10 years ago, Elisabeth Bik published a preprint heard around the world
Apr. 19th, 2026 10:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
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If you are at all familiar with scientific sleuthing, you’re familiar with Elisabeth Bik. She is quoted so often in the mainstream media it is probably difficult to imagine a time before her supersense for spotting similarities in images wasn’t making headlines.
But it was 10 years ago, on April 19, 2016, when she made her debut, when we covered her work screening more than 20,000 biomedical research papers containing western blots. She and coauthors Ferric Fang – a member of the board of directors of our parent nonprofit organization, The Center for Scientific Integrity, and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle – and Arturo Casadevall, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, posted the work as a preprint on bioRxiv.org and it appeared two months later in mBio.
The preprint was a shot across the bow for journals and publishers, and in the decade since, Bik has advised and mentored others doing similar work. In 2024, she won the Einstein Foundation Award for “identifying misconduct and potential fraud in scientific publications, highlighting science’s problems policing itself.” She donated the proceeds to The Center for Scientific Integrity to create a fund to help other sleuths do their work.
Bik spoke with us earlier this month about the paper, sleuthing and more. The conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Retraction Watch: We first interviewed you in 2016 just as you and your coauthors posted your review of western blots in 20,621 papers. Ten years later, do you know what has happened with those papers?
Elisabeth Bik: Well, not all 20,000, but the 800 or so papers that I found problems in, yes. Of the 782, 177 have been retracted, 42 have an expression of concern and 256 have been corrected. And if I count all three of them, that’s 475, so 60%.
RW: Do you think that should be 100%?
Bik: Yeah, I would have loved it to be a little bit closer to 100%. You can see papers are still being corrected. Like this paper, for example, was retracted in 2024, but I reported it in 2015. [On Zoom, Bik was pointing at the spreadsheet she uses to track papers.] Most of these were reported to the journals in 2015.
RW: What did people think of your paper?
Bik: It was rejected four or five times. In the end, we were like, we’ll just put it as a preprint and do an interview with Retraction Watch.
Nobody believed this paper. People didn’t believe I scanned 20,000 papers over a period of maybe roughly, I would say a year or two. I did a count on how much time I used to scan one paper. And it was about one minute per paper. Really, I’m not reading a paper, I’m just looking at the images. We took it out in the end because so many people were like, that’s impossible. I’m proud of it, but that’s apparently the point that breaks everybody.
People also wanted to know, ‘what is your false-positive and false-negative rates’? We weren’t quite sure. There’s no real gold standard for it. Like what is standard for image duplication? I was the first to raise this. So it’s hard to have to test it against another test. And I also don’t know how many papers I missed. I think we were more worried about claiming a positive where it wasn’t a positive. So that’s why my two coauthors were incredibly helpful. But I know I must have missed a lot of these problems.
RW: But 782 out of 20,000 is not nothing.
Bik: Yeah, it’s 4%, or 1 in 25.
RW: You’re known for finding duplications and manipulations in images, but you started out scrutinizing papers for plagiarism.
Bik: That is how it all started. I found that somebody had plagiarized my work. And I worked on plagiarism for nine months or so. And then I came across a Ph.D. thesis that had not only plagiarized text in the introduction, but also a duplicated image that my eye was drawn to. And that evening, I was thinking, wait, that happens? Maybe I should open a couple of PLOS One papers. And I found a couple already that evening. Otherwise, I would not have been talking to you today. Looking back, it’s one of those little moments that change your career.
RW: You had a recent correction to a paper you coauthored.
Bik: All my papers have been criticized, scrutinized. In a way, it’s fair. I criticize others, people can criticize me. In that paper there was a splicing where we left out a group, and you could see a remnant of a line. It wasn’t like we were trying to change the results or anything. But we corrected it. We found a lot of the original data and we worked with the journal to correct it.
All my papers have been torn apart for the weirdest reasons. You have to put so much work into addressing these things. In a way, it’s fair to be criticized, but I do feel sorry for my coauthors who are dragged into these long discussions.
RW: Do you still scan papers by eye or are you mostly using software?
