So as a trans ace person who writes about a trans ace (space) wizard, can I be JKR’s arch nemesis?
I write sapphic, trans, and nonbinary romantic fantasy. 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️👑 Queer joy is my vibe. star/stars/starself or they/them/their pronouns https://novaecaelum.com
863 followers 54 following 99 posts
view profile on Bluesky
So as a trans ace person who writes about a trans ace (space) wizard, can I be JKR’s arch nemesis?
My bi king x genderfluid princess fantasy romance The King’s Weaver went viral 4 times in a few weeks and sold out 5, I just rush ordered for more, I’m shuffling schedules to get the sequel out asap because I haven’t cover revealed and have orders THANK YOU YOU’RE MAKING THIS GENDERFLUID AUTHOR CRY
New books I am so excited. I don't know where to start. The King's Weaver by @novaecaelum.bsky.social & Go Luck Yourself by @sararaaschbooks.com 🌈 💚
Happy #TransDayofVisibility! Favorite books with trans rep this year: 1) Stars and Green Magicks by @novaecaelum.bsky.social 2) Charlie Lavender and the Origin of Everything by @carsonpatrickbowie.bsky.social 3) Pride Street Mysteries series by @thorncoyle.bsky.social How about you? #booksky
And by dismantled I mean, question everything. Why is our gendered and binary western society the way it is when humans and nature have never been binary? Why does that seem normal and natural to so many of us? What is actually going on in lived humanity, and going on in systems of oppression?
I had another comment that if the patriarchy didn’t exist, we’d be a matriarchy and better for it. But that’s swapping one imperfect system for another. Any system that puts any gender above others and excludes those outside the binary is still only good for one group. It all must be dismantled.
I just passed 750,000 words written so far in The Stars and Green Magics series (halfway into Book 8). That’s 750,000 words of genderfluid kings ruling kingdoms and sapphic rival princesses and trans man space mages.✨I started serializing this in 2021 as I wrote it. Hi 2021 me, thank you. ❤️
Oh thanks so much! I’m so glad you’re enjoying it! 💖
My 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ romantasy with a princess who disguises as a man to take down her unwanted betrothed (but the bi king falls for her as a man, and she has a genderfluid awakening) went viral this week on Tiktok, and I sold out of books twice and working on the third time. Trans books matter. 📚The King's Weaver
Working on a new thing tonight, something I haven't really talked about before, a novella about trans angels fighting and loving and saving each other against a long cosmic war. Rereading my first draft right now and feeling this in my soul. (It'll be out when it's out, this one's therapy ❤️)
This was a slow day 😅 I'm trying to get better about mixing more fun and relaxation into my super jammed schedule, though. It does help, a lot
Today I: - Plotted out a bunch of Book 8 in my queer/enby/trans space fantasy series - Defeated foes in BG3 (after like 20 tries, god I was stuck) - Packed and shipped 10 book orders - Proofed and posted an early access ebook to Bookfunnel & Patreon - Watched 3 Andromeda episodes - Wrote this post
I'm not saying that I *accidentally* dropped the last few chapters of The Second Ruler: Part Two and it's now all bingeable on my patron place, all 600 digital super queer pages of it (but also, it is 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️✨)
I'm seven chonky books deep in my queer space fantasy series and the fantasy is fantasying hard and the resonance is hitting and there is *nothing* like pulling together threads you've been weaving for years into this book's finale. Absolutely nothing. (I say this every book. It's true every time.)
As tempting as the jolly, candy-like emergency depressurization button may be, please don't press it; instead, press the button that launches you into this week's story, "Steadyboi After the Apocalypse" by @mercwolfmoor.bsky.social! That'll be better for everyone, especially the maintenance staff.
P.S. This isn't a post about policing language so much as--think about who the language talks to? There's a lot of good alternatives. Would trans men feel at home if you say it? Would nonbinary folx? All of that.
I think that might still be too gendered, alas (I always hear that as "women")
And if you haven't read any trans or nonbinary books this year, maybe pick up a few? Bump them to the top of your tbrs. Then blast them to the world to show that trans and nonbinary readers have a space in the book world, too.
Entertainment is where society changes, we've seen this again and again and again. If we want to create a more inclusive world, we've gotta do it in the escapism spaces, too. We HAVE to.
The amount of times I get "ew" on my posts is...disheartening. The amount of times I get "omg how did I not know these books existed???" is wonderful--but also shows the issue.
I think this is SO important so I'll say it again: feature queer and trans books ALONGSIDE cishet books. Because there's a divide right now where cishet readers often will think queer and trans is not for them, and then queer and trans Booktok gets relegated to the sidelines.
