Elise Carlson

A Fantasy Author's Adventures in Fiction & Life

Tag: indie author

July 28, 2025 / / 1 Comment

As its 2025, and as the nonbinary author of a YA Fantasy with a nonbinary main character, I expected my Ruarnon Trilogy to be banned or shadow banned this year. But as it turned out, my book that was shadow banned has a cis male character, who’s sexuality is barely mentioned. In this blog I’ll explore an epic failure of communication between indie game and bookstore Itch and its content creators, censorship concerns and why I was furious about my book, which tells the story of a teenage boy grappling with CPTSD as a result of family violence and dysfunction, was caught up in it.

Apparently We’re Being Censored

Shadow Bans

If you don’t follow indie creators on Bsky, you may have missed the social media maelstrom of angry, confused reactions over the past week. You may not know the indie gamer store Itch, has become a haven for queer, neurodiverse and disabled indie authors, in particular. Itch is the one place many of us are actually having people buy our ebooks, despite many of us having little or no money to pay to advertise books. Importantly, it was the one space we felt our works were truly valued for their queerness.

So when we jumped on Bsky to see posts saying books had been shadow banned, meaning our books are on the Itch store, but some do not display in its searches, there was confusion. Creators were shocked and angry at Itch giving us no prior warning. Only after the fact did Itch issue this statement.

In short, creators were told by Itch that a charity/ advocacy group called Collective Shout campaigned to pressure Mastercard and Visa not to process payment of ‘certain content.’ Itch appears have shadow banned all content tagged ‘NSWF’ and perhaps also ‘Adult’ in response. (As of the 29/7/25, the former is confirmed by the Australian Guardian.)

Total Content Bans (Edited 30/7/25)

A few days later, Itch released a new content policy (listed under ‘Is Adult Content Allowed?’) The clause which had me concerned about them allowing my book to be for sale after their review (the reason for the shadow ban/ indexing is; “We are unable to support the sale of any works containing these topics: Non-consensual content (real or implied)…’

This phrase is problematic. If it came directly from Collective Shout, who describe themselves as anti-porn, I’d assume the clause means ‘non consensual sexual content.’ But the word ‘sexual’ isn’t in that clause. And the phrase after it is ‘no underage or barely legal themes.’ These are broad, sweeping clauses, currently worded in a manner that is in no way limited to sexual assault or rape.

Censorship Gone Mad? A Cautionary Tale?

Characters in fiction don’t normally consent to being murdered, assaulted, robbed, cheated on by their spouses, betrayed, lied to, deceived, enslaved, killed in battle, etc. ‘Non consensual content’ as a blanket ban statement is ludicrous. The genres ‘Murder Mystery’ and ‘Crime’ would be wholesale banned, many Fantasy and SciFi books and games, and Thrillers; gone. Your middle of the line contemporary family drama wouldn’t be available on Itch; if they enforce this policy in its current wording.

What was the Purpose of the Censorship?

NSWF Censorship? (Added 30/7/25)

Having seen Itch’s replies and interactions to this post in a Bsky thread, and Collective Shout’s open letter to the payment processors, I am reassured that the phrase ‘non consensual content’ is intended to contain the word ‘sexual,’ though its current wording appears very broad.

Update July 31: Itch are seeking new payment processors, who are friendlier to NSWF content, because their new adult content policy was imposed on them by payment processors Stripe and Paypal. Content creators of 18+ content (all, not just sexual) can no longer select Stripe as their payment processor for Itch. Which suggests to me that Stripe is opposed to all adult content.

Update August 2nd: Itch’s naming choice ‘Adult Content’ and Stripe using ‘NSWF’ and ‘adult’ as synonyms (no, my autistic brain does NOT consider ‘adult’ to be inherently ‘sexual’ because; it literally isn’t), suggests Itch’s ‘Adult Content policy’ means: sexual content policy. That the word ‘sexual’ does apply to every clause and that it does not restrict all M+ content. (Note from an autistic person to anyone who communicates with other humans: use words that literally mean what you literally mean!)

Queer Censorship? (Added 31/7/25)

There were reports of Itch removing LGBTQIA+ works which do not contain the NSWF tag and fears that the ‘LGBT’ tag was targeted by de-indexing. I am aware of several instances (from this Bsky thread) where SWF works were de-indexed because they were tagged, ‘adult’ or ‘sensitive content,’ which Itch removed in case it was NSWF. Itch has restored most of the examples in this thread.

Update Aug 2nd: This late in the game, formed under fears all NSWF and possibly queer content was or could in future be banned, has already sparked the formation of indie collective Conjured Ink. Its aim is to create a catalogue of indie works (especially queer and NSWF) that doesn’t share Itch’s vulnerability to payment processor censorship. And its website went live for creator sign ups today.

Collective Shout &Trans People
(Edited 30/7 & 4/8/25)

Who are Collective Shout? As their About Page tells you, they are a ‘a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.’ They’ve done some good work, like getting Andrew Tate, the notorious Manosphere ‘pick up’ artist’s content banned on Spotify. I note this because its evidence of a group of feminists acting in a way that’s likely to actually make the world safer for women. Their campaign wins seem to indicate this is their intent.

Why do I doubt Collective Shout? Because the year is 2025, and there are ‘feminist groups’ in the UK who, instead of taking actions to reduce actual violence against women, are waging war on trans rights in the name of ‘protecting women’. This despite a 2021 survey finding that only 0.01% of people aged over 16 in England and Wales identify as trans men, and again, only 0.01% of over 16’s in England and Wales identify as trans women. It appears to me that these TERFs wish to hold 0.02% of the UK population accountable for 100% of its violence against women.

Groups like Sex Matters have pushed for bathroom bans in the UK. This looks a lot like denying trans people the dignity of using public bathrooms, effectively discouraging trans people from participating in public life. (See JamieDodger for more on this). And the director of Sex Matters just launched a book praising such work in the UK and arguing that they should be proud to be called ‘TERF Island’. That book is being published and promoted by Spinafex press, which was co-founded by Collective Shout’s co-founder, Renate Klein.

Collective Shout TERF Agenda? (Edited 4/8/25)

So a co-founder of Collective shout runs a press that is platforming a leader of the UK anti-trans movement, and her press is promoting a book that praises attacks on trans rights. In the same month Renate’s Press published that book, Collective Shout went after an obscure indie games and book store, on a distant corner of the internet (Itch). One that just happened to have a high ratio of trans creators selling their works on it.

In this this interview, PressSpaceToJump surveyed 25 creators whose works were de-indexed on Itch. Twelve of them were trans. Several of them made their living from sales on Itch. Of all the places Collective Shout could go to reduce the ‘objectification of women and sexualisation of girls,’ why did they choose Itch (and not just larger store Steam? Is it coincidence that censoring Itch was likely to censor trans creators?

An ABC article reported Dr Keogh, a researcher at QUT Digital Media Research Centre take as, “Collective Shout’s campaign had the hallmarks of a moral panic, using extreme examples to galvanise public support.” And quoted him, “And that’s really just a smokescreen to remove a much, much broader range of content, which includes primarily queer content and trans content.”

Given the TERF agenda platforming above, I’m inclined to suspect Dr Keogh is right. And that Collective Shout’s claims about its agenda are untrustworthy. (Collective Shout’s founder won’t even disclose her religion, for fear it would taint her advocacy work. I wonder if fear of people applying the ‘Christo-fascist’ label to her and the impact that could have on her work that she fears.)

Where Does Collective Shout Get its Funding?
(Added Aug 8)

According to the Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission (ACNC), Collective Shout’s total revenue is $458,000. Despite the age of the charity (it was founded in 2009), that’s impressive for a charity who gets 80% of its income from donations, whose website to this day has a monthly reach of just 3,000 people (sourced from Ahrefs website visits tracker), which Ahrefs estimates earns them around $58 a month.

I’m Australian. I had heard of Collective Shout. No other Aussies I’ve spoken to have. Its not like they do door knocking, or set up stands in shopping centres, asking for donations, like other charities. So where did this money come from? And why does RocketReach, a company whose business is built on corporate networking, estimate Collective Shout’s revenue to be 6.4 million? (I’ll leave it to journalists to verify that statistic.)

Even if RocketReach made a gross error with its revenue statistic, this still looks like several hundred thousand dollars came from nowhere. Personally, I don’t trust any organisation in the year of fascism’s return to the west 2025, who’s pushing censorship, if I don’t know who funds them. If I don’t know where the money came from; I don’t know who’s agenda its being used to push.

Global Censorship Context

2025 does not feel like a safe time time for any one organisation to soley impose censorship on the sale and distribution of creative content. Or for a mere a thousand emails to have payment processors censoring what adults can buy. It was enough to prompt the Trans Femine Review to, in their post about all this, link their guide to protecting trans and diverse books. And Collective Shout’s campaign against Itch and Steam as far from an isolated move towards increasing censorship.

Updates August 4th

Melinda Tankard Reist (Collective Shout’s founder) addressed a Federal Inquiry to support age limits on Social Media in Australia in July 2024 and has been very much involved in this process.

Australia introduced age verification rules for Microsoft and Google in June 2025.

Canada introduce a bill to ‘protect young people from pornography’ to parliament in June 2025.

Meanwhile multiple US states have or were proposing age verification in June 2025, including KOSA, which passed the senate July 30th.

Collective Shout sent their letter to payment processors that triggered Itch and Steam censorship in July 2025.

On July 25th, the Uk launched age verification for social media users.

