#usually having better access to ebooks
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I love how transparent you are about what its like to be a self published author in this day and age, and i was just wondering if there was a difference on your side between amazon ebook/paperback and audible - and also if Scribd is any better, because i use it as an alternative to amazon whenever possible (and whenever the library doesnt own a copy of whatever im looking for) is it functionally all the same? What is best for you?
Thank you!
I actually did a huge long post a while back when I got the audiobooks produced and uploaded to various platforms. I included Scribd in the breakdown after people falsely claim that Scrib is better for authors than Amazon/Libraries.
A lot of people were not happy when I burst that particular bubble by showing that Scribd paid me 97 cents out of the 19.99 price tag. Which is less than what Audible paid me.
Now, obviously, Scribd is different because it's a subscription service, and you’re paying for access to multiple things with that subscription. But saying it is better than libraries is just false because I also showed the numbers for that, and my income from libraries was several times higher than both Scribd and Amazon combined (for audio), which is why authors are always begging people to request their work in libraries.
Libraries pay us better and are usually free. Not always. I know it depends heavily on the country, but for most of my English-speaking audience, that is the case.
Now, this is not to say people shouldn’t use services like Scribd. If Scribd is what you can afford and it gives you access to things your library can’t fantastic. Please continue to access our work through that legal option. I would much rather earn 97 cents than zero.
But uh, yeah, Amazon pays me more than Scrib for digital stuff and I really don’t like when people who aren’t on the author side spread misinformation and frame it as some more “gotcha.”
The sad truth is Most retailers pay us the same or within the same royalty range. The difference I earn between Kobo vs Kindle is literal pennies with Amazon coming out on top. I make my work available on multiple platforms to give people options, but unless you’re buying directly from my personal storefront, it's all roughly the same.
I do actually earn more from Amazon paperbacks than I do any other retailers (for self-pub, paperbacks are a flat rate regardless of how much a retailer is charging), but the difference is about ten cents, so I always tell people to buy from wherever is best for them.
I like bookshop.org because they give some of the profit on their end to indie bookstores. Same with libro.fm for audio.
Audiobooks are just a whole fucking nightmare. Audible sets your price point for you and takes 80% of your royalties. And because Audible does that, I have to then use that price tag on all other platforms or risk being fucked by the algorithm gods. Other audio retailers take about 60-70% in royalties, most of them veering toward 70%.
As we say in radical acceptance therapy, it is what it is—fucking end-stage monopoly driven capitalism.
Now, speaking personally, when it comes to digital media, I earn the most royalties from my Payhip store where I keep 90% of my income.
That's the best place for me.
It's also why it's worth looking up an author you like to see if they have their own storefront. It doesn't help our sales rankings or put us on any bestseller lists, but frankly after launch week, who cares. I’ll take being able to feed me and my dog.
I hope that helps!
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Can I ask you a personal question?
What's your favorite vampire hunter d novel?
I hope your day is going well.
So I’ll admit I haven’t read them all because I never really owned any. My brother bought them as they were released in English and eventually he and I fell out of touch so I essentially lost access to that library, but I did recently get most of them as ebooks so I’m working on finishing up the books I never got to read.
While I’ve always enjoyed the journey-on-the-road style novels of those like “Demon Deathchase” (which the second film was based on) and “Pale Fallen Angel” they do often feel like they contain…I hesitate to call it fluff because usually it is interesting world building and locations, but often there’s a lot of inconsequential events that happen just to have something happen, in my opinion.
I remember a video with (of all people) Trey Parker and Matt Stone talking to a group of students about writing better stories. The takeaway was you should never write story beats with the words ‘and then’ between them but instead with the words ‘but’ or ‘therefore’.
In other words if your characters set out to accomplish their goal and they go here, and then they go here, and then this happens, and then this happens, and then they meet their goal…it’s not a compelling story. That’s basically how most Marvel films are written these days. Instead it’s much more compelling to write that your characters set out, but then this happened, and because of that therefore this happened, but then this other thing happened, which therefore caused this to happen, but because they did this thing earlier, they therefore accomplish their goal.
I find the other style of D novels tend to write more compelling stories because they focus more on single locations and are written more in the style of mysteries. Of those I would say my favorite D novel is probably a tie between “Raiser of Gales” and “The Rose Princess” with maybe more of an edge to Raiser because that one is almost pure mystery and was reallllly engaging as I recall.
I think the best part about these novels is how little they interconnect (with some notable exceptions) and so you truly can just read the ones that interest you and skip the others if you choose. :3
Anyway, which one was your favorite??
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Also, briefly, do the BookTok/BookTube people not know that… instead of paying for kindle unlimited, where you might have what feels like an unlimited library of books… you could instead get a library card for free and also access their ebook options
And you can also get out-of-state/non-resident library cards, usually by paying a small annual fee (in 30 seconds on Google, I found a list ranging from $25-175/year), if your library doesn’t have a great selection, which, in many cases, is cheaper than ku and also has the benefit of supporting libraries
Like all these people are like “is kindle unlimited worth it” and it might be for some people (and honestly can’t think of who, other than Jeff bezos, off the top of my head), but the answer for 99% of you is no, actually, libraries are better—and those library cards will in all likelihood get you additional services on top of ebooks, like hoopla or kanopy (streaming movies and music). Your university library also does community member cards, where generally you can access these services too.
