Introductions

New members post here to make introductions!
Tell us a little bit about yourself and why you're here.

Hello Tumulus! .... two. I left for like a year and the last forum died and I was so sad! But then I discovered I still have all my delicious fiction on my new computer, transferred here after the great milk flood of 2011 destroyed my precious! Lucky I could save those files!

Anyhow, I'm commonly refereed to as "Iko" and I quit coming to Tumulus a little over a year ago because of some issues I was having. Now I'm back! With a vengeance! And I haven't read Doubletake yet! My favorite book is Blackout, hands down. My least is Roadkill.

The best character is Robin! Yeah!

And I love Cal/George and nothing will stop me from loving it!

Also, new emoticon board.

I know... So sad.

Hi Iko. Missed you from the old forum. A few of the registered usernames might sound familiar. I tried to grab all the people I could from the other forum.

Unfortunately, the forum is pretty dead. Which is sad. OMG -> SOMUCHSADNESS!

Go ahead and post all your stories. There should be a section for it.
Maybe we can up membership... Or you know... at least activity.

And yes. I remember your Cal/George love. DERP

Um... So other than 'issues' how has life been treating you?

OMG airyie! I missed you!
I am doing really well now, actually. Headed to London soon, and Brussels. Just visiting. Have to come back for school, after all.
How have you been? I was so sorry to hear about this. That means we lost all the cool stuff in discussion, especially that hilarious game with the fill-in names!

OMERGOD. I totally missed our conversations too!

BTW, what are you studying?

I've been good. Trying to get into the workforce, ya- know?
Yeah, our discussions were pretty intense.

DERP. Well, if you've got any friends, invite them to join.
Right now I'm trying to edit the wikia here: http: // robthurman .wikia .com /wiki /Rob_Thurman_Wiki but I spend 90% of my time not in the city where my books are, so updating is a bit hard.

0.0 No way. I was using that wiki not ten minutes ago to look up the name of the Roadkill Final Boss, who's name I can't remember. Ironically enough my books are packed up in a friend's closet right now, where I can't reach them. And though I'm usually the first one with a finished book in my hand, I haven't read Doubtake.

Anyway, I'm studying Anthropology. It's the best.

I remember you partially because we never agreed on anything, but we were always cool with that (unlike my friends on FB, about my political opinions!)

"Well, if you have any friends..."
No, I don't have friends, airyie, but I'll keep trying.
Just kidding, of course. BUT I don't have any friends who like this series, besides Choco. And Smutmuffin. And Smutmuffin has all my books, so I'm unable to lend them out to the nearest person and beg them to read it. So, fail.

Finally ! Someone uses the wiki! I know I didn't create it for NOTHING!!!!1 fakdsfjs;gkhs;dkfjhsf;
BTW, DoubleTake is where it is at. Rob's starting to transform her book by book collection into a series, with plot lines that run multiple books!!!!!! YAYAYAYAYYAYAYY!

Oh girl, I do remember. Like there was nothing. NOTHING we agreed on. At all!? Like when does that ever happen. But you provided great conversation and pointed out a lot of things I'd missed. Which was totally awesome.

OMGHERD. SOOOOooooo rude of me to say that. LOL. Haha. I'm sure smutmuffin is keeping your precious books safe.

I know, right? I've never disagreed with someone so much, AND bee happy about it. Always good convo between you and I.

Doesn't it feel great to get a hit on something you worked hard on? I used it a ton today. How did you get Cal's height? I looked at Nik's to see, but it didn't have a height there so I was curious where it said that. I was mad cause after knowing Cal's I wanted to know Nikos haha

Dude. I don't even know. The height might have been added by someone else.
All I know, is when I first started it, I started reading book by book, (starting with the first) and anything that I hadn't seen before I listed and referenced. Although, the height might have been added by another user. I know there is a user 'Cal Crazy' that I sometimes have to correct edit-ations of. You know, simple stuff like making a 'collection' instead of a 'page'.

I think there is one character/monster page where citations like (RK: 200) are listed beside really obscure names. (Stands for Road Kill page 200). I meant to go back, but I've always forgotten.

When you do this you also notice a lot of mistakes. Some of her obscure monster names are slightly different but refer to the same creature.

sorry about not having the height...

I still haven't posted up my fanart from DoubleTake. Never finished anything other than the background.

Well I can't look at it right now anyway (and all you care about is me seeing it right? )
Anyway, so that Admin... hello Admin! That isn't Choco. I thought it was I thought you were Choco, Admin...

And also, the characters for Trikster series ... NONE of them are done. I'd do them myself but, like I said no books. Yeah, I noticed a few things wrong but I'm too lazy to fix them. When you've read a book once a year since it came out you sort of remember a lot of stuff off the top of you head, which is... uh.... annoying when you read Wiki pages. But I saw your user ID today when I looked at Trickster series, and there were no mistakes. But I giggled. Cause it was you.

