outputs are a mélange of the passion and experimentalism of the amateurs with the polish and ambition of the pros, and they often possess a briskness that feels shaped by an awareness that an endless selection of other stories is mere clicks away.

- Is the Next Great American Novel Being Published on Substack? New Yorker

[badlywritingmagazine]

Wanna help a by-and-for transfem journal?

Wanna get involved?

Thank you everyone for your interest so far! If you have a sec, I’ve written a quick post about a few ways you can help. 

Lili Elbe, painted by Szív királynő, serving “journal reader” realness Do you have trans female mates?

Let your girl friends know. Share it amongst your networks. 

Can you read? 

Wonderful. Subscribe to this substack to be notified when an issue is released. 

Can you think?

If you’re a trans woman and you have feelings about something, send it to us. If you’re developing an idea, come chat with us over email (or arrange a phone call) and let’s figure it out together. 

Do you sell books and zines? 

Wonderful. Email me. Stock it. Perfect. I can also send you a poster version of our invitation to submit to print out. 

Have you written?

If you’re a trans woman who writes about things relevant to our lives, send it to me. If it is online and you worry that it won’t stay up forever, it’s affecting your job and life prospects, or that it is a reflection of its time and not 100% wise anymore, send it to me and get it archived. Archiving is part of the goal here. We’re not uncurated, but that doesn’t mean you should shrug and let the internet, time, transmisogyny and linkrot eat your hard work. 

If you’re a trans woman with jobs and obligations and you don’t like having your essay ‘Why dickgirls should commit more assassinations’ or ‘transgender materialism: towards a de/coterminous understanding of post tipping point transmisogyny’ or whatever attached to your name then send it to me and get it re/published under a pseudonym.

If we get a large number of submissions like this we will publish it as a separate supplement, but else it will come as a section within WBM.

Do you know grants?

Rates for unfunded zines and pamphlets suck. We want to pay the women well. Let us know if you know of funds or grants you think we fall under. We’ll be sending off applications. 

Can you help us host a launch party in a major city?

We envision low-cost evening events with discussion, trans women, and piles and piles of essays to talk about. (Can we crash on your couch?) We’re based in the UK, but are happy to come anywhere Ryanair goes where there’s a willing audience. 

Got an idea I don’t have? 

Ultimately, I want to keep this dirt simple. Essays come in, paper goes out. No columns, shite graphics. Couple core editors. Schedules loose enough to spend half the year depressed and still get it out. Stolen printer paper. Something that won’t collapse after two years. Posterity. 

That said, if you have an idea (and maybe if you want to do it), email us. Think you know enough people to get this translated and shipped somewhere else? Can you translate and know of a non-English language transfeminist text that’s not got much attention in the anglosphere? Maybe we can submit an application for a grant and distribute your translation? Understand distribution better than me? Do you have the wherewithal to manage a personals board? Something else? Anything except an agony aunt section. I’ve called dibs on that one. 

Do you have agonies? Issues? Want bad advice?

Write to the agony aunt. writingbadlymag snail symbol gmail dot com.

Do you have something to say which won't make a whole essay but is still worth saying?

Write a letter to the editor. Same email.

Addendum: Can you help us set up a website?

Websites we think are beautiful are dirt simple. Low-tech Magazine has a beautiful low-energy website. Filmmaker Margot McEwan has a lovely fitting website. Any thoughts or suggestions should be sent to the same email.

(update: we're all set now! Check out badly.press!)

See a good stack cutter?

If you see a cheap paper stack cutter for cheap, let me know. :)

Thanks all!

Forthcoming posts: information for writers, extracts from the issue.

[jabbage]

You might be wondering why I haven't got any concrete plans for running Letters from Watson again right now - I'd like to, but I am interested in moving away from Substack if at all possible after they botched their handling of Nazis using their platform so spectacularly.