For real, y’all, kindle unlimited isn’t worth it, even if it IS cheaper than buying a book a month (but also, on that note, consider: used bookstores, thrift shops, etc.). JB gets enough of our money.
#booktok#booktube#bookstagram#kindle unlimited#don’t get me wrong this isn’t an anti Amazon post#just an anti ‘giving money to a corporation when there is a free/cheaper option that is better’ post#and a way for me to feel slightly less shitty about salivating over prime day coming soon so that me and my prime subscription#can get a nice cheap ereader
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Pink Scarf Reimagined-The Wedding 💗💒❤️🔥 Early Access!
Want to find out right now what might have happened if Reader had remembered she and Elvis had sex at Graceland in 1957??
Click HERE to join and read Part 1 of this "What if..." Pink Scarf Universe story NOW!
Why support me on Patreon? 💗 You'll get awesome benefits, like early access, exclusive stories (Scarf Universe, anyone?), my upcoming blog, and news/snippets of my novels AND you get to support your one of your favorite authors for the price of a coffee or ebook a month! Please consider joining our community! 💫
Patrons are seriously a huge help towards reaching my dreams to be a successful, professional writer while still being able to get content like this out to you on a regular basis! 💗
Are you ready?? 💋
Don't miss out--join HERE for early access!! 🎉 (Sneak Peek below the cut!!)
...
Consequently, he bursts into the bridal room without truly thinking. As you turn with a surprised gasp, he can’t stop the way his eyes land on your face and take their time raking over your body, taking in the detailing of your pretty, white wedding dress with its delicate beading and lacy overlay. But it’s more the way you shine in it that truly makes the garment beautiful.
His heart kerthunks hard in his chest as he freezes in the doorway, unable to move, unable to tear his eyes away from you. It sinks like an anchor when he realizes this beauty is not reserved for him: it’s not him you are marrying today, but Jack.
“Elvis!” you squeak, “Close the door! It’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding!”
You protestation makes it feel as if Elvis is the groom and he’d blundered fatally into the bridal room. For a moment, he thinks about how if it was him, he’d blush and smile bashfully and cover his eyes, backing out before more damage was done.
But of course, he’s not the groom. He’s the best man, tasked with finding the rings he somehow misplaced. Instead of looking for them, he stares at you. But he does manage to close the door behind him just in case Jack is lurking in the halls somewhere, even though he knows Jack isn’t even in the building yet.
You breathe a sigh of relief, but Elvis can tell that you are nervous by the way you twiddle your fingers and bite your lip. But he still cannot pull his eyes away because you look utterly gorgeous, and he can’t help but wish he was the reason why.
“Y-You look beautiful,” he manages to stammer out, his voice laced with an awe and a love that he doesn’t intend.
Your head snaps up to his and the look that flashes over your face confuses him. It is self-conscious and you are blushing and there is a question behind those big eyes of yours that he can’t make sense of.
“Thank you,” you whisper. “You look pretty handsome yourself, mister.” Even though he’s spent the better part of two years being gazed at by women, he can’t help the way his face heats at your comment.
A pregnant silence falls between you two, one that starts to build a charge in the air and makes him want to cross the few steps to you and press his lips to yours. To pretend for a second that he’s the one taking you over the threshold tonight to have and to hold until death do you part.
Another look flashes over your face, but this time it looks pained, and you look away. You have been uncharacteristically quiet this whole last week, even with the joys of Christmas, which is usually your favorite time of year. He figured it was just your nerves about the wedding. But this seems like a more intense anxiety and has you smoothing your dress and picking at your manicure. It finally strikes him that maybe you are having doubts and it makes him uneasy. Doubts could disrupt everything he’s done to help get you to this point, his unorthodox, contrived way to take care of you when he himself cannot.
Elvis doesn’t want to ask, but can’t help it when the words fall from his mouth, “Are you okay, honey?”
Your pretty face threatens to crumple and he can tell how hard you are trying to keep it together. “I—I’m not sure I can do this,” you choke out.
The mix of elation and dread at your words pulses through him so strongly he tries very hard to keep it off his face. It’s when he realizes that maybe the words aren’t just referring to this wedding that his heart catches in his throat. And he remembers everything at stake.
“What? Naw, everyone just gets the jitters on their wedding day, darlin’. You’ll be fine,” he says, coming to you and rubbing your arm in an attempt to be comforting. The lace covering it catches in his palm and the touch feels like a burn.
“It’s not just…,” you trail off, eyes wide with tears and staring down into his soul.
He freezes, stilling his hand on your arm. “What do ya mean, baby?” It comes out deep and hoarse because something isn’t right, and it is more than just his regrets and inner turmoil at play. It’s the way you are looking at him like you can see right through him.
“I remember,” you whisper, “I remember everything, Elvis.”
...
Click HERE to join and read the entirety of Part 1 of this "What if..." Pink Scarf Universe story NOW!
#pink scarf reimagined#the wedding#pink scarf universe#elvis presley#elvis#if you’re looking for trouble#you came to the right place#elvis presley x reader#elvis x reader#elvis smut#elvis 1957#what if...#sugar mama request#early access
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My Japanese Reading-Corner, feat. some free reading materials
I use OneNote for my studies & I created a dedicated section where I can keep track of all the things I am reading.
