I’m sitting in a dusty hotel room in Kathmandu, attempting to call a Spanish airline about my missing luggage.

“We’ll have to email our ground staff contractor,” they say.

I try to protest. “My trek starts tomorrow!”

“Please check your email later today, sir.”

I listen to the click of the agent hanging up the phone.

The hotel is nestled precisely in the middle of Thamel, the tourist district with its colourful flags, rooftop gardens, and too-narrow streets. There is plenty to do in the capital, but after three days of chasing my lost bag in a Kafkaesque system of virtual shrugs and missed callbacks, my energy wanes. I am trapped in the antipresent, unable to visit any tourist attractions, only capable of reconnecting to the hotel WiFi to refresh my emails for the 800th time in the hope of news. With nothing but time, I feel utterly trapped.

During a 2018 volunteering trip to Nepal, I waited for my opportunity to walk the Annapurna Circuit: a two-week hiking route crossing high paths and winding through tiny Buddhist villages. Instead, I got a call to fly back to the UK. My father had been diagnosed with bowel cancer, and it was terminal. He was the one who introduced me to hiking, taught me to be patient when faced with another false peak, to understand the swirling patterns of clouds, to clean my kit, to be prepared for sudden change, to appreciate in the silence of the wilderness, to be present. Near the end, we talked a lot about hiking.

“When you see a mountain,” he said, “think of me.”

I can’t remember what I said in return.

It took eight years to get back to Nepal — grief, travel, COVID, relocation, work, money, rule changes, and procrastination saw to that. After all my posturing about being an advocate for freedom, living my life exactly how I wanted, my fear of closure held me back. I wouldn’t gain perspective until I’d seen those mountains again.

Finally, after another two-day delay, I take the first steps of my 18-day trek. The Manang Valley bathes in bright sunlight. We pass apple orchards and fields of buckwheat as we climb to Lower Pisang, but after nearly a week stuck in the hotel, I feel like I could run up the path for hours. I’m not doing this alone; there are ten in my group — other travellers looking for answers in the hills. We get to know each other in the brief moments when we’re not gasping for breath in the thinning air.

That night, I fire up my Kindle and read The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. It’s one of my all-time favourites, a short story that’s more of a thought experiment. Ursula Le Guin presents a Utopian society of harmony, peace, and joy. In Omelas, life is wonderful for every resident except one: a miserable child, suffering alone in a dungeon. Most residents can ignore the one person whose incarceration guarantees their joy and freedom, but the few who can’t leave the citadel forever.

Maybe it’s hubris, but I’ve always considered myself one of those who ‘walk away’. I’ve been willing to give up convenience to claw back some of the sovereignty I’d lost through a corporate job and living in a mediocre London suburb. And here I was on a legendary remote hiking route, perhaps not scaling peaks, but at least challenging myself, climbing higher than I’ve ever been.

The nights are cold at 4000m above sea level, and my wardrobe is more suited to the Spanish summer than sub-zero temperatures. As we hike farther up, across metal suspension bridges and past well-insulated herds of yaks, I wear my father’s old gear — a down vest and the bright red waterproof. It’s not a homage; it’s purely practical. Still, it gives me some kind of connection.

I feel him silently judging me for walking the ‘tourist trail’. He always had to plan the route and bring every bit of kit himself, while a Nepalese porter carries my luggage strapped directly to their forehead. He would also have loved seeing the world’s highest peaks up close and listening to the guides’ explanations of the dangers, the routes, the climbers. We all live the battle of comfort vs sovereignty.

The ‘tea house’ hotels in the Manang valley have a few more mod cons than expected. Some even have hot showers. But today, the power for the whole village is out. As the sun sets, my roommate and I read by the light of our headtorches.

Before the trip, I’d just finished reading The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s brutal account of the anti-freedoms of Communist Russia. That night, I search for a quote that jumped off the page when I read it: ‘All those years in our cells and our huts, the state’s electricity had seared our souls, and now, darkness was bliss.’ Sometimes, our only freedom comes through stoic minimalism and absence. I turned off my reading light and listened to the darkness.

I’m in bed with a worsening cold. The lack of doctors and pharmacies doesn’t seem so quaint when you are coughing up your lungs. The 5,416m Thorong La Pass plays on my mind, and I struggle to sleep. It’s not just me; another member of the group has a virus, and most of the others are blowing their runny noses in the dry mountain air. We take each day slowly, climbing 500m in altitude, and putting one foot in front of the other. There aren’t any other options: turning back involves walking too, and I don’t like going backwards.

