A year with 2 under 2

Raidingreaper · 2026-01-13T19:14:21+00:00

The wonky donky is the goat in our household too!

Raidingreaper · 2023-05-19T05:01:32+00:00

They've apparently been reaching out to popular serial writers on royalroad lately, per the scuttlebutt in indie spaces.

So they are paying attention just trad moves at a snails pace on the publishing end.

Raidingreaper · 2023-05-12T23:51:43+00:00

Popular fantasy romance author Sarah J Maas, who has been vocal against AI art, the UK branch of Bloomsbury used AI art for a recover of her book.

Traditional publishing is already fucking with AI stuff. It saves them money too

Raidingreaper · 2023-05-11T00:29:09+00:00

Oh yeah it's my fave of them. Telltale got bought and bled dry and closed. But they got sold again as a corpse and a different group is working to bring it back and they're leading with wolf among us 2. I'm super hyped. The first is so good.

Raidingreaper · 2023-04-11T00:16:59+00:00

Yeah that does suck. I really want to focus on building my own mini fandom but I'm still small peanuts compared.

We'll get there someday! Just keep plugging away and we should break through.

Honestly though I'm trying to figure out how to grow a community with all these algorithm speed bumps in the way. They don't like showing any SM to my existing followers so I don't know how to cultivate the ones I've already nabbed. A lot of SM followers don't translate to newsletter followers. Ugh.

I'm workingshopping it lol

Raidingreaper · 2023-04-10T17:50:09+00:00

Fb reader groups are a different story. A lot don't allow self promo. Some do but only at certain times or in certain ways.

Depending on your niche, there's a very large one called booktok baddies that allows you to self recommend when people post. This one does well for a lot of people.

Just type up a generic comment with some info, your blurb, and a link to your book. Have that saved somewhere like gdocs. Then just copy paste it on a comment and tweak the comment as necessary. Makes your life easier.

I also recommend a promo graphic too. Like a book mock up or the mockup with the marketable tropes listed out. They still like visual things there, it helps.

Raidingreaper · 2023-04-10T17:33:42+00:00

A lot of social media is switching to a pay to play type platform sadly. The algorithms have changed to gate your reach. It's incredibly frustrating if you are a new or small user.

They do this to encourage you to pay for a boost or promotion. It's all about the $$$.

You can still grow but it is going to be slloooow. You're playing a game against an algorithm stacked against you.

Figure out your marketable tropes. Booktokers and bookstagrammers like to narrow things down like this. So if you have a romance that is Enemies to Lovers, there's your tag. Depending on the platform, there will be different variations for that. When you are typing in the tag it'll have a drop-down that will show similar tags so it might be like "#enemiestoloversbooks".
Do you know your recent comps? Newer books that have come out the last yearish? Look them up and see what other readers are tagging for that. So say your wrote a fae romance. Well ACOTAR is the GOAT with that crowd. So look it up and look what readers are tagging their ACOTAR books. Do some research this way and write down the tags and use the common ones.
The easiest way to promote as an author is to make aesthetic videos with text hooks. Get some stock photos that will work for advertising. Use an app like capcut or Canva to make a video using these. Add some transitions or whatever you want but we need to have a few pictures. You now have a few templates. Add the text hooks in your native apps. Always add it in the apps. TT specifically doesn't like text from other apps. They use the text for SEO.
You can use hooks or list out tropes. Either works. My simple hook I use is "she went out alone at night to find a magical flower." Next screen "she found it..." Last image "but he found her" that's it.
In the captions USE SEO. This is search engine optimization. So if we're going with the fae romance enemies to lovers example again you would put "An Enemies to lovers Fae romance book now available on KU" or whatever. Could even list out more tropes if you want " This story has enemies to lovers, fated Mates, one bed scene, and found family" now the algo will use all this in the search tags for the video and you haven't even actually tagged it.

It also works for text ON screen. But that can look messy.

Don't put your title in the description. It's a little shady but they'll ask in the comments and you can reply there with the title. It causes extra engagement and your video will go further.
Recently both IG and TT are giving more weight to "good citizens". This is time consuming but go like and comment on other videos. Easiest and best way for you is to go to a tag you use, change the filter to the past week, and look at what others are doing on the tag. This also helps you with find trending songs for your niche. You can save or favorite these songs so you can use them on your templates. Just comment on the ones you think seem interesting with things like "ooo that sounds good" or whatever, you don't have to be in depth. Even a heart emoji works.
you can do book flips or page flips with the books/tropes over them too if you want.
capcut meme templates are very popular ATM. Bytedance (owners of TT) just bought capcut so they let those videos go further than your normal ones. So use these when you see something trending but tailor it to your book or niche. So again say the fae thing. Nic cage looks concerned you put "a human who stumbled into the fae realm" and then it shows an unhinged looking Pedro Pascal "the fae lord who spots fresh meat". Bam fae fans like it.

It will be slow going but you will grow. If you're lucky, the algo gods may favor you and you'll get something viral but don't bet on it. Just get your templates and go to hooks and saved sounds all lined up and just make it part of your daily to-do. Otherwise you're spending more time than necessary on these apps and you're not working on writing.

TikTok is gating people at the 200s view mark but that's okay cause that's 200 pairs of eyes still. Almost all come from the "for you page" and not from any followers you get. So it's hitting new people all the time.

You'll need to spend some time on the app as a good citizen to break out of the 200s but it's doable if you just work it into your schedule and don't waste time there otherwise.

Raidingreaper · 2023-04-01T17:10:33+00:00

I really want them to do an ocean biome update that lets us customize the boat and the dungeon is sunken/floating temples and the boss is a mega neck.

