Showing all posts tagged: self publishing
Substack, no alternative to independent websites and blogs
25 November 2024
Online publishing platform Substack, founded in 2017, was all anyone could talk about by 2022. Writers were scrambling to jump on the bandwagon, having heard tales of six-figure revenues being earned by some publishers. Even though we’ve heard those sorts of stories before. I even joined up myself, to see what the fuss was about.
But as someone who’s had their own web presence for decades, I couldn’t see the appeal of incorporating my brand into someone else’s. I think I only ever published one short article there.
But I’d already been hearing Substack appeared to permit the proliferation of misinformation, conspiracy theorists, and far-right ideologies, and was taking no action against the publishers of such content. I have no interest whatsoever in reading that sort of material, but it makes me wonder. Should content some people find objectionable actually be deleted by the administrators of a publishing platform like Substack? And then: how do we define what is acceptable, and what’s not?
For me, hate-speech and anything inciting violence or lawlessness, is unacceptable. Other topics, such as misinformation, and conspiracy theories, may be a little harder to quantify. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, almost everyone I knew complied with stay-at-home orders, and vaccine mandates. However there were some, neighbours, and others I’d see regularly, who hitherto seemed to be no different than me, convinced COVID-19 was a hoax, and the vaccines posed a serious threat.
I’d tell these people I disagreed with what they thought, but their resolve was unstinting. They believed absolutely in what they thought. They were wrong in my eyes, their views plain dangerous to say the least, but this is a democracy, and, like it or lump it, we’re all entitled to our opinion. No doubt, some of these people, would, if they read my blog, object to some of the content I publish here. But does that, of itself, constitute grounds for having it (somehow) forcibly removed?
But back to Substack. American blogger and entrepreneur Anil Dash, for one, believes the platform was created to give voice to extremists:
Substack is, just as a reminder, a political project made by extremists with a goal of normalizing a radical, hateful agenda by co-opting well-intentioned creators’ work in service of cross-promoting attacks on the vulnerable. You don’t have to take my word for it; Substack’s CEO explicitly said they won’t ban someone who is explicitly spouting hate, and when confronted with the rampant white supremacist propaganda that they are profiting from on their site, they took down… four of the Nazis. Four.
John Gruber, writing at Daring Fireball, however counters with the idea that Substack is simply an open-for-all publishing platform:
I know quite a few people whose opinions I admire who feel the same way as Dash here. I’ll disagree. I think Substack sees itself as a publishing tool and platform. They’re not here to promote any particular side. It makes no more sense for them to refuse to publish someone for being too right-wing than it would for WordPress or Medium or, say, GitHub or YouTube. Substack, I think, sees itself like that.
Despite my indifference to Substack, this is largely how I see things as well. I’ve read numerous articles published on Substack, which are just always useful and informative. I’ve never encountered anything hateful, deliberately misleading, or conspiratorial, though obviously such content exists. As it would on self-hosted websites/blogs that are not part of any publishing platform.
Calls to have such content removed seem pointless, unless laws, defamation for instance, are contravened. Fighting fire with fire may be the only option. Writing in response, and criticising material that is hateful or misleading. Do so from your own, self-hosted, independent, website though. Do not allow any publishing platform to assimilate your brand, or your content.
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blogs, current affairs, publishing, self publishing, trends
Do not comment on another website, when you can write on your own
29 April 2024
The more things change, the more they stay the same, perhaps? Manuel Moreale writing the other week about blog post comments:
I’m not a fan of comments in general and I think commenting on something should be done in one of two ways: 1. Privately via email or via direct messaging. 2. Publicly by posting a reply on your own website.
Back in the day, when the first inceptions of disassociated came online in the late 90’s, these were just about the only options for communicating with a personal website owner. There were of course guestbooks, which, contrary to popular belief, are still alive and well. Maybe I’ll bring one back here.
But if you wanted to respond to something someone had written in their online journal, writing a post in reply, on your own website, was the way to go. Blog post comments were unheard of in the nineties, as indeed, for the most part, was the term blog. But posts-in-response were a great way to build rapport with other website owners, network, and even collaborate.
You never knew what might come of some of these ongoing reply-to-something-someone-had-written-on-their-personal-websites confabs.
For a group of mainly Sydney based web creatives, including me, Jen Leheny, and Justin Fox, (sorry, I can’t find websites for the others), the result was the formation of the Australian INfront. And for almost twenty years from 1999, INfront brought Australian web design front and centre globally.
Blog comments were also a great way to build rapport and network, but I almost think the case can be made that they spelt the end of the personal website. Now that readers of a website/blog could respond to a post in the same place, many people no longer needed their own website to do so.