Bik: Both. Sometimes I see the problem right away, and then I run it through Imagetwin and Proofig. Especially duplications between papers is something I’m not good at, because I cannot remember a million other papers, but the software can. Now you scan these papers and it finds, look, that blot has been used in that other paper, but it’s flipped and it’s representing a different protein. And so it’s the same photo, it’s just flipped and resized a bit. It’s very clear once you compare it, but I would never be able to remember all these blots and all these papers and see these patterns. So we’re finding more of these problems with these software tools that have these libraries of images.
RW: You, and many others – including Retraction Watch – have been accused of targeted attacks in post-publication peer review on social media. What effect does that have on your work?
Bik: It worries me a bit, especially when they tag my family. I’m always a bit worried about personal safety. Sometimes the critics will send emails to the host of an event I’m speaking at and say that I’m fraudulent. You have to say to the organizers, I’m very sorry you’re bothered by my enemies. And then, there’s talk about it. What should we do? Should we respond? Should we not respond? Emails have to be sent to all these dozens of people to not respond. It’s just a lot of work for everybody involved. And I feel so sorry that comes on top of organizing a conference, which already is a lot of work. On the other hand, I think it’s good that they see my work does result in personal criticism.
RW: Sleuths have become an essential part of the whole research integrity ecosystem. How has that changed in the last 10 years?
Bik: I think it’s wonderful to have this growing community because this work, at least the way I do it, is very by myself, which I like. I’m a super-introvert. I don’t really work well with other people. I like to be loosely connected to a community. We’re all sort of a bunch of misfits. I love to be independent. Then there’s other communities who are meta scientists. And people working at publishers doing this work are also wonderful people. And I think all the noses are sort of starting to point in the same direction, which is lovely. It’s becoming part of what science should be. But you have to start in a way that upsets a lot of people and makes people uncomfortable.
There’s still a lot of room to grow. I think we all agree on that. If you buy a car and the airbag is not good, there should be a recall, right? It should be better. Moving forward, all the cars should have better airbags or better wheels that don’t fall off. If we buy a product, we should be able to complain about it. There should be quality control and there should be customer service. And I think that was a bit lacking in the scientific publishing world. And both of these things are getting better. We are growing towards each other and learning from each other.
RW: One of the criticisms we’re seeing as a result of some of the big misconduct cases is the belief that they mean we can’t trust science. What do you say to that?
Bik: I end most of my talks with this exact point. I’m talking about that one rotten apple in the fruit basket. I love science and I do this to make science better. Maybe I’m considered a vigilante because I point out the bad stuff, but it doesn’t mean that we cannot trust science. We should just do a little bit better in screening before we publish things. We should be critical. And I feel we can all agree on that.
But it has been used, weaponized, in the misinformation era where people say, all science is fraudulent, that you cannot trust any science paper. I think that is the wrong attitude, but it’s the double-edged sword we’re working with.
It’s very easy to draw that conclusion, but that is the wrong conclusion. We need science.
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Ah, A Day
Apr. 19th, 2026 03:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kallowayThen on to HobbyTown to pick up a belated prize from that contest a month ago. It is a ballcap, and I am not a ballcap-wearer, so it'll just chill on a wig head or something. Also picked up a couple of 30MM kits, RG Wing (all the Wings!), and a couple stands because I am direly low on stands and keep building critters that don't balance well.
After that, back across to a free "anime convention" also near where I used to work. I can't even say I managed to walk around once because it was the biggest shitfire I've ever seen of a convention and I have been to a lot of dire nerd shows. No parking (I parked at a drugstore nearby and hoofed it), no lighting, a rock band playing loudly over a wrestling show, and a bunch of randomly laid-out artist tables and some random woo and a poor guy selling fudge. The layout was so bad that it was impossible to walk down aisles normally, even without cosplayers in large costumes blocking things (possibly the only actual "anime convention" hallmark). Maybe stayed ten minutes.
Doing a lot of cleaning tonight, both in my bedroom and online. First is a quick journal cleanup, removing inactive accounts and a bunch of communities that I'm not doing anything with and probably won't any time soon. As always, it's not anything personal. I should do my fediverse accounts next, and discord servers that I haven't looked at in ages.
(Bedroom cleaning is cataloguing models and became a dedicated shelf clean of a bookcase where I think the old paperbacks and the old clearcoat are interacting badly. But I think I can replace that bookcase easily so *waves hands* I also gave the discolored/spotty book bottoms a quick sand and they look a lot better. Also also these are mass market pocket paperbacks from the ~80's so they are not in great shape to begin with and there's some book repair in my future.)
