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Yeah I got really mad and gave good advice in there, and there were like four or five people who jumped in and gave really bad advice and claimed to be making $20,000/month. They were like really aggressive and insistent with disagreeing with me, and even when I posted like, a sales graph directly proving them wrong, they'd say stuff like: "Well, just because the chart shoots up right after the free promo doesn't mean it was the free promo that made it happen." Then a few people were taking my advice and getting results with it, and those people would like swarm into those threads questioning why they were doing it like that etc. I just deleted my account because it's like...not that I want to give bad advice, but why should I waste my time giving advice on what felt like the dumbest of all the forums I've ever been on. I could be writing...
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Jan 5, 2016 05:36
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Have you guys heard of the hot new trend of beard romances? Bearded and hairy chests and dadbods are in. Move on this trend before it's gone!
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Jan 5, 2016 05:52
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EngineerSean posted:Have you guys heard of the hot new trend of beard romances? Bearded and hairy chests and dadbods are in. Move on this trend before it's gone! Can't tell if excellent advice or thick sarcasm.
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Jan 5, 2016 08:40
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I've definitely been noticing the bearded guy covers where the abs aren't even there because the guy in the photo definitely doesn't even have abs
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Jan 5, 2016 08:48
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i'm lightyears ahead of all of ya'll because i'm riding the million-dollar month wave of bearded ab romances the snail trail will never fail (to pay)
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Jan 5, 2016 10:28
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EngineerSean posted:Have you guys heard of the hot new trend of beard romances? Bearded and hairy chests and dadbods are in. Move on this trend before it's gone! Does your hero take out the garbage or go into the bathroom to fart? I'm starting a Cozy Romance Author Bundle, and as long as your main character earns less than $50,000 and doesn't shape-shift I think we have a spot for your story. He can be in the military but we'd prefer food prep or logistics MOS.
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Jan 5, 2016 13:11
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:He can be in the military but we'd prefer food prep or logistics MOS. Can he be an eight year E-4 in the engineering corp? Asking for a friend.
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Jan 5, 2016 13:29
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I ate far too much and exercised way too little over the holidays, so let me know if you need a cover model.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:32
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EngineerSean posted:Can he be an eight year E-4 in the engineering corp? Asking for a friend. Well, there's also the "Mountin' Due" eSports Romance Collection we're putting together. Does he LoL or Dota2? If you're open to him importing his waifu body pillow we can also branch the bundle into interracial, but I'm just spitballing here.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:34
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Sundae posted:I ate far too much and exercised way too little over the holidays, so let me know if you need a cover model. Pssh, look at this casual. Some of us professional fatties have been in the big leagues for years.
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Jan 5, 2016 15:37
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Roar posted:Pssh, look at this casual. Some of us professional fatties have been in the big leagues for years. Hehe big leagues. Remember it's not crumbs of old food in the ratty beards, it's crumbs of success on the hairy romance gravy train.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:28
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:Well, there's also the "Mountin' Due" eSports Romance Collection we're putting together. Does he LoL or Dota2? If you're open to him importing his waifu body pillow we can also branch the bundle into interracial, but I'm just spitballing here. oh sorry i only play single player games, i'm not alpha enough for dota.
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Jan 5, 2016 16:56
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quote:I'm just spitballing here. I have an entire boxed set of that if you'd like some easy reference material. And now to go throw up my lunch.
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Jan 5, 2016 18:28
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 I know this is small time for some of the people here, but 12,000 pages read so far today for me is a LOT. Plus sales and audiobooks I'm at $100.00 today (if it stays at .00492). A few more days like this and I have my rent paid.
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Jan 7, 2016 02:29
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Congratulations! 
