domain:mgautreau.substack.com
Templexious
3d ago
I dropped the story at that chapter because it was such a lazy approach to trying to get readers on board with the idea. If the author was being that lazy with the pitch, what else were they being lazy about?
Just went back to reading Most Evil Trainer, which was actually good.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
I believe the standard advice nowadays is to ignore the traditional publishing process, and instead publish for free in serial format (possibly with a Patreon) to drum up interest, before depublishing that preliminary version and publishing a final version on Amazon.
>>>/lit/wng says:
>Why write web novels?
Ease of access & potential for Patreon earnings. Many successful authors gain an audience on their website of choice and funnel their readers into a Patreon. See graphtreon.com/top-patreon-creators/writing for an idea of what some are earning.
Also, once an author has earned a fanbase, transitioning into an Amazon self-publishing career is several orders of magnitude easier than starting 'dry'.
>>>/lit/wg says:
Traditional Publishing
Pros:
- you get to focus mostly on writing
- you must write a proposal to the publishers and sell your story to them
- you make 10-15% profit max, but they also eat all the risk and the costs
- self publishing is basically like running your own company
- you only need to do some simple marketing and reach out to readers
Cons:
- you make 10-15% profit max
- self publishing you make 70%+
- they’ll still require you to do all the leg work of a self published author anyways
Self Publishing How-To
- risky, but much more profitable
- you must pay for everything yourself
- if you do, you will spend more time on running a business than writing, but can be worth it
I can say that, over the past few years, I have purchased several books through this pathway.
So I'm starting the search for a literary agent for my fantasy adventure novel. I haven't sent out any queries yet-- I've got at least one more round of beta readers and I still need to perfect a query letter-- but I've been looking through manuscriptwishlist and querytracker for prospective agents. Now this didn't come as a surprise or anything, but the ratio of female to male agents is something like 7:1. And making some assumptions based on biographical elements, I'll wager that the ratio of female to straight male agents is something like 15:1. And despite the fact that as a catholic I'm already pretty redpilled culturally in spite of my neoliberal principles-- wow is the performative support for alphabet + "marginalized" (read: nonmale, nonwhite) identities off the charts. It's genuinely pretty disheartening.
Now I could, in principle, present myself as exactly the kind of person these agents want: a brown author with a story set in a non-euroamerican inspired fantasy and female gender-non-conforming main character. (She actually conforms pretty well to the gender norms of her own culture, but I made a concerted effort to have all my cultures be strange and bizarre.). I even address a "socially relevant cause" (immigration) as a secondary theme. But the idea of contorting myself into their box disgusts me. And besides that, my treatment of the theme draws intentional parallels between immigration and imperialism, and poses the question of tradeoffs: security vs prosperity, the right to preserve your culture vs. the need to enforce uniform standards of good behavior, the interests of the immigrants vs. the interests of the locals, etcetera. And also the main character is genuinely racist. I don't think that'll go over well with the kind of people who "care deeply about supporting marginalized voices" and specify, "NO MORE BORING CIS WHITE GUYS" in all caps.
Despite that, I'm still going to go through the submission process. I'm not going to cope about sour grapes-- most probably, if I can't get an agent, it'll be because my manuscript just isn't good enough. Or, even if it is, it might just not be marketable enough, for reasons completely unrelated to politics. I was this close to listing "made in abyss" as a comp title; my level of politics-neutral degeneracy is high enough that I'll be genuinely surprised to earn out an industry-standard $10,000 advance.
But still-- if anyone can point me to resources for finding agents who aren't NPCs, I'd appreciate that. I'm also thinking about direct submissions to conservative-leaning mid size presses but worry those will just pose the equivalent-but-reflected problem.
Quantumfreakonomics
3d ago
This is unironically why payment-for-order-flow is so lucrative.
MaiqTheTrue
Renrijra Krin
3d ago
It’s also the things that even in a direct democracy you’d personally have very chance of actually having much input on the issue. It’s the perfect way to get credit for being “concerned about the community” while having no real requirements to understand anything. It doesn’t matter, and you won’t be held responsible for making a mess of things. So you get to argue about it, thus appearing knowledgeable and caring about “the issues”, while facing absolutely no consequences if you get your way and are wrong. Call it M’aiq’s Law. The more visibility the debate has and the less responsibility anyone has for getting it right, the more likely people are to debate it.
sodiummuffin
3d ago
Does that actually benefit Democrats though? Concentrating your safe voters in a single district is generally the opposite of what you want to do if the goal is maximizing number of seats or attaining a majority. My default guess would be that majority-minority motivated gerrymandering would actually hurt Democrats, but I assume somebody has done the actual analysis.