It was important to me to give this page a pleasant design - I want to feel cozy the moment I jump to my Reading Corner ; u ; )
Since I am reading a lot of Graded Readers on Tadoku I am dividing them into their Levels as well.
LV 1 and LV 2 are very easy for me and I could jump to Lv 3 right away, however all these graded readers still teach me plenty of new words, so I don't want to miss out on any of them.
Thus, I am making my way through Lv 1 & Lv 2 first - the more I read, the better! ( . u . )
Aside from Tadoku, I also read on EbookJapan - they have a very big selection of free Light Novels & Manga across all Genre.
Access is time-restricted though, as after a while, the selection changes and new titles replace the current ones.
Thus, if I find something interesting I have to keep in mind to finish reading it before it vanishes.
However, there is of course still the option to buy the ebook version for usually very cheap prices ( . u . )
If you are looking for websites where you can practice reading in japanese I definitely recommend these two sites.
Tadoku's graded readers should offer something interesting across many Levels - and so does EbookJapan~! ( . u . )
#japanese#study japanese#learn japanese#learning japanese#japaneseblr#studyblr#study motivation#studyspo#immersion#reading immersion#reading material#japanese reading material#study resources#japanese resources
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This is probably a stupid question, but does using Libby and/or Hoopla help your numbers? Like obviously physically going to my local branch would probably be better, especially for showing that a specific branch is being utilized, but ebooks can be more convenient (if for no other reason then if I need to look up a word lol) and I recently discovered I can stay mostly focused on audiobooks if I up the speed (yay!). I do love libraries (I was actually a page for years) and want to support them more, but I don’t usually have a reason to physically visit.
That's not a stupid question at all, and the answer is good news - YES, your use of our digital/streaming collections helps our numbers!
Both Libby and Hoopla give us numbers on checkouts that we include in our report to the state library every year (Anonymous numbers! We can see how many times a title has circulated but we don't know who is checking out what.)
Going to a library in person is, of course, great, but we're under no illusions that everyone can physically get to us. Don't feel guilty about being a digital-only user - you are not alone by a long shot. That's why we have those collections!
Of course, if you want to help your library even more here are three neat things you can do that probably don't require setting foot in a building (they don't for us, but your library may vary):
Convince your friends to sign up for library cards. Even if they don't plan to use them (we'll hook them eventually). For us, you can sign up for a card entirely online. And being able to go to our politicians and say "Look, 90% of people in our district have a library card!" would be a dream come true.
Attend virtual events from home! I don't know if your library still offers them, but we sure do and attendance is... well, kinda sad. We don't want to stop offering them because we know there are people who rely on them, but it's hard to justify when only one or two people come. You can see our virtual events on our calendar using the filter Event Type: Virtual
Use a database! Database is a stupid word and most of our patrons glaze over and tune out as soon they hear it, but these are tools that we pay a bunch of money for that do really cool things. For cardholders in our district, we provide online access to things like Creativebug, Ancestry, EBSCO, LinkedIn Learning, The New York Times, and about a hundred more all sorted into neat categories right here. You just log in with your card from home.
If you find your local library's databases and start poking around and exploring, you will make a reference librarian cry tears of joy. We have to report use numbers on these, too, and getting people to understand how cool and useful they are is an uphill battle!!
So those are my 'How to love your library from a distance' tips. I hope they're helpful, and thank you very much for your ask - and for using your library!
#library love#how to library#public libraries#free books#booklr#libby#hoopla#ebooks#virtual library#audiobooks#LCPL recs#LCPL reply#anon#anonymous#bookblr
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i use the internet archive almost entirely to read digital copies of out of print physical books that are not in the public domain but are almost certainly never going to get ebooks and that are held in libraries hundreds of miles away from me. and even those have a limit of like one hour of reading at a time because there is only one copy on the archive, which to my memory was still true during the emergency library period. but someone bought that book at one point and the author and the publisher presumably got money for it at that time. they are not getting paid every time someone checks out the physical copy of the book i am reading. they are not getting paid when i happen across a book on my list buried in a pile at a used bookstore. they are not getting paid when i lend the book to my friend or give it away or sell it online.
i have zero way of compensating an author here and i do think that my ability to read this book matters more than author compensation in this instance because the alternative is nobody reads this book because nobody else but me seems to want to. the book probably wasn't taken out of print and/or circulation because it shouldn't be read, it was taken out of print and/or circulation because nobody was reading it.
and i do not want to lose this ability because i am a selfish little knowledge gremlin i guess. but i don't want to pay some rando on ebay potentially hundreds of dollars for a used copy of a book that is scarce because most people don't want to read it, which is usually the only other alternative if there is any opportunity to pay for the book.
interlibrary loan is not nearly as robust as people imply when proposing that as an option either!
i think copyright law is poorly designed and badly implemented, and i think my personal use of the internet archive is ethically fine, and i don't have an opinion on any other use of it but i hope they are not shut down because i imagine they serve this purpose - hosting written works that have almost completely disappeared from irl online - for many people and i think the world is a better place if we have access to that information.