When that news first broke, it was a stressful time for me because instead of going after the CEO of this huge company, some people took their anger out on me as someone running a free book club, asking why I didn't just immediately switch to Ghost or MailChimp or Hiive or another email newsletter platform, suggesting I was complicit in being a nazi sympathiser for not doing so (...don't do that, by the way. It's not helpful to anyone.)

At the time I kept going because

A) shutting down a free book club because of Nazis felt like letting the bad guys win and

B) I could console myself with the fact that Substack didn't expect to be footing the bill for sending out tens of thousands of emails of public domain literature. Their business model expects to recoup the costs of sending all those emails for free by selling subscriptions - which a free book club doesn't have. I don't like that it might be drawing attention to the platform, but at least theyre losing money over my presence.

I think what people don't realise is that it costs somebody to send that many emails. Most platforms put that cost on the person sending the emails, particularly if you have a large mailing list.

Let's run some numbers.

A pretty common price I've seen on other platforms is $1 per 1,000 emails

Lets say numbers drop slightly for LfW for a second run, and the mailing list is at a nice round 10,000 people. I used to do 3ish letters a week,a bit less when shorter stories came up. Let's say about ten emails a month.

So I'm sending out 100,000 emails a month. That's $100 a month, or $1200 a year.

So what do I do? Stay on Substack with the thought that all these tech platforms have garbage people behind them, but have people think I'm ok with Substack's attitude? Adjust my whole budget and lifestyle to try to pay that money myself? Try to run a Patreon-style model where those who can pay a little bit and we divide the cost? Stop and decide that the golden age of literary substacks is over?

And LfW is tiny compared to Dracula Daily, I'm sure the numbers there get absolutely eye-watering.

I just don't know what the answer is.

If anyone knows of a platform which doesn't make the user pay to send large amounts of emails let me know, I guess!

EDIT: If anyone is going to make a suggestion, please look at the numbers I'm quoting here. Most mailing list services offer a free tier, but the number of subs and emails involved in running LfW generally far, far exceeds those free options.

[astroismypassion]

✨PART OF FORTUNE IN SIGNS AND HOUSES SERIES: 4TH HOUSE✨

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion

ARIES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aries and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via starting your own small business from home or take a leadership role, especially in the kitchen, family matters, children, education, history and geography. You may be an excellent tour guide of your local town. You may also find wealth through becoming a coach, personal trainer or someone who suggest meal plan for a specific sport, for example meal plan for runners.

TAURUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Taurus and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via real estate, gardening, landscaping, art and craftsmanship. You can sell handmade items, such as pottery, jewelry or home decor. You may also offer gardening services, sell plants or draw plants and sell your drawings online. You could start a home-based catering service, bakery or sell homemade goods at a local market. You might be able to create financial plans for families since you have a knack for helping others to manage their finances.

GEMINI PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Gemini and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via writing articles, blogs, even e-books from home. Especially on platforms like Medium, Substack or starting your own blog from the comfort of your home. You may also offer tutoring services o reven create online courses in subjects you are passionate about (Udemy, Coursera, VIPKid).

CANCER PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via a home-based business, such as home bakery, daycare or arts and crafts. You could find abundance in life by becoming a life coach, counselor or therapist. You may earn money from a home-cooked meal delivery. You can also each yourself interior design.

LEO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Leo and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via music, singing, performing from home, tutoring someone in music and teaching them how to play an instrument. You may also post tutorials (for example guitar tutorials) online from the comfort of your home.

VIRGO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Virgo and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via selling your homemade jams, pies or granola mix. You may also offer healthy student snacks or offer tips on how to make those at home with cheap and easy ingredients. Again, you could feel abundant when starting a podcast or your own local book club or even themed book club.

LIBRA PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Libra and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via designing and selling your own T-shirts, designing logos for other people. You could be good at doing make up for weddings or birthday parties. You have a knack to be an excellent host at your own home. You feel the most abundant when you have balanced family relations and friendships, partnership.

