17 Comments

One of the first things I did after starting my Substack was unsubscribe from the morale boosting emails from management.

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I still get em because I'm a hoarder, mostly don't read em though

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That was a great piece. I read all the way to the end. I saw the cats.

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I read till the end; I saw cats, so take that. Also, thanks for allowing all the little guys to be able to comment. Substack encourages others to interact, kinda hard to do when you don't pay for 20,000 subscriptions.

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Of course - the comments are important to me, incalculably more valuable than an abstract engagement statistic. I wanna know I'm reaching human people!

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Saw the cats. Bust these billionaire clowns up some. Everyone with sense knows by now that the good shit is found in the deep corners; and Enron and Zook can't own them all. Cheers!

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Thanks for this. You are absolutely spot on about the noise and the tyranny of “apps”. Surrendering your creativity to a closed platform is insane. It’s like strapping into a guillotine every night controlled by Elon Musk’s phone. The path to freedom for a writer is owning your own email list. It’s worked for decades now in some form, long before email existed. You are taking the right path.

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The only benefit for people growing up today is they don't have the tyranny of memories of how damn good this place was for writers before Facebook

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I hate dark mode, but I enjoyed the rant.

Carry on.

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I'm not a big dark mode guy either but statistically I think we're both in the minority. If you're talking about the colour scheme on the website though, I dunno I can't remember if it came like that and I just never got around to deciding if I want to change it

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Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Paul downstairs gave me a ride in his former taxi crown vic to get my eye lenses blasted out by rock n roll. Got plastic implants now.

And my eyeballs are lumpy soup.

Some days it's the wandering cloud that forces me to wait until data bandwidth lets me know what I'm looking at.

Some days it's the dancing dot like a flitting bug that follows my attention.

So....black screen with bright text tests my attention.

Now back to Mark Twain.

Y'all noted, I said in friendly voice, that statistically only so many of the folks were still listening at this here point.

I'm sure those are firm numbers acquired from a firm firm.

My niece says she loves my stories.

Just my rants about what happened recently along with a pic or two.

Of course I don't collect any money from that.

Yet I hope you collect money for yours.

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Hey, I actually just went ahead and changed the background. Heard recently it was a bad idea to force dark mode on people anyway,, let them choose it for themselves if they want it. Hope this makes it easier on your lumpy soup eyes!

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Bangs chest... uh uh uh uh uh uh bang bang

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I assumed a best selling NYT author (kind of) could just sit on their laurels.

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He's what you call a mid-list author - popular enough that he doesn't need another job, but then that becomes the job. You have to release every year for a livable income. Top-listers like George RRRRRR Martin can decide their next novel is going to take 15 years and their laurels are fine.

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I'm catching up on my reading (which why why I'm generating a bunch of notifications for you). I didn't mean the guy with the thumbs up profile picture, I meant that time you got published in You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News.

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Haha oh yeah. I didn't exactly have agents beating my door down but it's nice to have on the resume.

Hey, who were you on the old forum, if you don't mind me asking? I can tell from your handle that you're from the old-old times.

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