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Okay, I've been fed up with a certain e-book website and now I just really need to rant. Read if you want, and if you don't want to read, then don't. I don't care. I just need to let it out. Sorry in advance.
So, I'm currently working on my exam project and I can't believe I have to take some of my precious time off to write this, but here we are. The reason for all my frustration and the reason I've been wasting way too much time (in my own opinion, in fact we're probably talking between 1 and 2 hours of 288) is a website called JSTOR.
My main issue with this website is that I can never log in. When I try, I'm always directed to the website of my own university library. Now, there would be absolutely nothing wrong with that if it registered on JSTOR's website, but it doesn't, which causes me endless frustration. It means I spend a very long time just getting to someplace where I can download the text I need.
Also, I dislike reading footnotes. I usually never read them because they tend to interrupt the flow, especially when a page happens to end in the middle of a sentence, or worse, a word. You want to advance as fast as possible and not forget what the beginning of the sentence was, so usually I stop my screen reader, scroll to the next page and restart it. The ebooks at JSTOR do not allow this. I often have trouble starting it again at the top of the next page. Last I tried, it went right back to the beginning of the paper on the previous page. I can't even pause it for a second to do something else, like taking notes to what I read. It'll jump right back to where I last staerted.
Then, why don't I convert it into an Adope flile and try there? Last I did that, it only recognized the very first line on the JSTOR cover, that tells you the name of the author and the title as actual text. Everything else was a picture, and you can't read pictures. After all, a screen reader is just a program. It can't tell that there are something that recembles letters in the picture and magically convert that into actual letters.
Now, when I finally get there, which I somehow do after endless struggling, I can't read the text with my screen reader. For one thing, they always have a cover with their electronic copy of a text. This means that my screen reader can't tell where the text even is and I have trouble reading along as a result. I know that people probably wouldn't expect someone with a screen reader to actually want to follow the text with their eyes, but many do have a function that marks each word it reads, so you can, and I find that I pay closer attention to what I hear when I read along.
Then there are the issues with the copies themselves. They're terrible! I don't know what they have used to convert these texts into a readable format, but I think they should find something else. Sometimes, a letter wasn't properly translated into something readable, so you will sometimes get words with a missing letter in the middle. It does keep you focused, but when you can't even see where the word is because your screen reader is reading somewhere else, then you have a very small chance of guessing what the word actually is. Then there is the issues of letters that get read as numbers instead. O is 0. 1 is I. It can be reversed too. I've seen this before. I know it can happen. But when this happens frequently, it becomes a problem.
I absolutely hate JSTOR with a passion, and I will use any other e-book website whenever possible because of all these issues.
I know I sound spoiled. I mean, at least it's accessible. I can read and make sense of most of it. But wow...
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I better get back to work now, but really, I just needed to get this out. If you bothered to read it, thank you.
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Thanks for the tag @lunapwrites <3 <3
Hardcover or Paperback?
ebook 😅 it’s handier, has search and bookmark functions, and I can adjust the size and brightness as needed. but paperback if you make me choose.
Bookstore or Library?
Libraries! Get free book access and someplace to chill. Your tax dollars at work. (Plus, they usually have other services like a makers space and classes!)
Bookmark or Receipt?
… tissue? I always have tissues on me lol and I almost never get or keep receipts. and a bookmark? in this economy?
Standalone or Series?
Series! Standalone books are nice, but you can really dive into the world and the characters with a series because there’s just so much time to get to know them.
Nonfiction or Fiction?
Fiction. I have TRIED to like NF, but I just. don’t. My preferred research method is doing a wikipedia/webmd spiral and reading 2-3 paragraphs from any one article, not a whole book on the same subject.
Thriller or Fantasy?
Fantasy! Thrillers can be really interesting, and they’re fun to pull into your writing style, but at the end of the day I want an urban or high fantasy to escape to.
Under 300 Pages or Over?
My preference is smaller books in a bigger series, but if you’re telling a good story in a way that my brain is vibing with, I’ll read as long of a book as your willing to write. (my big issue is that I have no sense of self restraint so the longer the book, the more likely I’m neglecting something like sleep or food to keep reading lol)
Children’s or YA?
YA, probably. There’s definitely good books in both genres, but I just love angsty teenagers doing dumb things in bad situations.
Friends to Lovers or Enemies to Lovers?
Friends. Enemies can be fun too, but I love the layers when you get into friends to lovers. Enemies to friends to lovers or friends to enemies to lovers or other permutations of Messy can be even better.
Read in Bed or Read on the Couch?
Right now? Bed. Due to [blah blah blah health shit] I’m spending more time lying down than I’d really like, and beds are just more comfortable for that. But a couch right by a window? perfect.
Read at Night or Read in the Morning?
If I read in the morning literally nothing will get done ever again 😂 I like reading in the middle of the day when my brain needs a break from thinking and I can jump into someone else’s world for a bit.
Keep Pristine or Markup?
Markup. It’s part of the reason I like ebooks bc I do feel bad marking up a physical copy (and you’ll NEVER see me do it to a library book) but like. I have thoughts!!! I need to share!!!! Fandom and an English degree both definitely made this habit worse lol.
Cracked Spine or Dogear?