Many of us trans and nonbinary folx have grown up with little or no positive self-rep in what we read, we really don't buy the excuse that you can't enjoy it if you don't identity. We read and watch movies too.
Have queer and trans authors do takeovers or bring them in for interviews. Reach out. Ask us for ARCs. Talk about nonbinary and trans books alongside cishet books. SQUEE about these books, too!
And INDIE books too, because a lot of the most progressive and inclusive queer stories are happening in indie spaces, but queer book spaces are overwhelmingly trad.
Can we get more inclusive? Instead of saying "girlies," use something gender neutral like "readers" or "book friends." Make a point to feature and review books by queer and trans authors about queer and trans main characters.
And yet the readers are there. They are hungry, they will come in the deluge--but so many don't know that there's even a place for them in the reader community at all, they truly don't.
I've been heavily on Booktok and Bookstagram for over two years with hundreds (thousands?) of hours spent across several accounts and I haven't seen more than a handful of popular trans or nonbinary booktokers who aren't also authors. (And still very few authors, too.)
Yes, there are more trans and nonbinary books these days, but even on Booktok and Bookstagram, these books tend to be buried under the popular books--which, with very few exceptions, all feature cishet pairings.
I write sapphic and trans and nonbinary books and one of the things I've heard consistently over the last year from so many readers is that they haven't read in years--or at all--because they didn't see books with their own rep in them. And maybe felt books weren't for them.
I'm not gonna caveat this with things about spaces for women (that's all valid, it is), but I want to look at: while the US is bent on excluding trans and nonbinary folx, how can we get more gender inclusive in our escapism spaces? That's what we all need right now.
So I'm a nonbinary trans author thinking about how Booktok has created a culture around the Booktok girlies. And how I, as a trans person with no girly in me whatsoever, twinge and feel on the outside every time I hear that. (Buckle up, long 🧵)
Are you a trans or nonbinary writer? Clarion West just announced a new scholarship that covers all six weeks of tuition:
Got my shipment of The King's Weaver, bi king x genderfluid princess fantasy romance (he falls for her while she's disguised as a man to get out of marrying him; she falls for him and has a genderfluid awakening 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️) Upside down because not yet signed. Patron copies out soon, pres shortly after! <3
Oh yay!! Thank you! I so hope you enjoy! <3 <3
The Truthspoken Heir is the first one, and it's one big story from there! <3
Oh thank you!! <3 <3 I'm so glad they helped!
Casually going viral on TT right now with my queer, trans, and nonbinary books because people in fact REALLY want a world without the patriarchy. (Thank you! ❤️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️)
Oh thank you so much! 💖 I’m so glad you’re enjoying them!
Trump’s anti-trans Executive Order is bad BUT it technically defines everyone as female. It states: “'Female' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the large reproductive cell." Since all fetuses "at conception" are female, Trump just defined EVERYONE as female.
I've sold over twenty thousand copies of these books this last year. I'm an indie author, and this is my ENTIRE income. Yes, I am making an actual living off of trans, queer, and nonbinary romantic scifi, and fantasy romance. We're out here doing it. We're gonna stay out here doing it. <3
Poly rep, group marriages, and polycules they/them, fae/faer, e/eir Easy/accessible trans care No fear of queerness at all. NO FEAR OF QUEERNESS AT ALL. And that's just one series. (The Stars and Green Magics)
In my books I have: F/F enemy princesses Ace enby/trans man enemies Genderfluid king - who's aro and friends with benefits with his/her ace guard Gncf royal/transfem demigirl Enby space lieutenant/disaster bi roomate - and everyone in the space navy uses their pronouns (🧵But wait, there's more!)
So they want us to be scared, but we'll push through. They want us to make ourselves small but we overshadow them and they know it. They want us to hide, to disappear, but we are every rainbow color and they can't hide from that. We are mirrors. We are blazing. 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈
These are my warm fuzzies for the season ✨This very queer fantasy romance between a princess disguised as a man and the bi king who falls for her as a man has so much queer acceptance in a genderfluid awakening. Oh, my heart 💖 The King's Weaver is out in KU!
This year, I was privileged enough to be able to record and produce my entire backlist in audio. I dropped—and I am not exaggerating—close to 10 grand, to record 6 books. My ACX (Amazon) average royalties, per month?
Thanks for asking! It's legit, unfortunately--I verified the Facebook email, my account has a flag on it, and they have help articles for the same issue. (I wish it had been a scam, alas.)