No bro. Admin is me bro. Just you and me on this site. (*creepy stalker voice).
I asked Choco about making a backup forum when the other one went down. She gave me permission. And I was like. OKAY. I made the airyie account, cus that is what I normally go by ~ so you know, my peeps can find me.... LIKE U!!!!

I haven't read the trickster series, so I have NO concept about what should go there. I'm not that into female 1st person POV.

If you've read trickster just make a quick one liner at the top (see other character pages for reference). Page creation is the hardest. Once you do that, random unregistered users will occasionally add to it.

-hides-
Yeah, she said she wasn't interested. You see, some people, like me, REALLY hate Thurman. Yes, really. She's been nothing but a pain in our neck for too long. I'm sure you're like Not sure if stupid, or doesn't realize whos writing they are reading....

But I love her books. So I don't buy them anymore, cause I hate her and leave it to other people to support her, but I go on her forums and stalk her LJ for news updates. Yeah. Creepy, I know. Will this make me unpopular? Probably. But I don't care.

Choco's feelings? Well, her personal business. But I believe she might be a tad annoyed with Thurman, since she's been a personal target of attacks from the woman before, which I believe is pretty common knowledge. So I don't blame her for quitting. I think she was only doing in the first place for us, cause she's sweet. Or maybe she's just busy. You never know.

But thanks for recreating, creepy stal- Airyie.

Anyhow, I don't know how to make a page anyway on those things. I'm happy to sit in B and N and scour the books for info on the characters though, if pages were made. Or maybe I feel like I have a lot of free time right now.

I think I can understand. I think it is really big of you that you can go on liking a product (someone you dislike) produces. It shows that you're honest with yourself and are mature enough to say, I enjoy that product for what it is - not for the person behind it. Kind-of like enjoying chickfila sandwiches, while not agreeing with that crazy CEO. Or liking a mac because it runs UNIX, even if you are disgusted by Steve Job's blatant thievery of ideas and technology.

I don't know what she did (cus I wasn't on the forums for long), and it isn't any of my business. But she does seem to have a very strong and opinionated personality which irks me on occasion. So I do see where some people are coming from.

As for making a wiki page, I have several options.

1. On the front page: robthurman .wikia. com/ wiki / Rob_Thurman_Wiki , centered towards the bottom is a button that says: 'Create New Article'. Only use this if you know a page does not exist.
   [list=2]
2. A second option is to use links. If you click a RED link, then it will ask you if you want to generate a new page. Either page layout is fine. If a link does not exist, you can make one by editing a page and doing the following: If you want to link to a 'CAT' page, type: [ CAT ] , and if a previous page does NOT exist, it will show up as a RED link.
   [list=3]
3. Similar to the above, you can go on this page: robthurman . wikia . com /wiki /Special:WantedPages This is a special page with red links. Next to the red links is a number. This number shows the amount of other pages that would link to this page, if the page existed. You can click on any one of these to make a new page.
   

You're an angel. Soon as I have time I'll put up the Trickster character profiles.

Yeah, I hear you about chikafila. I've never eaten there, but if I had and liked it, I wouldn't stop supporting it. I try and focus on business aspects of businesses. Authors are a tad different because they don't have tons of employees working for them personally that don't agree with them, unless you count page printer people. And even then it's like... what if you bought the Nook version?

I hate it when people boycott stuff for personal reasons. As if every person in the company agrees? They just don't want to loose hard-earned jobs!

I wish we had more people- how do I advertise?

Oooh! Trickster profiles. I can't wait! Awesome.

The ebooks are sold for slightly higher prices and still go through the publishing company. The publishing company makes the bulk of the money, and also does advertising, book covers, etc that help it sell.
Well, authors do get very minimal royalties on there books, and they have to eat to keep producing. Even famous authors generally don't make very much, which is why they produce multiple books. Of course JKRowling is an obvious exception. Common royalty rate is 10% for hardbacks and 6% for paper backs.

What does this mean? (MATH TIME!)

Assuming paperback only printing:
Assuming price of $8 per book:

1 book bought = Publishing company makes $7.52 = author makes $00.48 (cents)
100 books bought = Publishing company makes $752 = author makes $48
1,000 books bought = Publishing company makes $7,520= author makes $480
10,000 books bought = Publishing company makes $75,200 = author makes $4,800
100,000 books bought = Publishing company makes $752,000 = author makes $48,000

Lets also take off 15% income tax: (being very lenient here)
1 book bought = author makes $00.41 (cents)(rounded up)
100 books bought = author makes $41 (rounded up)
1,000 books bought = author makes $408
10,000 books bought = author makes $4,080 (About 800 dollar difference)
100,000 books bought = author makes $40,800 (About 8000 dollar difference)

And how much money does it take to survive in the US?
Lets assume no property tax, like in Texas. (Yes, I know she isn't from TX):
Lets do a Rent/apartment example. I don't have experience with homes.

