Losing a Platform (Yet Again), The Columbus Book Fest, & How Ghost Inspires Me

I'm tired of this grandpa...

I'm sure everyone knows what happened with itch.io at this point. TL;DR - they unexpectedly changed their TOS overnight on July 24th, in the process they delisted and even removed a bunch of stories and games with the tags "adult" (a book category denoting age, not content), "erotica", and many LGBT related tags.

This was,,, hard. It happened towards the tail end of the Disability Pride Month bundle I was hosting during a period of time where I was already going Thru It™. Ironically, I set the DPM Bundle to go live right as my own disabilities started acting up, which is the reason why I haven't been around on the internet as much.

I don't want to talk too much about that, but just wanted to note that chronic illness + chronic nausea + caffeine withdrawal + grief + stress from work + stress from money is not a good combination and it's led me to be offline more often than not, though I was still more online this month than I have been in previous months this year so I guess that's progress!!

But what does this itch ban mean for authors like me?

I got off lucky in regards to the whole thing. Most of my stories (4 out of the 6 published thru itch) were delisted and are only visibly through my profile and direct links. But that's lucky, because they're still listed. I know multiple authors who had their stories entirely removed from the platform with no warning.

I believe my stories are still listed because of the tags I used. I don't want to speculate too much, but the tags I used in on them are "adult" as an age group, "romance", "lgbt", and "queer". I honestly believe the reason they were delisted instead of removed was because I lack the transgender tag on these stories*. Something I didn't even realize I missed, as all of my main characters are trans in some way, shape, or form.

But, well, when you search my name on the platform you only get the two stories that don't have those tags:

*putting an asterisk here, because I believe it's a combination of the tags that's causing the delisting and removal of stories, not any individual tag itself. Incorrect Eyes has the transgender tag, but has no adult or romance tag. The Light has none of these tags (it has four tags total: short, horror, indie, no-ai).

Even when searching the name of my stories directly, they do not appear:

This is... disheartening to say the least. I had finally made the more permanent move over to itch after finally having my stories freed from Kindle Unlimited. I was really excited to grow a community on there and have a platform where I could release my short stories in a Pay What You Want fashion! I even updated my in person event materials to link to my stories' itchio pages for the ebook instead of to Amazon!

I hadn't really gotten my footing over there yet, but the prospect of settling myself in there was intoxicating. It felt like a way forwards. And now?

Well, this is when the WELL IT'S TOO DAMN BAD comes in.

Unfortunately this is going to keep happening. Sites are going to keep bowing to the demands of their payment processors (especially when they're being poked and urged by a hate group like Collective Shout). The United States has succumb to fascism and it's enabling the rest of the world to push their hate as well.

All that said, it means that we have to keep moving forward.

I am visibly queer, fat, and disabled in a small red town in a red county in a red state. There is nowhere for me to hide even if I wanted to (I don't), and that goes for my writing as well. Now more than ever we need queer stories, disabled stories, and stories of color at the forefront of the writing world. Intersectionality is necessary for us to even begin to dream of a better world.

Which means I need to figure out where my stories are going. I'm going to be removing my stories from itchio at the end of July (so yesterday when you're reading this). There is a large number of creators who are doing the same, and I can only hope this will let itch know that their actions have consequences.

The majority of my revenue came from Kindle Unlimited. I do not want to go back to that. I will not go back to that, I want to be able to share my stories on platforms that aren't under the suffocating thumb of Bezos.

That being said, for now they are still on Amazon (just not KU). I would love to move away from Amazon in the future, but right now it's just not feasible for me since the majority of my reader base is there.

I also have my larger stories, Incorrect Eyes and ΔΆΙΟΣ, on Kobo Plus. I am looking into going wide with D2D so the eBook will be available in more places. I had it originally listed through IngramSpark, but they were such a pain in terms of updates and corrections that I'd rather go through anything else.

The final place that I will have my stories is here. On my newsletter.

I mentioned last month that I was introducing paid tiers to my newsletter and that I technically had rolled them out, but that I wasn't ready for anyone to subscribe to it yet.