Three Weeks For Dreamwidth 2026 \o/
Apr. 19th, 2026 10:08 amgoodbyebird posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
3weeks4dreamwidth✨ April 25th to May 15th ✨
Let's celebrate our awesome online home together! Activities, events, memes, all the special interest blog posts <3
Guidelines
+ Feel free to promote any activity you've got going for 3W4D, either in communities or hosted in your own journal.
+ As this is to celebrate the anniversary and promote activity at Dreamwidth, it is highly appreciated that content tagged for the event stays on Dreamwidth exclusively for the whole three weeks. (obviously nobody's setting the hounds on you)
+ Feel free to tag anything you think would be of interest even if you're not linking it here. It's a good way to meet likeminded people who want to talk about movies/books/hobbies/travel/what have you.
+ Posts tagged with three weeks for dreamwidth (or threeweeks or three_weeks_for_dw) will show up in this feed :)
+ If you wish, drop a link to any content you post anywhere on Dreamwidth for this fest into this community after the start date, with a brief description of the nature of the post. Posting is open to all community members, we'd love to see you!
+ Please do promote any Dreamwidth-only activities happening during the fest <3
psa
We won't be accepting any Harry Potter or AI generated posts.
Promo
Poem: "Food Is Everything We Are"
Apr. 19th, 2026 01:51 amysabetwordsmithcrowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by fan art from gs_silva, plus comments on "Walnut Park" from chanter1944, wispfox, and readera. It also fills the "match" square in my 4-1-26 card for the Flower Fest Bingo. This poem belongs to the Broken Angels thread of the Polychrome Heroics series.( Read more... )
Low Key And Chilly Saturday
Apr. 18th, 2026 11:53 pmcrossover_chickCleaning & Laundry: Yup, it was another one of those Saturdays, meaning most of my day was spent dusting my room, Swiffering my floor, vacuuming my rug, and putting sheets, blankets, pjs, and bathrobe through the wash. Started the whole process around 10:40 AM; broke for lunch about 1:10 PM; returned to it all around 1:50 PM; finished off the cleaning and the first load of laundry by 2:50 PM; and took the second load of laundry out of the dryer around 3:50 PM. *nods* Pretty typical Cleaning Saturday schedule these days, I think you’ll agree. At least I had some good entertainment while getting everything clean – “Fallout 3 Is Better Than You Think” by Jon of Many A True Nerd! His essay about why he thinks Fallout 3 is unfairly criticized (pointing out that a lot of the complaints people threw at it didn’t actually have that much merit because they were contradicted by, you know, actually playing the game) and why in some respects it’s the best of the Fallout games (for example, he’s always loved the Capital Wasteland for feeling the most desolate and empty and dangerous of all the various wastelands we encounter through the series). Interesting stuff – though, I admit, what stuck with me the most was him complaining about Legate Lanius, the guy you have to face off with at the end of Fallout: New Vegas and can just Speech check into leaving you alone, again (in the context of comparing him to Colonel Autumn, the guy you have to face off against at the end of Fallout 3 and can just Speech check into leaving you alone, and saying Autumn is better because at least he actually APPEARED EARLIER IN THE GAME AND PERSONALLY WRONGED YOU instead of just showing up as the “final boss” like Lanius) Mostly because, during his rant, he mentioned that Lanius has two contradictory backstories, and that Ulysses from Lonesome Road points out that it might not be the same man under the mask because no one has ever actually seen his face. Which NOW has me wondering if Legate Lanius was ever a real person, or just a myth made up by the Legion to scare outsiders...and that the guy you face at the end IS just some dude in the iconic mask, thrown at you in a last-ditch effort to scare you into surrendering or dying. And that’s why it’s possible to Speech check him – the guy under the mask may not actually want to fight the genuinely-badass Courier, after all! XD I’m sure I’m not the first to think of this twist, but I love it all the same!