HighResolutionSleep
3d ago
I apologize for having fun in the fun thread
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
Quote from the opinion:
As is often true of common-law principles, the reasons for the rule are less sure and less uniform than the rule itself. One explanation is that the execution of an insane person simply offends humanity; another, that it provides no example to others and thus contributes nothing to whatever deterrence value is intended to be served by capital punishment.* Other commentators postulate religious underpinnings: that it is uncharitable to dispatch an offender "into another world, when he is not of a capacity to fit himself for it". It is also said that execution serves no purpose in these cases because madness is its own punishment: furiosus solo furore punitur. More recent commentators opine that the community's quest for "retribution"—the need to offset a criminal act by a punishment of equivalent "moral quality"—is not served by execution of an insane person, which has a "lesser value" than that of the crime for which he is to be punished. Unanimity of rationale, therefore, we do not find. "But whatever the reason of the law is, it is plain the law is so." We know of virtually no authority condoning the execution of the insane at English common law.[1]
[1]At one point, Henry VIII enacted a law requiring that if a man convicted of treason fell mad, he should nevertheless be executed. This law was uniformly condemned. The "cruel and inhumane Law lived not long, but was repealed, for in that point also it was against the Common Law...."
*Citing Lord Coke:
By intendment of law the execution of the offender is for example, ut poena ad paucos, metus ad omnes perveniat**, as before is laid: but so it is not when a mad man is executed, but should be a miserable spectacle, both against Law, and of extream inhumanity and cruelty, and can be no example to others.
**Latin: "So that punishment may come to few, [but] fear to all."
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
3d ago
My hypothesis is that the modern hyper fixation on federal politics is bike shedding writ large. It's easy to have a strong opinion on federal issues (name one). Local politics deals with practical, boring questions about zoning, school bonds, and such. We spend way too much time arguing over the easy-to-understand bits (what color should the bike shed be), not on most of the details of governing.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
3d ago
Should minorities be guaranteed representation, even if they are geographically spread out?
If you say yes, then you're in favor of majority-minority gerrymandering, which is the cause of the most egregious electoral maps in the United States. If you take a look, you can see the individual buildings carved out to create a electoral district in the name of equity. Yes, this is for the benefit of black people in urban districts. Yes, they are primarily Democratic - even in deep red states.
This has been the status quo for so long that people forget that yes, it is a scandal.
RoyGBivensAction
Zensunni Scientologist
3d ago
(2) It's very interesting to compare Australian sentencing with US sentencing. Presumably, these offenses would get something closer to 30 years in a US court.
I was thinking about this earlier. In my state, if he went to trial and got convicted, he'd be looking at life with no possible release for at least 25 years (and the release isn't parole, it's far more restrictive and rarely granted). I would be surprised if any prosecutor here would offer him a plea deal with less than 20 years, and even that seems optimistic.
Walter, Walter, what's the point, man?
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
3d ago
stuckinbathroom
3d ago
Desi women are so beautiful
Is it possible to learn this power?
(I’m, uh, asking for a friend)
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
3d ago
No.
Yes if he was doing actual boxing boxing.
They do cardio, technique, footwork, hand work, and very, very light sparring.
Even then, I would recommend a kid take a few to the head in a boxing gym rather than not.
It forms important understandings as a kid imo.
But as long as they get to vote, sure they argue about politics but, at least from my personal observation, the participation is mostly about feeling as if they participate, and very little about outcomes and certainly not about what happens after they vote. Like if they get little of what the6 say they want, sure they grouse, but it’s not like they’ll do much more than tantrum on social media and talk about lying politicians. So the median American “votes”, fails every time to get politicians to do what they actually want done … and are mostly perfectly okay with it. That’s not “caring about the vote” so much as “caring that they get to cast a ballot every couple of years.” Which is different, and furthermore doesn’t bode well for the predictions that people will get upset about their district being rendered non competitive. They still get the parts they care about: the process of casting a ballot, the ability to complain, the constant need to stay informed so “they know how they should vote.” The only part missing is the steering wheel being connected to the wheels. It’s like those little car-seat steering wheels kids have. The kid is perfectly content with turning the little wheel and couldn’t give a care that it doesn’t do anything to the car.