Well, this kind of kick started that for me. I'm working on moving all of my short stories onto Ghost (the host of my newsletter) and plan on linking to it in the details for each of my stories on my website. The bad news is that I can't really do the pay-what-you-want that I could with itch. But at least they have a new home that hopefully won't be taken from me in the near future.

I feel like that's enough talk about the depressing news that is the itch TOS update, though, so let's talk about what else happened this past month! It was a very busy month in terms of things that I was actively present during, but the most important two were: the Columbus Book Festival and the Ghost concert!

The Columbus Book Festival

The first event I'd like to talk about from the past month is the Columbus Book Fest.

This Book Fest is an event I've had my eyes on for years with dreams of attending, and this year we made it happen! Emily accompanied me to this event, keeping me sane for the four days we were away from home.

I was overwhelmed by the sheer turnout and support of the community at this event! There were so many kind people out, including the staff and volunteers! I got to talk to so many amazing people, both new and familiar (looking @ yous, Matt and Courtney! It was lovely to see you again!)

Emily and I had so many conversations about everything from good nearby food to the barely concealed politics in books to our favorite queer rep to so many other topics with so many people... it was honestly one of the best event experiences I've had as an author so far!

Not only that, but we sold out of Reverent: An Anthology of Angles and the paperback version of ΔΆΙΟΣ! I left with less than half my stock of Incorrect Eyes and only two (2) hardcover editions of ΔΆΙΟΣ! That's amazing!!! Especially for a small author like myself!

And then there's the thing I'm most excited by from this trip: my author name was recognized in public!

Em and I stopped by a lovely little witchy shop called WitchLab on our way down (that we will be visiting again this month for their Arcane Alley!) and it was mentioned that I write books. While telling one of the shop keeps the name of my book (Incorrect Eyes) and my author name, another shop keep turned around and said "I think I have your book". We searched their itchio library and, lo and behold, they did have Incorrect Eyes! THAT'S SO COOL!!!

All in all, the Book Fest was amazing! Definitely work the downpour that we experienced on Saturday that damaged a good number of my books (i'm really sorry to anyone who came up to my table for the last hour after that rain before we called it and left for the day... i prommy i don't bite i was just very overstimulated from the weather changes and my wet clothes)

I didn't get many photos from the weekend (I was too busy Experiencing the Experience), but here are a few I did get:

The Skeletour

The second thing I want to talk about in this month's newsletter (I apologize for this being as long as it is,,, it will only get longer from here) is the Skeletour! I got to see Ghost this past month at the Rocket Arena in Cleveland, OH!

This was my second time seeing Ghost in person, the first one was back in 2022? 2023? i think it was 2022. Either way, They were in Youngstown the night before my emergency surgery. I didn't get home from that concert until nearly 1am and then had to be up at 4am to head into Cleveland for surgery prep... that was a time!

This time I did not have a surgery the next morning. No, I was actually able to move and enjoy the concert to the fullest extent this time! I was also weirdly proud of Ghost and the growth they showed between concerts. The stained glass windows in the back are an LCD screen now! They have a new grucifix lighting rig! The costumes are [chef's kiss]! The pyrotechnics!!! The visuals are truly a notch above and I am living for it!

They had us use Yonder pouches for our phones with this concert, which I can only assume is for lore purposes. We don't want to spoil the new lore before everyone gets to see it!! And as hesitant as I was for this before the event, it was really nice to enjoy the concert without seeing hundreds of phones in the air directly in my line of sight.

Another highlight from the night was TeleTobias (as Steph has so called them). There was a person in the pit in a purple teletubbie costume and full Papa V makeup (including the face mask)! I think this was our favorite outfit of the show, taking 1st before the two separate Jesus' we saw in the crowd.

All that aside, there were some other things I got out of the concert. The first one was the realization that I have tickets to see not one, but two of the bands that heavily influence DESECRATE this year (Sleep Token and Ghost)! We're hoping to make it all three, but Noah Kahan has not announced his tour as of yet 👀

The other things I got out of the concert all relate to how Ghost influenced my writing. Specifically, how they influenced the Marcionite Catholic Church as we know it in DESECRATE.