SCORPIO PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Scorpio and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via teaching people how to overcome tough situations in life and helping them find their purpose, hosting a leadership course online or from home. You may also enjoy talking about mental health and psychology.

SAGITTARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Sagittarius and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via showing tourists your hometown, hosting a culinary course in a foreign language on the local cuisine. You could also find abundance by becoming a local tour guide, even offering virtual tours of your local town.

CAPRICORN PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Capricorn and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via working with your parents, helping other families finding structure and order in the home, organising someone's closet.

AQUARIUS PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Aquarius and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via video gaming from home and streaming. You could also start a home-based business. You feel the wealthiest when you are being progressive, unique and standing out from the community. You may attract wealth by starting a podcast with your close friends, building websites from home or launching your own social media channel, platform.

PISCES PART OF FORTUNE IN THE 4TH HOUSE

You feel the most abundant when you have Pisces and Cancer Sun people in your life. You could make money via taking photos of families or pregnant women. You may also do videos for someone's wedding, anniversary or birthday. You may host themed parties at home for your friends or poetry nights.

Credit goes to astrology blog @astroismypassion

[see-arcane]

Welp. Been a minute. Overdue for an update.

So.

The Depressing Bit

Going to go ahead and rip off the band-aids quick.

First off, I passed my one-year laidoffiversary a couple weeks back. Still no new job despite applying every day of the week for the past year. A lot of dead-end interviews. Three times as many scams and I don’t dare guess how many entirely false job openings posted by companies who were never hiring in the first place, but wanted the positions out in the open to scare their actual employees with the threat of being easily replaced and to look good to investors with the illusion of growth. So there’s that.

Then, while doing my taxes, I came to a fun little revelation.

You know my novella The Vampyres, ala eBook and paperback? Had its birthday last year, March 15th. As I plugged in my earnings from that book from Draft 2 Digital’s doc, I discovered I'd made a grand total of $278 from it over the course of 2024. Cool.

I paid $275 to purchase the ISBNs (International Standard Book Numbers) for the eBook and paperback respectively, and a barcode. Which would mean that I made approximately $3 in profit from The Vampyres after a year.

Except I also spent $25 on a ‘change token’ with Draft 2 Digital because I had to make an alteration to the book's interior.

Meaning I spent $300 total on self-publishing this book. And have so far made back $275 of it.

…

Still glad I did it. Still glad a few folks might someday come across it and enjoy the read. But it’s…yeah. Kind of a glum revelation with March 2025 coming up.

Still job hunting. Still writing. Still hoping and going.

Anyway.

New Stuff

Ko-Fi

Added a couple new options in with the doodles and fancier art bits if you want to take a gander.

Substack (For Now)

While I’ve been posting my chapter updates on my Substack for a bit, and my stuff is still going up there for the foreseeable future, I’m going to start shopping around for an alternative platform. Not a big fan of how Substack is apparently buddying up to Elongated Muskrat and his specific idea of ‘freedom of speech.’ The main things I’m looking for is a lack of price tag and easy usability. I’ll let everyone know if/when I make the switch to something better.

StoryGraph

The Vampyres is on StoryGraph (and so am I). I’d appreciate you leaving any reviews on there rather than Goodreads, the latter being one of Amazon’s Bezos Babies. Really, nice reviews anyplace where books are picked up will help, but do consider a hop to StoryGraph in particular.

Merchandise

One of my New Year’s Resolutions is finally setting up shop with a little merch. I want to make stationery and possibly some novelty mugs* as things to start with. I’m browsing around for a good manufacturer and shipping combo option while trying to 100% avoid Shopify or affiliated sites. Not real keen on them being fine with selling Nazi and MAGA merch. (Frankly not keen on how dodging Nazi infiltration has become a rote part of trying to ~Sell Myself~, but here we are.)

I’ll post prospective product pics once I have something solid. Cross your fingers for me.

*The mugs are mostly for me as I have a devastating addiction to charming drinkware. But I guess you guys can have some too.