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Jan 7, 2016 04:20
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I... I'll never top this http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01A2ISZYM/
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Jan 7, 2016 19:11
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Holy poo poo....It did so well despite the.....the....I don't know what word to use to describe that title, and the "hunk" on the cover.....and the synopsis...I mean...gently caress
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Jan 7, 2016 20:01
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I have a sizable collection of shorts and bundles. I moved cross country, changed day jobs and fell off the wagon for about a year. Coming back to it now and reading this thread that everything needs a compete makeover. Is it worth the time and effort to redo ~80 covers and blurbs for shorts (most older than 6months, or should I just let them sit, change pen names and relaunch a new author name? I don't think it will be too hard to redo the covers as we are mostly keeping the image the same but redoing the text into something that isn't atrocious, but for shorts that already sell okay I don't know how to judge the cost/benefit. Im already dreading fixing the back ends on the manuscripts.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:08
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Well, define worth it? I don't think erotica is worth it anymore. I've heard rumblings that they are getting more strict with the adult filter since January 1st. As an experiment, I just released a new short for the first time in months. I have the Spotlight slot on Excite Spice tomorrow, and I'm doing a ~one weird trick~ thing that usually gives me good results, and I have nearly 1,000 people on my mailing list. With all that said, I'd be very surprised if this short makes more than $300 on initial release. My launch poo poo in total is probably going to cost close to $40, and I "know what I'm doing." My process for making epubs and getting them online is definitely not optimized, so redoing 80 covers and blurbs and epub files would take me loving ages. In the time it took me to do that for 80 shorts, I could write a full romance novel. What I would do is make one really good 3d bundle cover, and put all 80 books into it. KU it. Run some paid promo on it and release it as free. Kill free promo period around 4th day at 8pm or something. This is minimal effort: one cover, one blurb, and an assload of KENPC. With 80 books, assuming you do everything with blurb/keywords/cover/advertising well, I would be super surprised if you made less than $1,000. If you gently caress up and it doesn't earn, you could always just unpublish it and go back to the "re-releasing 80 shorts" plan.
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Jan 7, 2016 20:16
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Omglosser posted:Holy poo poo....It did so well despite the.....the....I don't know what word to use to describe that title, and the "hunk" on the cover.....and the synopsis...I mean...gently caress despite? the title is a work of art and I told you beard romances were in on this very page
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Jan 7, 2016 20:26
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That's a lot to consider. Looks like my time will be better spent reading more about promotions. It's really hitting home how badly we were lacking in advertising, more so now that my partner and I are looking to publish more serious works. Thanks!
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Jan 7, 2016 20:34
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With erotica you don't have to (and can't) do some giant ad blitz. However, the difference between releasing with no paid ads and releasing with a $15 ad on one website is massive, and there's simply no point to not do it. You always will make your money back you paid for the ad, and you'll make more than that in addition. For erotica I like Excite Spice's Friday Feature, and TNL is probably good too. BKnights on fiverr is $5, and while it's mediocre, it's worth $5. Doing an erotica short with Friday Feature and BKnights usually nets me close to 2k free downloads, which springs me to earning enough money on a short when it goes paid to be worth having written it. On a bundle you'll get much better results too (though I'll keep adding the caveat that I assume your cover/blurb/content is good). You hear a lot of people say they succeed with no paid advertising, but they often are established and have a fanbase/mailing list/etc. When you are coming up from nothing, getting your poo poo out there for very minimal cost and gaining the visibility you lack can get you sales if what you are putting out there is attractive and targets the right market(s).
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Jan 7, 2016 20:55
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If you already have a large back catalog, the advice I've heard is to release them in bundles by theme, and as one big 'all in' bundle. No idea about pricing, but it seemed to be working for a lot of people a while back. Just make sure the covers make it clear they're bundles.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:47
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Yeah we have several types of bundles. Random collections of 3 called samplers, Genre bundles, trilogy bundles and megabundles which are just three theme bundles. I'm thinking now we might just revamp a selection of the titles that sell and offer up some "best of/criterion" collections. I worry though about having stinkers mixed in with the sellers, more so if cover quality is variable.
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Jan 7, 2016 22:52
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You should just sell them all to me in lump sum and call it a day. 