The likes of Twitter, when it arrived, a microblogging platform, where users only needed to create an account to get posting, hastened the decline of the personal website. But, thankfully, nothing resulted, so far, in their extinction.
Post comments are not unheard of here, but I rarely enable them. And that’s because I’ve long believed the best way to comment on something you’ve seen here is to either contact me, or, preferably, write a post on your own website.
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blogs, self publishing, writing
The Internet is not written in pencil, nor is it written in stone
9 April 2024
An excerpt from Manuel Moreale’s recent interview — from his excellent People and Blogs series — with Oregon based American web designer and writer, Matt Stein.
I rewrite and edit heavily to try and find what I want to say. I wrote obscenely long answers to these questions and had to start over, and I’m one of those serial Discord+Slack edit-after-sending people. I would go broke as a stone engraver.
There could be no better way to describe my writing process. I’d likely go broke simply writing on paper, given the quantity I’d waste, attempting to publish a single post.
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blogs, creativity, self publishing, writing
The Kagi Search Small Web, promoting independent websites, blogs
12 September 2023
Kagi Search is a pay-to-use subscription search engine founded in 2022, that promises to deliver relevant search results free of extraneous clutter and adverts. Another plus is Kagi’s undertaking not to track users, or collect their data.
But Kagi isn’t only about locating pertinent information and protecting the privacy of users. Last week they launched Kagi Small Web, an initiative highlighting the writing of independent publishers and bloggers whose work is often cast aside by the prevailing algorithms, and omnipresent influencers:
Initially inspired by a vibrant discussion on Hacker News, we began our experiment in late July, highlighting blog posts from HN users within our search results. The positive feedback propelled the initiative forward. Today, our evolving concept boasts a curated list of nearly 6,000 genuine websites featuring people with a wide variety of interests.
I’m chuffed to say disassociated is one of the websites to be included. I’ve spent the last few days clicking through a fraction of the six thousand or so publishers they’ve linked to, and am pleased to see one or two familiar faces. What a great idea this is. Thank you Kagi.
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blogs, self publishing, technology
What to do when no one likes the quirky links that you curate
11 July 2023
Well this wasn’t part of the plan. Imagine you’ve set yourself up as the editor of a (possibly informal) email newsletter featuring (what you consider to be) interesting, funny, and quirky links.
Except no one you send the newsletter to (possibly whether they wish to receive it or not) seems to find anything you’ve compiled to be the least bit amusing. Welcome to the world of online (sort of) publishing. The only consolation (maybe) is no one can unsubscribe.
But stick with it I say, you never know when you might strike a chord with someone one day.
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humour, publishing, self publishing
Self-publishing a book is no walk in the park: Helen Moody
16 June 2023
On the subject of self-publishing, retired Australian horticulturist journalist and foreign aid researcher Helen Moody recently published her own book, South Coast Islands NSW. While Moody’s title is selling well, six-hundred copies from a print run of seven-hundred have sold, Moody was surprised at the difficultly entailed by self-publishing:
However, Moody says if she’d known how difficult it was to self-publish, she would have never started. “I’ve had to be author, administrator, finance officer, event organiser, delivery driver, marketing and promotion officer,” she said.
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books, publishing, self publishing, writing
An overview of the book publishing industry in Australia
16 June 2023
A fascinating overview of the book publishing industry in Australia, and probably globally, by Dave Gow, who recently went through the process of self-publishing a book:
Traditional book publishers are essentially operating like startup investors or venture capitalists. They make a string of bets on authors and hope that one or two out of ten pays off big. This way, they make enough to cover the losses on others and come out with a reasonable profit.
From what I can gather, Gow enjoyed some success by taking the self-publishing route.
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books, publishing, self publishing, writing
Blog like no one is reading, Julia Evans dispels blogging myths
7 June 2023
Montreal based Canadian software developer, and blogger, Julia Evans, dispels some of the blogging myths she believes are putting off people who are considering starting their own blogs. For instance, the myth that more material is always better — in other words, blog posts must be a minimum of, say, three thousand words in length — is a good one:
I appreciate the work that goes into extremely deep dive blog posts, but honestly they’re not really my thing. I’d rather read something short, learn a couple of new things, and move on. So that’s how I approach writing as well. I’ll share a couple of interesting things and then leave anything extra for another post. For me this works well because short posts take less time to write.
Some (so-called) blogging experts seem to believe a certain search engine is on a mission to homogenise the web. They do so by spruiking the suggestion blogs, and the posts published therein, must conform to certain, specific, specifications. Failure to adhere to said stipulations will result in bans, blockings, and blacklistings, or some other equally awful fate.
These sorts of antics are also deterring more people from taking up blogging, or self-publishing, as I still prefer to call it. But pay no attention, I say, and do your own thing.
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blogs, self publishing, writing