The endangered lit brick
A friend of mine is currently having his novel shopped around by an agent, and what he's been hearing back is that the Big Five publishers almost exclusively want books with wordcounts of around 100 000 (to the point where authors with longer manuscripts, especially debut authors, are being told they should trim down to that length).
Near as I can tell, this has not always been the case; I can personally recall many authors within the last 30 years or so who debuted with 600-page doorstoppers. But longer books are more expensive to edit and manufacture, and so I can't help but wonder if this is a cost-cutting measure — publishers trying to produce their books as cheaply as possible, in order to squeeze more money out of each sale.
I don't exactly miss the 600-page doorstoppers, but it's good to remember that even the literary world isn't immune to the siren song of enshittification.
New Bundle: The Casefile of Jay Moriarty, Books 1 - 5
The Casefile of Jay Moriarty is a modern-day queer romance take on the iconic Sherlock Holmes villain, his partner Sebastian Moran, and the various crimes they commit together.
I've put together a bundle of the first five stories in the series, which is available now for $6.75 USD — a savings of 25% over buying each book in the series individually!
You can get the bundle on DriveThruFiction, Gumroad, itch.io, or Payhip.
New on Ko-fi: "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries," Chapter 1
The first chapter of "Sebastian Moran Inflicts Six Traumatic Brain Injuries" is now on Ko-fi and free for anyone to read. Subsequent chapters will be posted on Tuesdays as supporter-only posts. You can also get the entire novelette as an ebook.
This Week's Links
An hour later at 11:35 a.m., senior management including Impact Plastics founder and CEO Gerald O’Connor had “stealthily exited the building,” according to court papers.
Workers had assumed they also were allowed to go home as local schools and other businesses announced closures because of Hurricane Helene, the suit alleges.
Instead, Impact Plastics allegedly instructed its employees to report to work because the company “wanted to meet order deadlines,” court documents show.
FIN7 hackers set up a fake company to recruit for cyberattacks
Much like the website, Bastion Secure’s advertised vacancies look legitimate enough, too. The fictitious company is looking for programmers, system administrators and reverse-engineers, and the job descriptions are similar to those you’d find at any cybersecurity company.
But Recorded Future said that FIN7 — under the guise of Bastion Secure — is looking to build a “staff” capable of conducting the tasks necessary for undertaking a range of cybercriminal activity.
When Does Instagram Decide a Nipple Becomes Female?
“I'm really interested in algorithmic enforcement and generally understanding the impact that algorithms have on our lives,” Ada Ada Ada told me in an interview. “It seemed like the nipple rule is one of the simplest ways that you can start talking about this because it's set up as a very binary idea—female nipples no, male nipples, yes. But then it prompts a lot of questions: what is male nipple? What is a female nipple?”
I watched Abigail and The Guest more or less back-to-back recently and have discovered my cat is entranced by Dan Stevens. She wouldn't stop staring at the TV whenever he was onscreen. I don't know what to do with this information.
-K