The broader backdrop of Collective Shout’s censorship push is a push by anglo nations to ‘protect children against porn,’ something Collective Shout’s site claims to be passionate about. And this ‘protect kids against porn’ movement is coinciding with fascism being firmly established in the US, and gaining ground in the UK. I don’t mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but this extensive set of ‘remarkable’ coincidences makes me wonder if Collective Shout is a pawn, or worse, collaborator, in a larger censorship game.

Text: Elise Carlson, Walking the Knife's Edge. Sythe Series, Book1.Rarkin stands in foreground, wearing leather jacket and jeans, holding a stun gun raised to shoot to the left.Miona stands on the right, smiling and with boxing gloved fists raised, ready to fight.They both stand on a grassy slope, a patchwork of Farm Zone paddocks, fields and tree lined streams behind them, to a cloud covered horizon through which the yellow glow of the sun shines.
(Yes, my book was shadow banned before it was even published, and is still on pre-order.)

If You don’t Write Non-Consensual;
You Can’t Fight it

Update July 30: One of the clauses of Itch’s updated content policy, the only evidence I had for two days about why my book was shadow banned, was a clause prohibiting ‘non consensual content.’ As explained above, without the word ‘sexual’ in this clause, it read so broadly that it raised multiple issues for my book.

My main character Rarkin did not consent to being raised by an abusive father, who constantly undermines Rarkin’s worth. And Rarkin’s mother didn’t consent to being abused by her husband.

And you know what? Rarkin’s father didn’t consent to being assaulted by his father. Just like Rarkin’s mother didn’t consent to being abused by her father. That’s how the cycle of family violence works.

Many people are privileged enough to not have lived experience of this. If you’re going to write a book that says, ‘This character had an unhappy childhood,’ then launch into who that character is now… A. as someone who spent the formative years of their childhood watching abuse and neglect destroy kids I went to school with; if you didn’t live it, you do not know and cannot hope to understand it by many other experiences you could have had. And B. if you don’t know what you’re fighting, then you don’t know how to fight it, and you cannot truly appreciate why it matters.

Silence is Violence

The above was a phrase used by Mene Wyatt, an Aboriginal Australian, in a powerful monologue about Australian racism. He’s absolutely right. Never talking about unpleasant, dark, scary things, like the child abuse in my book Walking the Knife’s Edge, is akin to pretending those unpleasant things don’t happen. Like not talking about people trafficking, rape, or the disgustingly small sentences male sex offenders receive, on the rare occasions they’re prosecuted at all.

When we constantly don’t talk about awful things that are happening, its like we pretend they aren’t. Like we sweep them under the rug. Its like Gaza, where you don’t want to look, because its awful, and you feel powerless to stop it.

The thing is; if most people aren’t talking about it, most people aren’t doing anything to stop it. You can’t bring about societal change, you can’t end violence against women or children (or BIPOC or LGBTQIA+ people) once and for all, with inaction.

Why Telling Rarkin’s Story in my Banned Book MATTERS

I’m an author. One who is physically disabled (fibromyalgia), who is both enhanced and impaired by autism and ADHD. As a disabled person, there are a lot of things I physically cannot do to make many aspects of this world a better place. One thing I can do is tell a story about a poor kid from the wrong side of town, who grew up holding it all in, with emotionally toxic coping strategies, because he had no other role modelling. I can represent CPTSD, the impact of trauma and stress on memory, on trust and relationships. I can have a character question his family, as he tries to understand himself, taking a lens to the cycle of family violence and to toxic masculinity.

I can go further. I can take a character who’s ultimately at risk of suicide, or being a crime lord. I can craft his healing journey, combatting his warped, toxic views of the world with the influence of happier, healthier humans he’s very grateful to have as friends.

I can give teenagers who ignore this book’s adult classification, and are fighting the same battle as Rarkin himself, the chance to see themself in a book. To have someone, for once in their life, show that I SEE them. I know they exist. Even better, I can write a character recovering from the very things threatening their mental health and their future.

I can show them there’s an out. There are ways. There are reasons for hope.

The Power Of Fiction

I’m me. I didn’t survive growing up with the challenge of clashing with an autistic parent who’s neurodiversity did not understand mine, of navigating early adulthood with no concept of organisation, or navigation as a time blind ADHDer, I DID NOT get long covid, and be incapable of writing for nine months to merely give my readers hope. I am not here just to make you feel.

I did that in Ruarnon Trilogy, which tells the story of a bunch of teens whose various neurodiversity’s quite literally help them to save a world. I explored unique strengths of autism and ADHD, especially the two working together in that trilogy’s main character.

With Rarkin, the greatest strength is his experiences of growing up with violence and trauma. His survival instincts and his capacity to understand, to stand up to people others are terrified of, are exactly what will position him to play a leading role in his world. The very weaknesses that nearly destroyed him, as low as he begins this story, that is how far he will come and how high he will rise.

I want readers who’ve lived Rarkin’s shittier experiences of life to have the chance to feel seen by his story. And I want them and every other reader to be blown away by it. But there is no way I can show you how far Rarkin comes across a series, if I cannot show you how it all begins, with shadow banned on Itch, book one.

What Now?

Should you see an organisation making a concerted attempt to prevent someone from telling their story, ask yourself; who are they silencing? Who and how does that silence harm, as well as help? No one’s going to shout about the ‘harm’ part, and with fascism on the rise, acts of censorship where harm is the point are ever more likely.

Register Your Complaints

Tell Mastercard, Visa and Stripe that it is not for them to decide whether adults can sell or purchase (legal) adult content.
See YellAtMoney for Mastercard, Visa, and Itch’s payment processors Stripe and Paypal’s phone numbers, mailboxes and emails. (That link includes advice, scripts and resources you might want to refer to in your contact at the bottom of the page.) You’ll find even more payment processors and their contact details on stop.paypros
Why? Because if an organisation can pressure payment processors for the right reasons, then an organisation can pressure them for the wrong reasons. And 2025 has been a spectacular display of wrong ‘reasons’.

Protect Diverse Books

First they came for porn, then NSWF, then queer and trans and all diverse creator’s content? To secure your own access to books by diverse creators, or even better, to safeguard books by trans and other diverse authors, even the hyperlinked contents menu of this article by Transfeminine Review will help.

If you’re looking for more books by diverse authors and about diverse humans, keep an eye on Itch bundles being advertised on Bsky. Particularly when its Pride Month, Nonbinary Awareness Week, Disability Pride Month, ADHD Awareness Month, Asexual Awareness Week etc. (Yes, I’ve got a book in a bundle for each of those latter two this October.) Books by marginalised authors and about marginalised characters are likely to be bundled during the month/ week/ on the international day for that identity group.

See also my Bsky lists of Marginalised Authors who sell books on Itch;

My book telling Rarkin’s story, Walking the Knife’s Edge, has been indexed on Itch and is available on Kobo, Barnes and Noble and other stores. Or request it at your local library!

Text: Elise Carlson, Walking the Knife's Edge. Sythe Series, Book1.Rarkin stands in foreground, wearing leather jacket and jeans, holding a stun gun raised to shoot to the left.Miona stands on the right, smiling and with boxing gloved fists raised, ready to fight.They both stand on a grassy slope, a patchwork of Farm Zone paddocks, fields and tree lined streams behind them, to a cloud covered horizon through which the yellow glow of the sun shines.

Thanks for sticking with me to the end!

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.

Related Reading

Simple Ways to Support Trans People

Chronically Ill & Neurodivergent Guide to Protests/ Public Events

Low Spoons Travel (With Autism/ ADHD/ Chronic Illness)

Writing Neurodiverse and Disabled Characters

Share
Pin
Share
More
June 17, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Abandoning Amazon as a reader is easy (if you don’t have a Kindle), when there are so many alternative stores, subscription services, and Goodreads alternatives, a few of which I’ll describe and link here. Abandoning it as an author was, until 2025, largely unthinkable. Even authors resentful of Amazon’s market dominance or lack of ethics felt we had to publish on Amazon to have any hope of selling books, let alone a career as an author, especially an indie author. But with Amazon in 2025 adding to its disregard for its staff and contempt for the environment; abandoning DEI (which almost had me bailing), and two big changes with gen ai, my decision to pull my books from them was made. And it became time to consider what being an author who doesn’t sell books on Amazon looks like.

Brick & Mortar/ Local Alternatives

As an Aussie, when I lived in Frankston, I bought books from Robinson’s Bookstore. In inner Melbourne, I discovered Collins Bookstore, and then my new favourite indie store in the inner suburbs, Readings. Anywhere I went, I also borrowed from the local library. Anything niche I wanted that wasn’t at a local store could be ordered online from Book Depository. Yes, the giant who offered free shipping world wide, the rival Amazon bought, then closed permanently. You’ll find seven Book Depository alternatives described here.

Bookshop.org

The brick and mortar alternative I like best for UK and US readers, if you don’t have one nearby is Bookshop.org, because they share their profits with indie stores. Its a good paperback alternative to Amazon and, as of 2025, Bookshop.org sell ebooks too.

Note for Authors: distributing your paperbacks via Ingram Spark directly, or using Ingram via Draft to Digital (which I prefer, as I find the D2D dashboard and customer service more accessible), will automatically make your paperbacks available on Bookshop.org. (For more on self publishing and book distributors, see this blog).

Online Store Alternatives

Before I link big multinational stores, I’ve found my Ruarnon Trilogy ebooks (courtesy of StreeLib) in national stores in western Europe, and one (so far) in South East Asia (all linked here.) So if you’re wanting to buy local, unsure of your choices and outside America, western Europe, UK, Canada or Australia, check in with the internet/ friends/ family about bookstores owned by your country.