???

I don’t really have anything salient to put here. I’m mostly just grateful to all my friends out there in the Internet abyss for sticking around and making all this feel a little less lonely. Thank you.

[drdemonprince]

i would pay so much fucking money for a devon price novel and i am not joking. tell me where to preorder that shit. or drop your reccs 👉👈 (yes i have read bluebeard’s castle)

Thank you for the support! I'm about 25k words in of what should be about 100k words by the end (pray for me that i dont get too Loquacious), and that's before several deep rounds of editing and then deciding what the fuck I want to actually do with this thing (serializing on a separate Substack is one idea; self-publishing as an ebook is another, but I also might try to sell it to at least a small press), so you're quite a ways out from getting to read it. I've never properly SAT on a work of fiction before -- I've always worked on longer fiction live, publishing it chapter by chapter online, and I rush to get my short stories out too, but this one feels precious and I really want to get it right.

In the meantime, here are some fiction recommendations for you. Some of them are inspirations for this book, others are just fiction that I have read lately that really connected with me. Some of it might be informing completely separate work, nothing to do with this novel. They're approximately in the order of most to least likely to connect with you, if you enjoyed Bluebeard's Castle by Anna Biller:

Beautiful World, Where Are You? by Sally Rooney

My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin

Darryl by Jackie Ess

The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis (lots of people think the novel version is far inferior to the movie, but I read it after becoming enchanted by the musical adaptation and now I am a stan of just, gosh everything to do with it)

the novel project is also really strongly informed by the games Life is Strange, LiS Before the Storm, and Who's Lila. a little bit of gone girl and queer as folk is swirled around in there too. astute readers of this blog will by now see why this project is so close to my heart. an entire lifetime of shit i care about is getting packed into here

[mariacallous]

Arvind Narayanan, a computer science professor at Princeton University, is best known for calling out the hype surrounding artificial intelligence in his Substack, AI Snake Oil, written with PhD candidate Sayash Kapoor. The two authors recently released a book based on their popular newsletter about AI’s shortcomings.

But don’t get it twisted—they aren’t against using new technology. “It's easy to misconstrue our message as saying that all of AI is harmful or dubious,” Narayanan says. He makes clear, during a conversation with WIRED, that his rebuke is not aimed at the software per say, but rather the culprits who continue to spread misleading claims about artificial intelligence.

In AI Snake Oil, those guilty of perpetuating the current hype cycle are divided into three core groups: the companies selling AI, researchers studying AI, and journalists covering AI.

Hype Super-Spreaders

Companies claiming to predict the future using algorithms are positioned as potentially the most fraudulent. “When predictive AI systems are deployed, the first people they harm are often minorities and those already in poverty,” Narayanan and Kapoor write in the book. For example, an algorithm previously used in the Netherlands by a local government to predict who may commit welfare fraud wrongly targeted women and immigrants who didn’t speak Dutch.

The authors turn a skeptical eye as well toward companies mainly focused on existential risks, like artificial general intelligence, the concept of a super-powerful algorithm better than humans at performing labor. Though, they don’t scoff at the idea of AGI. “When I decided to become a computer scientist, the ability to contribute to AGI was a big part of my own identity and motivation,” says Narayanan. The misalignment comes from companies prioritizing long-term risk factors above the impact AI tools have on people right now, a common refrain I’ve heard from researchers.

Much of the hype and misunderstandings can also be blamed on shoddy, non-reproducible research, the authors claim. “We found that in a large number of fields, the issue of data leakage leads to overoptimistic claims about how well AI works,” says Kapoor. Data leakage is essentially when AI is tested using part of the model’s training data—similar to handing out the answers to students before conducting an exam.

While academics are portrayed in AI Snake Oil as making “textbook errors,” journalists are more maliciously motivated and knowingly in the wrong, according to the Princeton researchers: “Many articles are just reworded press releases laundered as news.” Reporters who sidestep honest reporting in favor of maintaining their relationships with big tech companies and protecting their access to the companies’ executives are noted as especially toxic.