I have a copy of DH that has cracked so badly you can’t read it (it’s the one I got when it came out) I do try to baby my books but when I really like a book, the spines just always seem to end up cracking, probably bc I reread the same passages and leave them open to those pages.
Tagging: @felixantares @billsfangearring @mkaugust @twentysevensummers
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5, 6, 15, 16, 18 for the book ask! ❤️
5.where do you buy books?
On the daily I'm using an abonament in an app (EmpikGo to be precise), and it allows me unlimited access to their ebooks and audiobooks, and they acually have a really vast offer. Other than that, sometimes there are specific books I am after, and then I'm looking for used copies online (I lie thrifting things, plus I don't really read very, very new things). AND I have a tradition with my Mother that on my birthday we go to a scientific bookstore in my city, and I'm allowed to choose whatever I want, so I also make use of that. But in general, I don'treally like buying books. I think libraries and electronic copies are better for the lifestyle I'm striving to have (minimalist; and books take a lot of space).
6.what books have you read in the last month?
The answer won't be very favourable to me: due to my studies I half-ass reading of a lot of things I need for my classes. But:
*Uprawa roślin południowych metodą Miczurina, Weronika Murek
Obręcze, Natalia Malek
Materia doświadczenia i obraz, Natalia Szostak
Wszystko czerwone, Joanna Chmielewska
*Piramidy dni, Daina Opolskaite
*Modne bzdury, Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont
*Klara i Słońce, Kazuo Ishiguro
All but the last three are Polish. The asterix is for the books I have read in some capacity, however I am planning on finishing all of them. Studying literature is just so hard in this regard, I have assigned readings week to week (for many clsses), so usually I am not able to do more than skim through it and hope I got the gist of it.
15.recommend and review a book.
Weirdly enough I am going to reccomend Obręcze (see above). This is a volume of contemporary poetry, that has just been nominated to Nike, one of the most important literary prizes in Poland. Unlike the majority of contemporary poetry (and trust me, this semester I have read tons of it), it does make sense. Obręcze means hoops and the whole series of poems is somehow connected to being in a loop, coming back to the same thing, ouroboros of life. And - this is my personal preference - I liked how the topics in the poems were so every-day (poems about tools, objects, very normal things) without being in the slightest naturalist, there was nothing gross in them (it wold take me too long to go on a rant about naturalist grossness in literature, but if anybody is interested in it, I can elaborate). I also just liked how the whole edition of the book was done: the typography was good, the ilustrations were excellent (here). And, well, since it's been nominated to Nike it is worth reading just to see what the currents in contemporary Polish poetry are.
16.how many books have you read this year?
Eh, this answer won't be favourably to me either. I don't think I've had such a dry spell in reading since high school. Around 25 since January, according to my list, but not all of them I have finished.
18.do you like historical books? which time period?
Because I have already answered it in a previous ask, now I will simply tell what I like about historical literature: the usual lack of the naturalist grossness that is so prevalent now and which is getting on my nerves so. I like when literature understates things; it makes people think harer about what they have just read, it also allows much more room for interpretation (which I like to do). I am by nature a gentle but cold person, I think, and the no-quiteness of the elder literture fits very well with my character.
Thank you so so much!
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pros of ebooks: (usually) cheaper; give me access to more books cause some indies are ebook only; physically easier for me to read cause I can change the font size and holding my phone is better for my joints than physical books; I can read in any place I'm in cause my phone is always with me; easy to go back to a book I bought years ago cause it's still in my kindle app; I don't need to wait for a book to be delivered; no limit of how many books I can have because phone "shelf" has infinite space
cons of ebooks: can't take aesthetic photos of my shelves :(
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I've been thinking about it lately so I wanted to blog about how Vogon handles requests.
If you have no interest in web frameworks feel free to skip this one.
Vogon as a core framework is basically nothing. It's a few functions, some starter classes, and a codified file structure. The main idea was for it to be hugely flexible without getting in the way of whatever project it was applied to.
This means that it has no static routes. By design there are no specific php URIs built into the code. And I don't mean that in the WordPress way where there are no static routes, except for the login url (and some other items). There are no static routes. If the framework is used as intended, the only PHP file your request is routed to is the main index.php file of the vogon folder structure.
What that means is that when you enter a url for a vogon instance you'll enter in something like this:
localhost/vogon/ebooks/view/53066?file=/upload/ebooks/user/hack2e_03.book/hack2e_03.book - user.pdf
If you know your URL structure we can go ahead and break this request down a little
[protocol] - http:// (implied because no protocol is specified)
[hostname] - localhost (this is an alias for the local ip which is usually 127.0.0.1, or you are requesting something running on your own computer)
[uri] - /vogon/ebooks/view/53066
[GET Variables] - ?file=/upload/ebooks/user/hack2e_03.book/hack2e_03.book - user.pdf
When vogon is installed, it analyzes the URI of the request that accessed the installer (though this is user overridable), this allows the framework to be aware of when it is in a subdirectory rather than an exclusive url. That is the case with this request, so we can break our URI into two sections:
[Vogon Root URI] - /vogon
[Vogon Route] - /ebooks/view/53066
Before we break things down further we should talk about what's happening in the framework itself. The protocol, hostname, and Vogon Root URI tell the web server to send a request to Vogon application. The web server is then configured to route that request to the index.php file inside the web root. The exception for this is direct access to static files. This enables us to load static assets like JavaScript or CSS files. It does also mean that standalone PHP files can be accessed, but Vogon controller model and view files are all dependant on being loaded through their helper functions and will only error, if anything at all, if loaded directly. An optional security file can be prepended to ensure no unauthorized php execution occurs, but that involves some intensive configuration by the user, and sometimes results in false positives.
