Someone who pirates could have made a difference if they requested the book at their library instead. If you care about supporting authors, this is the free way to read books and still do so! Libraries pay attention to which books circulate and which don’t!

Also to situate this in context, a bookstore selling more than 20 copies of my last book means they want to host an event with me for my next one. Each book purchase is hugely influential. If you can give the gift of books this season, do it please.

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... indie bookstore purchasing, because it keeps our books on the shelves and can turn bookstores into advocates for our work – and library borrows, because, again, that keeps it on the shelves for new readers to find. 14/

The biggest question authors get about this is "what is the most helpful way to buy my book"? As you can see, the numbers are not that different by format, but what really helps us is ... 13/

Bookselling is like the most "people go to the store and buy what looks cool to them without a particular agenda" type business left, and your purchases have a huge influence on what is ordered, what is displayed, and what is recommended.

Literally buying one copy of a book at your local indie bookstore can mean the difference in whether they buy future books from that author.

Seven years of brain aging after a single infection is not normal aging. www.scientificamerican.com/article/covi...

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A few of the studies are linked in this thread, but there are MORE. Literally BEGGING people to pay attention. We're letting a whole generation of young people destroy their brains for NO REASON.

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This is exactly what I was going to say. There are a slew of studies now showing that COVID infections damage the brain and cause gradual cognitive decline, which is compounded by subsequent infections. We've been letting the young people in our country contract COVID over and over and over again.

I think it's also technically challenging to deliver the sound, with unpredictable wind gusts, on a moving vehicle, etc. But that's less my area than the actual singing, which I'm here to say is just... really hard, especially if they have to sing in the extremes of their range for the song.

There's a reason you see singers being all scarved up, looking precious w/a pot of tea all winter. I hear you on wanting it to feel more authentic, but it's hours in the cold out there, and I don't think most people want to hear what all those singers would actually sound like in these conditions.

Former pro singer here (who used to do outdoor caroling gigs regularly), while it's not *impossible* to sing outdoors in the cold, it's really, *really* hard to keep your vocal chords hydrated & flexible when you're breathing in freezing cold air. Dry chords, big mucus, it's not a pretty picture.

And if those busses are like the busses here, they run so infrequently, you’re losing another hour just because it’s either be an hour early or a half an hour late for work. And sucks for you if work gets out after 5pm. You’re sleeping at the office.

I feel this. Before I had a car in the area where I live now, I had a job that was a 15 minute drive from my apartment. If I took the bus, it was an hour long ride that wound around the entire town, plus I had to get to work an hour early and leave an hour late because the schedule was so sparse.

This is so real.