And really, for most human behavior, the truism holds that if a person really truly cares about something, they’ll find a way to do it. If they really cared about local politics, they’d find ways to participate, it’s not impossible. Yet nobody cares about that stuff. If people thought that politics was important, they’d at minimum know who sits on these various boards and committees, who’s mayor and which county ward they live in. They’d know the issues and vote accordingly. It doesn’t happen. Turnout for city races is somewhere near 25%, board meetings are not full of citizens concerned about the issues. Unless some sexy national issues come up, nobody attends school board meetings. Real politics is a ghost town, nobody knows or cares what happens there.
urquan
Hold! What you are doing to us is wrong! Why do you do this thing?
3d ago
I think there is a negative correlation between intelligence and silliness on average.
I disagree, particularly if we’re talking about verbal intelligence. The silliest people I know are highly intelligent, and they love to riff on things in goofy and ridiculous ways, yet surprisingly insightfully. It’s actually not-very-bright people who are most resistant to silly wordplay — they don’t get it!
I remember the first day I went to a gifted education program, which had an IQ cutoff, and the thing that stood out to me was that I finally met people who made silly jokes and found my silly jokes funny.
I think if we sat for IQ tests I would score higher than my girlfriend, but she’s also probably the smartest person I’ve dated and she’s sharp and analytical. Regardless, she’s definitely the silliest. I have a text file where I write down many of the silly things she says because I find them so hilarious. I was going to share these for Friday fun anyway, so here’s some choice selections:
I want to be an RNA so I can just affect you and go with you everywhere. I want to be in your body 100% of the time. It's not enough for me to just be close to you. I need to be enveloped by your cells.
Can you imagine an 18th century taxonomist out in the swamp, trying to measure a crocodile's penis in order to properly classify it?
People need to retain their inalienable right to suck mannequin dick without worrying about it being a dead guy.
(apparently this was a real story)
All children's authors are on the right amount of cocaine. Just the right amount of cocaine to get the right amount of whimsy. Roald Dahl, JK Rowling, CS Lewis are all massive cokeheads. I mean Dr. Seuss just had it dialed in, just the perfect amount.
I found a very interesting documentary for us to watch. It's about fungus.
(It was in fact a good documentary about mycelium.)
birb_cromble
3d ago
Obviously we should give each party a bull's hide, and they may claim any land it encloses as their own.
NYTReader
3d ago
Can immigration be considered a form of gerrymandering that dilutes the voting power of the existing population? Just a thought that occurred to me, I welcome pushback.
I've been reading the fanfiction Pokemon: The Origin of Species on and off recently. It's a rationalist take on the Pokemon setting in the same vein as HPMOR, if you aren't familiar. It's had some good ideas and moments, and can be delightfully brutal, but I just got to the chapter that introduces Bill and was put off by the author dropping a bowling ball on my head about AI safety, with lines ripped (cited?) almost 1:1 from Big Yud. It feels almost... quaint? But more tiresome than anything else; this isn't a new topic for anyone who had read a lot of Rational fiction or blogs.
Moreover, it's made me apprehensive about the direction of the story and unsure if I want to continue. I enjoyed rationalist concepts applied to the Pokemon world, and the author trying to make real various concepts and moves in the game. I'm not interested in it turning into another AI/ending death story... which seems like where the author or main character wants to go given recent events in the story.
Has anyone else read this fic? What were your thoughts. I'm only on chapter 37/143 myself, so I won't be able to talk about events far in the future.
hydroacetylene
3d ago
State democrats are very effective at turning money into pointless drama, much moreso than shooting yourself.
hydroacetylene
3d ago
To be fair, mid decade redistricting is, while definitely signaled well in advance, not very precedented.
hydroacetylene
3d ago
Texas wasn’t that gerrymandered before this. In fact thé worst gerrymanders in terms of the difference between popular vote percentages and congressional results are in Oregon and Illinois, a complication for the ‘evil republicans’ narrative.
I mean if her family is relatively smart probably your children will be fine as well?
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