Getting back on topic. The request is routed to the index.php file. The index then looks for a new install flag file in the main directory. If this file exists then the install process has not been completed and the installer is loaded.
However, if that file does not exist, the system will load the bootstrap.php file from the /main/ directory, which is where 99% of the Vogon code lives.
The bootstrap loads any classes in the /main/class/autoload/ folder, establishes a database connection if one is configured, and loads our functions from the /main/functions.php file. If user sessions are enabled by the user extension, the bootstrap will attempt to establish an existing user session, if it can't a login screen is shown.
This login screen will be shown to any request, this is useful because unlike other systems with a static login route, you post your login to the same uri you requested originally, so no complicated redirects have to be done.
So far we haven't done any route parsing, and everything done by the system is the same for every request. But now we must calculate what other files need to be loaded, so we load /main/router.php
I think I'd actually like to move this to an extension so it's borders are a little better defined and it can be replaced/configured a little more easily (and so the system can include additional routers to choose from).
The media server version of Vogon is the most mature, so let's discuss that router.
In this router, the router only handles the first step of the process, the endpoint. In our example url that would be '/ebooks'. The router takes the endpoint it's been given and compares that against a database `routes` table. The routes table links controllers to endpoints. These controllers can live in the /main/controller/ folder or in a /main/ext/[ext-name]/controller/ folder. The system will attempt to load the defined controller, if no controller is found it will load the default 404 controller (404 is the http status code for "Not Found").
Then the controller is able to take over routing however it would like. This route is currently configured to use the /main/ext/ebooks extension, and loads controller.main.php from within that extension.
Vogon has a built in function called get_slug_part(); that allows parts of the URI to be accessed as if they were an array. The router uses slug[0] to determine the endpoint, so most controllers look first at slug[1] to determine what action to take. Remember, we are looking at this part of the URI /view/53066
The ebooks controller.main.php uses a switch case based on slug[1]. In this case slug[1] (view), tells the controller that we are viewing an ebook. The ebooks extension then loads controller.comic_book_reader.php.
controller.comic_book_reader.php gets slug[2], checks to ensure that it is numeric (and thus presumably a database ID), and then it attempts to look up that document by database ID. It compares the type of that document (if anything successfully comes back) against a subset of types it knows how to handle, and if it can it loads that document into a view and you are served what you requested.
In this particular instance, that view is the JS PDF library developed by Mozilla, that has been configured to read the filename of the PDF to load from the "file" GET variable.
That's it. That's a full request handled by Vogon. This is the point where output is actually returned to the user (if they have a user session).
Here's the full url again:
localhost/vogon/ebooks/view/53066?file=/upload/ebooks/user/hack2e_03.book/hack2e_03.book - user.pdf
And here's a flow of documents (this is not complete and does not include classes, inline includes, ect.):
/index.php -> /main/bootstrap.php -> /main/router.php -> /main/ext/ebooks/controller/controller.main.php -> /main/ext/ebooks/controller/controller.comic_book_reader.php -> /main/ext/ebooks/view/view.js_pdf_viewer.php
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Hi Aubrey! I hope you're doing great.
I don't know if you've answered something like this before so you can just link me the old reply.
Ok so now I know to improve my writing I gotta read more. But problem: I don't really like reading anymore. I tried all my usual go to genres, tried new ones, old faves. Nothing grabs my attention and nothing interested me. These days I can only tolerate some games and short movies (but I still get only about halfway then I don't finish).
So I'm stuck with ideas from years ago including my childhood, that changed and grew over the years. I like writing them and I enjoy writing in general but I do want to get better at it. I just can't really stand to read anymore and it sucks because I used to love reading.
Hey anon! This is a great question (although a sucky situation to experience unfortunately ❤️)
Since you don't mention why you're only tolerating some games and shorter movies (are the stories feeling stale? are you having trouble in other areas of your life with a short attention span? what other things do you prefer to do with your time that ARE holding your attention?), my advice might be a little too generalized. But maybe something will stick out for you!
I would recommend:
Try something shorter and easier to read.
Try children's books (you'd be surprised how entertaining these can be!). I'm not talking YA. Try middle grade. I don't know how old you are??? So some of them might seem REALLY kiddie-oriented. But there are some fantastic authors out there who can really weave an entertaining tale in just a few short chapters in the middle grade department.
Try short stories (BIG recommendation there!)
Try novellas.
I don't know what you usually read (thrillers? adult? YA?) but keep trying different avenues. There are so many ways to access a good story these days that are specifically for people who might have a shorter attention span and/or short on time! :)
Try audiobooks.
This will depend on your learning style and how you process information, but audiobooks are HUGELY popular right now. You can listen to a book when you're doing other things so you don't have to FOCUS so dang hard all the time.
