I just hate giving them.
I do them directly in the blurb, but STILL had a reader suggest one for one of these ONCs.
2 Likes
What’s your reasoning? I also want to ask if you’ve heard of the whole amazon KDP issue that’s going around?
1 Like
I’m not AMayu but a common reasoning for that view is that the person who pirates it, was never going to buy it, and they’re now another reader (who can go on to promote your book etc). It doesn’t really hold up too well, but it IS true in that a person with zero intention to purchase, is either going to pirate it, or just not read it (in most cases). The KDP thing is absolutely disgusting
2 Likes
Just what is this Amazon KDP thing happening? I haven’t heard anything, but I’m always the last to know anything. (♯ᴖ.ლ)
1 Like
second last now, it seems, I don’t know about this either 
1 Like
I think I have just an inch of care to add myself to that number.
3 Likes
I’ve missed quite a bit. 
It’s great when people can express their feelings on certain books or genres and can still be friends or find other things to bond over, but it’s sad and annoying when people make it their whole personality to disagree and find no balance between it. Everyone has a right to an opinion. Everyone has a right to have different interests. BookTok took over with all the drama where everyone was like, “Ew… you’re 30 reading YA?” And…? YA novels are written by adults, and the majority of its audience are adults despite its target audience. Why do you care so much about what I read? Leave me alone… I don’t tell you that reading Jane Austen or Mary Shelley makes you smarter just because it’s classic literature. 
Agreed. Like, sometimes, I’ll say that one character should belong with another and that I’d ship them, but I don’t go hard on it like some people do. Some people take it to the extreme and read way too much into it. Mostly because they ship characters that shouldn’t even belong together or don’t have much common interest, like incest or characters that are way too old or way too young for each other, or something like that. 
YES.
SERIOUSLY. Like bruh, stop! We can tell if they have no chemistry. 
My god, that freakin’ sucks… 
And see, that’s very understandable; when things don’t go exactly expected, specifically as an author where you have very little control.
When it comes from a publisher—small or large—it’s easy for things to get out of hand because of extra costs, extra time needed, but as publishers (specifically those who have done this hundreds of times and can at least give estimates on timing based on previous projects), you’d think they’d have a better handle on this, right? Like, if they weren’t sure on a date or even a guestimate for season, year, etc. why would they even say something? It’s been said that for most publishers, the average length of time to get a project published (between edits, covers, etc.) is roughly nine months. And this is if the author doesn’t ask for extra time to work on the book. But I guess, of course, if you’re dealing with a smaller publisher where they are struggling (financially and with employees), then you’re probably dealing with a different outcome.
Mmm… I got a hot take. Sort of. As both a writer and reader, I’m not much of a fan for trigger warnings. Like, I find them useful if the book has graphic depictions of self-harm, sexual assault, etc. but I’ve been seeing it more often for things like, “This book contains sexism, racism, and teen pregnancy.” Especially when the summary tells you exactly what the book is about and includes a dose of this. 
Then you get some people who see trigger warnings as a turn-off point. One YA book I saw on Amazon has a trigger warning that said the book talks about rape, though there is no rape scene, and a granny gave the book like one star and said that she thought it was “appalling to know that a YA book has rape in it—children shouldn’t read about such things. I originally bought it for my granddaughter, but after opening it up and seeing that, I’m returning it ASAP.”
I think a good balance would be to just rate the book like they would for movies. Like, I’d say something like, “The Sorceress is rated PG-13 for some language, crude humor, violence, and brief nudity.” Then like, if you had self-harm or suicide for your book, you can add that to the list. 
I don’t know. I also feel like summaries should also help readers understand what they’re getting into. And even when you have a trigger warning, people will still complain about it like they have with 13 Reasons Why about how graphic they made it when they literally had warnings everywhere.
For the reader, sure. For the writer? No, not so much.
3 Likes
I see this in people who fake did on tik tok a lot, they’ll put trigger warnings for food, religon, and memes.
1 Like
-
Enough with the aesthetics and “reading for the sake of it” please! I’ve seen so many of these Book-influencers who show off their massive reading collection and bookshelves choking with books and they’ve made reading into this collectible-gimmick thing, in my opinion. It is okay to use it as a backdrop, but to just show it off and talk about how awesome and cool they are to have afforded so many hardcovers… ugh.
-
Not a fan of Colleen Hoover. I read her most popular book, It Ends With Us and I don’t see the appeal. It’s just so bland and these characters are pigeon-holed and aren’t very well rounded. Tbh I don’t see her popularity and I’m not a fan of modern contemporary novels who very obviously put people and characters into these archetypes and they’re just so predictable ugh… (I’m probably going to get burned alive for this lmao)
-
Why are fantasy books… about the same things these days? Even the covers are hard to tell apart! I got mixed up between Leigh Bardugo, Cassandra Clare and Sarah J Mass’s works at one instance lmao. It’s always about this hip female protagonist ready to take down whatever evil force out there, falls in love with a grumpy Love Interest and they’re like “ok cool” and fight more for five more books and that’s… it. I get it, there’s supposed to be nuance, but it feels like they have repeated titles and repeated themes that they all end up blurring into the same thing.