I think the criticisms about access journalism are fair. In retrospect, I could have asked tougher or more savvy questions during some interviews with the stakeholders at the most important companies in AI. But the authors might be oversimplifying the matter here. The fact that big AI companies let me in the door doesn’t prevent me from writing skeptical articles about their technology, or working on investigative pieces I know will piss them off. (Yes, even if they make business deals, like OpenAI did, with the parent company of WIRED.)

And sensational news stories can be misleading about AI’s true capabilities. Narayanan and Kapoor highlight New York Times columnist Kevin Roose’s 2023 chatbot transcript interacting with Microsoft's tool headlined “Bing’s A.I. Chat: ‘I Want to Be Alive. 😈’” as an example of journalists sowing public confusion about sentient algorithms. “Roose was one of the people who wrote these articles,” says Kapoor. “But I think when you see headline after headline that's talking about chatbots wanting to come to life, it can be pretty impactful on the public psyche.” Kapoor mentions the ELIZA chatbot from the 1960s, whose users quickly anthropomorphized a crude AI tool, as a prime example of the lasting urge to project human qualities onto mere algorithms.

Roose declined to comment when reached via email and instead pointed me to a passage from his related column, published separately from the extensive chatbot transcript, where he explicitly states that he knows the AI is not sentient. The introduction to his chatbot transcript focuses on “its secret desire to be human” as well as “thoughts about its creators,” and the comment section is strewn with readers anxious about the chatbot’s power.

Images accompanying news articles are also called into question in AI Snake Oil. Publications often use clichéd visual metaphors, like photos of robots, at the top of a story to represent artificial intelligence features. Another common trope, an illustration of an altered human brain brimming with computer circuitry used to represent the AI’s neural network, irritates the authors. “We're not huge fans of circuit brain,” says Narayanan. “I think that metaphor is so problematic. It just comes out of this idea that intelligence is all about computation.” He suggests images of AI chips or graphics processing units should be used to visually represent reported pieces about artificial intelligence.

Education Is All You Need

The adamant admonishment of the AI hype cycle comes from the authors’ belief that large language models will actually continue to have a significant influence on society and should be discussed with more accuracy. “It's hard to overstate the impact LLMs might have in the next few decades,” says Kapoor. Even if an AI bubble does eventually pop, I agree that aspects of generative tools will be sticky enough to stay around in some form. And the proliferation of generative AI tools, which developers are currently pushing out to the public through smartphone apps and even formatting devices around it, just heightens the necessity for better education on what AI even is and its limitations.

The first step to understanding AI better is coming to terms with the vagueness of the term, which flattens an array of tools and areas of research, like natural language processing, into a tidy, marketable package. AI Snake Oil divides artificial intelligence into two subcategories: predictive AI, which uses data to assess future outcomes; and generative AI, which crafts probable answers to prompts based on past data.

It’s worth it for anyone who encounters AI tools, willingly or not, to spend at least a little time trying to better grasp key concepts, like machine learning and neural networks, to further demystify the technology and inoculate themselves from the bombardment of AI hype.

During my time covering AI for the past two years, I’ve learned that even if readers grasp a few of the limitations of generative tools, like inaccurate outputs or biased answers, many people are still hazy about all of its weaknesses. For example, in the upcoming season of AI Unlocked, my newsletter designed to help readers experiment with AI and understand it better, we included a whole lesson dedicated to examining whether ChatGPT can be trusted to dispense medical advice based on questions submitted by readers. (And whether it will keep your prompts about that weird toenail fungus private.)

A user may approach the AI’s outputs with more skepticism when they have a better understanding of where the model’s training data came from—often the depths of the internet or Reddit threads—and it may hamper their misplaced trust in the software.

Narayanan believes so strongly in the importance of quality education that he began teaching his children about the benefits and downsides of AI at a very young age. “I think it should start from elementary school,” he says. “As a parent, but also based on my understanding of the research, my approach to this is very tech-forward.”

