#books aren't worth reading unless someone on tiktok reads them first | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

animentality · 10 months

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I haven’t read your books yet, you know how it is, money~, but I bet they’re pretty good and I am planning to buy and read them, they’re on The List, and I hold you in high regards as a person I kinda vaguely barely know. I say this first to preface, because, from the kindest most adoring place of my heart okay, this reminded me of you, no offense: https://www.tumblr.com/pjackk/721300009283420160/whats-up-tunblr-basically-i-just-wrote-this-book

Ouch.

Glad you preceded this with a compliment...

But brutal.

For what it's worth, I also hate having to reduce my books to tropes...and I try not to, with any of my promotional posts...

But uh...good to know this is how I come across :S

But in my defense...and in defense of other authors... it's super easy for people to make fun of how we have to promote our books, but in this terrible digital economy...I mean.

It's hard to keep people's attention, and it's hard to sell books.

It's not like selling art, doing commissions, making animations, or well-edited videos. Books are inherently harder to sell and market and build an audience for, because they're an investment of time and focus.

They aren't as easy to dive into and enjoy. A webcomic chapter you could read in twenty minutes. A pretty picture you can reblog, and you can commission the artist if you love the style. A Youtube video can be ten minutes of investment. Maybe an hour, tops.

But a book?

Books will always struggle more than shows or animations, because it takes a certain kind of person to read books, and in this day and age, attention spans are shorter than ever.

You spend fucking years writing your books, and you edit, and you revise, and write some more, and edit some more, and revise some more, and then you have to promote.

All the time, in every way you can imagine. Using whatever tools you have... all the time, every way.

Otherwise, you don't see any sales at all, and then it's like you wasted three years of your life fiddling around, while everyone you know is making bank on crypto or whatever the fuck.

If I was good at fucking BookTok? I wouldn't be fucking here promoting at all.

I could leave my blog as the little meme machine it's always been.

But I'm bad at fucking TikTok.

And I mildly resent being compared to a TikTok author, because if I was any good at that, I WOULD NOT BE HERE promoting my books at all.

Tumblr is the worst place to promote anything, ever.

That's part of why I like it...but at the same time, that's why it's such a torturous practice, trying to promote my novels here.

No one here gives a fuck. And I'm fine with that.

I'm ok with that.

But I can't throw away hard work without at least trying.

I don't really get the criticisms of authors in those comments anyway.

What have those people tried to put out into the world?

You think self published authors are just jokes, or that they aren't marketing themselves well?

Maybe both are true, but someone who makes something, no matter how shit, has still MADE something.

It's easy to tear others down. It's not easy to make something that you care about, and put out into the world for others to see and judge.

And for those people in the comments too, I have to ask.

Is a book only good, if it's published by a company?

Because books that are self published are actually a LOT LESS likely to be made up of tropes and cliches.

People who self publish tend to write weirder and more out of the box things. They RESORT to tropes because they feel you won't pay attention to their books without them.

they feel you won't give their concept a try, unless they dumb it down for everyone.

They pretend the book is something it's not, out of sheer desperation.

I market 7 Deadly Habits like it's a fucking adventure action romance comedy...?

It's actually pretty fucking dark and grim and sad.

the main character is fucked up, and so are all his exes. So is the entire world they live in.

It's really not a funny book. It has dark humor, but it's hinged on an unhinged concept, one that I find darkly interesting.

But I lie and say it's a funny adventurous romp of sex and violence.

Because that's how I have to market it.

I try other things, of course, but I have found most people would rather read a romance than an anti-romance, which is more of what it is.

People don't want to try new things. They want more of the shit they already have.

to make something new, or different, or non-conventional, is to accept that you will have to water it down when you're trying to offer it to people.

So yeah.

I get it. Authors who blaze their book promotions are desperate losers and weirdo freaks with very bizarre interests and isn't it funny, how hard they're trying?

But you know.

What else can we be?

Leigh Bardugo?

Trust me. I wish I was a good writer. I wish I wrote straight YA fantasy books that kids and adults and everyone can enjoy. I wish I had a literary agent and five star publishing houses giving me 20 million dollars for my next book.

I wish I was a multi millionaire white woman, in an industry of rich white women, who write sexy murder mysteries and cozy thrillers and steamy vampire eroticas.

But I am what I am, and that's a queer self published POC author, who has no one in my corner, but me. Whose only means of promotion is my own efforts.

So no, I don't really look at other self published authors with disdain or wry detachment.

I know how they feel.

I know how much it sucks.

