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SimonChris posted:I thought only some of the lawyers were AI generated and had been mixed in with hand drawn art? Negative; that was the proof being faked to create WIP that deceived non artists into thinking it was comprehensive when it's was laughably not. Final file was entirely MJ assets only, their arrangement and typography.
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Aug 21, 2023 13:58
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Leng posted:Negative; that was the proof being faked to create WIP that deceived non artists into thinking it was comprehensive when it's was laughably not. Yeah, I've seen the .psd myself. Same "artist" also tricked another writer in a similar fashion.
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Aug 21, 2023 16:37
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Soon, we will all have to hire two artists for each book: One to design the cover and another to check for AI elements (and maybe a third to check if the second one is merely passing off the opinions of an AI content detector as their own).
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Aug 21, 2023 16:52
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It really only is hard to tell what is AI for a layman, it's very obvious if you're an artist, in my opinion.
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Aug 21, 2023 18:01
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SimonChris posted:Soon, we will all have to hire two artists for each book: One to design the cover and another to check for AI elements (and maybe a third to check if the second one is merely passing off the opinions of an AI content detector as their own). Or you can just ask for recommendations! I have a bunch of artists that I know do their own thing and are really good
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Aug 21, 2023 20:20
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Selkie Myth posted:Or you can just ask for recommendations! I have a bunch of artists that I know do their own thing and are really good Same; I just commissioned an incredible watercolor artist for my own book, and she recently said she's keen to start doing book covers. I think it's really cool to see new artists branching into this space and it gives me hope.
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Aug 21, 2023 20:26
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Megazver posted:Yes, Goonwrite has transitioned to using AI it seems. that sounds like complete bullshit in any legal sense, let alone any ethical sense. I would stay the hell away from any service that thinks this is an explanation of anything. The linked blog post is possibly worse. This is just AI grift that is coming up with excuses to separate you from your cash.
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Aug 21, 2023 23:18
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yes it does sound bullshittish. 'The service I use...' lol what? But yea, I got no idea, I thought AI gives you some rough image and they photoshop out it's flaws and etc, then it would become 'original' or w/e ?
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Aug 22, 2023 00:58
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divabot posted:(hence my continuing envy of Mr Bertocci of this parish and that he's a graphic designer as well as a writer) Ha! Well, I have my limitations as much as anyone. I can't paint or draw worth a drat and some of the custom covers I've seen here are really lovely. If I were doing fantasy or science fiction, I'd be hiring someone else. I love fonts and have entirely too many of them, and that keeps me going on a cold dark night. Sometimes I think I might have enjoyed being a book cover designer — but the truth is, working for the big publishers on classy books will put you up against as many clichés and commercial demands as we sometimes face here in our trenches of trying to sell on Amazon and such. I loved this article, for instance, on a look that's currently popular in Very Serious Literary Fiction: https://www.printmag.com/book-covers/the-book-cover-behold-the-book-blob/ There are definitely covers I made myself for my own work that I frankly don't love, but did a certain way under the belief, right or wrong, that it would be eye-catching or explain the concept and genre to the prospective reader really obviously. Maybe when I'm rich I'll change them all to something more arty and abstract!
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Aug 22, 2023 03:58
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Also I was reading the start of the thread, where it mentioned the goons doing five or low six figures were mostly romance. Is this still true? And are people interested in seeing numbers from a high non-romance author?
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Aug 22, 2023 08:40
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Selkie Myth posted:Also I was reading the start of the thread, where it mentioned the goons doing five or low six figures were mostly romance. Is this still true? And are people interested in seeing numbers from a high non-romance author? I think people are interested in numbers regardless of the sobriety of the author.
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Aug 22, 2023 09:07
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Icon-Cat posted:
THE BOOK BLOB oh my goodness I was in Tesco (supermarket) the other day and walked past the book rack. The book blob style is ABSOLUTELY suited to that surrounding. It completely works. And yeah, I hate it too. I mean, if you used it on Amazon it would look like a professional cover, sure ... obviously the answer here is to see what's going down well at Tesco and what would look good surrounded by people buying their groceries
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Aug 22, 2023 09:25
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divabot posted:that sounds like complete bullshit in any legal sense, let alone any ethical sense. As I understand it, you can't copyright stock photo covers anyway, so legally it makes no difference if the cover uses stock photos or AI art. There is nothing to prevent someone else from using the same art pieces either way. All that matters is whether you have a license to use the pieces for commercial purposes. Whether it is ethical to use AI is an entirely different question, of course.
