Ok Wait Im Actually Not Gaslighting Myself. I JUST Opened My Fyp On Tiktok And Found This Video That

Ok wait I’m actually not gaslighting myself. I JUST opened my fyp on tiktok and found this video that explains how marketing has changed to push authors to make social media accounts. Hope it makes sense with what I’m trying to say.

@that-chibi-writer

SPILLED INK SATURDAY 》 Writeblr Discourse Series

Session 2: Book Marketing

Spilled Ink is a writeblr discourse series. Each session is centered around a writer/reader/author-related topic and/or debate and those participating are invited to share their thoughts and opinions on these matters from a writer’s perspective. Take a look at our first session here.

To participate in the discussion, you can do so one of two ways:

➸ Return to the OG post (which will always be linked in the title of the post) and reblog with your take on the topic, either in text or in the tags

➸ If you see someone’s take on your feed and you want to chime in on something they said, feel free to reblog their response

If you choose to participate please be respectful when providing your opinion or when responding to someone else’s. 

How do you feel about the recent shift in the way books are marketed?

Everything from quotes on the back of book sleeves (why did we make this a thing???) to listing tropes/vibes for books on social media posts, it's evident that the way books are marketed has shifted over the last several years. As a writer/author, are these marketing strategies necessary and more effective to gain readers? As a reader, do they turn you on or off of a novel? Can they be misleading? Reblog and share your thoughts.

Glad you joined the community! I’m interested in a lot of the same things and I can’t wait to see your work.

another writeblr intro

hi all! i’ve been a tumblr user for a while but this is the first time i’m earnestly making an attempt at engaging with the community on here.

my name’s vi, i’m 20 years old and i use any pronouns.

i’ve always been a fan of writing, especially when i was younger. i’ve taken it back up as a way to work through the recent trials and tribulations that my life has been putting me through.

i don’t have any wips currently; i have an unusual problem where i have the urge to write, but i have very few ideas that i could really build on.

my favorite genres are romance, low fantasy, and mystery/thrillers, though i’m open to reading and writing others. it’s good to dabble in a little bit of everything, no?

if you follow me, expect to see me post some short form prose and the occasional fragment of a poem.

i’m very much looking forward to getting to know the writings community here on tumblr!

Ooh, this is a tough one. On the one hand, no one owes anyone an explanation of their sexuality. On the other, it’s really shitty for authors to pretend to be queer just to sell more books.

I feel like it depends on a few different things: intent and interpretation. Like if you are intentionally queerbating for profit, then yeah that’s on you and you suck. But also fanbases can interpret things wrong and make assumptions. For example, I’ve seen people accuse Taylor Swift of queerbating because some of her fans say she’s gay but she’s never made a statement. I’m sorry but everything about that discourse is delusional and it’s not queerbating. If anything, it’s taking away from the actual topic.

I don’t think we can gatekeep people from telling queer stories if they’re not. If they’re respectful and do their research, I see no problem with it. I actually think this is a good opportunity for straight authors to foster their understanding and empathy for the queer community. And even if they’re not queer, they can still share similar experiences. We should be trying to help people see eye to eye and not build walls between them.

So yeah, intentionally queerbating is not good, fans assuming content creators’ sexualities is not good but it’s also not the creators’ fault, and authors should write be able to write the stories that speak to them without having to expose their private lives.

(This is just my opinion, don’t come for me)

SPILLED INK SATURDAY 》 Writeblr Discourse Series

Session 3: "Queerbaiting"

For more information on what Spilled Ink is go check out our first session post.

As always, to participate in the discussion, you can do so one of two ways:

➸ Return to the OG post (which will always be linked in the title of the post) and reblog with your take on the topic, either in text or in the tags

➸ If you see someone’s take on your feed and you want to chime in on something they said, feel free to reblog their response

If you choose to participate, please be respectful when providing your opinion or when responding to someone else’s. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how strong it is, but there’s a difference between being opinionated and being borderline rude and antagonizing. Racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia or hateful speech of any kind will not be condoned or tolerated.