Itchio

Itch.io was most popular with gamers, but in 2025 is growing in popularity among readers and indie authors. They sell ebooks DRM-free, and offer authors a better profit than many alternatives (buying direct from the author is best for authors, but comes with an international taxation headache that puts off or delays quite a few us with selling direct).

Note for Readers: Itchio doesn’t have a storefront for different countries. There’s one online storefront and the author chooses a currency for the minimum price, which can be free and you can tip above it. If needed, the price is converted into the purchaser’s currency.

Note for Authors: you need to create an account and upload your books directly to sell on Itch. Setting prices in UK/ US or Euro currencies means unfavourable exchange rates for readers in the rest of the world. For example, a US $4.50 ebook cost me around $8.30 Aud. The standard Australian dollar indie book price is $6. So you might want to take exchange rates into account when setting your minimum price.

Abandoning Amazon as Reader AND Author

Kobo

For Australia, New Zealand, the US, Canada, much of Europe, the UK, South Africa, India, Japan, and some of the Asia-Pacific (specific countries listed here), we can buy ebooks via the Canadian company Kobo. Kobo is part owned by Rakuten, based in Japan, where they don’t call it ‘DEI’, but they say ‘we respect human rights of all and uphold individual dignity,’ and commit to ‘contribute to a sustainable future.’ (Kobo became home of my digital library in 2024, and I plan to purchase a Kobo now in 2025.)

Barnes & Noble

I assume Barnes and Noble is (if anything now even more) popular in America. I couldn’t find much about them and DEI, though they still have their Black Lives Matter statement up, which I take as a good sign.

Apple

All of the aforementioned countries for Kobo, plus more of South America, Eastern Europe, Asia and the Pacific (specific countries listed here) have access to Apple, whose commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion remains firm. (Though, honestly, I’m prejudiced against Apple. I see their release of new model iphones as the most obvious instance of promoting needless consumerism, of sending the old model to landfill and generating carbon pollution from shipping the new model not because the old is broken, but because the new is ‘the latest’).

Booktopia

It would be un-Australian of me not to also mention Booktopia, Australia’s largest online store (yes trading again as of 2025 after voluntary administration in 2024). And they own another Aussie bookstore, which seems to be more online than brick and mortar these days; Angus and Robertson.

Note for Authors: I distribute my ebooks (and for B&N and Booktopia my paperbacks) to all of the above stores except –Itchio– via Draft to Digital (who also distribute to Everand, listed below).

Subscription Service Alternatives

For Americans, there’s Barnes & Noble’s Nook.

For Americans, Canadians, Aussies, Brits, Kiwis and everyone who has access to Kobo, there’s Kobo Plus.

There’s also 24 Symbols, which is multi lingual.

And Everand.

Note for Authors: I distribute my books to 24 Symbols and a range of local online stores throughout Europe, Latin America and elsewhere via StreetLib.

Library Apps

My favourite place to read and make my own book available for free is my local library. Any author who doesn’t have their books in Kindle Unlimited can make their ebooks (as well as paperbacks) available to local libraries, and yes, some services or government grants will pay us per borrow, or reimburse us beyond the libraries’ initial ebook purchase (Canadian and American authors, see Indie Author Project. Australian authors, see Lending Rights Schemes). You may want to borrow ebooks directly through your local library, or check if your local lets you borrow via the two popular apps below.

Libby

The readers of Bsky made me away of Libby, an international library app.

Hoopla

Your local library may also or alternately let you borrow through Hoopla.

Note for Authors: if your books are available for library purchase via Overdrive (to whom DraftToDigital distribute), readers can borrow them via Libby. DraftToDigital also distribute directly to Hoopla.

TBR & Review Alternatives

StoryGraph

StoryGraph is independently owned and was founded by Nadia Odunayo, with a focus on readers. This article by Distractify explores the benefit of that. Yes, you can export your Goodreads data to Storygraph, so you have the same TBR, book stats etc. They also offer a short questionnaire about your reading preferences, to inform their recommendations, and a free (which I use) and a paid tier. Book Riot’s (2021) Review has more information. Or you can create an account on Storygraph’s sign up page. (And or check out my epic YA Fantasy books.)

Note For Authors: the reason I’ve linked to my books instead of author profile (above) is because they’re not linked, as the option to do that doesn’t yet exist on StoryGraph. Apparently its in their roadmap for future developments.

BookBub

Bookbub is another option for following authors, getting notified of new releases, tracking your reading, reviewing books, etc. If you add a book to your wishlist or follow an author, they notify you when that book is on sale, not just on Amazon, but also on Apple, Barnes & Noble and Kobo. You can sign up for their daily email of books on sale by genre, and again sale links are for multiple stores. I’m on there mainly to review books (which I’m quite behind on), and my profile is here.

Note for Authors: you can pay for your books to be advertised in Bookbub’s emails. They also offer a coveted feature deal, which is far from cheap, but from all reports say it gives you a sales spike the day it goes out by email. Author sign up.

Fabel

I’m hearing mixed reviews of Fabel. It’s a paid service, but I’m including it because it emphasises book clubs and interactive reading, both of which seem less of an option on StoryGraph and Bookbub. I haven’t used Fabel.

Abandoning Amazon as an Author

Why do Indie Authors Publish On Amazon?

As an Aussie who grew up in a city when indie bookstores thrive; I never had any interest in Amazon as a reader. It didn’t exist here till 2018, its foreign owned, bad for the environment and treats its staff in exploitative conditions that would NEVER be tolerated in my country. But when I was doing my homework on self publishing in 2021, before releasing Manipulator’s War in 2022; every indie author I spoke to believed you HAD to be on Amazon.

It dominates the American market and has a firm grip on the world market. It was the best way for indie authors publishing in obscurity like myself to become ‘discoverable.’ It was the site all my indie author friends most valued reviews on, so that’s where I reluctantly purchased and began reviewing their books. Then I learned if I spent less than $50 a year annually on Amazon; I couldn’t write reviews there.

I never liked it. I didn’t want to have my books there. But even Wide for the Win, authors dedicated to and supporting each other with publishing wide (beyond Amazon as well as on it) seemed to believe you had to start on Amazon, and could gradually build your readership on non-Amazon stores. So I reluctantly published my books on Amazon from 2022 to 2025.

My Tipping Points for Leaving

As I said in the introduction, I was tempted to pull my books when Amazon abandoned DEI back in January. But with Meta updating their hate speech policy to exclude many forms of hate speech and abandoning fact checking around the same time, January had me busy connecting with travel friends and family on alternative platforms, before deleting my Facebook and Insta accounts.

I then dedicated myself to redesigning Manipulator’s War’s cover with art from my retired cover artist, and overcoming major paperback formatting issues for Ruarnon Trilogy, to release paperbacks via Draft to Digital and on Amazon. Within weeks of all three paperbacks being live on stores in May, I became aware of more Amazon bombshells.

Gen Ai Book Summaries- Author Copyright Violation?

I saw a post about how Amazon are introducing ai summaries of Kindle books. And those summaries include plot and character development. The book blurbs authors submit do not have all of that information. It could only be obtained by feeding an author’s book into generative ai. Which no author gave Amazon consent to do. Multiple authors began emailing Amazon about this, and I learned of it via this post by Skyla Cameron, summarising her email chain conversation with Amazon. After over a month of emails were exchanged; they failed to disclose whether they were storing and using the book data we did not consent to be fed to gen ai to train their gen ai.

Skyla and I both concluded from the Amazon customer service person saying, ‘I cannot say’ that Amazon are indeed training their gen ai on authors book files (uploaded for the purpose of selling them), without author consent. I was ready to pull my books then.

Ai to ‘Narrate’ Audible Books

Within days I saw another social media post about Amazon’s plans to make 100 ai ‘narrators’ available to narrate audio books. Stealing from authors on one hand and trying to put voice actors out of a job with the next? Decision to pull my books made!

Then Amazon announced they were cutting author royalties by 10% as of the first of June, and I laughed at them for confirming I’d made the right choice so swiftly.

I Don’t Want To Share Profits With Zon

The other thing the May gen ai revelations brought home to me was something that didn’t sit well with me in April. I participated in a big indie author books sale then (the Naratess Sale), and I sold three books on Amazon. That meant I made them $3 and me $3. I resented that. It’s the tinniest of profits, absolutely nothing to a billionaire. But I couldn’t be happy about those three book sales (there are months where I sell no books at all), because I resented Bezos getting anything.

And that realisation made me not want to promote my books, to avoid Amazon profiting from them. At which point it was obvious the decision I would be happiest with is removing my books from Amazon, then promoting bookstores I like, who treat authors (and in the latter’s case; book stores as well as customers) well, like Itchio and Bookshop.org. So those are the kind of stores my Ruarnon Trilogy books page now promotes. Meanwhile, I’ve been tracking down local stores in other countries too, and listing them on this stores by country page.

So Where Are My Books?

Thanks to Draft to Digital, when I pulled my books off Kindle, they were already on Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Booktopia and a few lesser known stores. Thanks to Streetlib, they are also on local country onlinne stores, like bucher.de in Germany, Bol in Netherlands etc. I uploaded Ruarnon Trilogy epub files/ ebooks to Itchio, and DriveThru Fiction directly, to give myself more reach and readers more options. And my paperbacks and ebooks are available to libraries via Draft to Digital as well. (All of my these links are on my books page.)

