Three Sunday morning links

[dolorosa_12]

I've been out in the garden, planting tomato, bean and rocket seeds, so hopefully they'll be all sprouting before long. We also discovered some parsnips planted by the previous owners of the house, which will be a nice addition to tonight's dinner.

And now, some links.

The first is one of those absurd and bizarre stories that only seem to emerge from academia: scams, feuds, researchers disappearing with priceless archives or artefacts. Honestly, nothing I could say will adequately describe it — see for yourselves!

I liked this piece on the Irish language, and the sea. It also has lovely animated videos.

Finally, I wrote an essay of sorts about community, online platforms, and the eternal struggle to find a social media platform that won't, eventually let us down. You can read it here at dolorosa12.

Comments

[merit]

The idea honestly seems exhausting. And I get that tone from authors sometimes when I check in on Twitter accounts occasionally.

I think that type of author will seriously struggle in a lot of SFF fiction - even some other genre fiction or literary fiction. An established author might be able to rely on reputation to sell books, but debut or even early novelists have hardly a hope.

Perhaps even that's how debut authors are selling themselves - as an in one package to publishers. After 2020, marketing budgets are going to be stripped back to the bone even further.