For me, it's not my preference for a variety of reasons (I have trouble grasping everything and I can't handle someone talking at me like that for long). So I'm listing this one with the caveat that it may - or may not - suit your attention span and/or learning style. Gotta test it out yourself and explore! :)
Read in short increments of time.
If your attention span is only holding out for a short period of time, run with it! You don't have to read for hours. Just read a few pages here and there.
Also, it's totally okay to read a bunch of books and never get beyond a few chapters. Your preferences change over time. Some writing styles will simply not hold your attention and that's perfectly normal. You might have to try many, many books before one strikes your fancy!
Give yourself some breathing room.
There can be a wide variety of reasons why you're struggling to read so it's important to give yourself the space to simply exist. Don't guilt yourself for not reading. Don't pressure yourself to get back to it if you're just not ready.
I still struggle to read ebooks because I had to read a ludicrous amount of online textbooks when I attended college. So when I see a block of text on a screen these days, my brain nopes right out of it. I can barely manage to read for about five minutes on a screen.
Whatever your reasons for not reading right now, give yourself space and time and you'll be okay. ❤️
Recommendations
Here are some places you can access short stories online for FREE. You can either read them online or in some places, listen to the audio.
Cast of Wonders - YA short fiction podcast (read and listen)
Pseudopod - horror fiction podcast (read and listen)
Escapepod - sci-fi fiction podcast (read and listen)
Clarkesworld - sci-fi/fantasy magazines (under Back Issues, you can read and sometimes listen to the stories)
Amazon Short Reads - categorized by the time spent to read the story, ranging from 15 minutes to 2 hours. Some of them are standalones, others are installments in a series. Can further narrow things down by genre.
Fictionpodcasts.com - though I haven't personally explored this one much (yet), it looks LOADED with fiction podcasts of all kinds so you can listen to all the stories you want!
I hope some of that helped a little bit! :) If writing still makes you happy, keep at it! You'll find your way back to reading when you're ready!
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14 and/or 22 for the weird writer asks meme! <3
14. Do you lend your books to people? Are people scared to borrow books from you? Do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? Will you ever get them back?
I do lend my books to people! I do it much more infrequently now that 1) most of my friends are online and 2) I usually buy ebooks instead of physical books. I used to enthusiastically drop books in people's laps because I love to share the things I'm excited about, and yeah, I had a list of all the people I gave my books to when it became hard to keep all the loans straight in my head.
I like to think I have a healthy relationship with physical books. I've never truly venerated the book as an object (yeah, I'm an amateur bookbinder, but appreciation is not the same as worship), and working in publishing put the final nail in the coffin of my being precious about paper and ink. After all, you put all your efforts in the words themselves, and holding the bound object is just the last part of a long process. With all the due exceptions, as long as they're not out of print or ridiculously expensive, books can be replaced. The story is what's important, the reader is what's important; I'd rather never see a beloved book again than keeping a friend to enjoy a story I love.
22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?
(this got long so it's under a cut!)
Story ideas usually live in the hivemind, aka discord chats or servers. Once an idea develops and starts to turn into a proper outline, I create a channel for it in my private discord server where I can chuck ideas on my phone when I wake up at 2 am. Once the fic is done, I move the channel into the graveyard.
This is what the graveyard looks like btw (not all of it):
(If you're wandering what is essek-thoughts, I was too, so I checked: they're notes on a better man than me. idk-shadowgast is the early stages of all this science i don't understand)
I keep using discord even when I start working on the fic properly in Google Docs; all the random thoughts I have when I don't have access to GDocs go there, as well as most of the darlings I kill while editing. (I also download copies of my docs in my hard drive very often, because 1) I was born in the '90s and I don't trust the cloud 2) you never know when you'll need to go back in time and search through an old version of your work.)
I usually break down the fic into scenes and/or chapters, depending on its length; I use various headings to make an organised outline in the sidebar. I've also started using the summary function to write notes to myself (future developments, changes I need to track, the tags that I add as I go, things I need to remember to say in the A/N and so on).
This is what my outline for the emergency contact au looks like right now:
It's not very detailed because the structure is very straightforward and the chapters are short, but I would usually have nesting headlines so I can keep track of scenes I need to go back to, flashbacks and so on. The days of the week are a necessity because I often have to refer to something that happened "three days ago" and I wouldn't remember when that would have been. I also need to remember that offices are usually closed on a Sunday, and so on.
I also often leave comments to myself and/or my betas throughout to highlight the parts that need attention. And this is it, I think? It might sound convoluted but it's actually a very straightforward process that keeps me from messing up and forgetting ideas.
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I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with reading wikipedia, especially in cases where there aren't a ton of resources to learn about certain subjects in a language you understand. I know how hard it can be to do research on the 3k era if you don't know Chinese, even in our modern age of information. And of course, Chinese is particularly difficult to learn for native speakers of most, if not all European languages because it's so radically different.
However, I DO think we need to better broadcast the idea that not only is wikipedia not always correct, but it is often very biased and gate-kept by the people who write and contribute to articles about particular subjects. I hardly ever hear anyone talk about that and it worries me even more than things just straight up being inaccurate specifically *because* no one ever talks about it. I saw a post with thousands of notes going around saying wikipedia is unbiased and it just. Yeah. It often isn't.