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Aug 22, 2023 09:40
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Alrighty then! My climb from 0 to full time author, in one handy chart! Note that I took the entire month of July off in order to do a big move, so my income took a significant dip. The big chart of numbers: https://imgur.com/HE7ywgA The graph https://imgur.com/YQUqHPZ This is all off a single series that has been, by every metric, wildly popular. I expect the rest of the year to be more like April or May numbers, with a large spike in Nov or Dec as I release the latest book. I'd really like this month to be a big one - if it's closer to June I break 7 figures off this series - but realistically I'm going to fall a little short. Unless I count the podium numbers that I haven't gotten yet. Selkie Myth fucked around with this message at 10:09 on Aug 22, 2023 |
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Aug 22, 2023 10:06
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Selkie Myth posted:Alrighty then! This is awesome, thank you so much for sharing. IIRC you wrote a really good how to guide that references two other guides from two other big name high earning web serial authors that is excellent reading and imo should be incorporated into the OP too: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O29fCQIg_onlh2SwIr54SXdApLGK-mlcsuDFrH6GgzE/edit (That's the right link, yeah?)
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Aug 22, 2023 11:43
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Selkie Myth posted:Or you can just ask for recommendations! I have a bunch of artists that I know do their own thing and are really good Beezus posted:Same; I just commissioned an incredible watercolor artist for my own book, and she recently said she's keen to start doing book covers. I think it's really cool to see new artists branching into this space and it gives me hope. By all means, recommend your favorite artists  .
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Aug 22, 2023 14:41
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SimonChris posted:By all means, recommend your favorite artists Hell yeah. Tessa Harris is new to book covers, but wants to paint more of them. She's a phD student so she doesn't do art full-time, but she opens commissions fairly regularly. An absolute darling to collaborate with. https://www.instagram.com/_tkeh_/
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Aug 22, 2023 17:43
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SimonChris posted:By all means, recommend your favorite artists Kart Studios does all my covers. I've loved Slothbeing's stuff and he did Dead Tired's cover Chalky Nan is a little hard to work with, expensive, but the quality is out of this world
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Aug 22, 2023 22:22
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An extremely random and highly technical question for everyone about your ebook covers on KDP: what color profile are you using? sRGB or RGB? (if you don't know how to check, it's in the file properties under the "Color space" and "Color profile" attributes) Asking because I just heard an absolute nightmare story from another author first hand where she couldn't get her ebook cover to show on the Amazon storefront because apparently, according to a KDP supervisor she finally got hold of after over a week of escalations, "you're never supposed to use sRGB for eBooks and all of you who have gotten away with using it have been lucky". It's a super weird problem that I've never heard or seen other people encounter before.
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Aug 24, 2023 07:08
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Leng posted:An extremely random and highly technical question for everyone about your ebook covers on KDP: what color profile are you using? sRGB or RGB? (if you don't know how to check, it's in the file properties under the "Color space" and "Color profile" attributes) This sounds more like a "new non-technical compliance person"; potentially someone who came from print media. They frankly shouldn't care unless a device doesn't display the thing, but I don't expect that's the problem. sRGB is used for computer monitors and display. RGB is used for ink printing. I wouldn't use RGB for eBooks because they're not printed and I don't like the idea of compressing the color space of my image for every use -- it will lead to more artifacts.
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Aug 24, 2023 13:22
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 CMYK is used for ink printing — it’s a radically different colourspace given you’re going from three additive colours (eg red+green+blue displays as white on a computer monitor) vs four subtractive colours (eg to display white, you need to not print any cyan, magenta, yellow or black).As I understand it, sRGB and RGB just cover different percentages of the total colour space, but they shouldn’t be incompatible.
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Aug 24, 2023 13:36
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rohan posted:
RGB is designed to have a wider gamut that works better for conversion to CMYK space. It was made by Adobe specifically to support printing things made in photoshop.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:01
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Gotcha — just a bit confused where you said you wouldn’t use RGB because that would compress the colour space of your image, but if it was designed explicitly for better conversion to CMYK, I can understand that.