By this point, we’ve walked 80km or so. Karl Bushby has just finished walking 50,000km after circumnavigating the globe by foot. I watched a video on his trip just before setting off on mine, and I was most impressed by the fact he had no desire to break records, no charity campaign, no press team. “Every fibre of my being,” he says, “every day, has been what I’m doing right now.”

Along the way, between icy paths and sneezes, I hit upon the idea that walking is trustless. That’s why it is so freeing to Karl Bushby and to all of us. You don’t rely on anyone or anything else. It is the rhythm of taking one step at a time. Sometimes things go as expected; sometimes they don’t. But freedom is not about control. It depends on adapting to your surroundings and being in sync with the path. Each day, the tea houses serve another group of foreigners. Monks in the small temples perform another ceremony, another meditation. The kitchens produce another hundred plates of dal bhat, accompanied by ginger tea for the sniffling guests. The sun rises over snowy peaks again.

One of the guys in our group walked to Everest Base Camp more than 20 years ago. Things were quite primitive back then. He told me the soundtrack of those two weeks was the constant thunk of cattle bells. That was his rhythm, his surroundings. He bought a heavy metal bell in a Kathmandu market at the end of his trip and still displays it proudly in his New Jersey house.

It’s 4 am and -15℃ on the day we climb over the pass and down the other side. Lines of headtorches light the steep path up, and the snow crunches under boots fitted with temporary metal spikes. The path ahead is backed up because a girl from another group has fainted. Her partner attempts to carry her up on piggyback, but stops after just a few steps.

As we wait for the last members of our party to arrive, we hop from foot to foot to keep warm. Frank, a German realtor who lives in Cape Town, excitedly tells us he has the WiFi password for a teahouse we’ve just passed. ‘Who cares?’ I think. ‘You’ve flown all the way here to cross this pass, and you’ve gotten up in the dark to do it. Why do you need WiFi?’

Later, after the girl who collapsed has passed us riding on a yak, after we’ve taken our photos at the top, and after we’ve descended to 3,800 meters and bathed in the sun of the afternoon, I reflect on Frank and his need for WiFi passwords. Yes, we are all plugged into our digital worlds, but if you can’t spend a few hours away from it, are you really free at all?

I think about the amount of time I spent that day completely disconnected, staring at the contrast of birds of prey crossing white peaks and soaring up into a blue sky. Why do we struggle to think beyond the next unit of time? The next breath, photo, coffee break, the next day, the next WiFi access point. Why do we need to extract immediate value from our physical world?

I can’t always rein in my differences from the group. Not everyone has waited eight long years to reconnect with their father by climbing a Nepalese mountain. This is every fibre of my being, not just a social media photo op. My father would have loved to build a homestead, to fix machines, grow cattle, and walk the land, but he chose a secure life so his children could do that.

The next days we pass through small towns celebrating Dashain — a time for families, giving thanks, and taking stock. We stay with a local family and experience life in a small town; while we eat set meals and walk to a strict schedule, it feels like all the Nepalis around us are making their own choices.

We watch old ladies harvesting millet and corn. Heavy machinery continues to shift the earth of roads and riverbanks affected by landslides. We see new entrepreneurs opening restaurants, tea houses, and local stores. I speak to Ram, one of our guides, who is working through the festival period to put his kids through college in Japan. Everyone must hustle to improve their lot because saving in Rupees is futile. Even with remittances from those working abroad, Nepal is constantly playing catch-up. Everyone is building a better life here; no one expects it to be easy.

My final day is spent in Kathmandu. A few of us travel to Durbar Square to see the world’s only living goddess. The Kumari is a young girl selected from a northern village. There are strict physical and mental tests as well as a birthdate that matches specific astrological criteria. She is taken from her parents to live in an opulent palace, where her feet may never touch the ground below. If she sheds a drop of blood, she is cast out into the realm of the mortals and is replaced by a new Kumari. Hindus and Buddhists alike come to see her, hoping to be blessed by one of her three daily appearances at her palace window. The current Kumari is just three years old. After waiting an hour for her to appear, I feel like her nervous little wave is an anticlimax. The crowd still gasps.

Later, it hits me that she is the living embodiment of the child in The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas. Instead of being tortured or in pain, she is doted on. She has expensive gowns, extravagant makeup, a team of handlers, tutors, and adoring fans, but she is cursed. Her childhood is stolen, and she is imprisoned to bring others luck, joy, and religious harmony. She cannot play, shout, hide, misbehave, cry, laugh, or neglect her duties. She cannot walk where she pleases. To tourists, the Kumari is a sweet anomaly, a curious tradition. To Nepalis, she is a living goddess. Almost everyone is happy with this arrangement.

