Publishing looks glossy from the outside. Inside? It’s built on unpaid labour.

My first book is out this year.
Here’s what I actually got paid, what my contract says, & why most authors can’t afford to do this twice.

kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/publ…

#Publishing #Books #Author #Writer

Published Doesn’t Mean Paid.

I want to talk about money. (Ugh, I know. How crass.) Specifically, how much money authors make, or more accurately, don’t. I signed my publishing deal in 2023. My advance was £2,500. That’s it.

^{Kristie De Garis (By Hand)}

Starting my GDC week off with a bang! I have just been notified that my contract at Rookery Interactive will not be renewed in 2 weeks, so I am suddenly #OpenToWork! Please keep me in mind for any writing or consulting roles. If you're at GDC & would like to meet, lmk!

🌎 I’m open to remote roles, or positions in Bangkok!

⭐ I've worked on a ton of games, comics and books, and am available for writing, consulting & editing outside of games.
#gamedev #comics #books #gdc

Is there somewhere to buy ebooks that supports local book stores? I buy print books from Bookshop.org and my audiobooks from Libro.fm, but don't know where to go for ebooks. I'd like it to be DRM-free so I don't lose it when I'm on "unsupported devices".

#ebook #books #DRMfree #shopLocal

Thanks to the magic of the Streisand effect, I just heard about #CarelessPeople - a book by former Meta employee Sarah Wynn-Williams.

Apparently the company is FREAKING OUT and seeking legal ways to stop its promotion. I can see why. This article about it in the Times made my jaw drop: web.archive.org/web/2025031022…

I will definitely order it at my local bookshop.

🔗: bookshop.org/p/books/careless-…

Edit: included non-paywalled link (thanks @gemlog)

#books

Book Review: ‘Careless People,’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams

“Careless People,” a memoir by a former Facebook executive, portrays feckless company leaders cozying up to authoritarian regimes.

^{Jennifer Szalai (The New York Times)}

IN OTHER NEWS
just as i thought i knew everything i needed to know about the development of fascism ―a very EuroAmerican flavah of authoritarianism― i find myself being schooled by… well… scholars.

am reading "Breve historia de la moda: desde la Edad Media hasta la actualidad" by Giorgio Riello. the book is a product of one of his history courses.

today i columbused a few things about the links between the development of authoritarianism and fashion in Europe…

#books #fashion

If you haven't switched from #Goodreads to #TheStoryGraph yet, don't hesitate. I've been using it for a few weeks now, and it's Goodreads before it was enshittified by Amazon (and much more): you can add missing books, if you see problems you can't fix yourself, you report them and a volunteer librarian fixes them within a few days...

#books #bookstodon #StoryGraph

As you will know I'm no stranger to typos, so this cartoon goes out to anyone who sent me a massage about a typo in a post (as always thanks for your help, much appreciated) bit also to my Mastodon friend @h4890 who will appreciate this on a Saturday morning.

#Libraries #libertarianism #reading #books

Amazon will remove the ability to download the ebooks for Kindle at the end of the month. So if you ever close your amazon account, you'll no longer be able to access the books you had bought.

Let's fix that

1. Bulk Exporter: github.com/treetrum/amazon-kin…

2. Calibre to manage books calibre-ebook.com/download

3. Calibre plugin to remove DRM: github.com/noDRM/DeDRM_tools/r…

Source: bsky.app/profile/remysharp.com…

#datahoarder #datahoarding #datahoarders #books #bookstodon #bookbans #booknerd #kindle #kindlebooks

GitHub - treetrum/amazon-kindle-bulk-downloader: Designed for downloading your Kindle eBooks in a more automated fashion than is typically permitted, this tool allows you to create backup copies of the books you've already purchased.

Designed for downloading your Kindle eBooks in a more automated fashion than is typically permitted, this tool allows you to create backup copies of the books you've already purchased. - treetr...

^GitHub

I ditched Goodreads four years ago and never once looked back.

I really like StoryGraph - it's simple, clean and refreshingly clutter-free.

