Moe Lane's Blog, page 138

‘Somewhere That’s Green.’

Somewhere That’s Green, Little Shop of Horrors

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The Chapbook Halloween Kindle sale starts tomorrow.

Five chapbooks, each with illustrations based on the stories, all only 99 cents each. There’s horror and spookiness in each one of them, making them perfect for Halloween! But if you check them out today, I get paid more!

#commissionearned

My mini-review of VENOM: THE LAST DANCE.

Short version:

…MEL-O-DRA-MAAAAAAAAA!!!!!

Slightly longer version: if you liked the first two Venom flicks, VENOM: THE LAST DANCE will be fun. If they annoyed you, so will this one. Me, I’m a fan of spoken-word opera — and, again, MEL-O-DRA-MAAAAAAAAA!!!!! — so I was fine. It’s not nearly as over-the-top as LET THERE BE CARNAGE was, but that’s fine. You can do a movie like that once in a franchise.

…once.

Moe Lane

#commissionearned

Revisiting the Classics: “Has Halloween Become Overcommercialized?”

Ah, the Onion had their moments. A long time ago. Still, this skit holds up.

Tweet of the Day, The Doom That Came To Disney edition.

Alternate title: And Nothing Of Value Was Lost. I picked the first one because I don’t quite agree with the second one, but I respect that my readers will have a different opinion.

Disney is set to announce a major AI initiative that will transform its creative output.

The initiative is said to involve “hundreds” of people at the company and will primarily focus on post-production and visual effects.

(Via: https://t.co/0wx0LT2e1n) pic.twitter.com/fOPhHoVTDQ

— The Hollywood Handle (@HollywoodHandle) October 24, 2024

Via @Strangeland_Elf. The jobs that they’ll be killing with this one will be post-production work, which is one of those things that nobody thinks about. Right up to the moment when you encounter a movie whose sound mixing, video and audio effects, and color adjustments were done with literally nobody thinking about it. But it’ll be cheap! Solid B- work, too.

Well, C+, but grading is a value judgement, hey?

Anyway. When you notice in 2029 or so that every animated movie in a particular year feels like they were all made at the same studio, by the same staff, on the same weekend, this is gonna be why. On the bright side, at least the indies will have eyeballs. Maybe not any cash, but at least there’ll be eyeballs.

Movie of the Week: DANGEROUS LIAISONS.

I’m picking DANGEROUS LIAISONS because some genius at Amazon has decided to remake CRUEL INTENTIONS as a series. Since We all know that movie was only a “little copy, a child’s model or a slave’s flattery” of the Glenn Close / John Malkovich / Michelle Pfeiffer masterpiece, it’s safe enough to assume that the series is going to somehow be even worse. Hell, the new series may not even be particularly lust-inducing. We don’t really do those anymore, after all.

Truly, this is an appallingly drab age.

Moe Lane

#commissionearned

Item Seed: The Fathomless Grimoire.

Need to do more of these. They’re good for me.

Fathomless Grimoire – Google DocsDownload

Probably going to see VENOM: THE LAST DANCE today or tomorrow.

Still figuring out when I can see VENOM: THE LAST DANCE. The critics hate it, naturally, much like they hated the last two, too. Just as naturally, I am reassured by this. I thought they were going to be flat-out wrong before, and I turned out to be correct, at least in my particular case. I’m ready to be vindicated again.

To Vella or Not To Vella: that is the question.

This is related to the problem that I have been contemplating all this week: to wit, that there are no markets for novellas, novelettes, or even longer short stories anymore. The cupboard is not just bare: people have gone in and removed the shelves and back wallpaper. We’re lucky they didn’t take the actual doors, too, but I guess the idea was to keep up appearances.

:pause:

That turned out to be a surprisingly apt metaphor.

Anyway. When it comes to longer form stuff I pretty much have to publish it myself. As I see it, I have four options:

Publish them as standalone novellas, either on Kindle or another platform. Pros: Effectively free, and I already know the mechanisms involved. Cons: ‘effectively free’ means ‘no cover art,’ and that will be an expectation. Also, people can get itchy-titchy when you sell them a short story for ninety nine cents, even when you tell them upfront that this is what they’re getting.Publish them on Kindle Vella. Pros: also effectively free, and the ‘no cover art’ problem is minimized. Cons: the ‘no cover art’ problem is not actually eliminated. Also… does anybody actually make money on Kindle Vella? I’m not sure the program is a success.Publish them on a paid Substack tier. Pros: It’s essentially like Patreon, for people who don’t like Patreon. Cons: I would have to charge more per month than I do on Patreon, and publishing on Substack is kind of ephemeral. I mean, even more so than the Internet is in general.Keep collecting them and making them into illustrated chapbooks. Pros: print option! Cons: …come, I will conceal nothing from you. My illustrated chapbooks won’t make their money back for a long, long while. The illustrations cost money. I mean, I’ll turn a profit on these at some point, but the idea is to generate more revenue now.

I don’t know what the answer is, yet. If somebody has an opinion, feel free to share it.

#commissionearned

Yeah, day called on account of new videogame. [EDITED]

[UPDATE: Sleep Madness has struck. I’m out. Peace!]

Baldur’s Gate 3 is very fun. It is also kind of distracting, and distracting may be… a good idea for the rest of the month. It’s getting a bit intense out there.