Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 239
March 27, 2019
Since GOT changed and simplified names for the show. Do you think like Hades will just be called Hades?
It’s possible. But I think that the name change you’re talking about (changing Asha Greyjoy to Yara Greyjoy) was mostly due to Osha (the wildling woman) and Asha looking really different when you read it but sounding really similar when you say it, especially if you have multiple characters with different Anglophone accents saying the same name and each pronouncing it slightly differently.
I think it could be simplified to Hades for marketing reasons, but I’ll resist it. I prefer Aidon, there’s reason in my books for why he prefers to use that instead of Hades, and since one of the major draws of my work is that it’s a completely different way of seeing Hades, my way might just stick.
March 26, 2019
floralls:
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia...
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
Castelluccio di Norcia, Italy by Maria Grazia Schiapparelli
superbloomings:
Let’s take a look at Wishbone Bush (Mirábilis laèvis). Found in the Four O'Clock...
Let’s take a look at Wishbone Bush (Mirábilis laèvis).
Found in the Four O'Clock Family (Nyctaginaceae) these perenial herbs are pollinated at night, with blossoms opening mid-afternoon and closing early the following morning. The name Wishbone is derived from the way their woody stems grow.
Fun fact: This flower does not have petals. They are sepals and they are in the same family as Bougainvillea.
Note the mutation! This is my first observed mutation of this plant. Note the magenta interior star shape on the sepals. Extraordinary. Normally, this low-lying, cheerful herbaceous plant is exclusively magenta with a typical bloom cycle from March through May.
Mirábilis is Latin for miraculous.
References:
Dale, N. (2000). Flowering plants of the Santa Monica Mountains: Coastal and chaparral regions of Southern California. Sacramento: California Native Plant Society.
McAuley, M., & Kenney, J. P. (1985). Wildflowers of the Santa Monica mountains. Canoga Park, CA: Canyon Pub.
Hi, I’m a big fan of your stories, and I know you’re pitching a show, but what channel is it going to be on? If you know that already, if you don’t it’s ok! I’m sorry, I just want to check channels for stuff like that!
Thank you so much!!
I know what networks are involved in the bidding, but I don’t know which one it will be. When I do, I am going to be shouting it from the rooftops.
But I can’t talk about who it is or isn’t until a deal is inked. And that’s still a little ways off.
Fagagshshshssjj. I'm so hyped for the good counselor chapter! I have something, so I will have to read it Thursday morningish, but I'm so hyped! Thank you for all of your hard work! Take a moment for yourself! Don't push yourself too hard! X
I’m not! Don’t worry! ;)
Id love to get your thoughts Thursday morning once I post it. It will be a very dialogue heavy chapter between Hades and Orpheus (obviously).
And because it was so dialogue heavy, it took two edit passes to get everything right.
The next chapter, however, I’ll have to wait two weeks before I put it out. Husband is taking a trip with the tiny tornado to visit folks while I hold down the fort here, and he won’t have time to edit and chase after our adorable speed demon. And there will be so many characters in that chapter that we will need to go over it with a fine toothed comb (Charon, Hermes, Persephone, Aidoneus, Hecate, and an Underworld character we haven’t met yet features briefly.)
therkalexander:
@sassymcgonagal1651yeah I’m so sorry about that. I wish I could do something about...
@sassymcgonagal1651
yeah I’m so sorry about that. I wish I could do something about it.
There is a way to adjust book prices internationally, but there’s no way for me to sell outside Europe and North America without selling books at a loss. And Amazon will literally not let me do it otherwise they wouldn’t be able to take their cut. India, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil, even fucking Canada and Mexico, etc. where I do sell plenty of books take a staggering amount of money off the top of each book. Oftentimes when I sell books abroad, I’ll only see a few cents worth of income per title.
That’s just for ebooks by the way. Which is composed of two things: intellectual property, and electrons. That’s it; nothing more. But capitalism sucks, and tariffs on electrons are bullshit, so there we are.
Paperbacks have an even worse problem. The price is fixed to the ISBN, so unless there is a sale set by a retailer (I have no control over that), selling Receiver of Many for less than $19.99 USD is impossible.
I set the paperbacks to the lowest rounded-up-to-the-nearest-divisible-five-minus-1¢ price that I can get away with. That means I make less money on paperbacks than I do on ebooks, tbh. Companies like Amazon, and more importantly Ingram Press (Ingram is what allows me to sell in bookstores large and small like Kinokunya and Coastside) take a large percentage of paperback sales to cover production and shipping costs.
The ebooks have the same issue. I self-publish, which means I can take home a much larger percentage in royalties than if I went through a traditional publishing house: it was the leading reason why I self published in the first place. And self publishing means that I didn’t have to give away too many pieces of the pie or worry about going out of print, or the effects that piracy has on runs by traditionally published authors. And I get to keep the cost of my books relatively low. But that comes with its own set of issues: the unaffordability of translation services, audiobook services, and the constant overhanging threat of piracy.
In fact piracy has cost me something in low seven figure neighborhood, and that’s just the illegal downloads that have been tracked. I know there are fans in the distribution shadow of Eastern Europe and Russia who have read my books and that illegal downloading is the only way they can get their hands on it, but even discounting those traceable downloads, and discounting downloads by people who shouldn’t be reading my books at their age anyway *ahem*, that’s still income in the high six figures that I never received.
I’ve even considered opening a Patreon for anyone who did formerly pirated my books, enjoyed them, but now want to make a donation in lieu of the money they didn’t spend at that particular time for whatever reason they had.
Piracy puts the hurt on my family. Like most authors, I’m not well off. It’s a rarified handful of authors that make big money off writing.
I rent. I drive a used car. Most of my electronics are refurbished or second hand. I get books and dvds at library sales and clothes through bargain online retailers. I worry about how I’m going to afford to send my baby to preschool next year. Book piracy affects me in a meaningful way.
And even given all those factors, I would still price my books lower on the international market if I were able to do it because I believe in spreading my vision more than I believe in money. If chasing money was the most implant thing, I could have picked a dozen other career paths.
So I am so sorry that the boundaries of current publishing put my book outside your reach. I assure you that if there was something to be done about it, I would do it.