Writing: It took me a little bit longer than I expected (there were more fiddly little edits to make than I originally anticipated), but I did indeed finish my final edits on Chapter 6 of “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland” today! :D Covering –
A) Alice arriving back at the Skyeline and learning from Larry that Simon had indeed been taken away by the men in white coats – she said that she hoped the doctors could help him, and Larry said he hoped so too...because he needed everyone in the building to pay their rent so he could get paid
B) Alice heading back up to her apartment, only to be met by Victor waiting for her at the door – cue him revealing that he can just sort of tell when she’s in a bad mood, in the form of a feeling of “I have to find and help my domitor,” which – when she’s close enough – translates into having a rough idea of where she is; Alice confirmed that this is why he practically threw himself out the door yesterday (apparently the feeling was so bad it was like an alarm going off on his head), and apologized for not warning him, as she herself didn’t know about it. She told him that she’d ask Mercurio about it when she saw him tomorrow, which Victor said he’d appreciate...before starting to ask if it would really be so bad if he had some more blood from her. Alice shut that line of thought down right quick!
C) Alice bringing Victor over to the couch and telling him about her night – starting with discovering Pisha’s hospital of horrors and having to fight her (Victor was very sympathetic about poor Alice having to deal with an enemy threatening her with fire yet again), then moving onto her trip through the museum (Victor was surprised to hear the night watch at the museum was so lacking...and pleased to know that his blood had been so useful to keeping her hidden from both humans and cameras alike), then moving onto finding the sarcophagus missing and having to return to LaCroix empty-handed (Victor winced and was like “oh no, that must have been fun”), before ending with explaining that she’d been tasked with going to Hollywood and making Gary, Nosferatu primogen, talk regarding the sarcophagus’s whereabouts (because LaCroix is certain he had something to do with its disappearance). And then adding that she didn’t expect a warm welcome from the Anarchs of Hollywood because she’d foolishly mentioned seeing him coming out of Grout’s house the other night, and LaCroix had used that as a springboard to claim Nines had killed Grout and order a blood hunt on him. And that while she’d managed to convince the Anarchs of Downtown she’d been a mere patsy, they were still upset with her, and – yeah. Not a fun night!
D) Victor asking if she wanted him to accompany her to Hollywood, and Alice saying she would, as she enjoyed his company, and it would be useful to have someone around who could operate during the day...before adding mostly-jokingly that it would also be rude of her to insist he stay behind and stick him with the rent, should it come due, because she was the one with sources of income. Cue Victor staring at her for a bit before realizing that no, she genuinely didn’t know about his family situation, and asking her to look up the Van Dorts –
And Alice doing so and being like “your family is worth how much?!” XD And asking why Victor was in a crappy hotel in Santa Monica rather than in a mansion in the Hollywood Hills – Victor explained that it was because he’d left his home in a snit and he was trying to use as little of his parents’ money as possible to fund his trip, lest they try to control what he did by pulling the purse strings. *nods* Smart.
E) Alice then jokingly asking if Victor couldn’t use his riches to buy Hollywood out from under Isaac, and Victor laughingly telling her that he was pretty sure that would take longer than LaCroix would like...prompting Cheshire to tell Alice that such big purchase were a bad idea anyway and remind her that “eyes on you shouldn’t translate to eyes on him – not if you do value his freedom.” Which led to Alice remembering that Victor already vaguely knew the name “LaCroix” and thus might be at least a little bit on his radar, which in turn made her realize that yes, he could very well be in danger of the Prince taking him as his ghoul. Victor was a little confused when she first told him this, as she used the euphemism “buy you off me” to explain LaCroix suborning him – prompting him to assure her there was no amount of money LaCroix could offer him to make him work for the guy – but then Alice properly explained that she meant that LaCroix could force him to drink his vitae, switch sides, and maybe empty his parents’ bank accounts, and he was like “Oh – yes, let’s avoid that.” (While Alice worried about the fact that Tung in Santa Monica already knew about her ghoul situation, and wondered what it might take to convince him – and the other Nosferatu – to keep their mouths shut...)
F) And Victor telling Alice that he wanted to buy her something to thank her for all that she’d done for him – and Alice, after initially demurring, being told by Caterpillar “let him do this, it’s how he’s learned to express his appreciation,” remembering her clothing situation, and telling Victor that he could splurge on a new wardrobe for her if he wanted. Leading to them leaving the apartment arm in arm to do some shopping. :)
Whew! Hooray for that being done. Tomorrow, we post this sucker and FINALLY close the book on “Londerland Bloodlines: Downtown Queensland!”