I won't say butt in chair write, because it's not true for my ADHD butt, ha. But, I binge write? I don't push it unless I have a deadline. Aaaand last minute is a powerful motivator. :D
Thaaaat is always the trick! :D
Yes, absolutely! I think we need these books and rep and visibility now more than ever. <3
3) I want more legs to stand on 4) Fuck Meta We have to stick together. We have to support each other. These next 4 years will prob be crazy. And every way we can make it, we should. If this helps anyone else in a similar situation, I'm so glad! I hate this is a thing, but well get through! 🫂
I'm going to keep my store--but it will only have print and audio. But! That's okay! I sell 60% print anyway. Why: 1) I can't in my soul take my queer ref off my site indefinitely. It causes me harm. It causes my community harm 2) KU is lucrative, and I have a long series, and I know marketing
2) I'm going to put my ebooks in KU 3) I'm going to launch a Kickstarter early next year for special editions (I already have some, want to do more!) 4) I'm going to figure out Pinterest, Reddit, Snapchat, and Amazon ads 5) I'm going to double down on organic posting everywhere I can post
So I've spent this week in just intense emotional decision making because of the Meta censorship of my queer author business. AND I've ended up making these choices, which I think will be, in the end, very good for me and my reader community. 1) I'm going to put queer references back UP on my site
I've had this same thought! But haven't been able to articulate it. I like not getting angry.
Disney is not your friend. Disney has never been your friend. Disney will never be your friend. The Moon Girl thing was not a one-off, nor was Gravity Falls, nor was Owl House, nor was the disaster that was Strange World Every year at & around Pride, Disney wants LGBTQ money but yearly they do this
blakerwolfe.com/products/the... #books
I asked my ads manager and they said that running without pixel data wouldn't be cost-effective, unfortunately.
Thanks so much, Lisa! <3 <3
Ah, I'm sorry you might be facing that, too! I doubt they will say anything that shows that they're discriminating, honestly. Fwiw, I'm making a whole pivot/queer publishing doc that I plan to maintain this year: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Why TIktok matters- a 🧵 1) I’ve been building my author platform since 2019. At first, I was only on FB, but eventually joined IG and Twitter. I found no success any of those places, and wasn’t keen to join another social media I’d have to keep up with. Plus I had no idea how to make video content.
Yes, very much this! I started making a full living and being able to share my books widely when I decided to be very mercenary and use the bad systems for the good.
It's so easy to say "just leave." But, it's like leaving a country. Meta is, for better or worse, an internet nation. You leave, and you lose...much. So much. You have to start over. And while I'm planning transitions to other internet nations, losing Meta citizenship isn't going to help that.
6) Business loans! Yay! 7) I need to eat, too! You all, I was on public support the beginning of last year. I made less than $10K in my writing last year. This year? This year, I made it. I figured it out. I made it work. This train is in motion. You can't stop a train in motion easily.
3) I have two assistants that I financially help support 4) It can take months to set up well on another platform, and no guarantees of success with ads (and I only have maybe a month, maybe two if I get an extension on Meta restrictions) 5) Why should I have to leave? Why should I be chased off?
I've had a lot of comments that I should just leave Meta and find better platforms if they're discriminating against me and my queer SFF books. Yes! I agree! But there's also this: 1) I have multi-6 figures in sales in my author business, 90% of that driven from Meta ads 2) Tiktok is the other 10% 🧵
Fuck it. Trans folks need MATERIAL SUPPORT. @distributeaid.org is launching an HRT Harm Reduction Toolkit that provides 1 year of medical supplies needed to take injection-based HRT. We were planning to go live in January, but I'm not waiting. Fund the kits here: distributeaid.org/hrt-harm-red...
Thank you! I JUST noticed that last night and changed it, and a few URLs that had "nonbinary" in them.
I'm final editing The King's Weaver, my bi king x genderfluid princess romantasy, which is due to Amazon in...oh...a few hours?? (I've been caught up in the Meta crazy, but whipped through 10 hrs of edits last 2 days.) But there's lines like this: "Am I meant to marry this man, or to break him?" <3
Ahh there's big stuff to come! And I can't spoil it! 💖
Tapping the sign and reminding folks that the strict binary between "safe cozy books" and "risky transgressive books" is fake. A few writers and readers on extreme ends of that spectrum made it up. In reality there are many varied works with many tones/content types and there will continue to be.
Oh thank you!! I didn’t know this was a thing!