And I may, perhaps later this year, set up direct sales on my website, if looking into it in more detail shows its worth the time and author earnings to sell directly from my website AND on Itchio. Why Draft to Digital, and Itchio, and DriveThru Fiction and possibly also direct sales? For one of the same reasons I’ve never been exclusive to Amazon; I hate putting all my eggs in one basket. Twitter has shown how volatile that can be. (Yes, I had my largest social media following there before moving to Blue Sky).

What Does Being on Author not on Amazon Look Like?

I’d already refused back in January to utilise the two most popular ways for authors to make readers aware our books exist: paying Bezos to advertise them on Amazon, or Zuck to advertise them on Facebook. I’d also tried Bookbub ads in 2024, and found my graphic design skills (for my trilogy at least) were NOT cut out for getting Bookbub link clinks, let alone sales. And those are the three most likely paid ads to successfully advertise your book and build your readership…

Itchio Bundles

Having participated in an Itchio Bundle for Pride Month, which gathered 23+ books by 23 authors with aromantic main characters, I see the power of Itch book bundles to put underrepresented characters into the hands of readers who crave them. With every author promoting the same bundle on their social media; our reach is greater. And with book bundle profits split evenly between participating authors; we all earn something.

2025 -? Itch Bundles of Underrepresented Characters

I’m already planning a Nonbinary Books Bundle, with nonbinary main characters for Nonbinary Awareness Week, July 14th to 20th (Ruarnon of Ruarnon Trilogy being nonbinary.) I’ll also do an Asexual Spectrum Bundle for Asexual Awareness Week, and ADHD Rep Bundle for ADHD Awareness Month in October. (Yes, Ruarnon ticks both of these identities as well, while the second main character of Ruarnon Trilogy, Linh, is aro-ace and her best friend Troy is diagnosed ADHD, but not the only ADHDer.)

Whether these bundles will be a thing year in year out I’m not sure. But for this year at least, they’re a good way to meet and connect with more indie authors who share my marginalised identities. And a good way for us to help each other put our books into the hands of more readers, and give more people insight into what life with any one of those identities and more can be like. (They’re also an effective way to collectively market the first book in everyone’s series full stop).

I’ll definitely do an Autistic Book Bundle (or join someone else’s) during Autism Awareness Month (April) next year, with Rarkin, MC of my new Sythe Series being autistic. And perhaps consider broader themes and bundles, like Queer Normative SFF, or SFF Full Of Hope, both of which Ruarnon Trilogy very much ticks. (Technically Sythe Series does too, though its somewhat darker).

In Person Author Events

Having got long covid a mere six months after releasing my debut novel, and not successfully balanced my work life with ongoing chronic illness (fibromyalgia) until this year, I’m FINALLY ready to contemplate attending in person events. If I time them right, I should have the energy to participate and enjoy them physically and socially.

With the complete Ruarnon Trilogy in paperback, and book one of Sythe Series likely to be out in August/ September 2025, I’m hoping to attend some local Sunday markets with my books. To start casual, local and small scale. I’ve applied for a booth at Australia Book Fair (the first ever) in Melbourne in 2026, and hope to attend Supa Nova in 2026 as well. Being a sociable person with a background in retail, and currently a teacher, I think I’ll enjoy meeting people at in person author events.

Online Book Promotion?

Ok, maybe I’ll set aside some time to write some more post-length blurbs for book 1 of Ruarnon Trilogy, make a few more graphics and start posting them at least once a month. Or fortnightly? Like many authors, I don’t like self promotion. And perhaps its my autism that insists that social media should be social, and is so reluctant to post about my book with a link to it, like a straight up ad, on social media. But I definitely need to do more than my super sporadic and rare posts of previous years.

There’s author chats and daily writer prompts where I’ll also talk about my characters, world building etc (more details on both in my Bsky Newby Guide). And there are questions I’d like to ask other writers in my posts, and discuss, which would also involve me sharing more about my book.

There are paid ads in newsletters for readers that I could try (again), like Book Barbarian (which is for fantasy). And I could consult paid promotion indie author gurus like David Gaughran (who have ideas about marketing beyond Amazon) recommend.

Yes, this post hasn’t just been me sharing links I hope will help readers and authors alike, or aiming to be informative. Its also me setting goals and trying to keep myself accountable. If you’re a fellow indie author trying to do the same, I’d love to hear your ideas/ plans on book marketing in these crazy times. You can find me on Blue Sky, Mastodon or send me an email via my contact page and check out my Writer/ Author Discord on there too. Best of luck!

While you’re here, if anyone likes portal, epic, YA fantasy led by queer and neurodiverse characters… maybe take a look at my Ruarnon Trilogy?

Abandoning Amazon as Reader AND Author
Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.

Further Reading

Becoming an Indie Author 1; Editing, Covers & Book Distributors

Becoming an Indie Author 2; Book Launch

Author Website Tips

Author Newsletters

Indie Author Marketing and Time Management

Wide for the Win
An online author group dedicated to publishing and promoting books outside Amazon. (Originated on Facebook and is now thankfully on a different platform; Circle. Don’t worry, not the Tom Hank’s personality cult that duped Emma’s Watson’s character Circle ????)

More Author Platform & Marketing Resources (on my Writer Resources Page)

Share
Pin
Share
More
January 15, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Congratulations, you’re an indie author with your first book out! What next? Most likely your first book is #1 of a series, and you need to write, edit and publish #2. Gurus say we should also be writing and somehow promoting a newsletter. We may elect (as I do) to write a blog, or run a podcast or a Youtube channel). And almost everyone seems to think social media presence is important. And if all that doesn’t sound like a full time job, there’s the non-writing job we do (full or part time) to pay bills and put a roof over our heads.

So how do you find the time and energy to do it all? Especially if, like me, you’re chronically ill, and or neurodiverse? In this post I’ll unpack time management factors to consider, outline my own attempts at breaking down and making marketing manageable, and conclude with resource links to help with actual marketing at the end.

The ‘Small Amount of Time Daily’ Model

There are those people who say: just do a little each day, like writing 500 words. Its not much time or work in that day. And over not too many weeks/ months you’ll have a novel/ established newsletter/ paid advertising campaign!

A big factor here seems to be that when’s life’s busy, its easy to say, ‘I won’t do it today because x,’ and ‘not tomorrow because y’. There’s a risk of not setting aside time to write/ market books and therefore not starting (as I well know, having not spent 9 months of 2023 marketing due to life and earning a living).

If you’re looking for a way to jam marketing into a daily/ weekly schedule under strain, that ‘short amount of time a day’ model may appeal. But personally, I have one main objection.

Some of Us Cannot Spare a Small Amount of Time

Some of us have a disability. Maybe marketing is ‘just’ an extra 20 mins in my day and that’s not much. But my back hurts and gravity is trying to pull me into the ground. My Fibro is DONE with today. It needs that 20 mins (and the next three hours), and same time the next day/ week/ month to recover from the rest of the day. I don’t control what I do on day’s I’m at my day job. My body makes that call and woe is me if I ignore and defy early warnings of increasing fatigue, and or signs my chronic pain is about to flare.

Maybe it takes you time and effort to get your brain out of work/ parenting/ other mode, to tune into something book/ marketing related (especially if you have ADHD). By the time you’ve spent ten minutes (or for ADHD three hours to days/ weeks/ months) trying to engage your brain on The Thing, you want/ need a solid block of time on that task. The first hour ‘on The Thing’ is passed and you weren’t able to properly engage with, or even start The Thing yet.

Need Solid Blocks Of Time?

I NEVER bother sitting down to write if I don’t have at least 1-2 hours. Otherwise I don’t remember who’s in the scene, where the scene is or what just happened, let alone what I’m writing now, or setting up to happen next. Marketing is similar. I want AT LEAST an hour to draft that newsletter/ blog/ design that ad graphic/ series of upcoming book teasers.

The ONLY ‘book marketing’ thing I do in less than an hour is run late to a social media author chat (you’ll find those listed on my Bsky writer chat list). And while technically talking about your characters and plots online could ultimately result in someone reading one of your books, its mostly an activity I do for fun, and connection with fellow writers.

Do What Works For You

So before considering when in the day/ week/ month to schedule your marketing, I’d first consider your ability to focus, your stamina and what length of time blocks you need for marketing (or writing) to be focused AND productive. IF a little each or most days of the week works for you, of course go for it! If it doesn’t? Ideally, I’m finding ‘how often’ boils down to ‘often enough to remember what I’m trying to achieve and how,’ and often enough ‘to feel like I’m making progress.’

When Did I Do All The THINGS?

Blog?

My blog could mean one afternoon a month editing the next blog, and penciling in ideas for the next few month’s blogs. Enough time to check I’ll have a blog ready to roll out at the same time this month, and enough ideas/ of a draft to have edited and published one next month. Ideally, some ideas and or drafts beyond that.

With that system in place, I’ve published one blog most months for nearly four years. This despite the time blindness and management barriers my undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD posed for most of that period.

Newsletter?

I spend probably one or two afternoons very second month drafting and editing newsletter content and inserting images. Usually, that’s now within a week of sending out a newsletter. Initially though, I always began the next letter before sending out this one, to have content ideas already ticking in advance.
Again, in this case that helped me have a newsletter ready to go every two months for the last three years (quarterly initially, which wasn’t frequent enough to engage people).

Write the Next Book?