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Jan 7, 2016 23:20
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Arkanomen posted:That's a lot to consider. Looks like my time will be better spent reading more about promotions. It's really hitting home how badly we were lacking in advertising, more so now that my partner and I are looking to publish more serious works. Thanks! The simplest and quickest thing to do is just put them all in one huge bundle for now. Get your promo right, and it can make you some quick, easy cash. Worry about re-releasing them all individually later if you want to, but it's a shame to have them all sitting there not doing much when a decent bundle can make you thousands. E: If you're concerned that some are lower quality than others, your huge megabundle doesn't even have to be on your usual penname. Create a one-off just for the bundle. Bardeh fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jan 8, 2016 |
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Jan 8, 2016 01:24
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Hi again. Just read some of the last pages. WTF is up with my keyboard? Batteries? Piec o sh!k. Anyway, I believe in quitting day jobs. The poo poo hits the fan when you do it for real. I can't remember how many times I was in bed and came up with an idea and I got up at 3 am because I was like, "this is my job now, I have to do this." My productivity increased dramatically. As for price points, I have tried many different times to change from $5.99 to $4.99 to whatever. Sales almost always remained the same. (Okay, seriously, I'm going to put new batteries in my keyboard. Oh, and get rechargeable batteries from Amazon Basics.) I spoke with some other ppl in SFWA.org who have far more respect/books/$ than I do and they said once you're in the $5ish category, it's indistinguishable. I've found that to be true. I like Amazon a lot. They've been good to me. Last year (2015) they put 2 of my books on their monthly deals and audible.com put an audiobook on a deal. For the audiobook I ended up selling about 10 times my normal rate, which is awful nice. I'm not sure how much I'll make in 2015, probably less than I did as a computer programmer, but this job is soooo much better. I advise against looking at what sells and mimicking that. You are a creative producer and you need to write what you like and are best at. If you're a great hockey player you don't try and become a basketball star just because basketball plays vastly more, you'll just be a poo poo bballer in a junior pro team. I mean, you can go out and write The Lord of the Bangles and try and copy Tolkien the best you can. But you'll never beat him--or likely come anywhere close. You're trying to brand yourself and your product. If you can get your own niche, even if it's small, you'll be able to get a loyal following and you might be able to parlay that into more.
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Jan 8, 2016 06:44
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DukeRustfield posted:You are a creative producer and you need to write what you like and are best at. Unless nobody buys that poo poo, in which case get good at writing something more marketable or learn to enjoy poverty.
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Jan 8, 2016 15:49
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Unless you enjoy producing art for art's sake while still making a buck, mang. Now excuse me while I get back to editing my erotic Santa story.
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Jan 8, 2016 16:09
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So hey S'pubbers. My book is on sale for 99 cents until early February on Kindle! The second wave of whoring has begun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3kOOloBEAE And I made a trailer to convince people that reading is more fun than watching youtube videos. Okay and also because making the trailer helps me avoid sitting down and writing on my next book. On a side note. I am sick of pimping this book. If somebody told me, "writing the book is like maybe 30% or 40% of the job... after that, you'd better really love the poo poo out of it because it's going to be all you blather about for the next year," I'm sure I'd still have written it. In fact yes, I recall lots of people telling me that. But at the time, I was positive I'd have that Steven King publishing deal where I just show up to colleges and talk about movies I like. So yeah. Things are still going.
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Jan 8, 2016 20:32
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magnificent7 posted:On a side note. I am sick of pimping this book. If somebody told me, "writing the book is like maybe 30% or 40% of the job... after that, you'd better really love the poo poo out of it because it's going to be all you blather about for the next year," I'm sure I'd still have written it. In fact yes, I recall lots of people telling me that. But at the time, I was positive I'd have that Steven King publishing deal where I just show up to colleges and talk about movies I like. What kind of pimping are you doing that is so time consuming? Are you finding it worth your effort?
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Jan 8, 2016 23:47
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Jalumibnkrayal posted:What kind of pimping are you doing that is so time consuming? Are you finding it worth your effort? I come from a music background, where you gig two or three times a month, people cheered or threw beer bottles at you right away. In book promoting you rarely get that instant feedback.
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Jan 9, 2016 00:12
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magnificent7 posted:It's worth my effort, sure. Is it? The book is sitting at around 500k rank, so that's what, a few cents a day? The book has long since passed its optimum time for promotion (the first 30 days) and I think it's likely now to have sold as many as it'll ever sell. Your time would be better spent working on your next project, which you should in no way even consider handing over to the same chucklefucks that you let handle the release of Snapshot.
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Jan 9, 2016 02:28
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psychopomp posted:Unless nobody buys that poo poo, in which case get good at writing something more marketable or learn to enjoy poverty. I swear, sometimes I come here and people seem so absurdly afraid of failure that they are paralyzed to even try. You've got a ton of advice saying that the first XXXX stuff you write will be crap--which is of course true. Why should your first ninja zombie crocodile novella be a smash hit? My question is, why on earth would you write something you don't enjoy? You've traded one lovely office job for an (IMHO) even shittier job that forces you to take your passion and squirt a big steaming pile of poo poo on top of it. You still have rear end in a top hat bosses. They're just the ones who demand a billionaire who likes sexing fatties. Potboilers are nothing new. But for serious writers they were always the last resort and way to pay the rent. Not an end to itself. Just ask if you really want to write what you're writing now for forty more years. If you do, then you're golden and I should shut my tootsie hole. But I suspect that isn't entirely the case.