Hey friends, friendly reminder to please check profiles for pronouns. I block misgendering because sanity is important this day and age. ❤️
I’m only here because TikTok’s appeal for a temporary injunction was rejected. I make 75%+ of my monthly income selling signed books on TikTok shop so if that goes away, I’m probably screwed. Anyway, I make fairytales queer so check out my books if you want.
Oh geez that’s awful. I’m sorry that’s happening!
Part of the issue here is that a queer or trans author doesn’t just have queer or trans readership, too. I have many cishet readers, and their data wouldn’t be considered sensitive. Rulings that attempt to protect can have horrible consequences when used unfairly by a corporation.
It’s on Meta and other corps to make sure rulings will end up not unfairly disadvantaging one group. But Meta isn’t doing this. And I don’t believe for a minute that they don’t understand how this will minimize marginalized voices and businesses in the end.
So to the people saying this is about data collection: yes, it is. But if transgender is called a sensitive gender, why is it treated differently than a cisgender gender? And why is being gay treated differently than being straight? Data laws might seek to protect, but they also have consequences.
So one of the biggest social platforms in the world will show less and less marginalized voices, because a large percentage of posts seen in a feed are ads. And so, quietly, those voices will be less and less in public awareness. And many of those business will struggle and might go under.
So what Meta is doing is using legal rulings to disallow marginalized businesses on the whole, rather than building a better system or fairly disallowing across the board. They’ll make marginalized businesses spend more for less effective ads. And many will decide it’s not worth the cost.
I’ve seen companies use categorization of sensitivity before to justify systemic discrimination. And the results are ugly and usually unseen. Like stock image sites: on most, it’s against their TOS to use a non-tagged-as-gay image to depict a gay book character, even if the cover is innocuous.
Which in the end will have the same result of disallowing my advertising on Meta. Yes, this is related to data protection rulings in the EU. And also, if Meta was interested in being equitable, they would be disallowing this for all businesses, not a list of “sensitive” businesses.
This will restrict pixel tracking events (how a user behaves on my site) from sharing with Meta. Without these, my ad costs will drive up as Meta attempts to find my target audience, and my results will go way down. While I can advertise, I will not be able to advertise effectively.
I didn’t expect my post about Meta to blow up so much, but thank you!! And some clarifications, because I think my replies got lost deep thread: yes, this is about data collection. It’s ALSO about systemic and legally acceptable discrimination. Both can be true.
I just saw your name and also was just coming to say I LOVE YOUR NAME! ✨
Paypal charges more. Thank you!! <3 <3 <3
I know one other queer author personally who got this same email, and have heard of others getting it as well for different groups listed here. It won't be as wide a thing in creative spaces because selling direct from websites is still fairly new vs, like, Amazon or Etsy, etc.
I believe it is both. On the surface, it’s about data collection. But if Meta was interested in being equitable, they would be stopping this data collection for everyone, not disallowing every group politically called “sensitive.” I’ve seen this before and it’s underhanded discrimination for sure.
Thank you!! ❤️🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️
I would love to do this, but it’s not so easy to stop a business—with business loans and rolling bills and paid contractors—in motion. People depend on me for their income, too, and I need to keep up living expenses. This might be a gradual shift, but right now damage control is it to keep going.
I think it’s standard for all creatives and small businesses at this point. Which is very troubling with this happening.
Absolutely, and thank you! People have to know this is happening.
I do have my own store, separate from Meta. That’s what I had to censor, to keep advertising through Meta. Not even your own sites are safe from this.
I'm so sorry! That's awful. I have a deadname, too, and going through all the BS around that was horrible.
My store will be able to advertise, yes, but not effectively. If I can't use pixel data, my ad effectiveness will be diminished or not viable. My costs will be much higher than businesses that can use all their pixel data, for far worse results. End result is likely ads become not-viable.
Thank you! Glasshouse was formative to me as a genderfluid person, and while the situation here sucks, this makes me happy. <3
Thank you! I was only just made aware of them! They sound fantastic.
I agree, but also, this is driving 90% of my liveable income at the moment, with Tiktok bringing the other 10%. It's extremely hard to pivot a six figure business on a month's notice and still afford bills.
They don't. And I spent several hours the other day getting nowhere with Meta support--talked to my marketing rep on phone, talked to support, got sent to higher support, and ended up being given a help article before they closed the chat. But the email does say it can be up to no pixel data sharing
Yep! It's a help article that says similar things to the email: www.facebook.com/business/hel...
Oh thank you!! <3 <3 I'm definitely making pivot plans beyond Meta (there will be a Kickstarter! Soon!)