RENT:
Assume $350 minimum for rent. (lowest I've seen)
Yearly rent $4200
1 book bought = rent NOT made
100 books bought = rent NOT made
1,000 books bought = rent NOT made
10,000 books bought = rent NOT made
100,000 books bought = rent MADE, remainder $36600

That doesn't even include food or any other things necessary to survive.

So how many books would an author need to sell to pay rent (not including food/other)?
(($4200/.15)/.06)/$8 = 58,334 books sold (rounded up)

Nearly 60,000 books need to be sold. That is not easy. Especially when you think about the return you're getting for months of typing.

I have no idea why I'm typing this.

As for advertising. Uh. I guess try contacting people you knew from the previous forum. Also talk to xoxtanianxox on Deviant art. She is in charge of the CL fanart group, and could probably hold a contest for promotion on this forum. She seemed receptive to the idea earlier last year, but as usual, real life caught up with me.

That was long. It's okay so is this and I hope it explains better where I'm coming from.

I think I get your general point that buying her book or not doesn't really do anything, but I just don't really care, since I am boycotting her personality and her personal attacks on people close to me, and myself, not something general like a political or religious statement like chik-a-fil-a made, or the way she spends her money. (Actually, I like the way she spends her money; Alaskan puppy shelter).

Besides, I didn't EVER just buy one of her books when I bought them. I bought 5 or 6 per book, and handed them out to friends. So she lost a pretty dedicated fan, and one who used to spread the word about how cool she was. If she treated people better, she wouldn't have. AND to top it off, Choco and Smutmuffin were both a lot like this. We were walking billboards. Anytime any of us went into Barnes or Borders, we'd flip her books to better advertise by showing the front covers, and write little notes saying stuff like "Best book ever, please buy" on sticky notes. I am NOT exaggerating. I made her cookies. Do you really think I will act this way now? Not in a million years, and with personalized apologies. So actually, I do feel like I made a big difference before, especially back when he fan list consisted of about 12 to 20 people (we were friends of a friend and Choco was pretty much the first to hear about her works), and will probably make one now simply by absence.

Or maybe not, now that she made bestseller's list. But also it's not like I hear her name everywhere now that she has, so I don't think she's exactly broken into full-on professional writing either. Maybe we should move this to PM? I'm SURE all the newcomers would LOVE to hear about how much I dislike the author, and won't be wondering at all why I don't just stop reading.

By the way, ebooks of every book I've ever looked at have been cheaper, by far. Why are Thurman's not?

Ikolovespucks wrote: That was long. It's okay so is this and I hope it explains better where I'm coming from.

I think I get your general point that buying her book or not doesn't really do anything, but I just don't really care, since I am boycotting her personality and her personal attacks on people close to me, and myself, not something general like a political or religious statement like chik-a-fil-a made, or the way she spends her money. (Actually, I like the way she spends her money; Alaskan puppy shelter).

I know. I just wanted to do math. I follow a lot of authors who complain about money. And once I started doing the math, I couldn't stop.

Ikolovespucks wrote:
Besides, I didn't EVER just buy one of her books when I bought them. I bought 5 or 6 per book, and handed them out to friends. So she lost a pretty dedicated fan, and one who used to spread the word about how cool she was. If she treated people better, she wouldn't have. AND to top it off, Choco and Smutmuffin were both a lot like this. We were walking billboards. Anytime any of us went into Barnes or Borders, we'd flip her books to better advertise by showing the front covers, and write little notes saying stuff like "Best book ever, please buy" on sticky notes. I am NOT exaggerating. I made her cookies. Do you really think I will act this way now? Not in a million years, and with personalized apologies. So actually, I do feel like I made a big difference before, especially back when he fan list consisted of about 12 to 20 people (we were friends of a friend and Choco was pretty much the first to hear about her works), and will probably make one now simply by absence.

Holy crap. That is a lot of work. Jesus. Whatever prompted you to do something like advertise that much? Totally unreal!!! I would never do something that outright for someone I hadn't explicitly known for years.

Ikolovespucks wrote:
Or maybe not, now that she made bestseller's list. But also it's not like I hear her name everywhere now that she has, so I don't think she's exactly broken into full-on professional writing either. Maybe we should move this to PM? I'm SURE all the newcomers would LOVE to hear about how much I dislike the author, and won't be wondering at all why I don't just stop reading.

Hahaha. PM is fine. (Not that there are any newbies anyhow) lol.

Ikolovespucks wrote:
By the way, ebooks of every book I've ever looked at have been cheaper, by far. Why are Thurman's not?

Paperbacks? vs Ebooks? Lemme look this up...Paperback = $7.99, kindle ed = $7.99....
I guess the paperback mass market edition match the ebook standard price.

Yeah, I've heard writing is pennies. You must really have to love it. Hard to say, though, about the money, only because Thurman told fans once she only gets 8 cents from every book. Maybe sarcasm. She IS dripping with it. It's just that figure is significantly smaller than yours.