If you're looking for desktop only, non-subscription publishing software, photo editor, and graphic design, I have used Affinity for a while now and like them a lot. They were recently bought out by someone else who may screw things up royally, but for now at least you can still get the one-time purchase desktop set. Considering the way online stuff is being enshittified, you might want to try this.
Copies of Worlds of IF Science Fiction Magazine #177, the relaunch issue, spotted in Paris. Front cover art by Bob Eggleton, back cover art by Andrew Stewart. Check out that table of contents.
Feels so good to read it in prints!
Affinity has been bought by Canva, to compete with Adobe.
It was of course a matter of time before Affinity would outgrow its status of sympathetic small-scale Adobe alternative, and be sold for large proceeds.
Canva is into AI. Hopefully Affinity will get some useful AI-powered image processing tools, like upscalers and denoisers, but Canva will probably add generative shit and introduce subscriptions sooner or later.
I'm going to be poisoning my data there as best I can, but... are there any other sites that will allow an indy #writer to gain notice and audience? Some place a #publisher or #agent might cruise looking for new talent?
I hate having my best efforts sabotaged by profit-minded dipshits.
#Microsoft#Publisher is getting full-on deprecated in 2026. Another example of the huge downsides to #SaaS and proprietary software: you don't control your software at all, so the vendor can pull it whenever they feel like and you can't do anything with those files ever again.
Sometimes, traditional #publisher#book#marketing has us shaking our heads. This is a stand-out example.
To quote the article, "... why would any book publisher choose a non-reader, with no BookTok following, to go on a cruise to promote a handful of books that the influencer has never read?"
1/ Many of the new #publisher lobbying statements use the standard rhetoric that government #OpenAccess policies interfere with the #market. Many go a step further and assert that the market is working well.
Europe & the rest of the world are good at #publishing works from around the world. Only 3% of US books are translations. Ilan Stavans of Amherst College wanted to rectify this imbalance. His Restless Books, founded in New York around a decade ago, has brought out c. 150 books by 120 authors from 40 countries.
Your trusted scientific #publisher: All links in my #SpringerNature email do not link to the publisher's website (despite pretending so in the link text), but to a click #tracking proxy called "Klaviyo". And of course without asking the recipient for consent for getting their data processed by a third party.
“It’s open season on #journalists,” this time in small town Alabama, where 69-year-old #reporter and 72-year-old #publisher are arrested, jailed. In other words, they’re being prosecuted by people they’ve known most of their adult lives. Small town officials feel emboldened by the financial troubles of #newspapers#legacymedia. #FirstAmendment#FreePress#FreeSpeech
“The #WashingtonPost is a premiere global media #publisher of record, known for its 145-yr-old history of unflinching #journalism, & I am thrilled & humbled to be at its helm as both a media exec & fmr reporter,” #WillLewis said.
In the stmnt, #JeffBezos, #Amazon fndr & owner of The Post, reaffirmed his commitment to the publication, calling Lewis an “exceptional, tenacious industry executive.”
#FredRyan, the previous #publisher & chief exec at The #WashingtonPost, announced in June that he was stepping down after nearly 10 yrs in the role. He presided over a surge in digital subscriptions & an expansion of the newsroom. But in recent yrs, the subscriber growth lost momentum, dropping to 2.5M paid subscribers compared w/roughly 3M in 2020. The Post lost money last yr, after yrs of profitability.
Yesterday, one market called #SpellCheck an AI and does not want your work if you use spell check. Doesn't every #Author use spell (and grammar) check?
Another claims if they suspect the story is AI, they will block your email, and not even reply or verify.
#Autistic, #Blind, #DeafBlind, cognitively disabled, and people for whom English is a second language will be left forever waiting on a reply.
The very least a #Publisher can do is to have a form rejection email they send that accuses the #Author of using #AI.
If they send the email, and then block the address, the author will at least know they have been rejected. And will not waste any more hours on submissions for that market.
Of course, clarifying what you include as AI on your website does help.
Things most authors use:
Spell Check
Grammar Check
Dictation
Screen Readers
“The permanence of library collections may become a thing of the past,” said Jason Schultz, director of New York University’s Technology Law & Policy Clinic.
“I wish the publishers had not sued, but it demonstrates how important it is that libraries stand firm on buying, preserving and lending the treasures that are books.” -me, Digital Librarian