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Aug 24, 2023 14:06
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Selkie Myth posted:Alrighty then! I've been doing this for 8 years, and I've seen a lot of breakdowns of revenue. This is seriously loving impressive! How much are you typically spending on monthly advertising? e: So the thrust of your business model is posting 3 chapters a week on Patreon/Royal Road and then formatting those chapters into complete books to sell on KDP? Do you have to do much paid advertising to keep your patreon going? Also, how far ahead of your posts are you writing? Are you, for instance, writing entire works, then posting chapters to your patreon after it is finished? KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 17:14 on Aug 24, 2023 |
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Aug 24, 2023 16:35
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Leng posted:You should really read the whole thread. I know it's long but honestly, the self-publishing game is a long one and everything will take ages and be super confusing the first time through so just take your time etc. The details have changed but the overall basic philosophy hasn't (have a good cover and blurb, always be writing the next book and publishing, etc). ty, lots of helpful advice here for the novice
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Aug 25, 2023 01:08
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:I've been doing this for 8 years, and I've seen a lot of breakdowns of revenue. This is seriously loving impressive! My monthly ad spend keeps jumping around. My current 30 day ad spend is ~$1400, although I've killed the expensive underperforming ad and I'm narrowing down to 'only' $800 in the last 30 days. With $1150 in direct sales + KENP to show for it, which is more like $1k after factoring in royalties, not sales. This doesn't include read-through or patreon conversions, and I'm very happy to have a strong positive ROI on my ads. It's definitely a case of 'the rich get richer' when ads become profitable. I'm *trying* to spend $80/day on the profitable campaign, but I'm only succeeding to the tune of about $20/day. Yeah, the model is basically "3 chapters a week on RR and Patreon, wrap it up and stick a bow on it when they're a 'book'." I do no paid advertising to keep my patreon going, namely because I stick a gigantic banner ad at the bottom of all of my free chapters saying "SIGN UP FOR MY PATREON!" (Beach Babe Elaine is the single most profitable piece of marketing I have ever done.) I'm +25 chapters on my Patreon (AKA 8 weeks ahead of RR), and I try to have an additional +10 chapters in my backlog. When I write very short books, that's an entire book ahead of RR. When the books are longer, I'm only half a book or so ahead of RR. It just depends what the story needs.
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Aug 25, 2023 07:56
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Selkie Myth posted:My monthly ad spend keeps jumping around. My current 30 day ad spend is ~$1400, although I've killed the expensive underperforming ad and I'm narrowing down to 'only' $800 in the last 30 days. With $1150 in direct sales + KENP to show for it, which is more like $1k after factoring in royalties, not sales. This doesn't include read-through or patreon conversions, and I'm very happy to have a strong positive ROI on my ads. It's definitely a case of 'the rich get richer' when ads become profitable. I'm *trying* to spend $80/day on the profitable campaign, but I'm only succeeding to the tune of about $20/day. Man, that is an excellent ROI on your ads! It sounds like you keep your Patreon going through discoverability on RR alone? Do I have that right? If so, that's really... astounding. I would kill for a platform like RR that catered to mystery/thriller books. Speaking of, what's the audience like on RR? I glanced over it yesterday, and most of the works listed in trending seemed to be Lit RPGs--is that accurate? Is RR friendly to any non-fantasy genres? Scifi maybe? e: Sorry for the million questions. Like I said, I've been in the ebook game for a while, and I had zero clue about RR, or that Patreon could be as lucrative as it is for you. I feel like the Earth is shifting under my feet! KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Aug 25, 2023 |
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Aug 25, 2023 15:00
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:Man, that is an excellent ROI on your ads! I know I'm not who you asked but there's plenty of Sci Fi and apocalyptic fiction on RR.
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Aug 25, 2023 15:56
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Leng posted:An extremely random and highly technical question for everyone about your ebook covers on KDP: what color profile are you using? sRGB or RGB? (if you don't know how to check, it's in the file properties under the "Color space" and "Color profile" attributes) so the way I approached this, with the invaluable assistance of my wonderful graphic designer, was to just make the ebook look as good as possible on a screen and left the paperback colours to her. this made the e-book cover absolutely pop in the Amazon listings, and the paperback (which had a slightly different aspect ratio anyway) had colours that would survive the Satanic processes of CMYK printing reasonably robustly. i have seen UK and US copies of my first cover look wildly different from literally the same source file. that JPEG looks like a fairly bright bluish green, but the printed covers vary from much more blue to much more green, with a greyish tinge to them. we actually did the ebook cover first. when it was clear those colours weren't reproducible in ink, she tweaked it to something more robust. so tl;dr leave it to your designer and their experience in battling the CMYK demons
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Aug 25, 2023 19:11
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Selkie Myth posted:Oh hey! Just found this thread, I also self publish! This guy. Sheesh. Write more Elaine k thx.
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Aug 28, 2023 01:53
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Reporting back on this weird issue where Amazon KDP supervisor was insisting that ebook covers should be in RGB and not sRGB:Leng posted:I just heard an absolute nightmare story from another author first hand where she couldn't get her ebook cover to show on the Amazon storefront because apparently, according to a KDP supervisor she finally got hold of after over a week of escalations, "you're never supposed to use sRGB for eBooks and all of you who have gotten away with using it have been lucky". It was not this: leper khan posted:This sounds more like a "new non-technical compliance person"; potentially someone who came from print media. They frankly shouldn't care unless a device doesn't display the thing, but I don't expect that's the problem. Not this either (author having the problem IS a graphic designer): divabot posted:so tl;dr leave it to your designer and their experience in battling the CMYK demons The issue was the Amazon product page just straight up not even showing the cover even though the file had uploaded; had nothing to do with the way colors were displaying. Turns out she was uploading her ebook cover in .tif which IS a file format that's accepted by KDP: https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200645690 (according to that page, the supervisor is not wrong for saying the color profile should be RGB because that is what is listed there) But once she switched to uploading a .jpg instead, the ebook cover got accepted, shows up on the product page with no issues, etc. Had NOTHING to do with the file being in sRGB instead of RGB. TL;DR: Don't upload covers in .tif and also Amazon KDP support supervisors have NFI what they're talking about, I guess.
