We're saying goodbye to Libby tomorrow. I will be absent for a while. I don't do hugs or rainbow bridges or anything. Just please hug your pets, foster/adopt, and be kind to rescue/shelter volunteers.

Hey everyone, Todd with Air and Nothingness Press has had a rough 2025, and he's looking for a little financial help for his mother during her move to LTC. The goal is modest, and I know even $5 can help a lot.

Solomon's Seal in eBook and audio is in a big Kobo sale this week, and in price matching in my own shop I opted to discount everything available in the series. Meet Livi Talbot: Ex-debutante. Single mother. Treasure hunter. payhip.com/skyladawncam...

"I only read books by listening to audio books at 3x speed and that's how I can read 400 books a year." "I only read the dialogue in books." Great, and how fulfilling was that for you? What did you get out of that? Is someone forcing you to do this? I do not understand.

I guess this explains the AI boom a lot. Nobody wants to put time into making things because the audience refuses to actually pay any attention to it anyway. Nobody wants to make the things and nobody wants to watch it. What's the point? What are y'all doing here?

"I watch all videos at 2x speed." And this is why you're incapable of understanding art and will only be able to consume "content" with a hunger that can never be satiated. People spend hours/days/weeks making videos and you can't even bother to actually watch them at normal speed?

Writing Bksy is still discoursing and I think it's sad we all have to expose our poverty in the hopes we're sympathetic enough for people buy from instead of take from. Even if not living hand-to-mouth, we still should get to control our work and make a living from art if people want it.

SORRY I JUST HAD TO COME BACK AND TELL EVERYONE RODNEY IS PLAYING WITH A TOY! (He hasn't played since he started losing weight in the summer--not with toys, and only started wrestling with Ninja and now Shawn the past few weeks.)

Preliminary finances this year: 2/3 of my income is from writing sources (the rest from freelancing) which is incredible. 60% of *that* is from direct support at Patreon, which I would like to point to when people get shirty with me over doing Patreon exclusives. Those folks pay a lot of bills!

Can't argue with that. The Eric Carter series about a sweary, violent necromancer in Los Angeles on a rage-fueled quest for vengeance. Start with DEAD THINGS and go from there. astrapublishinghouse.com/product/dead... www.stephenblackmoore.com/eric-carter-...

This is possibly my favorite product answer yet: Q: Will this deodorizing spray get rid of dead animal smell? A: Yes, but you need to remove the dead animal or you will need to keep applying it.

I know we're tired and done discoursing, but I still had some thoughts circling my head while baking today because it kept me thinking about Friday. As a preteen, a bunch of my friends shoplifted for the fun of it. (I didn't, but I also didn't stop them.) Probably a rite of passage for some.

i’m so happy for him

Guys, this is, indeed, going to be a fail and I know I'm not the only one who's struggling through a Thanksgiving That Does Not Feel Exceptionally Thankful so! Let's get a thread of Pets You Are Visiting going? Please? I HAVE NEEDS!!

Like, I’m even willing to carve out an exception for all the bizarre implausible scenarios where you are frantically downloading “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Sucking Chest Wounds,” but no one is going to die without a novel!

Today I made bread.

Before I go to bed: "It's okay to pirate if the author is dead!" So I'd just like to point out that my aunt Judy passed ten years ago last May and I still don't have out the last out-of-print book because I simply cannot afford the time to scan the text, edit/correct errors, design/format etc.

There is NO FUCKING EXCUSE for this to be happening. I had a baby die in my arms of pertussis some fifty years ago. It was a HORRIBLE death. But my fellow nurses said to me, "It's almost stamped out now, they're all getting the shots, we won't be seeing this again." HOW THE FUCK ARE WE HERE. 😡

Sometimes, you just know you have done something wrong and must determine to do better in the future & then just. Go do better. If you pirated books years ago, just try to grab those titles if you see them on sale now or something. Be normal. Don't demand that authors publicly absolve you. Grow up.

I don't know who needs to hear this, but you're not fucking Jean Valjean just because you gave the book you stole five stars on Goodreads.

"I have to pirate because I'm on a fixed income, otherwise I am ALIENATED FROM POP CULTURE." stg I feel like I'm having a stroke with this app, I gotta put Freedom back up and pretend it doesn't exist. Is this a thing? Do people need to all engage with the same entertainment at the same time?

I once asked a bookseller at a large indie store how many people would have to buy a book for it to get the attention of the store buyer and cause an additional order and they said: Three.

I actually enjoy paying for things, and I didn't realize that was weird? "Writers will usually give you books if you just ask!" this is true, people offer me books, but I like buying them? And I like paying for art, whether commissions or something for my walls?

Share a reliable character actor.