#writing #writers on tumblr #thanks for the ask anon #im sorry #i know you were trying to be nice #but i dont know #that post is mean spirited #i get the urge to disdain blazed posts and all #but not for novels or artwork like #why would you make fun of creatives using blaze #its not like theyre promoting their fucking cryto scams #or some suspicious link to the dark web #or their damn kik or paypal or whatever #they made something and theyre throwing it out there for everyone to judge and mock #i have had nasty comments in every single post ive ever blazed or even posts my friends have blazed #i dont mind them #i just find it odd that youd share this post with me and expect me to find it amusing #i mostly find it cynical and disdainful

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sweetnvery · 5 months

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On social media or something (or: does anyone relate to this or am I going crazy)

Somehow everything we learn in my lit class is scarily relevant to my life? In the past couple months, as I've gained a significant amount of confidence in myself, I've secretly (maybe it hasn't been so secret) become more & more obsessed with the idea of growing up to be one of those Bushwick influencers/creatives/models/friends of models who have random business making artsy planners or crochet cat hats or overpriced phone cases. They have cool, chic, cluttered apartments. They are smart and cultured (well-read and interested in Godard films, Patti Smith records, and vintage designer clothes). They post on Instagram casually & constantly, in a way that suggests a lack of any planning or afterthought. While these @dreamgallllllls and @bigbookladys* are seemingly carefree and wild--unable to act in any manner opposite authentically themselves--I can't help but notice how calculated they must be in order to uphold this fundamentally aesthetic-less aesthetic.

I, who spent the last 17+ nights stoned & paralyzed scrolling through my meticulously curated Pinterest boards (my pride and joy at this point in my strange and seemingly simulated college half-life), exert a majority of my energy trying to become someone who is outwardly, effortlessly "cool"--someone who is intelligent & accomplished, but primarily who looks good doing so. I wasn't doing anything during this time... I was supposed to be spending my break resting & recovering from my bout of mono. Yet, I felt compelled to find & capture, for example, the most aesthetic corners of my bedroom, the cutest effortless "sick day" outfit, the most obscure (but relatably curated) Spotify playlists. But this wasn't a one-off event I experienced over my break where I had nothing better to do. I think I've been thinking this way for a long time. In retrospect, it feels fake and so endlessly silly. On one hand, I genuinely enjoy where I am in life: I feel confident, for what feels like the first time, in my appearance; I devour well-written books willingly; I love my friends; I'm constantly inspired to create. On the other, I wonder if I'm subconsciously doing all of these things to curate a specific persona...

But why must I fit in one box or another? Why must my life, above all things, produce a perfectly picturesque Instagram profile? Why do I feel compelled to make everything I do a performance? A viral TikTok? A pretty picture?

These thoughts have all been at the top of my mind recently, but they resurfaced, specifically, during my lit class this morning in which we were discussing Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth. Lily Bart, the heroine (Is she a heroine? I think I'd say so. I've only gotten through eight chapters so far.) of the novel, is a striking and unmarried 29-year-old socialite. She is described as extremely observant--and throughout her life, she has always noticed the superficiality of upper society: everything that is done is done strictly for appearances. This applies to men and women alike, but women--whose main purpose in society was to find a wealthy husband and to settle down--especially, were expected, above all, to keep up appearances. The upper-crusts read books not to gain knowledge for themselves, but to discuss their readings with others. They collect antiques only to brag of their acquisitions. They attend church only to be seen in their Sunday best. To them, things aren't worth doing unless they'll be shared with others--unless they will be rewarded socially for doing them. Is this not so scarily relevant today, almost 120 years later? This is social media! Like Lily Bart, I feel compelled to participate, despite recognizing how harmful and trivial it all is.

I'm not sure where I'm going with all this, but it is something I have really been struggling with, guiltily, amidst all of this serious & tragic global conflict. Why should I care so desperately about posting a video of the outfit only my 9:45am, 12-person art class saw when children are being murdered by the minute in Gaza? When so many people are living in poverty across the world? It is such an obviously blind, unfeeling, First-World problem. What are these strange social constructions which have lasted from 1905 to now? Why do we place so much meaning in the trivial? Why do I care so much about appearances? I have a feeling maybe it's not that deep. Maybe Instagram is just Instagram. I think I should spend less time thinking about all this made-up stuff and spend more time doing my Econ homework. Bleh.

*Not to name drop influencers!!!!! nothing against them!! love these ppl!! so much!!! wish I were them!!! tbh!!

#social media #the house of mirth #instagram #influencers #merp

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