My best advice would be to check sources if you can (although I know for 3k related stuff the references are often in untranslated Chinese, and even if you do put them in a translation app, you'll often get something inaccurate or at least a lot of the nuance will be lost). Try to consider how information is being framed, who's framing it, and what they could potentially gain from framing it that way (that's a good tip for media literacy as well). If sources are older, usually I go by 10 or 20 year intervals, perhaps look to see if there's anything more modern that may better reflect our current understanding of the subject.
For example, the first full translation of ro3k into English was published in 1925. The translator deserves kudos for being the first, but there have been multiple translations completed since then that are much truer to the source material, and some that have addendums or foot notes that explain things that would normally be lost on most western audiences that are important to understanding the text.
Basically 'go ahead and read wikipedia but read it very, very critically, and try to diversify the sources you get your info from if possible'. There's a growing movement to make academic and otherwise informative literature more readily available both to the general public and to other researchers, because traditionally academic publishers often charge out the nose for the honor of getting to read a single paper, sometimes only giving you access to it for 24 hours or 7 days unless you pay extra. Websites like researchgate, refseek, and the Internet Archive are some of my favorites. Internet Archive's side-project Open Library and Project Gutenberg also have tons of free ebooks, often for books that would otherwise be difficult to find or expensive to purchase. Your local library also often has resources for doing research.
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Generally positive reception to that post that was basically If you want people to keep stocking the books you want, and to make preservable copies of the shows you want to preserve, you should actually buy them so companies have an incentive to keep giving you those things.
Given that the negative responses I got were about streaming, I’m guessing this has gone over better with the book crowd than with the streaming crowd. Although tbh, part of that might be that there’s no specific books people are rallying around so much as the general situation of debut and midlist authors facing lost opportunities, while there are specific shows with fanbases affected by the HBO thing and I tagged that post with the show I saw the largest number of people upset about. Still, the fact that all the replies with specific comments are about shows and not books makes me a little sad, seeing as this is an author’s blog.
Anyway, to clarify my stance on the matter a little more, since the last post was pretty brief on the issue:
Corporations are greed-driven entities with straight up legal obligations to be profitable. If you put your foot down and don’t let them profit from you via exploitative practices, then they can’t exploit you. If you make the practices that give you more control unprofitable, then congrats. You have just given them easy justification to stop wasting money on the thing that protects you from exploitation. Thus, only paying media companies for forms of media that give you less control is begging the company to take advantage of you, and teaching them that they can continue to strip you of more and more power for additional convenience.
If there is media that is truly valuable to you and you want to ensure you can access it, then to the best of your ability, you should push for access to the method that lets you preserve it. If you don’t, then you are either blindly trusting corporations (which is an oddly corporatism-friendly attitude on a site that claims to hate capitalism) or you don’t actually consider the media to be worthwhile.
While I didn’t get any pushback on the book front, I’mma mention that this also applies to many ebooks or other forms of digital media stored in archives owned by the company that sold you the show or comic or whatever. TOS usually mention somewhere in the fine print that you are effectively renting that material. It can often be altered or even revoked after you pay for and download it. There are forms of digital media that are less susceptible to this, but you wanna make sure your device itself doesn’t have some feature built in to detect if you are circumventing some corporation’s control, lest they ban your account or brick your device. Amazon has been sued for removing books off of people’s Kindle apps that they paid for. Sony deleted purchased movies from people’s libraries in Europe last month. You do not own much of the digital content you “buy.” I have personally witnessed books that I paid for getting edited after I downloaded them. The edits were to correct typos, but the fact that this feature exists means one of the books I paid for could be covertly censored after my purchase without outright removal from my device. TV shows and movies are vulnerable to this same post-release editing.
Physical media is the most secure means of ensuring that you will retain access to the story you love, in the form in which you fell in love with it. Continuing to support physical is the BEST way to combat corporate abuse. A physical book might not be as resistant to a house fire as something up in the cloud is, but everyone encounters corporate greed on the regular and can worsen it through continued enabling. Most people will never be in a fire.
Also, like, I just don’t buy the arguments about cost/quantity with streaming. If you’re so poor that you legitimately can’t afford a DVD or two a year, this all applies to you in the same way that reminders to use the stairs instead of an elevator apply to someone in a wheelchair. (Which, y’know, shame on me for assuming that went without saying on tumblr.) Otherwise, the average person spends 1/3 on streaming what it costs for cable, and people were able to buy DVDs and VHS tapes and whatnot back in the days of cable over streaming. This didn’t stop because of cost issues. It stopped because people no longer felt the need to buy physical media once streaming gave them on-demand access that cable lacked. It is entirely possible to have ‘rental’ access to a large library of shows and also secure personally-preservable copies of shows that are of particular value to you. This is a thing that people used to do when they wanted to have access to a particular show or movie back before streaming tricked them into thinking the access would always be one login away. And it should come as a shock to no one that shows can disappear off of streaming services when that’s been a thing for years.
And please, please, do not tell me, a book person, that DVDs are too space-consuming to be a viable option. You can get cases that hold 25 of those things in the same amount of space that a single hardcover book takes up.
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