YouTube: Well, there was no CaFae Latte compilation this week (I double-checked – Chris must still be busy with other stuff), so I was able to spend the night catching up on a pair of videos from the OXBoxtra team –
A) “I Played Pokopia on Painkillers for a Week and It Was Exactly What I Needed” by OXtra! Which was Ellen telling us all about how Pokémon Pokopia on the Switch 2 was a balm for her during a recent week that she had to take off due to her chronic cystinuria – a kidney disease that means she produces a LOT of kidney stones and gets a LOT of kidney pain. :( Pokémon Pokopia, in case you don’t remember, is the new cozy game from Nintendo where you play as a Ditto imitating its former trainer to revitalize a post-apocalyptic world – helping out various Pokémon, making habitats and eventually houses for them, and generally just fixing up the landscape and the infrastructure the humans left behind. There’s a lot of Animal Crossing vibes, as you might expect – in fact, it looks like a decent number of assets and animations were, if not straight-up taken from New Horizons, at least modeled on its stuff. Ellen adores it, though, and said it was the perfect game for a week spent on strong painkillers. Why? Well:
I. It’s just very nice to look at – all the Pokémon are rendered and animated adorably in this game, to the point where Ellen found herself gaining a new appreciation for Pokémon she didn’t actually care much for before (like Swablu, a bird Pokémon with cotton-swab-ball wings, who hops about like a little budgie). They really feel like they’re ALIVE in a way that they sometimes don’t in the mainline games
II. It’s got a lovely core gameplay loop of improving the environment, getting new Pokémon and new life into the area, then getting their help in improving things even further – and unlike in some games, the Pokémon actually do help you, as they are the ones that build all the structures around the place (yes, you the player have to get the plans, pick the plot, and provide the materials, but at least you’re not doing EVERYTHING). They also give you gifts from time to time, which can range from “aw, useless but sweet” to “oh damn, I actually needed this, thanks Pokémon”
III. The tasks in it are all pretty easy (grow plants, harvest food, figure out where to place buildings, ask Pokemon what they need to be happy, etc) and can be handled at your own pace – perfect for someone who is feeling loopy and knows she needs to rest, but also does not want to be bored (though Ellen admitted she might have fallen victim to the whole “toxic productivity” thing by recording her gameplay footage for this video – whoops!)
IV. It’s an extremely chill game with no lasting consequences for mucking things up – accidentally steal an item from a Pokémon’s house? Just put it back and they will be happy as clams! Accidentally destroy a Pokémon’s habitat while cleaning up the environment? Just restore it to how it was (or better) and they’ll cheerfully move right back in! Perfect for when you KNOW you’re going to make mistakes and don’t want them to become a big deal
V. It makes building things and improving the environment fun without encouraging everything to be PERFECT – a minecart track will be useful and run well no matter how “optimized” or “pretty” it is, for example. As someone who suffers from perfectionism, Ellen really appreciated that the game’s calm vibes combined with powerful drugs meant that she could just do the main quest in each area and leave coming back and making everything “perfect” until later. (Plus, the sheer care put into all the post-apocalyptic environments made her want to take her time exploring them before trying to tidy them up)
VI. And it made her laugh during a time where she was generally feeling miserable and sad, thanks to a combination of excellent writing (and localization) when it came to the dialogue of the various Pokémon, and various simply-ridiculous moments such as a Pokémon pulling a minecart out of the ether to take a ride. :p
So yeah – if you have a Switch 2 and aren’t feeling well, this might be a good game for you to pick up and play for a little while! I mean, this is a game that gives you an option to build a house and then ask an Eevee to be your roommate – how can you NOT love that? :p
B) And “7 Horror Games They Banned for No Good Reason” by OXBox! This week’s list video saw Andy and Jane talking about those horror games that got banned, or at least delisted, in various markets for reasons that maybe weren’t the best. Examples included:
I. Rule Of Rose not getting a release in Australia, New Zealand, or the UK because it was accused of having “obscene cruelty and brutality” and “in-game sadomasochism,” among other things – except it straight-up doesn’t have any of that. It’s instead a survival horror game about a nineteen-year-old girl named Jennifer being menaced by creepy tweens in a dark world with no proper adults, which simply had the bad luck of, one, having a trailer with some unsettling moments in it that maybe implied there was some of the above stuff in the game, and two, being released in 2006, which was one of the prime years for Video Game Moral Panic
II. Devotion, a game about exploring a creepy-mannequin filled Taiwanese apartment in the 1980s made by a Taiwan studio, getting taken off Steam because some players found an Easter Egg (or, as the devs claimed, a placeholder asset that accidentally made it into the final release) of a tao charm comparing China’s leader to Winnie The Pooh as per a popular meme in 2019, got mad, and review-bombed it until Steam bowed to the pressure and delisted it
III. And Night Trap, the world’s most famous FMV game featuring terrible trashbag-covered vampires menacing “teenage” girls in a trap-filled mansion, eventually getting pulled off shelves after being the subject of a congressional hearing where senators looked at grainy footage of women being ever-so-slightly menaced by goofy monsters and decided that this game ENCOURAGED you to trap and kill women, and furthermore “promoted violence and sexual aggression.” Apparently the controversy surrounding it was so bad that it “prevented constructive dialogue about an industry-wide rating system,” which is why SEGA pulled it in 1994.