-
The “if you don’t have anything positive to say, don’t say at all” critique, which is fine under some circumstances if you’re just nitpicking but is used as a general argument against people who don’t like xyz titles. If that’s the case, then why not use it in international politics? “Oh you’re being very rude, Delegate of Cheese City. If you have anything rude to say about my policy, don’t say anything at all.”
It feels like a very weak argument on its own. I think we should just collectively agree to disagree than try and actively change the person’s mind. People are going to dislike something. That doesn’t mean you should stop enjoying it.
7 Likes
This is why I put those in the summary.
It’s like, “Let me take you out of the flow!”
3 Likes
Where have you been all my life, friend?!
2 Likes
That would be doubly annoying to someone who has had a massive collections and pared it down.
I had a massive library’s worth of books over the years, but we’ve moved so much that I don’t have a fraction of them anymore, and I’ve easily got maybe 800 books still in storage. I scrounge for used books in my out of circulation stacks. And while I will buy a book new, that’s not the main part of my collection.
“But to brag on a rag is a crazy waste of time. This world is full of people who don’t even have a dime.”
I just can’t see blasting it out there llike that.
Good chunks of my mother’s remaining collections went to my brothers because it was more important to have emotional ties to mom than the real bookreader out of us gets to keep all the books. That means I don’t have the nicely bound Tolkien and have to re-buy most all the Pratchett for myself (I still haven’t). I kept the Foreigner series because the boys didn’t know what it was.
2 Likes
Hypocrisy is real for some readers.
They will scream out for “something different and unique” in a way that most of them would have never thought of, but are quick to jump on the carbon copy train and eat up the SAME SHIT EVERY SINGLE TIME as if that is all they know and want because they don’t truly want change.
Can someone explain to me just how many times we can twist and turn the same cliche plot/characters/overall story in the somewhat same way and pass it off as something totally new when clearly it isn’t?
I sorry if that comes off as rude as hell, but I am so tired.
People who love thinking outside of the box are so afraid to put themselves out there because these readers are so spiteful in regard changes.
Dear god, is humanity alright sometimes?! I’m starting to wonder.
3 Likes
It’s not really a trigger warning if they’re not doing it properly tbh. Tho that’s also the consumer’s fault for not reading the trigger warning correctly. The general public unfortunately is stupid and doesn’t really read especially when in bookstores (I could dive into the myriad of experiences I had with people not reading the book summary correctly and think they’re getting some other thing). Like if they say it alludes to it or imply it, then it could be really helpful for those that have trauma surrounding it and have very sensitive triggers. If it says “it has x, y, z” and it doesn’t then it’s just whoever creating the trigger warning being incompetent. I haven’t seen the issue with inaccurate trigger warnings on trad published books but at the same time it’s not very common yet so we’ll see if that becomes a thing if it gets more traction.
Of course, everything needs a balance but like when it actually depicts something that can harm someone’s mental state, then I’m all for trigger warnings.
2 Likes
It’s a big reason why I’m not a serious writer. I will not be wholly conventional, as I’m naturally weird.
But I also live in less fear of what people think because I’m not trying for their favor.
In all honesty people need to understand what a bell curve is: the overwhelming majority of any group is bland as hell.
It’s not bad being conventional… Just we’re all taught we are special and equate that with individuality. That’s not even remotely the same thing.
And frankly as soon as you label yourself the weird one, you find a collection of weird ones and find that you’re not that out there. Lol
2 Likes
Preach!
1 Like
I imagine most authors if not all would prefer to not gain a reader at all than to have their book pirated.
And yeah the KDP thing is absolutely horrifying, as a self oublished author who is in the KDP program. To think my entire career could be over in just a day because someone decided to pirate my book. 
3 Likes
Recently a ton of super popular indie authors have been getting their books removed from amazon without any warning. Just “your book is removed”. The reason for this is that they are in the KDP program and when we put our book in the program, we sogn a contract saying we will not post the ebook elsewhere and itll ONLY be exclusive to amazon.
But then people pirate those books, and the amazon bots will catch it and punish the authors. When our books are pirated, amazon punishes us by removing our books and terminating our account if it happens enough times.
And unfortunately if youre a smaller author, the likelihood that youll get your book out back up is slim bevause we dont get enough people riled up about the issue.
I’d much rather not gain a reader than have my books removed and my career bombed because someone doesnt wanna buy my book. Its just not something i would want to risk. It certainly does more harm than good.
3 Likes
Oh noooooes! I had no idea, but it just figures. My books are on Amazon and they’ve been pirated, but there’s nothing I could do about it since the pirates are in countries the U.S. doesn’t have diplomatic ties with, so there’s no copyright protection agreement between them. Argh. I can only hope Amazon doesn’t find out, but at least if they delete my books out of the blue I’ll know why now. So thanks! ( ˆ◡ˆ)۶ ٩(˘◡˘ )
3 Likes
I wrote a story like that once, but it had ladybug people on the moon.
1 Like