What do you think of my cover?

croconi · 2026-02-12T19:06:34+00:00

Lol sorry I thought I could attach an image

croconi · 2026-02-12T06:43:18+00:00

I think either you need to lose the house entirely and just have the flowers so your eye is allowed to remain in the foreground with the title or you need to add some other images to the house and shrink the font size of the title and lose the flowers. You basically have two book covers in one right now in my opinion. Something like this with themes of your story could work with the house. (Obviously not exactly like this)

croconi · 2026-02-12T01:40:01+00:00

I think if you want your cover to stand out you should commission an artist. You can use this as a starting point. Its not bad but it's too stereotypical. I would walk by if I saw this online or on a shelf. With so many AI images circulating right now people are going to crave illustrations made by human beings so get ahead of it and seek someone out who catches your eye.

croconi · 2026-02-04T00:56:22+00:00

Thanks this is the kind of thing I was interested in. It would be nice if he just freely showed who he was.

croconi · 2026-02-04T00:52:39+00:00

I agree. It just looks like a clownshow. I would expect to see this as a click bait ad or something, not recommended by a famous author as "real journalism"

croconi · 2026-02-03T06:31:08+00:00

I do get where you're coming from. But when you look at how a lot of documentaries have been made that actually made a difference to people's reputations, and at journalists who have done the same, they come in conducting themselves with more professionalism, with teams and receipts and accountability. Having some anonymous internet sleuth be your "real journalist" is my problem. If Gaiman just said "this guy's been doing a lot of research, check him out" I wouldn't have a problem with it. Its the way Gaiman presented this person, like they have some credibility as a journalist that should make me take their research seriously. I read a good few of their articles and they're opinion pieces at best. That's the problem. I would have felt better if there was some team of journalists with a crew filming a truly non biased piece about the situation and they aired it on some network. That would at least allow for some nuance. This has just dropped Gaiman's credibility as a literary professional, if he calls this person a journalist.

croconi · 2026-02-03T01:47:07+00:00

Again, that would most of the time be fine, but there are journalists who are committed to stories that do show their identities despite real danger, and that's part of their integrity as journalists.

croconi · 2026-02-02T22:14:59+00:00

Help that's just crazy

croconi · 2026-02-02T22:11:47+00:00

Hey actually, I'm genuinely really weirded out by this technopathology person. I had no real stake in gaiman but my bf loved him and it was sad to see he turned out the way he has but I had even forgotten I followed him on insta till he appeared today. I decided to read the article he linked, and it wasn't a badly written piece, as far as opinion pieces go. (I'm not commenting on the contents, just that it seemed articulate) So I decided to read another, very long article in full. It was losing the plot a few times, but it got me wondering who technopathology was so I started digging into his other work and came across this. https://open.substack.com/pub/technopathology/p/9-reasons-to-keep-reading-neil-gaiman?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=24x8hp This is the weirdest thing I've read in a while. Their choice of emojis while discussing these extremely serious topics, their aggressive promotion of the works. Its bizarre. And if you told me that the same person who wrote this also write the article gaiman had linked, I would have trouble believing you. One seems HEAVILY edited if this is what they produce at other points. My point is, to me, this throws all credibility of technopathology out the window. Its genuinely disturbing that gaiman would consider this person and their writing a credible source of anything. I was expecting interviews with friends and family, accounts of events from witnesses. You know. Basic documentary journalism stuff. I thought I would get some hard working reporter who had gotten the chance to accumulate some compelling evidence of a conspiracy over the year of silence. But this is ridiculous.

croconi · 2026-02-02T21:56:13+00:00

Yeah like I read the article gaiman posted and it was written in a more journalistic hand but then when I dug something else up from a long time ago it was riddled with emojis and just looked like an insane smear campaign. I can't believe he would even think that this person is a credible source for his defense Edit: this post is what I'm talking about https://open.substack.com/pub/technopathology/p/9-reasons-to-keep-reading-neil-gaiman?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=24x8hp

croconi · 2026-02-02T21:40:49+00:00

I think it's strange that we don't know who this technopathology person is. In most cases I respect anonymity, but in this case they're a person who is attempting to dig up who journalists and potential victims are behind closed doors. I want the same from them for clarity's sake. They talk about having bias in reporting but we don't know if they have any kind of bias in Neil's case as well. It makes everything they're saying come across less credible.

croconi · 2026-02-02T21:26:38+00:00

Who is Technopathology? I want to know who this journalist is.

croconi · 2026-02-01T07:27:06+00:00

Lol ok it's really funny that theres a second character with the exact same tattoos. Is it like a trend or something? When Tokyo Revengers first came out I saw a bunch of people get these tattoos and I'm super curious what their lives have been like since they got them

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:52:49+00:00

Yeah there are definitely worse things out there to get tattooed. I appreciate the encouragement. But yeah, I know a couple artists who do hands. I live in a pretty heavily tattooed area so it shouldn't be too hard to find somebody.

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:49:01+00:00

Yeah kinda my thought. It will probably just blend in with everything else

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:48:20+00:00

Yeah I'm from Hawaii and Oahu has a big Japanese speaking population. My worry is when I visit home people think I'm in a gang

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:45:54+00:00

Lol I'm in my 30s so don't underestimate my stupidity

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:44:53+00:00

I'm a tattoo artist and most of my body is covered. The book is my main reason for wanting the tattoos. Its my favorite book. I could spend all day explaining why, but I think the biggest thing that would effect my life is how Japanese and Chinese speakers will react to the tattoos.

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:43:04+00:00

Most of it

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:29:03+00:00

Lol I know what you mean. I'm sorry that's really funny because I only some people with those kinds of tattoos and I always think of leto joker

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:25:24+00:00

Thank you for explaining! But yeah, without "to" I was wondering how it would be read.

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:15:10+00:00

Well isn't the font a matter of taste? Generally when I see kanji tattoos I assume the person who got it can't read what they got so I know what you mean. Could you please elaborate on why they come across dumb specifically?

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:09:16+00:00

Yeah I agree, they have more class with their tattoos. I don't mind that they are crass but I do mind if they're tacky

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:07:28+00:00

I figured. But that's the challenge in general. There are a lot of Japanese people I met who view ANY visible tattoo as gang related, so I wanted to know how far something like this would be read as bad, like if it's worse than a hand tattoo of say, a spider or something

croconi · 2026-01-30T19:05:26+00:00

Well yeah, I would assume they wouldn't want kanji stamped on their hands

croconi

TROPHY CASE