Here's the thing – I'm a writer

I produce text from my brain. I care about having people read what I write

I came up in the blog era and so basically I want to publish my own content online at my own pace, following my own interests

Unfortunately, I can't seem to convert my writing into popularity or charisma. My interests are too niche and I always go way too deep on things

I just lack the ability to galvanise and enthuse other people

and also I'm not hot, so I have no personal mystique (and tbh I strongly feel I should not be forced to trade on personal appeal), and hence I don't do well in the Creator Economy

Nonetheless, I think I'm a great writer

Every year around about this time I vow that I'm going to find some way to make money from my writing, considering how the bottom has completely fallen out of journalism

A few years ago I set up a #Patreon but the thought of having to grind nonstop to satisfy my patrons was exhausting to me

I also made a #Medium publication that I've actually got Rotten Tomatoes to accredit, but it pissed me off that they enshittified the Medium app so it was no longer a CMS and was now just a passive reading app

it really disincentivised me from writing on Medium

also, what's the point of publishing on Medium if they gatekeep people from even seeing my stuff unless they pay?

I also switched my old #MailChimp newsletter over to #Substack and I was reasonably happy with it… until the whole "platforming Nazis" business

So where do I go now?

I'm so sick of being at the mercy of platform capitalism that I think I'm going to sign up to and pay for #Ghost simply because it's an open-source nonprofit

I like the way it will allow me to pull in and consolidate my previous failed experiments with using other platforms for professional publishing, because it does both 'blogging' and newsletters

and I am NOT a marketer who primarily wants to "grow" and "monetise" via subscriptions –

So I don't think #Beehiiv is for me because it's so focused on snowballing readers into customers

Ghost feels like a good compromise between Substack and #WordPress (which I still loyally use for my other business website, even though paradoxically it's getting clunkier and more infuriating as it tries to make its UX simpler and easier)

Anyway, if you're reading this you'll realise that I truly do think things through via writing

what can I say? I'm a fucken writer