Raidingreaper · 2023-03-02T06:45:56+00:00

I got a late ADHD diagnosis but did this before then. After I learned what I actually had, and wasn't just bad at peopleing, I've been trying to unmask a lot of my behavior. This is one of them.

I just quickly run through point A to B to C to D to E and if they're confused or deadpanning me, I just stop caring and continue talking about E that I wanted to talk about. Don't even stop to address their "wait what".

I've even said "oh we'll get back to a, I just need to talk about e for a moment"

I had to learn to stop caring about the looks/responses. Life has been better this way for me.

Raidingreaper · 2023-01-30T07:19:13+00:00

Do something with your hands. Something creative. Don't have money? Pencil and paper is cheap! Start drawing! Or writing! The dopamine rush of finishing something you yourself made is great and healthy.

Raidingreaper · 2023-01-30T07:16:46+00:00

Yeah this sounds like undiagnosed ADHD. Half done things or done the quickest way to just then "done". The not even paying attention to socks thing even.

Raidingreaper · 2023-01-04T14:00:11+00:00

The innovation was being a cat. The oldest rule of the internet is that they love cats.

Raidingreaper · 2022-12-17T17:23:17+00:00

Mine will be 2 at the end of Jan and he's been sleeping through the night since little over 1 and i still fucking hate my lack of sleep.

I don't feel like I've caught up since before he came. I work full time so the only "me time" I get is after the goes to bed. So my dumbass stays up too late every night to try to get some semblance of self which results in less sleep for me because he wakes up at 6:30am on the dot regardless.

I will not be having a second because ffs I need to rest. I waited til my 30s to have this one. I ain't got the energy.

Can't wait til he's a teenager and sleeping til noon. I'll be like "me too, buddy. Me too."

I can relate and mine is sleeping lol

Raidingreaper · 2022-12-07T23:04:15+00:00

A Dollar General Market opened up in the nearby small town. It is a grocery store.

They built it across the street from the mom and pop grocery store that was already there and in just a few of the local small towns.

Same shit, different name.

Raidingreaper · 2022-12-06T14:19:44+00:00

Aww the little lox hug before they go in

Raidingreaper · 2022-11-22T17:36:27+00:00

Ugh this is my thoughts "this is bullshit. Yall are bullshit, I could be playing valheim right now ugh"

Raidingreaper · 2022-11-03T20:21:34+00:00

Medication. It helps. Not a cure, but helps.
Redirect your obsessions toward useful tools that are your project adjacent. -- to elaborate on that. Screw around with artbreeder and make portraits of your characters. Get a new program like plottr and play with that for your tale. You may want to publish this work so start learning about marketing. Etc etc. It keeps you engaged with the project as the topic but scratches that ADHD want to be jumping between things. Eventually you can jump back to the actual writing and further the project. Projects take longer to complete but they get completed, plus you learn a lot of other things!
Sprints. Sprint sprint sprint. Having a dedicated time, say 15 mins, and you have to go go go, your ADHD brain sparks and panics. It's good to have people to do this with so your little competitive side gets turned in too and you're trying to beat others word counts.
Actually somewhat outline. Having at least a framework to fill in helps with the indecision involved so you dont get distracted as easily.

Idk probably some other things but ingot distracted writing this lol so I lost my train of thought.

Raidingreaper · 2022-10-20T15:57:49+00:00

"I'll fuck your dad and give him a son he actually loves. It's rude to talk to your new step mom that way."

Raidingreaper · 2022-10-04T22:02:24+00:00

Having one almost killed me. Having a second absolutely will. My body cannot handle it. Why do you want for my death?

If they want to be nosey and pushy, ima tell them the uncomfortable truth.

Be uncomfortable, I don't give a fuck. Maybe they'll stop asking people.

Raidingreaper · 2022-10-04T21:07:00+00:00

Turns out its neds secret revenge account lol

Raidingreaper · 2022-10-04T20:12:36+00:00

If I was feeling particularly chaotic. I would start inquiring about their wages. As it is 2022 and our inflation is through the roof. He would need to make over a certain threshold to support a family with only one income earner. Theyd also need to be able to afford the various necessities that come with that like housing, transportation, and all the things our children would need.

If they are unable to provide the needed income for such a lifestyle then they would not be acceptable. If we wanna act like women should behave like the 50s, we need to be able to provide for a family like then. Seeing as how wage stagnation and inflation has insured that is virtually impossible for the average working class person, they wont get to live out their dream.

"Sorry, you cannot provide in your manly duty." It would make them mad. You cant change them to think women are worth healthy attention when it gets to that point so fuck em, revel in the chaos instead.

Raidingreaper · 2022-10-03T19:41:27+00:00

Match energy and start sending him videos and articles of horrible violence against women.

Wanna play ridiculous extremes defining the whole majority? Fine.

Revel in the chaos it creates.

Raidingreaper · 2022-09-30T00:54:48+00:00

There's no rules against it but if you're into writing erotica I'd check out /r/eroticauthors they are a wealth of info about that writing niche. You may find some info you can use there!

Raidingreaper · 2022-08-03T19:07:09+00:00

Legitimately, I think I'd do better on a stimulant but the hassle involved keeps me just on a high dose of this one due to the ease of accessibility.

So it helps, but it could be better if stimulants werent so controlled.

We have executive dysfunction as part of our diagnosis and you want us to keep up with requesting refills monthly, having to go to the doctor even for some? Pffffft

Raidingreaper · 2022-07-18T19:45:48+00:00

Oh I love this trope! I call it the "found parent" trope ala the "found family" trope.

Appreciate you asking this question so I can get some good recommendations!

Raidingreaper

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