Yeah – basically, if you’re a horror game, watch out! There is a very good chance bullshit banning will be coming your way.
*nods* A short list, perhaps, but it was nice to check every bit off, that's for sure. :) And now it is time for me to head to bed -- tomorrow is Post Chapter Six Of LB:DQ day, along with "watch the next episode of F:NV YOLO Remastered from Jon" day and "answer Moose's messages" day. And maybe play some Portal 2, depending on how long some of the other stuff takes. We'll see. Night all!
(no subject)
Apr. 19th, 2026 05:53 amapod_feed
Near the eastern horizon before sunrise, Comet C/2025 R3
Pivoting in the Indie Writer Life (A reaction to the Draft2Digital announcement)
Apr. 18th, 2026 10:17 pmjreynoldswardWarning: this is a book business rant.
Talk about a rude awakening. Draft2Digital’s announcement that they would charge a yearly $12 maintenance fee to accounts netting less than $100 per year—allegedly as a means to counter AI slop—made me sit down and look at my records. I’ve had the perception over the past few years that my sales at D2D have gone down. I attributed that status to lack of a new release last year, the economy, the state of the world overall, and the need to change covers. I’ve been running regular promotions, sales, and talking up my backlist, both on social media and my newsletter.
Then this announcement happened.
I was already annoyed at D2D because they were slow to confirm the publishing of my new February release, Vision of Alliance, at Barnes and Noble, which has been my best selling vendor, by TEN DAYS. I had been checking my clicks at D2D’s Books2Read app because I was using their universal links and noticed that—hmm, clicks aren’t happening for a new release, what’s up?
Eh, I figured it was the wackiness of the economy and our current political situation and not so much the publishing issue. Plus it was not a particularly cozy fantasy (look, I’m really bad at cozy, though maybe I should give it a try. One of these days. Though I do have one book that I occasionally call a “cozy apocalypse.” It’s…kinda sorta cozy). Nonetheless, the results for the Vision of Alliance book launch were disappointing, given that I’d lined up what I thought was a good set of promotions, plus I had featured it on my new website that has specific book landing pages. The lack of sales didn’t make sense AT ALL, unless it was the slowness of the Barnes and Noble link to show up on D2D. But I just figured that my readers weren’t interested in a return to the world of the Seven Crowned Gods, so I would need to pivot. I put the second book of the trilogy aside and began working on a new project.
Meanwhile, as a result of the listing delay of Barnes and Noble links for Vision of Alliance, I had put direct links to Barnes and Noble for all my books on their respective landing pages. About half of the Barnes and Noble links on D2D’s universal links were not working. I ended up pulling up my listings on B&N directly to get the page links I needed. Thankfully, part of my preparation for releasing Alliance was changing websites to a setup designed specifically for authors, so it was easy for me to plug in those links. It definitely saved me a lot of energy and angst.
At the same time, I kept hearing mutterings on various indie author social media sites about issues with D2D overall. Poor customer service. Problems getting listings approved. Smashwords authors having more complications during the transition with books not appearing on D2D, or their books getting mangled. Glitches with the ebook catalog getting uploaded to Bookshop. Concerns about censorship. Broken links. I didn’t get into details because at the time I was working with my spouse to help close down part of his retirement side business, which involved a lot of physical labor, and, well, I’m getting up there in years. I don’t have the energy I used to have.
