I haven’t done a newsletter in the last 6 weeks or so as I have been so preoccupied with basic care for myself and family, and preparation for what seems to be looming. I have much to say, so will be writing more soon.
In the meantime I want to give you a quick update on my book being censored off Amazon. I asked them which aspect of it had broken which guideline, and I got the following response:
In other words, it is more of the same of “no reason, no notice, no recourse — and no justice”. Of course, we all know exactly the reason: every time I am censored it is because these tech platforms are complicit in criminal activity of the highest order. I expect this racketeering will eventually result in a class action lawsuit and future payout, but you cannot buy food or pay rent with that prospect in the present.
I am still battling to sort out the 7000 people who are “unconfirmed” for this mailing list (that has around 20k confirmed subs). I suspect most of this is due to problems when migrating from (radical left supporting) ConvertKit, which I was only using having been booted off Mailchimp for no good cause. Migrations due to censorship and sabotage are costly.
If you wonder why I don’t write as much as I used to, it’s not because I have nothing to say. I have had to spend a lot of time and energy hardening my processes and infrastructure against economic attack. For instance, I now use multiple email addresses, delivery platforms, and clients to make my operations more resilient. I also have a virtual assistant joining me as dealing with growing correspondence taxes my time.
Many people have written to me to ask when and where I plan to republish the book. It will come, but I have too much to do in day to day life. I will miss the very handy annuity it provided for a few months. It is the first time I have had any reliable “professional level” income for a very long time! An audiobook version is ready to publish and I will announce it shortly.
I have exactly ten copies of the physical book left in my personal stock. These are now valuable collectible items, and I will be selling them off soon. Just because you are under enemy attack doesn’t mean you cannot fire back! Indeed, the more that the Internet trolls accuse you of “grifting” by selling your own creative work to willing buyers, the more certain you can be that it is the right thing to do.
Finally, if you are missing my creative works here, then I am doing a monthly column for Bossmaker. In an ideal world I would be producing copious freely available content on a timely basis, but we don’t live there right now. The monthly deadline gets me to write when otherwise I might be more inclined to do other things like go for walks and make photos. The last essay on personal autonomy and the “vax wars” was especially well received.
Someday that content will be packaged up and freely available, but for now we have to accept that there are constraints and trade-offs. Staying reasonably safe and sane is a baseline of success; anything beyond that is a bonus right now. Traditional productivity tends to be aspirational when fighting a sanitary dictatorship occupies most of your energy.
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