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Mina, writing to Lucy: I cannot wait to hear how Jonathan is doing on his travels! He must be having such a lovely time <3

Jonathan, in his diary: OH GOD OH FUCK HE CAN CLIMB WALLS LIKE A LIZARD NOW. I HAVE ONLY A CRUCIFIX FOR PROTECTION AND I AM GOING TO DIE TO A LIZARD MAN. THERE IS NO WAY OF ESCAPE SO I MAY AS WELL WRITE MY GOODBYES. FAREWELL MINA!!!

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died and came back exactly the same but something was so so so wrong with me before and now I have an excuse to really lean into it

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as always l The Oatmeal l ⬇txt-edited

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i think it is unjust to deny a child their right to dig a hole motivelessly

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So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

#i quite enjoyed Inkman by Mel Ingrid #indie books

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some of you just cannot accept that “i just don’t like it” is a complete reason to not engage with media or a facet of media

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i think he would kill it on space tiktok

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We're certainly not better, but consider! No stegasaurus ever had a hydrogen bomb

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i love being captain in barotrauma cuz i do that turning slide thing like in mario kart and everyone in the sub starts screaming

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to put into perspective how hard Barotrauma is, more people have spent 24 hours on one screen than finished the campaign.

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I met God and he was a mouse in a lab coat living inside a big old tape deck computer like it was his laboratory. I asked him why my body was like this and he said "Squeak not of ownership, for it is my body too!" And he scampered off to work on a ray gun that turned bugs into big wedges of cheese.

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telling a joke on tumblr is fun but watch out! if it gets over 1000 notes your joke is automatically exposed to people who have never once heard a joke in their life.

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The Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River superimposed on a map of Europe

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Ok but can you imagine being on a bus with a guy like Jonathan?

Just this cheerful and polite tourist who is about to walk into his death (so you assume), and you know that and everyone else on the bus knows it and the driver is damn near breaking his neck with his reckless driving in an attempt to sabotage this friendly young man's journey into doom and you and everyone else on the bus is crossing their fingers and praying the driver succeeds.

Excpet for the tourist. He thinks you're all being a bit weird

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[Jonathan] and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad.

I can't believe Jonathan and Mina have been writing love letters to each other in code