D2D’s announcement made me angry enough to start looking at my books and their links. Good grief. Some links worked. Some didn’t. Some worked one time, but didn’t another. What’s worse, the link to a book I recently had put on sale didn’t work AT ALL. Then it did. Then it didn’t. Up and down over the course of several hours.
That was when I really got angry, and made the decision to leave D2D rather than pay them $12 a year. If I’m going to pay for a service, then I expect things to work. If they’re providing me a universal book link, well, that link should come up consistently—and that apparently wasn’t happening.
But with 32 books, changing this stuff takes time. As a temporary stopgap while I went through the process of going direct once more, over the course of several hours I added links on my website’s book landing pages to every vendor that I was selling with through D2D. Couldn’t trust the usefulness of those universal links, obviously. Back to individual listings, which I had done before.
Then I sat down and crunched the sales numbers for the last five years.
Yikes.
I have not had a good sales year on D2D since 2023. That was about the time I went to universal book links through them, rather than listing the Apple, Barnes and Noble, Kindle, and Kobo links separately. Meanwhile, my Amazon sales have been fairly steady, except for a big surge in 2022 and 2023, when I was part of Kindle Vella. My Ingram sales for paperback editions have been consistent as well, although I got hit with returns in 2025 which impacted payouts for that year.
$12 for account maintenance doesn’t look so good after all. Especially since the numbers keep falling.
All right, then. Time to do something new—and right away, part of that for me means moving my catalog off of that site. One challenge I face is that my previous accounts with Barnes and Noble and with Kobo are tied to an email address that no longer exists. I apparently opened a Google Play account, then didn’t do anything with it. I need to open an Apple account and get that set up. So there’s a lot of business setup to do.
That’s the first piece.
The next one is uploading everything to these assorted sites (32 books!) and getting the word out that yes, I have stable links available for my books now.
After getting a request for Kindle epubs on Itch, I’m going to put those up there, as well.
Additionally, I’m adding hardcover editions to my catalog to supplement already-available ebook and paperbacks. I’m seeing a rise in hard copy sales and want to take advantage of that opportunity. Fortunately, that’s an easy process because I just need to take my paperback interior and upload it, then revise my paperback cover for hardback in BookBrush…which is actually quite easy to do. Hello, Bowker (the service that distributes the US book identification numbers used by the industry), I’m finally forking out for a block of 100 ISBNs. At least I shouldn’t need to buy any more for quite some time.
Finally, I am getting serious about finding a means to sell direct. I’ve done the Ko-fi store in the past, and I may do it again with a different payment processor than Paypal. But I also need to find a better means to do direct, one that covers taxes and processing. I somewhat have the direct option for my paperbacks and hardcovers through Ingram Spark’s Share and Sell link, which…I get a better return than I would through Ingram’s regular distributors (alas, this is only a US option).
Arrgh. It’s a lot of work when I’d much rather be writing. Nonetheless, it’s part of the business and…it has to be done. Sigh. But that’s the life for any writer, indie or traditional—it just happens faster to indies. And if I want commiseration, I just need to pull out an Anthony Trollope book that talks about the publishing business (The Way We Live Now, An Editor’s Tales, Autobiography) and soothe myself with the notion that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Trollope and writers of his era had to hustle to be recognized.
Sounds quite familiar.
Meanwhile, you can find my books at https://www.joycereynolds-ward.com. Sales and specials are at the top of the listings. I write a variety of science fiction and fantasy. Or drop a tip at my Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/joycereynoldsward
And oh hey! It’s Indie April! I have a bunch of ebooks on sale, starting with my Resistance and Romance! Itch bundle featuring six of my books heavy on relationships in the face of corporate and political turmoil. That will go for all of April. Plus I have Vision of Alliance and The Cost of Power Omnibus edition both available in ebook at $3.99 throughout April.
Book review: The Salt Grows Heavy
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:43 pmrocky41_7 posting in booknookAuthor: Cassandra Khaw
Genre: Fiction, horror, fantasy
Today while waiting for my car’s brake pads to be replaced, I finish The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw. This is a short (fewer than 100 pages) fairy tale-inspired horror story about a mermaid and a plague doctor who get wrapped up in the sick games of a village they pass through.