Writing/ editing the next book for me is more challenging than both of the above. As a distracted ADHDer, and autistic person who desires exploring story and character logic ALL THE WAY down the deepest rabbit hole, I love writing complex stories produced by whole days writing and editing. In my energetic twenties, Saturdays were rest from the new, challenging career of teaching, Sunday morning’s were reading to enhance my focus, and afternoons for writing. (Of course there were days my ADHD wouldn’t focus at all and I’d stare at a blank page or not even turn on my computer.)

When I was lucky enough to work only three hours a morning part time for a year (in 2018), I would come home from teaching literacy, read for an hour or two, then write for six to eight hours (going for an hour long run in the middle). Those days were brilliant for my undiagnosed, unmedicated ADHD. The teaching burnt off the restlessness I started every day bursting with. Reading when I got home calmed and focused my highly distractible brain. And I still had HOURS to focus and write. Than an hour to run off the resltessness and re-calm and re-focus my hyper, ADHD brain mid-write block.

Getting Marketing Goals Into a State to Determine WHEN To Do Them

First: pick ONE aspect of marketing to focus on. A social media account, a newsletter, a blog, seeking author interviews, getting your book up on all the platforms (details in Step 9 of this post) , or ONE type of paid ad campaign. As an who began social media with Facebook, Instagram AND Pinterest simultaneously, then mastered Twitter, I assure you its more effective to learn ONE platform/ aspect of marketing well first. THEN transfer your learning to a second a few months later. Otherwise its too easy to do multiple things with lack of clarity/ understanding, and thus ineffectively.

Once you’ve got your One focus, getting started is great, but the challenge (as everyone with ADHD knows), is sustaining your work. I find marketing hardest. Aside from individual blog posts/ podcasts/ youtube videos, its hard to break ‘book marketing’ into small, yet related, continuous tasks. Bookbub ads (the first paid option I experimented with) seemed big, and daunting and I put it off for probably over a year before trialling them.

Example: Breaking Learning Bookbub Ads Into Sessions

Once you’ve picked your One Thing, consider how to break it into smaller parts, likely to fit the time you have daily/ weekly/ monthly for them. When I took a break from teaching early in 2023, that involved three week’s full time testing Bookbub ads for my first trilogy (massive fail. I spent money and lots of hours, but my designs were WAY too far off the mark to be potentially worth it). Here’s how, if I only had a few hours daily, as opposed to whole days, I’d break down learning Bookbub ads.

1: Research

Read David Gaughran’s Bookbub ads book and browse sample Bookbub ads (like Top 10 Bookbub Ads of 2024), and take notes in the first few 1-2 hours slots, for a week (or two).

2: Design Ads

Spend the next few 1-2 hour slots designing my first ad images.

3: Compare My Ads to Successful Designs & Revise

Spend the next few hour slots (over around two weeks) examining each individual aspect of design. I’d break these down into; font & font size, background, text & background contrast, how cluttered the image looks etc. Then I’d compare design elements of my ads to my notes on effective design from Step 1 and tweak accordingly.

4: Test & Compare Results of My Own Ads

Run a test ad, then spend slots over the next week comparing and contrasting the amount of clicks it got to previous ads. Then analyse which design elements/ or whether the target author likely influenced clicks positively or negatively. Repeat step 3 with ad test conclusions in mind.

Repeat As Needed

By this point in my process a loop between step 3-4 involving redesign, reflection and re-evaluation could spread over as many sessions and weeks as needed to nail design. Or to conclude that would waste too much time and money (it did with my first book).

Indie Author Marketing & Time Management

Photo Credit: Aron Visuals

When Might You Do All The THINGS?

When you’ve had a go at breaking things into manageable parts, and in so doing developed a clearer idea of what exactly you want to achieve in which time; you can consider WHEN to do All The Things. In deciding that, these considerations helped me, and may help you plan your marketing schedule/ routine.

1: Choose Your Focus

Realistically choose which authorly things you want to focus on in coming months. If you don’t have a website; DO THAT NOW. If you do, will you start a newsletter/ blog/ youtube presence? Build a particular social media platform/ your writer-author network? Or are you ready to consider promoting your book(s) on Amazon/ to a Wide audience? Or do you want to start local and look at public author events, or getting your paperbacks into a local bookshop?

If you’re unsure which of these Things to tackle next, or in what order to tackle Things plural, I go into detail, link resources and sequence The Things I’d aim to do before and soon after launching a book in this post.

  1. How often a day/ week/ month do you need to work on marketing to stay in touch with your goals and keep making progress? (Note: ‘progress’ can include identifying ways that do NOT work and your reflections on why. I still call on-the-job-learning ‘progress’, as knowledge puts you in a better position to achieve in future.)

2: Block Out Other Comittments

What days/ times aren’t an option for you because of your day job? Because humans need sleep and or your kids need parents to raise them? What other comittments require how much of your time?

In blocking out non-writing time, please don’t forget to block out time to rest, recover, chill, smell roses, eat chocolate etc! In other words, don’t work yourself to death. Modern life is BUSY and we need BREAKS.

3: Identify Your Authorly Time Slots

Having blocked out time for life and wellbeing purposes, what time do you have left and how often, across a week (or even month)?

For my teaching career, all work days are a no for anything authorly (except social media, which is more social for me). Teaching takes a lot out of me physically, emotionally and cognitively, so if I taught that day, the evening is for rest.

If like me, your disability, ADHD distraction, autistic overload (or other) determines when and how much you can get done, use a good day to record Thing you’re working on, parts you’ve broken it into and sequence them. Then, each time your body and mind co-operate and allow you to make progress, make a quick ‘where to next’ note. With that note, after however long it next takes for the stars to align for you to tackle The Thing again, you’ll know where you’re at.
(I’m so glad I wrote a May 2024 Author To Do List, because I spent May moving out, June moving in and life happened for 6 months, so its now my Jan-Feb 2025 To Do List.)

4: Choose a Thing ( big picture focus) for The Year

What’s your big focus for the next few months, or even the year?

With my website established (tips on that in this blog), Newsletter established (Newsletter tips here) and blog established, they all get a couple of hours a month.

Last year I intended to focus on trialing paid ads, but didn’t get to begin FB ads after my Bookbub ones bombed because moving house and setting up (a chronic illness, autistic and ADHD friendly) house took up the rest of the year.

For 2025, my big overall focus seems to be how to promote my books wide (ie. beyond Amazon). My First Thing may be setting up direct ebook sales on my website. Ideally, I’ll do paperback ones after that (which I know will be more complicated).

My Big Thing 2 may be exploring in-house promotions. I’d like to check that for Kobo via D2D and see if I can access Apple in-house promotions that way. I also want to experiment with Smashwords Sales (when they FINALLY merge my Smashwords and D2D accounts, which will put all 3 Ruarnon Trilogy books on ONE trilogy page. They’re currently spliced across two different series pages, for the SAME series).

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.

Further Reading (Above Links & More Resources)

Becoming an Indie Author 1; Editing, Covers & Book Distributors

Becoming an Indie Author 2; Book Launch

Author Website Tips

Author Newsletters

Wide for the Win
An online author group dedicated to publishing and promoting books outside Amazon. (Originated on Facebook and is now thankfully on a different platform; Circle. Don’t worry, not the Tom Hank’s personality cult that duped Emma’s Watson’s character’s Circle 😉

More Author Platform & Marketing Resources (on my Writer Resources Page)

Share
Pin
Share
More
November 4, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Most of my blogs about authoring are practical advice, save my my decision to self publish. I’m now at a stage of outlining thoughts on other big (in this case ethical dilemma) author decisions; which social media and advertising platforms to use as an author. This is not an advice blog and definitely not a ‘how to make money as an indie author blog’. It’s why I chose to leave Twitter, opt out of Kindle Unlimited and delete my Facebook Author Page. It may help you reflect on your choices and what’s right for you as an author/ reader/ person. (And maybe we can lament the demise, death and zombie status of Twitter together).

Content Warning: VERY antisemtic Twitter account name named under ‘Hate Site.’

Amazon, Libraries & No Thanks Kindle Unlimited

When you’re an emerging Indie Author and readers don’t know you from Adam, entering your book in Amazon’s Kindle Select program (into Kindle Unlimited -KU) is very tempting. It has lots of readers, your book is discoverable and you will get some page reads (even if you don’t market much or aren’t very good at it). Conventional author wisdom seems to be that its a wise financial and discoverability move for a first time author. But my books are not in Kindle Select (despite that at the time of writing I’ve only published 2/3 of my debut trilogy).

Growing up, I was the child of a single parent. Money was tight. We got most of our books from the library. I like libraries. I like that they’ve always made access to books, digital resources, the internet, printing and apparently now recording studios, an equitable experience. So when I published my first book I wanted libraries to have access to print AND digital copies. But no library could have digital copies in their catalogue if my ebook was in Kindle Select (KU).

No matter what research I did, or advice I considered, for me it was the ethical point that got stuck in my head. I’m a full time teacher and can pay off a home loan on my own salary (which is great because I don’t have a partner and am not inclined to want one). I’m privileged enough not to depend on writing to earn a living. Which is awesome, because as a debut author breaking even financially is a challenge. So I’m in a financial position to stick to my ethical guns and make my ebooks available to libraries.

Non-Amazon Stores

Then there’s stores. I don’t like Amazon. When I got long covid, I got banned from having books available on pre-order on there for a year. That’s because Amazon’s highest priority is customer experience (read ‘profits’). Authors don’t matter to them. I’ve heard of authors having their accounts deleted, their books taken down (before I left Twitter, more on that below). It doesn’t have authors’ backs.