And behind it all? The brilliant Nadia Odunayo.

theguardian.com/books/2025/feb…

#books #StoryGraph

More "enshittification". This time from Amazon. Amazon is pulling a Google, killing off popular services. Evidently, I have until 25th February to download my 708 books that I have purchased from them. After the 25th you can no longer download YOUR books for backup or transfer via USB

Good job I did this 2 years ago eh? Buy the books from elsewhere.

goodereader.com/blog/kindle/am…

#enshittification #amazon #books #bookstodon

Amazon Is Not To Be Trusted Anymore With Their Kindle E-reader - Good E-Reader

Amazon has a long and storied history of discontinuing services that people use. Last October, the company announced that in February 2025, they were

^{Michael Kozlowski (Good e-Reader)}

Folks who break the DRM on their #Kindle books, this is going to make that a lot harder: nsinteger.com/@zacwest/1139915…

This is fine for those of us who don't buy from Amazon anymore, but if you have a standing library with them, make sure you get it all downloaded so you can break it. It's frustrating because you can't bulk download - I keep finding titles I own but missed grabbing somehow - but you have until Feb 26th to get them all.

(1/2)

#books #bookstodon #DRM #Calibre

Zac West

2025-02-12 15:07:12

Amazon is removing the ability to download purchased Kindle content, which is the only way to read it on my Kobo or elsewhere. What this means is I will no longer be purchasing (“a license to”–ick) any books by the mostly independent authors who exclusively publish there; just cancelled preorders.

My favourite part of this interview? Hmmm...maybe this?

Vikander: What did you learn about craft while writing this, your first book?

De Garis: Craft is a conversation with your materials. It can’t be hurried. It requires attention, patience, and humility. Writing also taught me that craft resists capitalism—not just in theory but in practice. Eighteen months of work for £1250 made that point clearer than any philosophical argument.

kristie-de-garis.ghost.io/inte…

#Writing #Scotland #Books #Author

Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations

"...court records reveal that the social media company used pirated torrents to download 81.7TB of data from shadow libraries including Anna’s Archive, Z-Library, and LibGen. It then used this information to train its AI models."

#tech #news #Meta #AI #books #bookstodon #writers #libraries #media

tomshardware.com/tech-industry…

Meta staff torrented nearly 82TB of pirated books for AI training — court records reveal copyright violations

Did they think they could get away with it?

^{Jowi Morales (Tom's Hardware)}

Hello, I'm new to Mastadon and looking to meet people interested in medieval Silk Road history, especially of women and non-western historical fiction.

To sort of give you an idea of the weird stuff I'm into, here's a post I did about stories written in the Medieval Silk Road that feature women and are available in English:

mariamalmasriauthor.wordpress.…

On this, anyone else into weird and obscure histories?

#intro #history #historicalFiction #silkroad #womenshistory #books

Stories About Women from the Medieval Silk Road and Available in English

The Silk Road had men and women of all walks of life. It also was one of history’s most literate eras and places, prior to the modern age. One of the reasons that we know that is from the sto…

^{Women Along the Silk Road}

‘Down there,’ he said, ‘are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathesomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don’t say no.’

#Books
#TerryPratchett

#OTD in 1814.

Lord Byron's semi-autobiographical tale in verse The Corsair is published by John Murray in London and sells 10,000 copies on this day and over 25,000 in the first month, going through seven editions. Walter Scott is to say of Byron's poetry: "He beat me out of the field in description of the stronger passions and in deep-seated knowledge of the human heart."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cors…

The Corsair at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/21811

#books #lietarture #poetry

Sensitive content Click to open/close

Omgggg!! I just discovered that Project Gutenberg has an automated feed on #Mastodon where they post new books they add!

Go follow them: @gutenberg_new

#books #bookstodon #reading

Review: The Odyssey is a story about a homicidal maniac (Odysseus) who refuses to ask for directions. This tragic flaw, shared by many men, leads his crew to disaster. Some are eaten by monsters, some are eaten by their crew-mates, and some finally get fed up with this cruise from hell (literally at one point), and take a flight home.

When Odysseus returns home, he is shocked, SHOCKED, to discover that after a 20-year absence, his wife is entertaining the possibility of remarrying.

#books

I'm rereading Aeronaut's Windlass, the first book in the Cinder Spires series by Jim Butcher, in preparation to read the short novella that comes after it and the second book that was released last year. I'd forgotten how funny it is, especially when the cat comes into play.