DESECRATE, at it's core, is an alternate history type novel.

What if Marcion was right about the Catholic religion?
- DESECRATE's description on my tumblr

It takes us back to the start of the Catholic Church, the start of Christianity as a whole, and gives us a different path to the present through a heresy made canon. I wanted to keep the Catholic Church as similar to how I know it through my religious upbringing while also incorporating this change, this taste of heretical belief to it.

The most obvious way I've done this is through scripture itself. Kit, in DESECRATE, translated a long forgotten text that tells of a second God: Adonai. That is a huge divergence from current Catholic canon, veering us towards Marcion of Sinope and his vaguely Gnostic beliefs.

Another way that I do this is through the visuals of the Church. Catholicism is known for it's striking visuals, always shown to be the Aesthetic branch of Christianity. The stained glass windows, the elaborate gothic architecture, the gold and jewel encrusted chalices and thuribles. All of it leads to this grand, decadent imagery. One we associate with Holiness in the Church.

Ghost plays off that amazingly well in their imagery and visuals on stage. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I was struck at the sheer awe of what I was seeing. One image that is burned into my mind from the concert is this:

The grucifix is lowered, a stark black light from underneath by diffused red stage lights. Smoke flows across the stage, tendrils of red vapor reaching up through the cross and towards the sky.

I can't find an image from this specific moment in the concert, but here are two others to give the idea:

THE VISUALS!!!!! THEY'RE THERE!!!!

I really try to play on this twisted form of decadence within the Marcionite Catholic Church in DESECRATE. The striking visuals, aided by the feeling that something's off. Something's not quite right within the opulence.

I'm not sure if it was Ghosts intentions to bring in relics to their imagery with the pervasiveness of skeletal remains, but that was something I wanted to play with. I have a lot of show time to mess with Father Isaac's vestments and Benny's habit throughout the book, after all.

The first idea I had was inspired by the silicone masks and corpse paint of Papa IV (Copia my beloved), though it most resembles Papa V now that he is released. Basically, I put a mask on my priests and nuns. A skull mask! (the original design was a half mask, but I will be tweaking my design a bit to differentiate it from Papa V's design now that he is released, since they are eerily similar but not directly inspired by each other since I designed my characters nearly two years ago now)

I believe the route I will be taking with the skull mask now is something more akin to a death mask or something more animal-esque to line up with Adonai's ram skull. I'm not 100% sure yet, I am still toying around with the design!

Another design element that I would like to add comes directly from the Skeletour and the introduction of what I'm calling the Cunty Little Cassock:

I MEAN!!!!! I wasn't able to find an image of the back of the cassock, but you can see the silver skeletal hands coming over the shoulders in both pictures. They extend over the back and lead down into a long silver barbed tail.

That is the part I wish to incorporate. I believe I will go a more natural bone finish route, but I wish to take inspiration from this outfit and retrofit something similar onto my priests and nuns in DESECRATE. I'm thinking a rib cage piece that actually fits around the ribs of the wearer and hooks onto the vestments and habit, then a spinal column that extends down into a tail. I think I would like the tail to be long enough to drag on the floor a big behind the wearer, acting as a sort of train and alluding to something with a greater height than the wearer.

That "alluding to" is important, because that's the reason I'm incorporating these elements.

In the text, Adonai is held captive and erased from the narrative of the bible. They are erased from history for the benefit of Elohim. But They are not forgotten. There are visual elements of art and vestments and habits that allude to Their existence. The current day Church hierarchy may not know why they wear bone or why they cover their face, but Adonai remembers...

And yeah! That's basically all I have to say on that for now! I will make sure to include an updated design layout on the vestments and habits when I have it drawn up, but that may take me a minute since my Master's program starts up this month! Hopefully I'll have it by next month's newsletter 🤞

Until then, I wish you all a lovely night! If you're sticking around for a snippet, it will be just under this divider ↓, but if you're not then I will see you next time <3<3