So I researched bookstores and looked at alternatives. I discovered (I’m Australian so neither of these is really a thing here) that Barnes & Noble have a reader subscription service (Nook) and Kobo has Kobo Plus, and unlike Kindle Select (KU), neither of those subscription services is exclusive. So you can have your ebook on Nook, and Kobo Plus AND in libraries.

And there are so many other (non-exclusive) ebook subscription services online (Scribed & Hoopla for example). Sure, these services don’t make your book as visible as Kindle Unlimited, but they have less books for yours to get lost competing among, so I figured why not?

Cover of fantasy book Manipulator's War, purchase icons for ebook: Kindle, Apple, Nook, Kobo, Booktopia, Scribd, Vivlio, Smashwords, Indigo, S24, Thalia, Bucher De, Angus & Robertson.Paperback purchase icons: Barnes & noble, Waterstones, Booktopia, Angus & Robertson, Bucher De.

The above isn’t all the digital stores my first book is on, its just the main ones. If I was in Kindle Unlimited, you’d only see the first two ebook icons. That’s quite a few stores of difference.

Eggs in One Basket

I also don’t like a ‘put all your eggs in one basket approach’. Not just in terms of one basket, but also an American and far from global basket. Of the icons above, the blue icon is a French store. 24S is a Spanish owned subscription service. Thalia and Bucher De are German, and the green Rakuten Kobo is Booktopia, Australia’s biggest online bookstore. Not everyone will choose to buy from an American company when they can support stores in their own country and not everyone is fond of Amazon.

But the biggest problem of putting all your eggs in one baskets is it leaves me vulnerable, should the basket break. Which leads me to Twitter.

2025 Update: I’ve pulled my ebooks from Amazon (unfortunately they have a policy that pretty much means you can’t remove your paperbacks). And since sold more books in June 2025 Pride Month on indie online store Itchio than I did on Amazon in four years period. Bye bye Bezos!

Goodbye Twitter, Hello Mastodon & Blue Sky

Perhaps a pressing author ethical dilemma for many authors of late has been the demise of Twitter. Twitter’s #WritingCommunity was my first social media home as a writer. Privately I was on Facebook (which I’ve never liked. 2025 update: and have now deleted, including my Insta). On Twitter I found a space to network with, befriend, learn from and help my fellow writers. It grew beyond that. When I identified as both queer and neurodiverse, I saw great overlap between the writing community and those communities.

Twitter was a space where I could listen to voices I’d never heard before. Among them were, black people in America, BIPOC the world over, people with chronic illness, mental illness, neurodiverse and gender diverse people. It was a fabulous space for both professional growth as an author and personal growth as a person. Then Musk bought it.

True, algorithms always made your visibility and how easy it was to find friends on your feed variable. But Musk’s take over mostly made me feel more invisible than ever and made a concerted attempt to banish familiar faces from my feed. Familiar faces and good friends started leaving or stopped tweeting. The TERFs, transphobes, Trump supporters, and raging anti-science tribes started sounding louder. Twitter seemed to be competing with Truth Social to become the leading social media hate space.

Time To Go

I thought it would be transphobia and homophobia that drove me off Twitter. I’m the kind of person whose inclined to tell people where they can stick their shitty opinions. And I didn’t want to go on Twitter to be outraged or get angry or to argue. But that wasn’t the final straw.

A tweet about who was profiting from every fifth tweet (now a paid ad tweet) on our feeds stopped me tweeting. Fund the alt right? Fuck that! Sure, you can get an ad filter (which I did -and it helps a lot as someone with ADHD and visual sensory issues). But as Twitter became more like what I imagine Parlour or Truth Social stands for? I didn’t want to be associated with that place or its owner.

Hate Site

Since then and before publishing this blog @GasTheJews was revealed to be an entirely acceptable Twitter handle, when it was reported for hate speech multiple times, and Twitter claimed it wasn’t breaking any of their rules. Because did you know it isn’t hate speech if its in your Twitter handle instead of a tweet?

Text from tweet by Elliot Malin: Account @gasthejews6969 has not broken @X's safety procedures because 'gas the Jews' notably is not 'threatening violence against someone or a group of people' and definitely isn't 'celebrating or praising violence' whatsoeverAnd @ElonMusk wonders why advertisers left.Screenshot of Twitter's reply to a reported account: Hello, After reviewing the availible information, we want to let you know gasthejews6969 hasn't broken our safety policies.

The Kid’s Aren’t Safe

Then came the move (nearly two months after I ceased using my account), which persuaded me to delete it, cutting off multiple friends I don’t see on any other platform. My country’s Esafety Commissioner concluded that Twitter doesn’t have even the most basic child safety measures in place, to prevent not only child abuse but also child sexual abuse from occurring on it, and our Esafety Commissioner fined them accordingly.

Australian's ESafety commission fines Elon Musk's X $610,500 for failing to meet anti-child-abuse standards

Worried its only a matter of time before child abuse material is circulated on Twitter (if it isn’t happening already), and disgusted that every type of marginalised adult AND children don’t matter enough to Twitter (or its reputation) for them to even pretend to be doing anything to ensure user safety on the site, I deleted my account.

The Dilmena

How is Twitter being a hate site a dilemma? People seem to be staying because they personally aren’t attacked or aren’t witnessing marginalised people being attacked. People seem to be making decisions based on their personal user experience. And or indies are reluctant to give up sales from the site, when many of us indies struggle to even pay the costs of our business with our earnings, let alone MAKE any money (my cover art and editing costs are several thousand dollars more than I’ve earned so far as an indie author).

As for me, I had ten thousand followers on Twitter. I’d welcomed newbies, done threads to connect writers. I made lists, and gave extensive feedback on pitch party pitches over two years (and wrote this blog on writing a good one, still my most popular post.) That was my community. I had good friends on that platform who weren’t anywhere else, and dm groups -writer, author, queer and ND support groups that as a group didn’t want to move. Leaving meant losing my community and my platform as a budding indie author.

What’s an Author’s Place?

There was an interesting prompt for October on Mastodon: should writers post about politics or avoid it to avoid controversy? Should we publicly interact as if we are part of the world, or act like Ents, tending our books? Predictably, people who thought politics wasn’t an author’s place were white, cishet, neurotypical, able-bodied authors oblivious to their own privilege. They didn’t seem to notice that for others, eg. First Nations, Black, Asian, Queer, Neurodiverse, Chronically Ill, or Disabled people -existing IS political. (I’ll be blogging about writing diverse casts in Jan 2024 ????).

To me, a nonbinary, a-romantic, asexual, neurodiverse, chronically ill white person living in a cishet, ableist world, ‘should writers speak publicly about politics’ translates as, ‘should writers shut up and put up?’ My answer is ‘no and did I mention fuck no?’ I agree with writers who said they are part of this world, impacted by it and am writing my identities into a world that barely knows we exist and or doesn’t understand and or accept us.

My Place

As part of this world, how could I tacitly support for example, the idea that @GasTheJews as a Twitter handle is acceptable, by retaining my Twitter account or using the platform? If you think I’m going too far in saying that not deleting your account is publicly signalling support of Musk and all he and his bootlickers stand for, I’d refer you to Mene Wyatt, who said, “Silence is violence. Complacency is complicit.” (Source, a powerful monalog on the Australian Aboriginal experience, worth watching).

I’d also point to the blog one of a nazis who greeted Posie Parker (a UK TERF) on the step’s of my state’s parliament house with a nazi salute. In his blog, he referred to most people as ‘normies’ and presumed he and his neo-nazis were acting on behalf of ‘normies’. People like him can’t claim shit like that if you publicly signal that you DON’T support them and they DON’T speak for you.

So I see removing all association with Twitter as a way of making my disapproval of Musk and everyone and their hatreds he shelters and promotes undeniably clear. Do I value that over money and even friendships? Yes.

Mastodon

So where does a writer, author, and a queer, neurodiverse person seeking all of those communities go? Mastodon had the greatest appeal. It’s similar in terms of functionality. The main difference is the whole platform isn’t the plaything of a single dick who can screw it up any which way every time he throws a temper tantrum. Or persecute minority groups wholesale because he’s angry at one individual in his personal life, who happens to be marginalised in a particular way.

Each Mastodon instance has a different admin. Hashtags can display toots on hashtag feeds that bridge instances (#WordWeavers and #WritersCoffeeClub being my favourites). And the Fediverse has toots from every instance your instance hasn’t blocked. This means Mastodon can’t be destroyed by a single white man who scores zero points on the diversity scale and doesn’t give a shit about marginalised people. I also like that there’s no advertising or algorithms, just humans interacting, as opposed to glaring ethical concerns.

Blue Sky

The issue with your single greatest social platform turning to shite is that the communities and contacts you’ve made there aren’t all migrating to the same place. They’re scattering to the winds. Spoutible and Post as well as Mastodon and Blue Sky and I don’t know where else. But writers in the DM groups I was in (DMs being about the only reliable space on Twitter to talk to people I knew at this stage) seemed keen on Blue Sky. Created by the man who created Twitter, also without algorithms or paid ads (yet) and most importantly, not controlled by Musk or Zukerburg or other bastards, as ethics would define them. (For more about Blue Sky, see my Blue Sky Newby Guide.)

The above is how I traded my largest social media account of 10,600 followers to 100 (and slowly counting) on Mastodon and 500 (also climbing) on Blue Sky. Not a decision you make to get publicity for yourself or your books. Not a smart financial decision, at this time. But why stay on a poisoned, sinking ship where decent people are leaving (or hiding in dms), when I could build a small community on platforms far better aligned with my values? Not to mention where people like me can interact publicly and safely, without constantly blocking those who hate us for not being cishet/ neurotypical/ able bodied or in other people’s cases: white?

