This is about New Leaf, who dropkicked a bunch of clients into the cold via email, but there is a larger lesson here that should be taught far more often: an agent/agency working hard for some authors does not automatically translate to them doing the same for all their authors.

https://twitter.com/missdahlelama/status/1657576262586576896

If you’re new to the publishing industry and/or the agenting process it’s perfectly reasonable to assume if an agent has a list of a bunch of successful clients and/or great recommendations from those clients that you’d be a fool not to sign with them. Except not necessarily.

Another publishing thing that is always worth talking about is how when a book fails commercially it is universally framed as the author’s failure and hung on them and their career/future and pretty much never framed as the publisher failed to do their job marketing the book. A traditionally published book’s commercial failure is always perceived from this imaginary baseline that every reader in the world was aware of the book and decided not to buy it instead of the truth in 99.9% of cases: the publisher simply didn’t let anyone know the book exists.

Hey, who's up for a relatively low-stakes tale of pain, humiliation, vandalism, and retail theft involving me that is absolutely 99% my wife Nikki's fault and if she tells you any differently she is a LIAR? It's story time! Mute if you hate long stories! So, Nikki and some of her friends in her office are trying to eat a little healthier at work, and in said effort they alternate preparing and bringing in breakfast and lunches for each other. It is a good thing, and I support it.

So I want to share a real moment I had a little while ago. This'll be a brief thread about despair and resolve. You might find some value in it. You might not. I dunno. I'm putting it down for me. I spent today breaking story/worldbuilding stuff for a new game. Because that's my job. Then I finished working on book edits. Because that's also my job. I did a bunch of house stuff, and then I finally settled in to rework this pilot script I finished earlier this year.

Thinking about @Lexialex's Very Accurate Thread from the other day about women made to look like bad fighters and reinforce shitty tropes in move fight scenes. Quick thread here on big movie fights that IMHO don't do that and why I like them/think they work. @Lexialex (TW for cinematic violence, particularly fight scenes involving women. If that's not your bag feel free to mute this thread or unfollow.)

Hey, who wants to read a story about @Upwork fucking over freelancers in order to upsell their clients on unnecessary services the clients don't want and can't afford? Strap in! So after my marketing agency closed I started freelancing again. A marketing company that wanted to work with me only hires freelance writers through @Upwork. So I signed up. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that's who they contract with and it's their marketing company.

Seriously, though, can we finally talk about how Lord of the Rings is one epic PR story covering up Middle Earth's secret drug wars? It was all about the pipe weed, people. IT WAS ALL ALWAYS ABOUT THE PIPE WEED. And do you know who's at the center? The fucking Hobbits.

A brief note on opinion: If you look at a cat and say, "In my opinion that's an iPhone" that's not an opinion that's just you being wrong. The problem is if your dumb ass can get three other dumbasses to AGREE the cat is an iPhone then suddenly we all have to have "discourse."