I finally lost my shit about so-called AIs, LLMs, enshittification & everything fucking evil that @officialgrammarly.bsky.social is doing. I'm fucking furious, and not just about what 1 company has done. An open letter to Grammarly & the rest of the LLM hype machine www.moryan.com/an-open-lett...
It is super scary that people are literally outsourcing the most basic uncomplicated decisions to a machine. Do you get any reaction from them when you tell them the resources they're taking up, notably in water, when they ask ChatGPT what they should have for dinner?
I need to know if Cave-Man Kisses is one of those stories where there's a frozen caveman who defrosts and discovers the modern world because I love that trope. Bonus if the heroine is a plucky scientist. (Now I kind of want to write that story tbh.)
I wish I was a serious author so I could master the fine art of posting rage-bait online then following up with a "hahaha you all are so dumb I was just being ironic" post.
That's a good way to go about it, and it's true that what he wrote is way better than anything I've read in French mainstream media. A few years back Le Monde published an article that boiled down to "the girls who post about romance books on bookstagram are dumb and need to get laid" so... yeah.
Thankfully I'm not in it to make money. I truly don't care if I make five euros from my next book. At this point I've considered posting my work for free on Wattpad, or sending the ebook file to whoever wants it. I just want a genuine connection with readers and other authors. I just want to write.
And I *know* I'm shooting myself in the foot as an author. I had a tiny amount of visibility and now I have none. Posting on BS is mostly shouting into the void. Not publishing on Amazon will probably cut me off from the handful of readers I might have had.
Secondly, this is the same reason why I cannot use Meta products anymore. I just can't. I can't give data and money and precious time to people who are actively working against every single one of my core values. AI is just another layer of festering turds added to the anti-human shit pile.
First of all, the numbers are telling. We chose not to publish our hockey romance on KU (I have a Kobo reader, I can't imagine not being able to buy my own damn book). With little to no promo, we sold zilch on Amz and much more on Apple Books. I'm guessing Amz buries books that aren't on KU.
www.theguardian.com/books/2026/m... fully backing the SLF's hostility to Amz here, they're 100% correct in their accusations. After talking about this with my co-author / long-time beta reader, I'm almost certain I won't self-pub my next book on Amz.
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Interesting read. It is, however, extremely biased against historical romance. "A gooey parlor drama with bursting corsets and lacy gowns written entirely in third-person omniscient" is not a fair description of an entire genre, and it also incorrectly implies that said genre no longer exists.
I have the same problem. In the early days I had real hopes that a part of Romancelandia would migrate here, at least for short posts (because it can't really replace IG) but it seems everyone stayed on Threads.
Wow, that's quite a giveaway! I already have a copy of this legendary book but I hope whoever wins enjoys this!
Also thanks for continuing to post vintage clinch covers on BlueSky. I truly miss seeing them on my feed since I quit Instagram, I wish there were more of us active here.
Spin-off idea: Violet and Mrs Wilson team up to solve mysteries and fight crime.
Also I need Eloise, Cressida and Posy to become a girl gang, they're all lovable dorks in their own way.
Absolutely loved s4 of #Bridgerton. The best season by a mile, all the plots were engaging but didn't distract from the swoony perfection of Sophie and Benedict, and the acting was top notch, especially in episode 7.
Cover for "Blue Heaven, Black Night" by Shannon Drake.
I have a huuuuuge collection of vintage romances and I miss posting them on IG, so I may as well post them here. You can expect a lot more.
Stepback for "Blue Heaven, Black Night" by Shannon Drake representing a lady in a blue gown leaning against a man dressed like a knight.
Timeline cleanse with a vintage #stepback. I used this as a cover picture for my first blog post. From "Blue Heaven, Black Night" by Shannon Drake (cover below).
#romancelandia #vintagebooks #clinchcover
Fun fact, my great-grandmother was a maid in the household of the lady in the first painting.
"Triple Portrait of Yvonne Lerolle" by Maurice Denis, 1897 (Musée d'Orsay)
"Woman with an Orchid" by Egdard Maxence, 1900 (Musée d'Orsay)
"Three Women with Sunshades" by Marie Bracquemond (Musée d'Orsay)
"The Wheel of Fortune" by Edward Burne-Jones, 1875-1883 (Musée d'Orsay)
Took a trip to my favorite museum today.
Thanks for sharing!
I've been thinking about this for a while and I had an interesting conversation with @elisemeyers.bsky.social that gelled all these thoughts together.
Glad to try out @leaflet.pub at last, the interface is super simple, clean and lowkey relaxing.
I found it! I'm not on Substack myself but I saw the link on my feed. And I'm working on a blog post on the topic because this discussion has brought up a bunch of thoughts.
smartromance.substack.com/p/this-to-me...
I read a really good article on the topic a few weeks ago, I wish I could remember where. The author argued that the current social climate pushes authors to write uber-nice non-alpha "harmless" MMCs but as a result there's no romantic tension left to drive the story.
I find contemporary romance much easier on world-building than histrom and romantasy but much harder on conflict. My co-author & I are always wracking our brains for reasons the MCs can’t be together. Strict social rules regarding marriage and/or magical threats are pretty handy tbh.
I read a romance a while ago where the MMC was a non-confrontational cinnamon roll and the FMC was a feisty NLOG. It was supposed to be “feminist" but it was just so incredibly bad. No conflict because he always agreed with her. They came off as a doormat paired with a genuinely terrible person.
I only enjoy friends to lovers when the FMC had a secret crush on the MMC before giving up.
I hate histroms where characters talk and think like it's the 2020s. Enough Regency wallpaper, more diverse eras and settings.
Bring back sexy adult covers for sexy adult romance.
I just finished part 1 of #Bridgerton s4. Apparently this series falls into two extremes for me, either "I hate it, kill with fire" or "I am OBSESSED and will rewatch ad nauseam". Season 4 falls in the latter category. It's so swoony and Benedict and Sophie are SO GOOD.
Now you could say the same thing about rugby players, who are equally bulky and badass, but going back to point 1, rugby is not going to draw an American audience. There might be rugby romance gems out there but you'll never hear about them.
2) There's a definite badass quality to hockey players. They're going super fast on blades. They crash against the boards. They mouth off constantly. They drop the gloves and fight. Football players who flail on the ground and moan in pain after a slight shove = not sexy.
The Writers Against AI logo (a black handprint) on a light pink background. The logo was made by Justin Clark and are freely available for download on Paul Kingsnorth's website.
I fully adhere to the Writers Against AI campaign and follow its three pledges :
I will not use AI in my work as a writer.
I will not support writers who use AI in their work.
I will support writers, illustrators, editors and others in related fields whose work is entirely human-made.
