I've been searching about the Internet, looking for alternatives to traditional publishing/blogging.
Back in the day, when I first started blogging, I used Blogger, which was subsequently bought out by Google and reduced in features, including subscriptions, not handled by a third party app. So I switched to Wordpress.com, the free version accessed on line. It has a lot of good features, is pretty easy to use and has a robust subscription feature for distribution. Along comes Medium, then Substack, publishing platforms that allow one to charge a fee for subscriptions and make money from one's writing, and for the corporation that owns the publishing app. Now, I don't mind writers making money from their work. All well and good, but not for me. There's too dang much money lying about the place as it is, without having wend through the catacombs of banking connections, keeping track and paying someone else to publish my work. So, I working at consolidating my various web sites and blog sources into some kine of manageable whole, and publishing them myself, with suitable notifications in the available social media (except Twitter, still equivocal about Facebook). Above all, I want to support distributive sources, such as Mastodon, free sources, of course, and open sources wherever possible. This will take more work setting up initially than I can spend writing, but then, here I am writing about it! We'll see how this works. Meanwhile, it's too beautiful outside to sit here indoors pecking away at this defenseless keyboard, so time to get up, go out and take a walk!
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The world of blogging and Internet publishing has gotten highly complex, professionalized, competitive and, most of all, an income source.
As professional publishing has become controlled by corporate interests, writers, aspiring writers, and many others are seeking ways to get their words out to the masses, and, at the same time, gather some filthy lucre in the process. I've resisted this trend by using free blogging sources, such as Weebly and Wordpress. The problem, as always is getting the word out. In the unfree, publishing to make money world, it's called marketing. I hate marketing, doing it and dealing with it. I prefer distributing, casting seeds, spreading the word, arising of itself (more on the latter at The Way of Nature.) So don't look for a tip jar here. Subscription is free (see box to the right), no disgusting please for money, special offers of prizes for sending money. All you get here is words, sentences and paragraphs. If you like what you see, smile and share with your friends. That'll be enough payment for me. And THANKS! I finally got around to upgrading the theme on my website here. I really like the old theme, but that was 20 years old or so and no longer responsive to the new demands of cyber world. Not that I need to, it just wouldn't come up on Firefox any more, or more accurately on my Mac 10.11.6 operating system.
This computer works perfectly, it's fast and has plenty of memory. Why am I forced to upgrade it to keep up with the glitterati? Well, not literally. In fact, as I sit here pounding on this defenseless keyboard, a cool breeze is wafting through the front screen door. No air conditioning needed round these parts!
What is hotting up is my website maintenance and writing work. I've been nusier than a cat with nine rats lately, authoring three new genealogy websites for USGenWeb, starting a new newsletter for the Friends of the North Coast, wiring new blogs on We Live in the Natural World, and keeping up with the ever present and growing Santa Cruz Online. Not to mention learning about Google Analytics and updating SEO settings on all websites. Who said this was going to be easy? A writer should have a really, really good blog on his/her web site, right?
One might think that, though in the every day, day to day world, subsequent events intervene ... always! Lately I've been working on a web site for a local non-profit environmental group, Friends of the North Coast. More, correctly, I've been resurrecting a web site that has lain fallow for a couple of years. As it turns out, editing and reorganizing an existing web site is harder and more time consuming than starting a new one. I guess that makes sense in a wu wei sort of Way. As part of this work, I've researched Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Now I know how to do that on this platform, and so I must, alas, do it! Taking more time away from writing, of course, but hey, I'm writing right now! Check out my new "Blogs" and "Web Works" sections. My next project is organizing and digitizing my Earth First! and other environmental writings, such as: Wally Weally Wants Wolves Wasted
Go HERE for the growing collection.
I've added the Thoughts and Ramblings category to the menu up there, and populated it with some older jottings from the Days of Yore.
It's fun to read the the old stuff, and inspiring, too. I've said these things over and over, over the past 40 years or so. I have to remember that there are many adults using the internet these days that were yet to be born when I wrote them! No wonder my fingers and wrists ache so! Nevertheless, it must be repeated, and it must be read, and it must be acted upon. Never too late, never too soon, never too often. In a fit of nostalgia, I've been surfing the waves of past writings, and I'm organizing them under the Thoughts and Ramblings menu category.
Fun and inspiring stuff! The world, or at least this bit of it hereabouts, is beginning to peek out from under the Covid covers, and look around at what is left of what once was normal.
Oddly enough, or perhaps not, the lockdown, if that's what it is, has not been conducive to writing. Plenty of time for reading, walking about, doing errands, and such, but limited opportunities for those broadening experiences that give writing flavor and texture. So, in order to wile away the tedium, I've been reorganizing my files, reintroducing my self to my past scribblings, and building the urge to once again, unmercifully batter this tired and smudgey keyboard. We'll see what happens this time around. Things are a bit on the weird side these days, what with Covid-19 restrictions, and now big fires north of us, with evacuations spreading our way. It probably won't get here, but it gives one pause, and reasons to write. Ecocentrism has been on my mind of late, looking at the work of folks such as Joe Grey and a few others who are keeping the flame alive. It seems like the pandemic and now the fires would encourage others to give a think about our relationship with the natural and how the way humans live is so out of step with the way the natural world works. But then, one would have to think, wouldn't one? Anyway, stop in at Searching for Balance and The Way of Nature for the continuing saga. |
Michael Lewis
The reminiscences of my writing life, my not so writing life and a search for sanity outside the asylum. Archives
April 2023
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