Goodbye Facebook Page!

Before Musk blew up Twitter, Zukerberg was the bad name in social media. I cracked it at Facebook, (at the height of the Pandemic in 2020) when without warning they blocked Australian community groups (including emergency service warnings that literally save lives), without warning. (We passed some law, I think around journalism, that pissed Facebook off). So I closed the writer Facebook groups I’d made (I’d liked having publicly discoverable groups for writers) and moved them to Discord (all four are described here.)

Facebook rebranded as Meta, but I’d never liked the platform (I find it primitive now, especially the limited functionality and clunkiness of Facebook Groups compared to Discord) and I hated it for its lack of ethics. Yet all the indie author advice seems to recommend that if you want to minimise time wasted on social media and make more time to actually write books; at least have a Facebook Page. In fact, you can’t run ads on Facebook (or Instagram) without one. So de-activating yours is directly a financial and business decision.

But I deactivated mine. I hate the platform. It doesn’t have a great demographic for my books anyway (that demographic being educated, lefty/ liberal minded, teen to forty-ish or young at heart allies or queer folk -Mastodon/ Blue Sky seem most likely for them). I could still advertise on Amazon (yeah, that doesn’t appeal either -again, ethics, eggs, one basket- no thank you.) But having just a Facebook Profile (for over 50’s in my family and the few Gen Y people who actually post there) and inviting anyone wanting to follow me as an author also keeps my writing Facebook private from students. And technically I’m still on ‘the world’s biggest social media’. It’ll do.

Can You Be Ethical & Still Make Money Writing?

Now I’ve abandoned my biggest social media platform, deactivated my Facebook Page and not put my books in the easiest place for the biggest number of readers to find, read and review them, how do I make money as an author? (This question is revisited in Abandoning Amazon as Reader and Author.)

You may sell the occasional book directly via social media, but I’ve been watching this for over a year. It seems you either push hard with ‘buy my book posts’ that I feel must annoy people, or you sell to friends via conversations, small scale. Its seemed to me for quite some time (and yes, the authority on making money as an Indie Author, the Facebook Group 20BooksTo50K agrees), that you make money selling books by spending money, mostly on advertising, though in-person events like conferences can be great too.

There is one big advertising option I’ll consider ethically: Bookbub. Their features cost hundreds, but are well worth it. You have to apply and they’re hard to get. But like Facebook and Amazon, they also have ordinary paid ads, which I plan to start experimenting with. And their adds reach readers who purchase from many stores, in many countries, which I also like.

What About Community?

Having left the platform my online communities were on, I’m rebuilding, a little on prompt hashtags on Mastodon, a lot on Blue Sky and on my Writers and Authors Discord server. I’m making new friends, staying in touch with the few old ones still on platforms I use, and rebuilding my writerly, queer and disability communities.

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.

Related Reading

Getting started on Blue Sky Guide

Why I Chose to Self Publish

Writing Diverse Characters (coming Jan 2024)

Becoming an Indie Author (practical advice from ground zero)

Becoming an Indie Author part 2 (Book Launch)

Twitter, KU & Author Ethical Dilemmas
Share
Pin
Share
More
Share
Pin
Share
More
September 7, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Natalie was one of the last fellow fantasy author’s I was lucky enough to meet before Twitter imploded. We face similar chronic illness challenges, but are still making steading progress bringing our fantasy books out into the world. This Fantasy Author Feature Natalie Kelda talks about mental health, the theme of finding joy and belonging in her SFF books.

Tell us a bit about you. Where’s home and what’s your life like outside writing? 

I currently live in West Yorkshire, UK but I was born and raised in Denmark. I moved to the UK to study some 7 years ago and somehow landed a job through volunteering and love it here too much to leave. Outside my 9-5 office job I spend most of my time writing or talking my adventure cat, Barry, on walks. Due to some ongoing health issues I don’t hike or do any martial arts at the moment but I hope I can return to these activities eventually as they give me a lot of joy and I certainly miss them.

What drew you to your genre/audience age?

Worlds different to our contemporary one have always been what drew me to reading fiction so it makes sense I mostly write fantasy, sci-fi and historical fiction. I love exploring the other and getting a break from modern life and nothing is more immersive than creating those new worlds yourself. While I enjoy reading everything from MG to adult, my voice and the themes I usually explore lend themselves best to adult audiences. I have dabbled in MG and YA but find it difficult not to become too whimsical when writing for younger audiences and I don’t enjoy having to mind the layers and themes I imbue a story with. So basically, I enjoy as much creative freedom as possible.

What are some big themes your writing explores?

I tend towards the dark side of mental health and the human experience. I enjoy scrutinising humanity’s faults and weaknesses. Sometimes this means my main characters are very morally grey and stepping on the fine lines between good or bad. Other times the main characters are the ones fighting a corrupt and (often) incorrigible society that tries to kick them back down when they’re straining to stay upright. Most of my main characters have poor mental health. Not only are they fighting an unfair system, they’re also fighting their own inner demons and these can prove a lot more difficult to get rid of or live with than the crooked government.

Found family and a sense of belonging are secondary but almost as strongly recurring themes. The sense of being lost and directionless, of not having a place to fit in, of being other and different to everyone around them. Their stories regularly revolve around finding ‘their place’ and ‘their people’.

What drives your point of view characters? 

I think it usually boils down to finding happiness and a place to belong. Sometimes external forces trip them up but often they lay down booby traps in front of themselves, never even seeing the tripwires they need to dismantle in order to find that place of joy they’re searching for. They might know the end of the road they want to reach but can’t see what’s right before them. They’re also often fiercely protective of the people they call family – at least once they find those people. 

How much do your point of view characters resemble or differ from you? 

It varies between each character. I don’t purposely add something of myself as my main characters (and often most of the side characters too) appear in my mind like preformed people. Some will have one small thing – Merlon struggles with insomnia, Tara and Balfour with anxiety while Cali has my touch and noise sensitivity – others won’t really have much at all in common with me. Iolanthe believes slavery is fine and Torhildr thinks those who she judges unworthy deserve to be killed, obviously neither of those are things I would ever agree with. I do notice I have certain types of characters appear more often than others and this usually matches with my own personality. Most are depressed or anxious, many don’t like being the centre of attention and would be described as “reserved” or “quiet” if someone met them.

What influenced the settings they inhabit?

In my space fantasy series, Inner Universe, I have created a huge world with enough planets and galaxies I can take full advantage of all the travelling I have done. I have been extremely fortunate that I saved up enough (by working 3 jobs while studying) to move abroad, alone, at age 21 and from there on I worked in countries all around the globe. This means I have first hand experience with both Outback Australia and working outdoors during Canadian winter. I can pull on skills learned while doing martial arts and Viking reenactment when I write fight scenes and know what it’s like to forage your own food or live without electricity and running water for months at a time. I noticed a shift in my writing from before I had all those life experiences to after and definitely hope I’m not done raking up knowledge first-hand by going out there and doing the things most people only read about.

What do you gain from writing your books and what do you hope your readers will gain from them? 

This ties back to the main themes in my stories: mental health and belonging. I suspect I’m autistic and have never truly fitted in anywhere. I struggle a lot with chronic depression and moderate anxiety but the one thing that consistently helps and keeps me afloat is writing characters who keep fighting even when they face much larger challenges than I (hopefully) ever will. It’s my hope that my stories don’t just bring catharsis and healing for myself but also for other people who find life difficult – because it’s really bloody hard sometimes and it can be nice to read about characters who aren’t so different to yourself.

Where can we find your books?

Author hand-stamped paperbacks and my free short stories are available on my website(https://nataliekelda.co.uk/shop) while ebooks of River in the Galaxy and Outer Universe can be found on Amazon and they are available through Kindle Unlimited as well.

Fantasy Author Feature: Natalie Kelda

Author bio

Storytelling and inventing new worlds has been a part of Natalie’s life since before she could read or write. Nowadays she mostly writes in English but you’ll often discover hints of her native Danish or some of the other languages she has picked up along the way.


Website Twitter Bluesky

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.

Related Reading

You’ll find more talk of fantasy characters, setting and world-building inspiration in:

Fantasy Author Features: Nikky Lee (YA SFF)

Debbie Iancu-Hadad (YA Fantasy & SciFi)

Mara Lyne Johnson (Comedy SciFi)

Nikky’s Interview Of Me

Ash Oldfield’s Interview of Me

Share
Pin
Share
More
Share
Pin
Share
More

Fantasy Author Feature: Mara Lynn Johnstone

April 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Mara Lynn Johnstone and I met via Twitter when I was preparing to become an indie author. I was an ARC reader of her debut SciFi novel Spectacular Silver Earthling, which stars a robot with attitude, whom a friend compared aptly to Bender from Futurama. In this interview, she talks about the inspiration for her world building and whacky characters.

Tell us a bit about you. Where’s home and what’s your life like outside writing? 

I live in California, where the weather is lovely when things aren’t on fire or flooding. Husband, son, cats. I do a lot of writing-related things even when I’m not working on my own projects: organising events and anthologies for the local writers’ club, judging for contests, and planning multiple cooperative projects with other writers. Plus I play a lot of D&D with good friends, which is an excellent form of storytelling that sometimes leads to actually writing things down.

What drew you to your genre/audience age?

I’ve always loved reading fantasy and science fiction— all the exciting adventures that I couldn’t expect to do in real life. While I would have loved to grow up to be a dragon-rider, dimension traveller, or shapeshifting magician, I made the decision early on to write about it instead. I’ve never looked back.

