Subscription Sites & Buying Books
Subscription Sites
Ok, I'll be honest: while procrastinating about studying for exams and doing end of semester uni assignments, I recklessly jumped into the whole subscription yaoi story site thing. I've previously been subscribed to one other site, but only for one month to read one story. I'm finding the exact same thing this time around -- I only join a site because I am interested in ONE of the six or so stories offered.
These are the stories I'm willing to fork out cash for:
SApayne - Snowflakes and Embers
Juxtapose Fantasy - the Sin City series
Yaoifix - Brides for Peace (guest author Twisted Hilarity)
SL Subscriptions - Muscle Memory (by Amaneunsis)
Raythe Reign - The Abyss, The Dark Earth, The Erl-King
I'm definitely not going to keep up subscription with all the sites, as that would be ridiculous as I'm generally interested in one story and story updates are generally once a month or every few weeks. In fact, Raythe Reign is the only site that looks like it'd be worth even considering keeping up a subscription for, because it has three stories I'm very interested in, a manga and a short story, and each one of those is updated at least twice a month. It's like a steady stream of awesome. The other sites I think I'm just going to drop and not renew my subscription, or, with Yaoifix and SL Subscriptions, pay for a month's subscription every 6 months of so and read the stories in chunks. I'm quite sad about losing access to Brides for Peace, because I have a particular addiction to Twisted's writing and stories, but it only gets updated once a month so it's not really worth the money.
Another thing I'm finding with subscription sites is that, except for the story that led me there in the first place, the rest of the content is generally lacking. It's really disappointing to find stupid things like a story having flaws such as NO girls whatsoever (not even minor roles, not even a friggin' maid) and every guy in the story apparently being gay or bi. Even in a story where guys volunteer themselves or are coerced into sexual service to pay off family debts, in all the 17 or so chapters so far, the question of what each of the guys' sexuality is and whether they'd rather have female rather than male clients hasn't even been raised. All too convenient really. Gah. Sigh. Anyway.
Who else uses subscription sites? Does anyone know any other really good sites that'd be worth checking out? If anyone wants to know anything about these sites and my opinions of the stories, feel free to ask, as I have many opinions and not all of them are complimentary.
Buying Books: (this is more of a whinge than anything else)
All my fiddling about with subscription sites, however, got me thinking about how I spend my money. I know many authors out there are the struggling artist kind, or at least, many of the authors I read or find through LJ are niche-market authors or largely unrecognised authors (though not through lack of talent). I also feel like I "know" many authors because I've seen them around on LJ and read their posts, and so I doubly want to support them and read their published work (it also makes me feel like I know someone famous). My pre-exam lack of financial sense aside, I generally can't afford splurge - it is a matter of carefully considering what books I want, then trying to hunt down who offers the best price and the best shipping rates.
For some books from very small publishers, they are not generally available online, and I can only get them direct from the publishers or through Amazon US. Amazon will charge me over AU$10 for international shipping, and as a newbie to online purchasing and especially to shipping costs (I've never had to deal with them before) that seems like an awful amount on top of the book costs. SL Publishing, whom I am interested in buying a few books from, charges around AU$15 per book.
I'm really stuck -- I could get ebook versions of books, but I just love to have a book to keep in my bookshelf and physically read. I don't mind paying $10 - $15 more to get a book version rather than an ebook version, and consider it money well spent. But I'm not really sold on the idea of handing out $55 (Amazon US) or $70 (SL Publishing) to get two $20 books.
But I really want the books.
But they're really expensive!
Gah!
Darn you America with your crappy international shipping rates and the only access to books I want! *shakes fists at companies*
Lira
Ok, I'll be honest: while procrastinating about studying for exams and doing end of semester uni assignments, I recklessly jumped into the whole subscription yaoi story site thing. I've previously been subscribed to one other site, but only for one month to read one story. I'm finding the exact same thing this time around -- I only join a site because I am interested in ONE of the six or so stories offered.
These are the stories I'm willing to fork out cash for:
SApayne - Snowflakes and Embers
Juxtapose Fantasy - the Sin City series
Yaoifix - Brides for Peace (guest author Twisted Hilarity)
SL Subscriptions - Muscle Memory (by Amaneunsis)
Raythe Reign - The Abyss, The Dark Earth, The Erl-King
I'm definitely not going to keep up subscription with all the sites, as that would be ridiculous as I'm generally interested in one story and story updates are generally once a month or every few weeks. In fact, Raythe Reign is the only site that looks like it'd be worth even considering keeping up a subscription for, because it has three stories I'm very interested in, a manga and a short story, and each one of those is updated at least twice a month. It's like a steady stream of awesome. The other sites I think I'm just going to drop and not renew my subscription, or, with Yaoifix and SL Subscriptions, pay for a month's subscription every 6 months of so and read the stories in chunks. I'm quite sad about losing access to Brides for Peace, because I have a particular addiction to Twisted's writing and stories, but it only gets updated once a month so it's not really worth the money.
Another thing I'm finding with subscription sites is that, except for the story that led me there in the first place, the rest of the content is generally lacking. It's really disappointing to find stupid things like a story having flaws such as NO girls whatsoever (not even minor roles, not even a friggin' maid) and every guy in the story apparently being gay or bi. Even in a story where guys volunteer themselves or are coerced into sexual service to pay off family debts, in all the 17 or so chapters so far, the question of what each of the guys' sexuality is and whether they'd rather have female rather than male clients hasn't even been raised. All too convenient really. Gah. Sigh. Anyway.
Who else uses subscription sites? Does anyone know any other really good sites that'd be worth checking out? If anyone wants to know anything about these sites and my opinions of the stories, feel free to ask, as I have many opinions and not all of them are complimentary.
Buying Books: (this is more of a whinge than anything else)
All my fiddling about with subscription sites, however, got me thinking about how I spend my money. I know many authors out there are the struggling artist kind, or at least, many of the authors I read or find through LJ are niche-market authors or largely unrecognised authors (though not through lack of talent). I also feel like I "know" many authors because I've seen them around on LJ and read their posts, and so I doubly want to support them and read their published work (it also makes me feel like I know someone famous). My pre-exam lack of financial sense aside, I generally can't afford splurge - it is a matter of carefully considering what books I want, then trying to hunt down who offers the best price and the best shipping rates.
For some books from very small publishers, they are not generally available online, and I can only get them direct from the publishers or through Amazon US. Amazon will charge me over AU$10 for international shipping, and as a newbie to online purchasing and especially to shipping costs (I've never had to deal with them before) that seems like an awful amount on top of the book costs. SL Publishing, whom I am interested in buying a few books from, charges around AU$15 per book.
I'm really stuck -- I could get ebook versions of books, but I just love to have a book to keep in my bookshelf and physically read. I don't mind paying $10 - $15 more to get a book version rather than an ebook version, and consider it money well spent. But I'm not really sold on the idea of handing out $55 (Amazon US) or $70 (SL Publishing) to get two $20 books.
But I really want the books.
But they're really expensive!
Gah!
Darn you America with your crappy international shipping rates and the only access to books I want! *shakes fists at companies*
Lira