I went to Nepal to reconnect with emotions I had long since buried. Curiously, I saw glimpses of freedom instead of apparitions of my father. Sometimes I saw them in the hawks cruising high above, sometimes in the industrious lives of locals, and sometimes in the restrictions of those trapped in digital worlds or religious constructs.

If there is one thing I learned on this journey across the Annapurna mountains, it is that freedom is gained one step at a time. You have to know which direction you are heading, and you must understand what you are leaving behind.

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:

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

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

3. 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.

Chapter 13 — Going fishing

In late 2021, I published my second book.

‘The Fisherwoman’ would make waves.
This time, I would succeed…

This book was similar to my first effort (previously published stories, distributed on Amazon), but everything about ‘The Fisherwoman’ would be better.

• The stories were more ambitious and mature. They had been published in better-quality journals that paid, and a few had even been shortlisted or won competitions.

• The diverse characters would appeal to all: a war deserter fighting disaster at the Hong Kong races, a French clown who can fly, a neuroscientist desperate to implement ‘organic AI’, a downtrodden preacher in Mississippi, a frazzled competitor at an international Scrabble tournament, a time-travelling cat, and more.

• After five years of publishing fiction, I felt part of the community. I was a member of online writing circles, had 1,000+ Twitter followers and a mailing list, and was somewhat known to other short story authors and editors (especially in the UK).

• I briefed and commissioned an artist friend of mine to design the cover (see it in the header image here)

• I paid for proofreading and pro typesetting.

• This time, I had a marketing plan, involving sharing story snippets, regular social posts, graphics, reviews, cover quotes, readings, and even paid ads. I contacted two professional short-story book critics to schedule detailed reviews (unpaid).

This was a more professional approach to self-publishing.
I was sure that, despite short story collections being less popular than genre fiction or self-help books, it would sell.

Well, I learned another hard lesson…

The Fisherwoman is the lowest-selling book of the five I have published to date.

I tried amending the description, the keyword ads, the book category, and how I promoted the book. I still don’t know why it sold fewer copies. Sometimes, creative endeavours fall flat.
But there was no time to lick my wounds, as I had to move on and market book three (released just 7 months later).

Some of the best things I’ve written are in that book (please indulge this self-plug).

Ultimately, you do the work for yourself. You do it for the quality of the story. And if just one person likes it, that’s sometimes enough.

Next time, I get my own back on a publisher that ghosted me by delivering the world’s-first Bitcoin story anthology.

Chapter 14 — The Orange Pill

Five years ago, I knew nothing about finance.
I couldn’t even answer the question ‘What is money?’
Then, one of my clients asked me a different question:

“Do you know what causes inflation?”

Niko was one of my first coaching clients. I was targeting publishers who wanted to improve the quality of their English writing, and he runs an independent press for Bitcoin and self-sovereignty books.

In the Bitcoin community, we talk about the concept of ‘orange pilling’ — helping others to understand the benefits of Bitcoin and escape the Matrix of our financial system. In reality, it’s not as easy as taking a pill; the necessary knowledge requires a long process of learning about economics, history, fiscal policy, computer science, game theory, money, energy, maths, and other topics.

There is often one ‘unlock’ moment (for me, it was suffering through 20% Covid inflation and finally taking action to combat it). After that, the real learning starts. Niko guided me towards many books on the topic, and I began to ask questions about why our financial system is rigged against us.

Bitcoiners favour open-sourcing everything and are against gating ‘intellectual property’. The fact that Niko would provide all his eBooks to me for free made me question my approach to publishing (and the whole industry itself). Perhaps I’ll reflect on this in a later issue.

A few months after we finished our coaching sessions, I hit upon an idea.

I’d just been ghosted by a publisher who had initially shown interest in an anthology idea of mine (a book of nomad stories). Instead of giving up on the idea of editing a book of stories, I suggested the concept of Bitcoin fiction to Niko. He is a big sci-fi fan and saw the value in ‘orange pilling’ people via stories (almost all Bitcoin books at the time were non-fiction theses). In late 2022, 21 Futures was born.

I only wrote one of the stories in ‘21 Futures: Tales from the Timechain’, but bringing an anthology to market requires a LOT of time and input from the editor. I defined the concept, advertised the call for submissions, communicated with all the authors, drew up terms and contracts, selected and edited the stories, worked with the Konsensus Network (the publisher) on the book design, cover, and images, created a marketing plan, set up socials, then a website, blog submissions guidelines, merchandise, and more. I travelled to a conference in Madeira to promote the book and meet the publishing team (including Niko).