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Aug 28, 2023 04:06
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I've been meaning to ask for a while, but the recent activity in the SPFBO-sphere brought it back to mind. Is there a good round-up of contests/competitions/etc that we, as self-pubbies, would benefit from being aware of? Between google going to poo poo, the preponderance of predatory vanity scams and my own lack of native proclivity to compete, I've been unable to amass anything satisfactory on my own. Having missed SPFBO this year by... not being aware of it and with my book languishing in the "no-one knows I exist" void while I work on the second, I'm becoming acutely aware of this blindspot in my preparations. Of course, with all the AI bullshit maybe I've missed the boat entirely as they'll all be stuffed full of machine-garbage seconds after submission open from now on. 
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Aug 28, 2023 18:53
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CaptainCrunch posted:I've been meaning to ask for a while, but the recent activity in the SPFBO-sphere brought it back to mind. Well of course there is always the thunder dome and the annual Prestigious Leng Self Publishing Contest for YA adjacent fiction. You can't count those out. Also the stabbys?
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Aug 29, 2023 01:34
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CaptainCrunch posted:I've been meaning to ask for a while, but the recent activity in the SPFBO-sphere brought it back to mind. There's tons, but only 4 that I think are worth highlighting if you're publishing spec fic:
Stabby Awards, for example, require nominations from the r/Fantasy community and winners are community voted. There's also the Indie Ink awards which is also new and judged by a panel of actual readers but it also requires the book to be listed on a specific niche review site (Indie Story Geek) AND be reader nominated to be entered in the first place AND then only the top 10 as voted by readers at large in each category are selected for judging. I.e. Stabby and Indie Ink are great if you already have a non-miniscule readership and totally useless for surfacing new authors, so basically the opposite of the four contests I've highlighted above. Anyway, for anyone who has a spec fic novella that will be published by 30 August 2023, you should enter it in SFINCS. I, sadly, cannot enter because I have failed to do one of the fundamental "musts" of indie publishing which is to write a free prequel novella reader magnet. Maybe next year. Leng fucked around with this message at 05:49 on Aug 29, 2023 |
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Aug 29, 2023 05:44
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Man, I have completely dug into LitRPGs now, and I am absolutely loving Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'm feeling like my life-long loves of video games, RPGs, and writing are all converging together. I don't know why I didn't take this genre more seriously when I heard about it years ago.
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Aug 30, 2023 13:45
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KrunkMcGrunk posted:Man, I have completely dug into LitRPGs now, and I am absolutely loving Dungeon Crawler Carl. I'm feeling like my life-long loves of video games, RPGs, and writing are all converging together. I don't know why I didn't take this genre more seriously when I heard about it years ago. Yesss join the litrpg love!
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Aug 30, 2023 15:43
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Are there any discords or Facebook groups or the like where LitRPG authors hang out?
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Aug 30, 2023 16:01
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also what're the best introductions to the genre? if I want to read 3-5 to understand it, where do I begin?
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Aug 30, 2023 16:34
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Leng posted:There's tons, but only 4 that I think are worth highlighting if you're publishing spec fic: I also ran across this resource, entirely by accident, while following up on other things. It's more for general authorship and literary writings, not aimed directly at SF/F or Self-Pub at all. But just in case it might be of use, here it is: https://www.booklistonline.com/book-awards We're all Pulitzer worthy, right?
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Aug 30, 2023 16:42
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Fate Accomplice posted:also what're the best introductions to the genre? if I want to read 3-5 to understand it, where do I begin? I've been poking around the litRPG subreddit and some facebook groups, and the books I see recommended over and over again are Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman, He Who Fights With Monsters by Shirtaloon, System Change by SunriseCV, and Brightblade by Jez Cajiao. No idea if that list is representative of the genre as a whole - I get the impression there are a ton of subgenres that appeal to different readers, and people are picky about what books are categorized where. I would expect no less for nerdy hobby. e: I think, also, reading random stuff on Royal Road will give a good sense of what the genre conventions are. KrunkMcGrunk fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Aug 30, 2023 |
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Aug 30, 2023 17:17
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