My title might be a bit hyperbolic, but stuff like this worries me. I love to read and I love reading on a kindle. This has been going on for a while, but it has now reached absurd levels.
My title might be a bit hyperbolic, but stuff like this worries me. I love to read and I love reading on a kindle. This has been going on for a while, but it has now reached absurd levels.
Honest questions: What worthwhile alternatives exist already? If there are none, what can be done? What can be built to improve discoverability of authors while moderating what is visible?
Libraries and some bookstores are great about picking favorites and putting blurbs about them right on the shelf.
Powell’s always has great recommendations, I’ve found lots of fantastic new reads there. I wish everyone had access to one in person, I love that store so much.
As I have done with several others, I am going to point you to a website called Royal Road. Stories are free (generally, STUBs are stories that have moved at least a portion of their work to Amazon), Authors are hoping for Patreon support (which usually included Early Chapters at a minimum). I am one of said authors, link in my profile, same user name here and there.
I heard about Royal Road. I write and planned to put a complete novel on it. That being said, I saw reports of the community there being quite averse to LGBT content (it was in an old thread on r/hobbydrama).
As an author there, does that match your experience? Did things improve if it used to be the case? Thanks!
I started writing my story back in September, and I do not seem to have more than the normal amount of trollish low ratings.
My MCs are an M/F/F thruple, I have an explicitly stated F/F couple, a not yet explicitly stated M/M couple, and one of the female MCs has an earthy attitude and took full advantage of having magic birth control and disease prevention/curing available, before getting into this relationship. Only on her terms though, and she’s a warrior-monk who broke several bones of the last guy who tried to grab her when she walked away. :D
There’s also a forum thread that is all about collating LGBTQ+ stories, since there is not a specific tag for them.
I am sure there are some assholes there, but it appears welcoming enough to me. I could be missing something, but at the least they are not overt.
Thanks! I’ll give it a try
if I ever edit the bloody novelsomeday.Also your warrior-monk sounds absolutely badass.
I like to think she’s pretty cool. :) Circumstances of the story make it a little harder to focus on her sometimes, but she should shine pretty well in volume 3.
I like to use goodreads, though that is still Amazon owned, it has more human curated lists and the like. I used to also use some of the subreddits to see what was recommended, I don’t know if lemmy yet has like a mystery book or sci fi book or whatever community.