I liked the idea of this story a lot more than the execution. Have you ever had the sense a book really wanted to say something profound about human nature? This book felt like that constantly. It also felt like the author desperately wanted the reader to be impressed with her large and esoteric vocabulary. Things were phrased and rephrased in ways that felt keenly like they were only there so the author could use a specific word. Which, fair, we’ve all done it, but the scaffolding showed so plainly here it felt very clumsy. I’m not usually one to fuss too much about purple prose, but the language here often felt decorative enough that meaning was obscured rather than clarified.
I like the vibes in this book, and the two main characters were engaging (although I felt like the half-mermaid children were a pretty glaring dropped thread) and the plot interesting, and some of the writing was beautiful, but more often it was distracting. I never sank into the book, which was too bad, because there were some cool moments.
Can’t say I’m inclined to look into more of Khaw’s writing, because I think her style is just not for me. I don’t think I wasted my time with this book, but I don’t need to see more from her.
Chena
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:27 pmranunculusD.O.P.-T.
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:29 pmweofodthignenBusy
Apr. 18th, 2026 08:51 pmranunculusOur third task was to clear two massive limbs at Deer Camp. The two were hung up, and leaning on each other. There was probably 1,000 # waiting to fall on us. Fortunately those two limbs were pretty stable and on flatter ground. Once we cleared all the twiggy "brush" and cut back any branch that was not supporting weight we considered the problem. Geez, hundreds of pounds 10 feet in the air.... We put a tow strap on the smaller limb and pulled it sideways a little. It obligingly fell down with a thump, leaving the larger limb hanging by nothing much. I tried a cut to see if it would roll down, but no luck. So we put the tow strap on it and pulled it the opposite direction of the first limb. It fell with almost no real pressure on the strap. Whew! Very scary work. Lots of thought about how to keep fragile human bodies safe. With the limbs down Dave and Ray left as they had late afternoon appointments.
I returned to the house and feverishly sorted out ribbons. We mark the trail by tying surveyors tape; bright orange or bright pink; to clothespins. The clothespins can then be clipped to branches, fences, wands or pretty much anything else. To keep the ribbons and clothespins tidy and easy to access the pins are clipped to a circle of rope that can be worn over one shoulder. Here is Carrie and Juno last year.
The flags with the blue in them are to mark turns or other places where the trail might be confusing. They mean: STOP, find your next flag before you go any further. It will be in sight! Helps keep people from getting lost. I am desperately trying to make more flags. Somehow an entire, large box of flags, neatly clipped to ropes, has disappeared. Probably at least 200 flags just gone. Hopefully now that I am replacing them the old flags will re-appear.
Tomorrow is a bridge building day with Glenn.
Fic: Learning the Steps
Apr. 18th, 2026 09:12 pmbeatrice_otterAuthor: Beatrice_Otter
Fandom: The Goblin Emperor
Pairing: Csethiro/Maia
Written for:
dontstophernow in fffx 2025Rating: Teen
Length: 10k
Summary: As the wedding day approaches, Csethiro and Maia get to know each other better
At AO3. On Squidgeworld. On Dreamwidth. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.
AN: The Tale of the Loathly Lady is a real story which crops up in Arthuriana and other places. It's the Wife of Bath's tale in the Canterbury Tales, and it was told on its own as Gawain and Lady Ragnell.
***
The original proposal—Csethiro did not know who had made it, whether her father or the Emperor or some nameless secretary—was for the wedding to take place on Nan'desazh, the spring lambing festival. This was the most auspicious date for a wedding in the whole year; unfortunately, it was also a mere three months after the contracts had been signed, and there was simply no way to arrange things in time. Csethiro was not often grateful to her stepmother, but she was in this; the Marquise Ceredaran had flatly refused to contemplate so early a date.
The spring equinox had been suggested instead; it was almost as propitious as Nan'desazh, and would give them an extra month to plan. Besides, there was a certain symmetry in it; Edrehasivar had been crowned just before the fall equinox, and his birthday was the winter solstice, and so to marry him on the spring equinox seemed to Csethiro (and many others at court) to be a harbinger of good fortune.
It was still ruinously short. The preparations for Csoru's wedding had taken a full year.
( Read more... )
Daily Happiness
Apr. 18th, 2026 08:51 pmtorachan2. I got to sleep easily last night and woke up at more or less my usual time today.
3. Look at this perfectly camouflaged Jasper!
Just one thing: 19 April 2026
Apr. 18th, 2026 10:00 pmjazzyjj posting in awesomeersComment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!