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Jan 9, 2016 07:06
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DukeRustfield posted:Unless you are like pathologically insane, there are millions of people who share the EXACT same interests you do. It is the good side of "you're not a snowflake" mantra. I was thinking about this today as I finally sat down to write. I realized that writing is pretty easy if I'm A. Writing about something that interests me and B. is the type of story I'd like to read. I'm sure there's something to be said about niche marketing here as well. I have zero experience in self publishing right now but it seems to me that I'd rather churn out a bunch of lead balloons and hope my writing is good enough to get noticed at some point. Then again I do this as an aside to my main career. If I gain popularity maybe all those other ones I wrote will get read too eventually. I mean we can look at what's popular, what's trending, what's sold in the past, etc etc but we can't know what every person out there wants to read. And you never know what the future holds or who's gonna download your poo poo and pimp it on their blog just because they like it and want to share it with their fans. Sorry I'm rambling, in writing mode. I heard from one of those marketing pro guys that there are people who've got literally 100+ ebooks on Amazon. None of them are smash hits but the sheer volume garners some of these types of authors 6 figure salaries.
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Jan 9, 2016 07:31
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quote:Unless you are like pathologically insane, there are millions of people who share the EXACT same interests you do. It is the good side of "you're not a snowflake" mantra. You'd be surprised at the overlap between "things people like" and "what doesn't sell for poo poo." quote:Potboilers are nothing new. But for serious writers they were always the last resort and way to pay the rent. If you're relying on a last resort to pay the rent, you're not a serious anything. Write what earns enough to pay the rent first. Rent. Bills. Groceries. If you're a trust fund baby or have a day job that meets your physical needs, skip this step. Then, when you have the luxury of breathing space, write what fulfills you. Self-Actualization is a way up the hierarchy from Survival and Security, but if you're doing well enough or have outside income streams, go for it buddy. quote:Not an end to itself. Just ask if you really want to write what you're writing now for forty more years. If you do, then you're golden and I should shut my tootsie hole. But I suspect that isn't entirely the case. If I didn't have to worry about paying the rent and a liveable income I'd write different things in different ways with a different business plan because I wouldn't need to worry about things like "having a sustainable business plan" or "building a paying readership." But I enjoy writing what I write, the way I write it. I'd probably do better with Romance, but I get by.
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Jan 9, 2016 07:35
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Bardeh posted:Is it? The book is sitting at around 500k rank, so that's what, a few cents a day? The book has long since passed its optimum time for promotion (the first 30 days) and I think it's likely now to have sold as many as it'll ever sell. Your time would be better spent working on your next project, which you should in no way even consider handing over to the same chucklefucks that you let handle the release of Snapshot. Personally I think it's great that he's still pushing the book. So so sooooooo many authors are like "Ugh I just want to write, I don't want to sell the book" so the fact that he's setting this stuff up, even for a book he has little control of, is fantastic. PS magnificent7 I got your book in the mail, you were banned when I got it so I couldn't let you know. Thanks a lot
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Jan 9, 2016 12:24
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EngineerSean posted:Personally I think it's great that he's still pushing the book. So so sooooooo many authors are like "Ugh I just want to write, I don't want to sell the book" so the fact that he's setting this stuff up, even for a book he has little control of, is fantastic. I think this thread has a healthy collection of writers for art vs. writers for money, and when giving and reading advice on here, it's a good idea to keep in mind which one you are. (Obviously, the dream is to be both, and some folks pull that off.) I'm not in it for the money. If I was, I wouldn't have written a horror novel with a paranormal edge. I might as well write YA post-apocalypse poo poo with a female lead who is dying of cancer as she pursues one last love with a vampire who is into a little BDSM. Or has that already been done? If not I'm on that poo poo. OH HEY and an update on my Goodreads ad campaign that started in November: Total views 20,871 Total clicks 2 I've changed the headline, the blurb, and got jack poo poo. Good thing is that it'll just keep going until the budget is spent... I guess. At this point I guess that ad is like a bumper sticker on a 1999 Honda Civic. It's there, nobody sees it. magnificent7 fucked around with this message at 19:44 on Jan 9, 2016 |
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Jan 9, 2016 19:39
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magnificent7 posted:I might as well write YA post-apocalypse poo poo with a female lead who is dying of cancer as she pursues one last love with a vampire who is into a little BDSM. Stop giving the industry ideas!
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Jan 9, 2016 20:22
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DukeRustfield posted:Just ask if you really want to write what you're writing now for forty more years.
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