Generative AI may now be able to write half-decent emails and help you communicate sometimes, but only well-informed humans have the power to correct breakdowns in understanding around this technology and craft a more accurate narrative moving forward.

[mehmetyildizmelbourne-blog]

The Meaning of an Education Badge from Substack

ILLUMINATION Writing & Reading Academy Helped Me Get My First Badge on Substack Gratitude: As it was about education, it meant a lot to me. Dear Writers and Readers, Happy Weekend! This is a brief post to inform you about the wonderful messages we have received related to our new venture to empower writers and inform readers on Substack, as well. It has been an absolute pleasure for me to…

[audreycecilemoore]

27 of the Best Books I Read in 2024 Part 3 of 3

Read here or on my substack

Part 1 on Tumblr and substack

Part 2 on Tumblr and substack

The novella I've wanted for years

A Magical Girl Retires by Park Soyoung 

Magical Girl is one of my favorite subgenres so I was so excited to get my hands on this novella written for Millennial women who grew up on Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Magic Knight Rayearth. I loved the blending of adult issues (credit card debt unemployment) with global issues (domestic abuse and climate change) combined with magical girl job fairs and destiny and grief and loneliness. Hands down, the best novella of 2024 and there were so many amazing ones (shout out to Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed)

The Romantasy that became my all-time favorite

Under the Oak Tree by Kim Suji 

There are not enough words in the English language to explain how meaningful this story is to me, how two lonely, damaged people, one a survivor of childhood abuse and the other with a deep-seated inferiority complex, found each other and became each other's whole world. Their love is not healthy, they're absolutely obsessed with each other and I loved every last word 

The book that reminded me of when I was ten and wanted to be a marine biologist 

The Phoenix Keeper by S A MacLean 

We have a Bi lead with anxiety who has achieved her life-long dream of taking care of phoenixes at a zoo for magical creatures, a slowburn Sapphic rivals-to-lovers romance, and a cozy atmosphere. It's a wonderful comfort read and accessible worldbuilding that feels a lot like being behind the scenes at the San Diego Zoo.

The Sapphic sci-fi that hit all the right buttons

Redsight by Meredith Mooring 

Meredith Mooring is in the Star Wars fandom and it comes across in the worldbuilding, but she also adds blind representation and themes of religious trauma. Also, the love interest turns into a snake and eats a man alive in her first POV chapter. If that doesn't sell you on trying it, I don't know what will.

The book that made me feel like I was reading a dark fairy tale 

A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft 

The other Saft book on my list and her first adult book and first book centering a Sapphic romance. I loved the academic one-sided rivals-to-lovers and how much folklore and the treatment of Jewish people in folklore is discussed. As with all of Saft's works, this is set in a secondary world, but the real world coding is incredibly strong.

The book that hit generational trauma the hardest

All the Times Before by Asha Thanki

I don't know what I was expecting when I picked this up, but it certainly defied all of my expectations in the best way possible. The Sapphic slowbuild romance arc takes almost the entire book and it feels so earned by the characters. I loved the idea of a shawl full of the rich history of a family of women that connects them to each other and their small magical abilities.

The contemporary romance that had me squealing

Knives, Seasoning, and a Dash of Love by Katrina Kwan 

I love a big height difference, I Iove male characters who have big hands, and I'm always down for a book discussing themes of identity. One of my favorite contemporary romances of the year and the one that fit my tastes the most.

The quiet Queer historical that kept me gripped

 The Paris Affair by Maureen Marshall 

One of the reasons I was really into this one is because of how quiet the romance is. I don't know how anyone else feels, but season 4 of Bridgerton definitely made me hungry for more romances that aren't explosive or full of constant intense passion and this hit the spot.

