Catch up with the final instalments of my writing-life series

Chapter 17 — A Rotten Uncle

I am an uncle to two nieces. They are now teenagers, but when they were younger, I wrote them books for Christmas. Five, in fact.

The first was a one-off picture book I made with paper, glue, and photos of the girls. It was about an oversized talking chicken (personifying me) in search of his family in Hong Kong.

The next was an animated story about two family cats solving a cozy mystery.

After that, another physical book (a short story) with the return of the chicken and his eggy sidekick. Only two copies of the book exist in the world.

Then, another digital ‘book’ of limericks followed. And finally, in 2022, a book of 26 tales about rotten uncles (only one of them is me).

These children’s books have all been fun projects because they allowed me to write for just two people. If you know your audience, you can really nail the humour and include some Easter eggs. See some pictures of the books and of me being mean to my nieces in this post.

I’ve never had any desire to become a children’s author, just a desire to give cool presents (plus an infantile sense of humour and a ready supply of fart jokes).

Back in my coaching days, I worked with a brilliant Italian illustrator and author, helping her translate children’s stories into English.

In summer 2024, I got in touch with Caterina and asked her to illustrate the uncles books. We’d self-publish and split the profits. Typically, this is a very big ask for an illustrator, but she was keen to help due to our previous work together. She knew publishers in Italy who might be interested, and I figured she’d be someone great to work alongside.

It felt nerve-wracking going back to self-publishing after working with indie publishers on my last three books. I didn’t know much about marketing to the parents of 6-11-year-olds. But, I readied myself to go, once more, unto the breach, and attempted to build hype online.

We really worked hard on the book, even translating it into Italian. As many of the characters come from different places, I figured I could offer a royalty split and tap into my network to get more translations done. (Many of these translations are still pending, and I do still plan on batching them together and publishing later this year.)

As often happens with self-publishing, the launch fell flat. I found it very difficult to get reviews from early readers, and couldn’t find the right category and keywords to help parents discover this book.

Before publishing, I’d imagined uncles desperately looking for birthday or Christmas presents for their little nieces and nephews. This book would have answered their prayers, making them look like saints in comparison to the 26 featured knobheads.

Still, it was worth a shot. As with any project, I learned a good deal, and I’m thankful to all those who contributed. Entrepreneurs (writers included) fail with the vast majority of their ideas.

My career as a children’s humorist remains on the back burner, and I’m not sure I’ll write another book for my nieces. Nowadays, they usually roll their eyes at my cringeworthy jokes.

Chapter 18 — Up to date

I started this series with no expectations other than hoping it would be useful to other writers, interesting to those who have followed my career, and cathartic for me.

My only intention was to share a bit more about myself with raw honesty. It felt odd to leave the jokes and self-deprecation aside for a while. But I’m satisfied, even if the concept didn’t fit into any one box. UnPhiltered covered travel, teaching, short stories, books, coaching, communities, ghostwriting, digital businesses, bitcoin, and more. It didn’t really go into details. Maybe that’s another project.

So what’s next for my writing?

A few things.

Content writing and op-eds for clients continue apace. I have some cool projects with bylines coming up with White Noise, Bitcoin Art Magazine, Bitcoin Ireland Conference, and plenty of secret assignments too. In Bitcoin, I’m able to publish in my own name, write what I want, and also reach more people when writing for brands.

If there is one thing Bitcoin (and freedom tech in general) breaks down, it’s your sense of needing to pose and posture. The more honest your work is, the better the conversations and relationships you build are. When you stop running on the fiat hamster wheel, you can downshift and focus on smaller, more valuable communities.

Ultimately, we work to gain time. When we choose how to spend all of our time, we can be more intentional.

I’d like that for my writing too. For example, in October, I’m taking a very personal trip that will test me mentally and physically. I plan to write about that too.

Re: fiction, I’ve come up with every excuse in the book for why my magical realism novel stalled. Now, I’m writing it again, and in a couple of months, I’ll be at the editing stage. Even though I’m not sure if I’ll publish it, my sights are set on the end.

Someone in my writing group asked me, “If you don’t make any money from fiction and you find it hard, why do you write it?”

“Because I have to do the work,” I said. “If something is easy, it’s boring to me.”

She stared, unable to comprehend, as though I had spoken in invisible ink.

Every day, I see more parallels between writers and those building tools for freedom. It’s never easy, but we focus on our craft. We have to.

That’s what is possible when you work to the beat of a different type of time.

Thanks for sticking with me.

Chapter 19 — Aftermath

Here’s a summary of my learnings from posting my 18-part writing-life story across several platforms.

REACTION:

This is the first time I’ve shared my life through writing (apart from some pretty awful early blogs).

All comments and reactions came from people I already knew. It felt positive to offer writerly advice, share my wins and losses with others, and reconnect with friends. It seems the key to being happy with the reception of your writing is to completely ignore reach, numbers, and metrics.

DISTRIBUTION:

Let’s talk about the reach, numbers, and metrics — ha ha. I posted across Substack (notes and posts), LinkedIn (posts and articles), Facebook, Threads, Instagram, X, Nostr (notes and articles), and StackerNews.

Substack was very disappointing. No real engagement or conversation. I feel it has become a closed-source echo chamber for growth marketers and wannabe writers.

LinkedIn brought a few comments from old friends and contacts. Often, my posts were only served to 100 people, despite me having 25,000 followers on the platform. It seems if you are not hyper-specific on a topic, posting is just not worth it.

Facebook — Quite a few friends and contacts followed the story, but making posts ‘public’ (not just for friends) was an error. One of the posts with a swear word triggered Meta’s useless AI filters, and my account was permanently blocked. I managed to restore it, but lost two business pages with 1,000+ followers and my Instagram account (600 followers) forever. Fuck ‘em.

I gave up posting on X because formatting threads took too long, and I got no reaction.

Nostr — I got little reaction, but it’s a nice addition to my profile having more longform articles there. On all platforms, long-form proved the only way to serialize the 18 posts and ensure readers could catch up when they missed a chapter.

StackerNews: This platform is a forum with Bitcoin payments embedded. I received my largest number of comments, intelligent questions, and support here, all from a dozen or so highly engaged writers and artists.

REWARDS:

This project had no commercial goal, not even ‘networking’ or leading people towards becoming clients.

In fact, sharing so many losses and blots on my record probably lost me some credibility as a ‘high-ticket ghostwriter’. Perhaps it gained me some trust, though. All writing is curated — we choose what to include and exclude — but I tried to be more candid and avoid ego-inflation.

Surprisingly, I did earn around $100 in Bitcoin on Nostr and StackerNews from supporters. This shows the power of building a small community on shared values and proof-of-work (time investment). For me, value-for-value, internet-native money, and micro payments represent a much better path for creative projects than subscriptions, selling fake scarcity, merchandising, begging for coffees, downloadable products, email lists, advertising clicks, affiliate sales, and any other substitute for exchanging real value through words.

3 LEARNINGS:

You don’t have to pick one platform. Going wide helps, as platforms still dominate the time we spend online.

Don’t try to please algorithms. It’s a losing game. The only algo you can please is one you built yourself.

Spend time on the platforms you care about, the ones with honest incentives. Don’t chase social media ‘audiences’ (even the ones you built yourself). The value is gone. Their profiles have been stripped for parts by Meta, Microsoft, and Elon. Your words just made their data a tiny bit more valuable for massive corporations.

Growth strategies are a scam. Legacy socials are supernovas, waiting to implode under their own weight. Just write what you want and share it honestly.

• Keep it short.
• Use visuals.
• Create a brand touch point.
• And be genuine when you interact online.

That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.

Peace out