#books #bookstodon

HAPPY PUBLIC DOMAIN DAY!

Books which will enter the US public domain:

William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)
John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold (Steinbeck's first novel)
Richard Hughes, A High Wind in Jamaica
Oliver La Farge, Laughing Boy: A Navajo Love Story
Patrick Hamilton, Rope

#books #literature #publicdomain
/1

"What are heavy? sea-sand and sorrow.
What are brief? today and tomorrow.
What are frail? spring blossoms and youth.
What are deep? the ocean and truth."

Christina Rossetti, who died #OTD in 1894, was an English writer of romantic, devotional and children's poems, including "Goblin Market" and "Remember".

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christin…

Christina Rossetti at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/70…

#books #literature #poetry

End of the year blog post: my favorite reads from 2024! A lot of nonfiction, some folklore, some cute children's books :)

Read here:
multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com…

What were your favorite reads?

#books #bookstodon #AmReading #nonfiction #folklore #KidLit #ChildrensBooks

2024: The best books of the year

As usual, I am taking a look back at this year's most memorable reads. 2024 wasn't an easy ride; I lost track of a lot of things and felt pe...

^{multicoloreddiary.blogspot.com}

Man, corporations really want to put a stop to libraries:

cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/otta…

"Depending on the title, public libraries may pay two or three times more for an e-book than they pay for its print edition. In some cases, the e-book may be up to six times the price, librarians told CBC."

"Those publishers ... will often license copies of e-books for just 12 or 24 months. Once that licence expires, libraries must repurchase access to the same book." #canada #cdnpoli #books

J. J. Thomson, who was born #OTD in 1856, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1906 for his discovery of the electron, the first subatomic particle to be found.

Thomson was also a teacher, and seven of his students went on to win Nobel Prizes: Ernest Rutherford, Lawrence Bragg, Charles Barkla, Francis Aston, Charles Thomson Rees Wilson, Owen Richardson and Edward Victor Appleton.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._J._Th…

Books by J.J. Thomson at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/38…

#books #science #physics

Endre Ady was born #OTD in 1877.

Some of his notable poetry collections include "Új versek" (New Poems, 1906), "A Holnap" (Tomorrow, 1908), and "A halottak élén" (At the Head of the Dead, 1918).

Books by Endre Ady at PG:
gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/39…

#books #literature #poetry

One of the authors I follow, @clacksee, has made two of her #books free for today.

For some light-hearted #SciFi with plenty of hope, there's The Left Hand of Dog: whitehartfiction.co.uk/product…

If you'd rather read about old ladies getting justice by any means necessary, there's A Bit of Murder Between Friends: whitehartfiction.co.uk/product…

I can highly recommend both.

EU readers should use her Payhip shop: payhip.whitehartfiction.co.uk

#bookstodon
@bookstodon

White Hart Fiction

Author of sci-fi without the pew-pewSi (she/her) is a Canadian misanthrope who lives in London. She shares her home with her partner and an assortment of waifs and strays.

^{White Hart Fiction}

Web Accessibility Cookbook

Provides you with dozens of recipes to help you build common components on the web, such as navigation, forms, filters, tables, and dialogs, in an accessible manner.

accessibility-cookbook.com/

by @matuzo

#webdev #webdesign #a11y #books

@rf
#flibusta #torrent #books

Кто ещё не успел скачать весь архив Флибусты? Ссылка ниже:

rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.…

This is an interesting article by a writer who finds that reading a book aloud helps him with comprehension. In fact, he says reading out loud was the custom for most of history, to the point that Augustine wrote about a fellow monk who read silently and thought it was a strange habit:

raptitude.com/2024/09/in-favor…

#books

I just signed this petition from the #InternetArchive (@internetarchive) and hope you will too.
change.org/p/let-readers-read-…

Background from IA:
"We are disappointed in today’s opinion about the Internet Archive’s digital lending of books that are available electronically elsewhere. We are reviewing the court’s opinion and will continue to defend the rights of #libraries to own, lend, and preserve books."
blog.archive.org/2024/09/04/in…

#Books #CDL #Petitions #Publishers