What are some big themes your writing explores?

I’m sure if you look closely, a lot of my stories boil down to “Treating others well gets you farther than treating them badly.” That’s a pretty basic trope, but it’s amazing how many different ways you can show antagonists who are cruel and sow the seeds of their own downfall while the protagonists cooperate. Now that I think about it, the last three books I wrote all hinge on the main characters making friends who help make victory possible. It’s definitely something that’s held true in my own life, so I’m not surprised it comes through in fiction. Anyone who’s worked retail can tell you that the nice customers are the ones who get all the favors, while the pushy ones only think they’re getting a better deal. Friendship is magic in all forms.

What drives your point of view characters? 

They often have a catastrophe to avert, a kingdom/species/planet to protect, but sometimes the core conflict is as personal as specific friends that they care about intensely. My characters tend to be optimistic and resilient, though with a definite range on the “dignity to silliness” meter. A good sense of humor is crucial in coping with all manner of crises.

Some are more like me than others, but there’s always a facet that makes them feel familiar on a deep level. An element of “Oh yes, this is what I would do.” That can mean being patient and chronicling part of their life through art, or being the centr of attention with witty things to say, or being ready and willing to befriend any random animal that crosses their path. I like to say I’m an ambivert: just as happy reading alone as dancing on a table with friends. I can see myself in the quiet characters just as much as the wisecracking loudmouths — as long as they’re kind. And I like to think that all of my main characters would make good friends, just in a variety of ways.

How much do your point of view characters resemble or differ from you? 

A Swift Kick to the Thorax Book Cover, floating manuscript pages over outer space background, pen floating below, bite mark in bottom right corner of pages.

And for the record, Robin Bennett of A Swift Kick to the Thorax has the most similarities of any character I’ve written, simply because her first short story was an exploratory bit of nonsense that I didn’t expect anyone to ever see. Ha. It turned out to be great fun, and snowballed into two novels and an endless list of short stories. I regret nothing.

What influenced the settings they inhabit? (What real world places, experiences, studies etc influence your world building?) 

I keep a collection of ideas to use in fiction someday, and that includes many interesting locations. The sandstone beaches and bizarre rock formations in Spectacular Silver Earthling were based on those at Salt Point State Park. The car chase through a lightning storm in Swift Kick was inspired by a photo of thunderstorm weather over farmland. I am endlessly fascinated by how many awe-inspiring sights there are in our world; more than enough to create a whole galaxy of others. I’m always taking note of more. 

What do you gain from writing your books and what do you hope your readers will gain from them? 

I have fun with it, first and foremost. Delightful adventures; memorable experiences; fictional friends who are near and dear to my heart. Since I grew up reading constantly, I’ve lived many a life through other writer’s books, and I hope to bring readers along for the ride with my own. There’s so much to do and see: excitement and drama, exploration and close calls, good times and cathartic emotion. My characters can find things to enjoy in even the darkest times, and they’ll see you through to the other side. Often with a feeling of “Woo, that was intense! Let’s do it again.”

Where can we find your books?

maralynnjohnstone.com/books

Headshot of SciFi author Mara Lynne Johnstone, a white, brunette wearing blue rimmed glasses, a big smile, elf ears and with a blue stuffed dragon perched on her shoulder.

Mara Lynn Johnstone grew up in a house on a hill, of which the top floor was built first. Interested in fiction, she went on to get a Master’s Degree in creative writing, and to acquire a husband, son, and three cats. She has published several books and many short stories. She writes, draws, reads, and enjoys climbing things and can be found up trees, in bookstores, lost in thought, and on various social media.

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.
Total Page Visits: 2793

Related Reading

You’ll find more talk of fantasy characters, setting and world-building inspiration in:

Fantasy Author Features: Nikky Lee (YA SFF)

Debbie Iancu-Hadad (YA Fantasy & SciFi)

Natalie Kelda (YA SFF)

Nikky’s Interview Of Me

Ash Oldfield’s Interview of Me

Share
Pin
Share
More
Share
Pin
Share
More

Fantasy Author Feature: Debbie Iancu-Hadad

February 5, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Debbie Iancu-Hadad is author of YA Fantasy and SciFi with strong romantic threads. Our debut trilogies publishing journeys have run parallel and we’ve been critical readers for each other during our editing journeys. My favourite things about her books are her well-developed characters, their flaws and the banter and relationships that exist or develop between them. I also enjoy the fast pace of her stories, which keep me turning pages through her fantasy and sci-fi worlds. In this Fantasy Author Feature, we discuss her characters and story worlds.

Tell us a bit about you. Where’s home and what’s your life like outside writing? 

I live in Meitar in the south of Israel. I’m self employed and when I’m working I give laughter yoga workshops, chocolate workshops and teach people how to improve their humour. 

I’m married and have two kids, my daughter is almost twenty and my son just turned 18. And my writing buddy Shugi is a five months old golden retriever mix. 

What drew you to your genre/audience age? 

I write the kind of books I’ve always read, which is fantasy and sci Fi for YA. Maybe one day I’ll write for adults but I’d probably need to grow up first. My first Nanowrimo project “The goodbye kids” was inspired by my daughter when she was 16, and I just stayed in the zone. My Achten Tan series has characters ranging between 16-22. 

What are some big themes your writing explores?

I like to discuss what makes us belong to a place and how where we’re from shapes our perspective. All my locations are very immersive, whether it’s a space station or a town made of bones in the middle of the desert. 

Another issue I want to promote is body positivity and the inclusion of people with disabilities. 

What drives your point of view characters? 

A profound desire to prove themselves. Mila in Achten Tan wants to release her magic and get her voice back. Kaii the chief’s son in The Bone Master doesn’t want responsibility but won’t turn his back on a friend. Haley in the Goodbye Kids just wants to avoid getting hurt again, but desperately needs a friend. 

How much do your point of view characters resemble or differ from you? 

There are probably pieces of me in all my characters, if not my current self then the way I was when I was younger. 

I’d love to say I have magical powers but sadly I have yet to come into my powers (I’m hoping it’s an old lady thing that’s still in my future). 

Joking aside, all my characters work through the sense of being an outsider. For me that reflects moving from England to Israel as a child and always feeling like a part of somewhere else. 

What influenced the settings they inhabit?

Achten Tan is a place like no other, a town built inside the rib cage of an ancient leviathan. 

The place is the brainchild of Chris Van Dyke, who initiated the original Achten Tan anthology. I just moved in there and refused to leave. 

The space station and futuristic world of The Goodbye Kids are nothing I’ve ever experienced outside of my imagination. I was going for a sense of extreme isolation. 

What do you gain from writing your books and what do you hope your readers will gain from them? 

Millions and millions of dollars…ha ha, I wish. 

No, but seriously, I love having people share my character’s journey and being able to leave daily life aside for a while. I write about magic and it might be a cliche, but books really do have the ability to transport us to another time and place.

Where can we find your books? 

On Amazon. 

My fantasy debut, “Speechless in Achten Tan,” has a kick-ass tattooed witch who can’t speak, a city made of bones, giant ants, a heist by a cool ensemble cast, magic, romance, banter, innuendo, & cute boys kissing.

Prepared to be left… speechless!

Speechless in Achten Tan (Both books are on sale till Feb 14th)

The Bone Master follows Kaii Haku as he leaves the comfort of Achten Tan to save a friend kidnapped by pirates.

Connect with Debbie on:

Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
DebbieInacu.com

Author Bio

Head and shoulder photo of bright red haired Debbie, wearing a denim jacket and pink tops. She's plus sized, blue eyed and has a pink lipped smile.

My name is Debbie Iancu Haddad (46), I’m a mother of teenagers (it’s like being a mother of dragons except they burn you with sarcasm). 

for my day job, I am a public speaker specializing in teaching people how to use humor and a laugh yoga instructor.

I was born in Israel to a British mother & Romanian father who met in the immigration center in Beer-Sheva. When I was 10 months old the family returned to England for six years and re-emigrated in 1981.

Growing up bilingual in Israel was a huge help and saw me through a BA, an MA, and a third of a PhD. Even though I take studying seriously (almost no one who knows me would say too seriously) – my research interests focused on humor.

My MA was an exploration of Diet humor and my doctorate research was about humor as a communication tool used by managers and headmasters.

You may ask “don’t I take anything seriously?”

The answer is: “No. But thank you for asking”. 

Blue edged, pink, orange and yellow rainbow scroll with text: Get blogs in your inbox & updates from Elise every second month. Join my Fiction Frolics. Select this image to learn more.
Total Page Visits: 2801

Related Reading

You’ll find more talk of fantasy characters, setting and world-building inspirations in:

Fantasy Author Features: Nikky Lee (YA SFF)

Debbie Iancu-Hadad (YA Fantasy & SciFi)

Mara Lyne Johnson (Comedy SciFi)

Natalie Kelda (YA SFF)

Nikky’s Interview Of Me

Ash Oldfield’s Interview of Me

Share
Pin
Share
More
Share
Pin
Share
More

Stay in touch via My Newsletter

Banner with black ink sketched sailing ship (left), blue, purple, pink, orang and yellow centred, then back out to blue background. Centre text: Fiction Frolics, by Elise Carlson. Right: headshot of Elise with short curly light brown hair, pale face, round smiling pink cheeks, small mouthed smile and black glasses. Background, native Australian white trunked gum trees.

Follow me or my Blog

Categories

Header and border art by Glint of Mischief

© 2025 Elise Carlson

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