LRT, like it's unspeakably disheartening. Creativity doesn't exactly flourish when you're faced with how little people value you, your work, your consent. Or when you see a stream of people in your site stats looking for illegal copies of a book while you're trying to work on the sequel.

Also every time this discourse comes up, many of the replies make me want to take the novel draft that I've thus far spent a couple of years of my life and cumulative thousand dollars or so in material research costs on, set it on fire, and go get a law degree or become a CPA or something.

Today Rodney played with Shawn, which he's not done since the summer. He's also taken to this loud warbly meow (he's also not been singing the song of his people in a while). Got an hour of sleep last night so I ended up napping this morning and he yowled until I woke and got him a salmon treat.

These are very good books and people should buy and then read them!

“Digital slavery” if you’re not allowed to copy and distribute someone else’s work lol sure.

feeling extremely something to see some peanut go "you haven't given people a reason to *not* pirate books" juxtaposed with said peanut talking about the kind of queer representation they want in media unfun fact: a lot of queer creatives are broke as shattered windows, and piracy doesn't help

The large-print edition of The Killing Beach is live!

Did anyone tell Doug Ford that dogs live in apartments and that people evicted who have dogs means dogs might live on the street? Seriously, I know he hates people--esp poor people--but surely someone can show him a pic of a sad homeless beagle.

And I'm not saying there's 10,000 people downloading my work. Even if there's only 1 hitting 1 of these useless sites, that's 1 person looking me dead in the face telling me I don't matter. That's 1 whose legitimate purchase might have been the only positive thing a writer's whole week. 1 matters.

Krista's been handselling people's books all day because she knows everyone in the arts is having a tough time right now; I hope folks are also hitting her storefront, considering she's got an upcoming dental surgery to cover for the cat who died (he got better) during the last one.

Re: tonight's book related fuckery, I know it won't help because I know how people are. But a great many authors and artists work in the fields they do because it's the work they CAN DO. AT ALL. If someone who can't keep a 9-5 due to disability or can't risk public rn due to suppressed immunity...

The best part (I would say) about being an author is being referred to as "Fraudy McFrauderson" and "Frau Fraudbissina" by your bank whenever you call with a question I AM NOT A MONEY LAUNDERER OKAY I WOULD BE TRYING TO LAUNDER MUCH LARGER QUANTITIES IF I WERE "Okay there F... Fraudo Baggins"

This series so SO GOOD.

I've been remiss in promoting this, but there are NINE Zoe Chant books free through today! www.zoechant.com/thankfulfors... for all of 'em www.amazon.com/dp/B09MGD2DR... for mine, A CHRISTMAS LIKE NO OTTER :)

Solomon's Seal in eBook and audio is in a big Kobo sale this week, and in price matching in my own shop I opted to discount everything available in the series. Meet Livi Talbot: Ex-debutante. Single mother. Treasure hunter. payhip.com/skyladawncam...

Huge thread from Tyche Books, a Canadian publisher. Her authors are every day folks, with bills and rent and the physical requirement to eat every day. Stealing the books she publishes is not a progressive act. It's not activism. It's not punk. It's just stealing from people trying to live.

Bigger than this, I think people should be more skeptical of online leftism that says, "Actually, under capitalism I don't owe other people anything." Oh, your communal philosophy says you can be interpersonally vicious and steal from other people? How convenient!

As promised, here are some old pics of Rodney Ballsnomore. He was almost a year old when we found him (he was very dehydrated and sick, but trying to make friends with horses). He'd clearly been handled but not an indoor cat so he tried to play with things that are not toy-shaped--like scissors.

Yesterday I took my vacuum apart to clean, washed the filters, and put everything back today, and it's running so smoothly I am delighted, and god I'm an old person now, aren't I?

This may come as a shock but people are allowed to say no. It's a complete sentence. When you get mad at being denied something, you're telling on yourself.

This cover was even stolen ones by one of those T-shirt scam places! Like, this book gets hit so much, so if you could show it some love that would be great.

This is, and always has been, my biggest issue. Even when people bring up this communist utopia of UBI and all needs met--like sorry no, you still do not get to dictate what people do with their work. Consent matters. Full stop.

I think I have less tolerance for the "piracy is okay if you're poor" thing because I am very poor, I've had a few rough years in a row atop a few rough decades (I am possibly only breathing because y'all did that big fundraiser for my birthday last year, which I'm still paying vet bills with).

Oh AND ALSO: today I finished The Locust Job. 👀 @craigschaeferbooks.com I am just delighted watching all the dominoes set up in advance topple and all the threads connecting, this continues to be such a blast.

Rodney's not had gaba today and he's seemed fine, no signs of pain (the pred has cut back inflammation from the tumour) and he was trying to explore the hallway and making me run up and down the stairs after him. I'm so glad and grateful for every day, and it's so sweet of people to root for him.