The YA that combined magical girls and Prohibition 

Nightbirds by Kate J. Armstrong 

Ultimately, this is a YA about sex work and the sequel is about sexual slavery. It's done in a way that is accessible to young readers while exploring the different opinions and situations around sex work as a profession and the dangers that come with it. At no point did I feel that the narrative was claiming sex work is a bad thing to choose, but it ultimately needs to be a choice, not something someone is forced into.

What was your favorite book of 2024?

[sussex-newswire]

Meghan's Accomplishments

Today in the smear campaign: Tina Brown launched a Substack and filled it full of Meghan-bashing quotes to get clicks. The tabloids are happily picking them up and recycling it all ad nauseum. "The trouble with Meghan is that she has the worst judgment of anyone in the entire world. She’s flawless about getting it all wrong...all of her ideas are total crap."

Hm! Does this bear any relationship to truth? Let's look at Meghan's accomplishments, starting with the toe she dipped into Tina Brown's career area, magazine editing:

The issue of British Vogue that Meghan guest-edited, "Forces for Change," was their fastest selling edition in history, so overwhelmingly successful that they recently revisited it for a fifth anniversary retrospective.

Sure seems like Forces for Change is the kind of "total crap" idea that Tina Brown wishes she could come up with!

But of course, magazine editing was a one-off for Meghan. She just casually hit that home run while strolling through the ballpark. At the same time she was also busy with other projects, like:

Together: Our Community Cookbook, Meghan's first project as the Duchess of Sussex. This cookbook spotlighted the community of women displaced by the Grenfell fire and it was a huge hit, winning awards and raising more than half a million pounds for the Hubb Community Kitchen.

What a total crap idea! Let's look at a few of the others:

Meghan's picture book for children, The Bench, was a #1 New York Times Bestseller in its category.

Meghan's podcast, Archetypes, reached No. 1 in the podcast charts in more than six countries. It won the People's Choice Award for "The Pop Podcast of 2022," and Meghan was named as the "top entertainment podcast host" at the Gracie Awards.

The Harry & Meghan Netflix docuseries holds the record for the biggest debut for a Netflix documentary and remains Netflix's second-highest ranked documentary ever.

Wow! Banger after banger after banger! This woman has a golden touch—everything she does breaks records for success!

Oh and speaking of awards:

With Harry, Meghan collected the 2022 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award for their "willingness to speak up" and "moral courage." They were also honored with the 2022 NAACP Image Award for "join[ing] the struggle for equity both in the U.S. and around the world." Meghan alone was singled out for her "global advocacy to empower and advocate on behalf of women and girls" at the 2023 Women of Vision Awards.

Moral courage and global advocacy—crap ideas for sure!

And what has Tina Brown done lately, after quitting The New Yorker to go and work for Harvey Weinstein, a choice that she herself now calls "the dumbest career move of anybody’s life"?

Well, she's got a Substack, and the only reason she's getting any attention for it is by putting lies on Meghan's name.

It's pretty obvious which one of these women has good ideas. And it's not Tina Brown.

[ozma914]

Movie Review: Deadpool and Wolverine

 One danger of watching "Deadpool and Wolverine" in the theaters is that you never know what was spilled on that floor you're rolling around on.

And I don't mean you'll be making out with someone because the movie's boring, either. No, "Deadpool and Wolverine" is exactly what it's advertised to be: Profane, fast-paced, irreverent, hilarious, and ... oh, yeah. Emotional.

That's the trick Ryan Reynolds and company manage to pull off. Deadpool speaks directly to the audience, talks about being in a movie, makes fun of Marvel and Disney, and just generally breaks all the rules. Then he grabs you by the feels and pulls you in until you actually care about this guy, despite the fact that you both know he's only a character.

Wade Wilson has left his super anti-hero days behind him and sells cars, badly, after a failed attempt to join the Avengers. But he's pulled back into his old life when he discovers his entire universe is going to end because of the loss of its anchor hero, Wolverine, who died during the events of "Logan". (Hey, it been out way too long for that to be a spoiler.)

