Love Examples Of Earlier Transformative Works!

Love examples of earlier transformative works! 

This is part 7 of I’m not sure how many. Note this is the same publication that ran the “spiders Grantaire” article.

Translation: 1) Valjean gripes about M. Victor Hugo, who roasted his arm for the reader’s entertainment. [T/N: I guess this is a reference to the scene at the Gorbeau house?] 2) With all confidence, Valjean finds King Charles X [well uh not king anymore since the arm-burning incident happened in 1832], uses Charles’ brother, his friend Louis XVIII, as a reference, and asks him if he would be willing to take on the task of amusing the reader until his arm heals. 3) Charles X, who is truly the best of men, takes charge of the reader, tells him about the capture of Trocadero, the “Unobtainable Chambre” [of ultraroyalist deputies] of 1827, and a bunch of things that could not have less to do with Victor Hugo’s novel. 4) King Charles X takes advantage of the Revolution of 1830 to walk out on the reader.

Tumblr: I have a million asks about whether or not I’ll be going on tour for the Raven King next spring, and if I’ll be going to x city or y state. 

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: how extensively Scholastic tours me for the series has to do with how profitable a tour/ the series will be. I don’t pay for tours. Scholastic does. Most authors don’t get to tour; the privilege of having your butt sent on the road is hard-won. Tour costs add up fast, even for someone who travels lean as I do — avocados eaten in the front seat of my own car sitting outside of an airbnb shack I’ve rented in lieu of a hotel.  As an author, seeing my readers — whether or not they’ve bought the latest book — is nice: it feels like a way to reward literary devotion. For a publisher? A tour is not a reward. They cannot afford rewards. They can afford business decisions. 

The TRC fandom here has grown hugely in the last year: my sales numbers haven’t. The tags are full of pirate copies. I’m tagged in posts with pirate copies. Guess what publishers look at when they make decisions? Not favs on Tumblr.

I make a buck or so off each copy sold. Scholastic uses the rest to run a company. And send me on tour. There’s a difference between selling enough books for me to pay my mortgage and selling enough books to make it profitable to send me on tour. I should bold that. I am going to bold that. Because I’m not trying to tell you that the future of the series is in your hands, buy! buy! buy! I’m only telling the readers who ask to see my face in Arizona, Boston, California, Minnesota, Maine, Florida, etc etc etc, that if you want this series to be huge enough for me to tour, you’ve gotta pay for your books. Because I run on whatever money comes to me and the joy of readers’ delight. Publishers run on numbers.  

Every week I get Google alerts of new sites that are offering illegal free downloads of my books. How nice of Google to alert me where I can find them.

If you ever hope or dream that you might be a professional author or artist you should care a great deal about this problem.

No money to buy books? Free copies available at your public library.

I tried using a service to take the links down; it was impossible. It was like a future where people decided it was okay to steal forks from restaurants; too many people, too many links, too many unwatched corners. Imagine trying to stop people from stealing forks. Would you have to establish a system to watch people as they ate? No. It’s easier to assume that people generally understand that if lots of people took cutlery from Denny’s, Denny’s would have to raise their prices or otherwise adapt for the loss. The process runs on ethics, not policing. A developed society runs on ethics, not policing. On people choosing to consider consequences and empathy rather than being forced to act in a way that protects others. 

That’s what I ask of readers. To recall, simply, that just because it’s easy to put the fork in your backpack — just because you need a fork at home — doesn’t mean there are no consequences. 

I hate to be the person who adds unnecessary commentary to posts that aren’t mine, but I’m going to anyway. If you have a library card (in the US, at least, not sure about the rest of the world), even if you don’t have ready access to a physical library and/or have a very low threshold for delayed gratification like mine, there’s a service called Overdrive that most library systems subscribe to, that you can instantly borrow ebooks from just about any device with an internet connection. I know for a fact that at least 2 of my 4 libraries (yes I have four different library cards, leave me alone) have all three of the Raven Cycle books as ebooks. You check the book out, read it, and when your rental runs out, the book just goes away, and you don’t have to do anything. No overdue fees, once in a while you might have to contend with placing holds and waiting for a week or two, but it’s good for you, gives you something to live for. 

It’s perfectly legal and all of these public libraries have rights to the books they have, and you don’t have to pay a dime. So yeah, please give Overdrive a shot instead of being mean to authors. This is an important thing. 

except this commentary is good because yes, do that.

I have lots and lots of thoughts about ethics in capitalism, the right to ownership and the history of books as luxury items; but when there are services like Overdrive, it’s crucial to use them not only for your own satisfaction but also because these services are still seen as controversial, experimental and always, always on the chopping block. It doesn’t matter how beloved or popular or potentially useful something is (just look at PBS); budgets are cold, ruthless and based entirely on statistics and figures of real-time use. Otherwise, these need-based accessibility features go away.

For those who prefer to handle a physical copy, Worldcat can provide a list of library locations where your book is available; libraries may be able to provide inter/intra-state or international library loan services. (For those who want to hone up on their Welsh before tackling The Raven Cycle.)

Additionally, Open Library is supported by the non-profit Internet Archive; it’s an incredible resource that meets readers who may not have access to local libraries, but do have internet access and shares data directly with the library community. (Note, this is an open community collaboration project that works closely with libraries but is not directly affiliated with any unique library system.)

Before there was Tinder, there was the Victorian notebook

In 1860s Manhattan, young men and women in search of some excitement could duck into a little stationery shop uptown, open the unmarked notebook on the counter, and scribble a message to all the other strangers who were in on the secret. When the New York society writer George Ellington managed to get his hands on the book, he opened it to find page after page of people talking about themselves in the third person:

“Miss Annie B—, a young lady of high family (fourth floorer), probably highly accomplished and of a sweet temper, desires to exchange cartes de visite with a ‘nice’ gentleman.”

“S.J. A—, a handsome young man, but full of fun.”

“Blanche G—; a very pretty girl, aged twenty; full of fun. Object in corresponding, fun, and to gratify a curiosity as to how many gentlemen will be foolish enough to answer this.”

“James P—, a very homely gentleman, of thirty-five, wishes to correspond with a blue-eyed, light-haired young lady. Must be tall, not younger than twenty-five nor more than forty. A homely person preferred to a beauty. Must be stylish.”

And you better believe people are just as freaked out about women pursuing hookups now as they were then.

also, i really want there to be more vampires and so on who, instead of speaking in a charming, cultured, but vaguely old-fashioned way because they are a 275-year-old consciousness in an undead, unaging 19-year-old body, talk in embarrassingly misapplied or outdated slang and pop culture references in a failed effort to blend in with their apparent peer group

…or who speak pretty normally most of the time, but lapse into saying stuff like “GOD’S WOUNDS, YOU CUR“ when they get upset enough

Bitter Sweet Symphony | The Verve

boy: you got any fantasies ;)

me: ok so, im in an alternate universe where i have to fight with my friends for a better future and i have a huge sword