Good morning! December is trudging right along, and I can’t believe how quickly I’ve gone from, “hooray, the quarter’s done” to, “oh no the next quarter starts in only two weeks!” I’m pretty excited though, since this quarter’s going to include both a language class and an art class, two of my favorites. Enough about me though, on to the news!
Gumroad has announced some newer, more aggressive pricing:
This seems like it’s not much of a change, but there’s some doublespeak going on here–Gumroad’s prior 9% listing included credit card processing fees, as they indicated, which means that the actual number that went to Gumroad was something less than 9%, making the flat increase to 10% more than a single point. Additionally. while the amount that those fees affected the overall percentage fluctuated, Gumroad previously had a policy that lowered the fee based on lifetime sales:
So Gumroad’s change here isn’t just a simple single percentage point increase, it means they’re taking a flat 10% from sales where they might have only taken 5% before, on top of the credit card processing fees, which sellers will still have to pay. Essentially, while they’re not outright lying about the rate hike here, they’re carefully and creatively undermining the severity of it. If you’re a Gumroad seller, beware.
On a much happier note, the winners for the inaugural Black Book Awards were announced! From their website:
The BBA are a time for us to celebrate Black literature from the past year. This is our space to share our love and support to our Black authors, and for us to have some fun representing our favorite reads.
The awards were announced via Twitter, and unfortunately weren’t threaded, but you can see all of them on the BBA account’s feed, which you should also give a follow if you haven’t yet. In the meantime, since we’re a comics site, here’s the award for Best Graphic Novels and Comics:
The Black Book Award for Graphic Novels & Comics goes to Black Panther: Protectors of Wakanda: A History and Training Manual of the Dora Milaje by @theblerdgurl pic.twitter.com/esLUYEhXJw
— Black Book Awards (@BlackBookAwards) December 17, 2022
Congratulations to Karama Horne!
Also on the topic of awards being given, Koyama Provides has announced the award of a $1500 grant to Michel Fiffe, creator of the COPRA comic series. Michel has largely been doing things on his own since launching the series, and it’s very cool to see something like this come along. He plans on using the grant in the production of COPRA How To, a project detailing exactly what his process is.
Congratulations Michel!
That’s all I have for you this week! Stay safe, take care of yourselves, drink enough water!