That sends Wade on a multiverse-spanning search for another Logan to bring back, an attempt that treats us to several different Wolverines until Wade finds one that may work. Unfortunately, it's the worst Wolverine in all the universes. Together they set out on a blood splattered journey across timelines, encountering familiar help and villains along the way.

Yes, it has a plot. But just putting Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in a room together would generate plenty of fun for two hours, all by itself. They're clearly having a blast here, and yet, as mentioned earlier, they also generate plenty of pathos and suspense. After all, there are millions of universes, and Deadpool's isn't even the main Marvel one. There's nothing to say it will survive the fight.

I'm not sure there's any way to communicate just how much fun "Deadpool and Wolverine" is. It helps to know something of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (especially the TV series Loki). It also helps to be a fan of the comics, although its not necessary. Most of the main points we hit along the way are familiar to even those with only a passing knowledge of the MCU, for the same reason someone who's never seen Star Wars can spout off a dozen catchphrases and the basic plot.

Just the same, the sheer number of cameos, references, and background clues will bring squeals of glee from comic fans, even as non-comic fans enjoy the fast pace and no holds barred banter. Oh, and the stabbing. Lots and lots of stabbing. Did I mentioned the movie's rated R? Do NOT take your kids to see it.

But take yourself to see it. If you have half as much fun as Reynolds and Jackman clearly did, it'll be a good day. Where to find our books or just have some fun:

Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO

Barnes & Noble:  https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"

Goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter

Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/

Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/

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Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter

Substack:  https://substack.com/@markrhunter

Tumblr:  https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914

Smashwords:  https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914

Remember: Books can be just as much fun as Deadpool, without having to clean up the blood.

[darkmaga-returns]

Donald Jeffries started researching the JFK assassination as a teenage volunteer with Mark Lane's Citizens

Committee of Inquiry in the mid 1970s. He is the author of ten best selling books, including "Hidden History,"

"Crimes and Cover-Ups in American Politics: 1776-1963," "Masking the Truth," and "American Memory Hole."

He hosts the weekly "I Protest" podcast and writes regularly on Substack at donaldjeffries.substack.com. DONALD JEFFRIES WEBSITE: https://www.donaldjeffries.media/ X: https://x.com/DonJeffries YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@donaldjeffries802 Substack: donaldjeffries.substack.com THE RIPPLE EFFECT PODCAST: WEBSITE: http://TheRippleEffectPodcast.com Website Host & Video Distributor: https://ContentSafe.co/ SUPPORT: PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/TheRippleEffectPodcast PayPal: https://www.PayPal.com/paypalme/RvTheory6 VENMO: https://venmo.com/code?user_id=3625073915201071418&created=1663262894 MERCH Store: http://www.TheRippleEffectPodcastMerch.com MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-ripple-effect-ep/1057436436 SPONSORS: OPUS A.I. Clip Creator: https://www.opus.pro/?via=RickyVarandas WATCH: RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/c-745495BANNED.VIDEO: https://banned.video/channel/the-ripple-effect-podcastYOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVfy9MXhb5EIciYRIO9cKUwTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ricky.varandas LISTEN: SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/4lpFhHI6CqdZKW0QDyOicJ iTUNES: http://apple.co/1xjWmlF PodOmatic: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/rvtheory6 CONNECT: TeleGram: https://t.me/TREpodcast X: https://x.com/RvTheory6 IG: https://www.instagram.com/rvtheory6/ FB: https://www.facebook.com/TheRippleEffectPodcast/

THE UNION OF THE UNWANTED: https://linktr.ee/TheUnionOfTheUnwanted

[georgiacooked]

Just sent off for a hardback proof copy of the Dracula Daily sketch collection from the printer! It’s happeniiing!

Also had a really lovely reply email from the Dracula Daily substack crew, giving their blessings for me to publish the art book. Dracula’s out of copyright, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t stepping on any legal toes if I wanted to sell copies, and I’m not!