What are your thoughts on authors "queerbaiting" their readers? Is it a valid criticism? 

Some guiding questions below the cut if you aren't quite sure where to start with this one. Topic and questions inspired by/drawn from this video.

How much of their private lives do creators owe if they profit off of queer content?

Who has the authority to tell queer stories?

How do we differentiate between protecting a marginalized community versus gatekeeping people from freely exploring their identities?

I just wrote my first book review and had it published by onlinebookclub.org! I’m so excited to get my thoughts out there and that my writing was deemed good enough to publish.

The book I reviewed is a fantasy called Nimue: Freeing Merlin. You can learn more about it by checking out my review here.

No I definitely agree that the author is partially at fault here. Some of them are actively choosing to sacrifice the quality of their stories to push more out (I want to add this is especially prevelent on Kindle Unlimited. I read 3 books there and had to quit because they were all basically a collection of tropes rather than storylines and had little editing, but I’ll save my rant about how Amazon is killing the publishing industry for another day). Maybe it’s just me but I would rather wait years for a good book than read a different version of the same story for the hundredth time.

But I do think you misunderstood what I meant about this being the publishers fault. I’m less talking about them changing how they market and more about how they make the authors do it. A lot of authors who choose traditional publishing do so because they don’t want to deal with the marketing aspect, only for the publishers to shirk the responsibility onto them when they’re already stretched thin by writing the book. Authors and publishers both talk about this, which is how I noticed this to begin with. For example in this video. The gist of it is that new authors go into traditional publishing expecting the marketing to be done for them but instead have to do most of it themselves, and it gives a few reasons why.

I’m pretty sure marketing didn’t used to be like this and changed with the rise of booktok. I think I saw other videos saying publishers are encouraging authors make social media accounts to market their books instead of doing the marketing themselves, but since I don’t have the time to search for them who knows for sure. From my own experience I can tell this is probably the case. About ten years ago, I sometimes found books from ads on youtube or in magazines. So, obviously made by a marketing team. Now I don’t see those ads anymore and only instead see authors promoting their own books. But I was also pretty young ten years ago so I may be incorrect.

So I think the publishers bear more fault than the authors, at least for misleading them. And I didn’t know that writing books has always been competitive because all I’ve ever seen is community, but I do think more scandals can be avoided if publishers take responsibility for marketing. It makes sense authors are going to be more desperate when they’re on their own and their time is already consumed by writing.

That’s my thoughts.

SPILLED INK SATURDAY 》 Writeblr Discourse Series

Session 2: Book Marketing

Spilled Ink is a writeblr discourse series. Each session is centered around a writer/reader/author-related topic and/or debate and those participating are invited to share their thoughts and opinions on these matters from a writer’s perspective. Take a look at our first session here.

To participate in the discussion, you can do so one of two ways:

➸ Return to the OG post (which will always be linked in the title of the post) and reblog with your take on the topic, either in text or in the tags

➸ If you see someone’s take on your feed and you want to chime in on something they said, feel free to reblog their response

If you choose to participate please be respectful when providing your opinion or when responding to someone else’s. 

How do you feel about the recent shift in the way books are marketed?

Everything from quotes on the back of book sleeves (why did we make this a thing???) to listing tropes/vibes for books on social media posts, it's evident that the way books are marketed has shifted over the last several years. As a writer/author, are these marketing strategies necessary and more effective to gain readers? As a reader, do they turn you on or off of a novel? Can they be misleading? Reblog and share your thoughts.

I saw a video about making a book family tree and thought it looked fun so I made my own!

So how it works is the grandparents are the books that inspired your book but are pretty different, the parents are books that are thematically similar, the cousin(s) is the book you would use for a comp title, and the sibling(s) is the sequel.

For mine I didn't include a comp title because I never heard of it before and because I ran out of space on my doc. But here’s my wip’s family tree!