While the book has not sold thousands of copies, it’s an important proof of work that furthered the concept of stories and fiction in the Bitcoin ecosystem. 21 Futures has become a bigger project, with podcasts, merchandise, a second book, and an animation in development. All of this became a flywheel of momentum for my involvement in the Bitcoin space, generating more opportunities, leading me down countless rabbit holes, and allowing me to make plenty of friends along the way.

Those sessions with Niko changed my life, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for his patience, guidance, and support (even though he was the one paying me, LOL).

I used to wonder what it took to become an editor, a publisher. For years, I had corrected and edited my students’ work, as well as my own. Essentially, you take the leap and learn as you go (taking courses, reading books, listening to authors). I’ve since edited several books in the space.

There is another saying in Bitcoin that rings true for me: “You can just do things.”

All my writing links

Chapter 15 — Scaling and failing

“Stop swapping your time for money.”

This is what we are told when we run a digital business.

Going from charging clients $45 per hour to selling online courses and access to your genius* feels empowering.

*disclaimer: I am not a genius.

Over the course of just a few years (2020-2024), my “English Writing Coach” business scaled in quantity of clients, quality of offering, and profit. Though I wasn’t getting paid to write, my work intersected with books, languages, and writing plenty of content.

I moved from 1:1 sessions to groups, then ran a paid community with 100+ members.
I was ‘vertically scaling’ my digital business. Sounds wonderful, right?

At times, it was. Helping clients achieve clear-cut wins (and charging handsomely) gives you higher highs than you can ever experience working for a company. Every like, download, purchase, and booking goes directly to YOU, not your dickhead boss. Every morning, I jumped out of bed ready to get to work.

As a business owner, you learn a bunch of skills — marketing, automations, video production, websites, copywriting, course design, digital publishing, community management, podcasting, and more. I still use those skills today.

But scaling is not all emails informing you of money in your Stripe account. There are dangerous consequences that, without careful management and a very particular personality profile, will bring the whole thing crashing down.

• You need to constantly fail and adapt — products, courses, outreach strategy.

• The learning curve is relentless. Halfway through my coaching career, AI reared its head (and I refused to robotize my business).

• Not every client wins — their failures are your failures.

• More overheads (like digital tools or hiring staff) means more risk. You constantly worry about going fast enough vs going broke.

• You get no vacations because your whole business is YOU.

• Your public and private life blends into one, and you become a wanker who turns the small niceties of life into LinkedIn content.

I know hundreds of coaches, and very few of them run sustainable businesses.
They either quit, pivot, or burn out. I did the latter.

For me, burnout took the form of self-sabotage.

• My marketing posts went from comical to furiously sarcastic.

• I tried to sell asynchronous courses and guides I didn’t believe in

• The effort I put into live sessions waned.

• I could not physically bring myself to complete the outreach tasks that would bring in clients and money.

The lows became crushing.
The highs more fleeting.

This kind of business just clicks for some people. They love building automation sequences, and systems with big promises (i.e. dollar signs) and lots of bells and whistles. But I became a marketing machine who taught others to market themselves. It all began to feel less like a writing program and more like a gigantic pyramid scheme.

Ultimately, I wasn’t honest with myself and kept going when something felt very wrong.

When I started writing content and copy for Konsensus, the words burst onto the page. Everything felt simple again.

I’m OK with swapping time for money, even if it means giving up the dream of waking up to all of those digital purchase notifications, then logging into social media to read all the wonderful praise.

Chapter 16 — Becoming Totally Human

I was kicking around some ideas about directions for my writing.
My business had already touched on articles, courses, fiction, editing, coaching, newsletters, and guides.

I settled on Bitcoin as a niche because it’s the only area I want to invest my energy in.
It might sound harsh, but if you are a freelancer, and you aren’t writing in a niche that resonates deeply with you, why do it at all?

The plus side of being a writer in Bitcoin is that there are very few creative professionals in the space with deep skillsets. I’m not saying that to put anyone down. It’s a small ecosystem compared to insurance, pet care, fashion, and other writing niches.

Clients are forthright. They do what they say, and they don’t mess you around.
It’s easy to meet them too — founders, industry leaders, investors, and top minds can all turn you onto projects that need words. All you need is a clear profile and the guts to meet them. Over the last two years, I’ve had dozens of calls and have been to quite a few conferences.

Really, it’s the same as any other industry: success comes from clarity, consistency, reputation, and who you know. (For more on ‘how I built a bitcoin writing business’, read my Bitvocation article).

But in an industry that embraces AI with open arms, why call myself ‘Totally Human Writer’? Four reasons:

1. It shows my values.
I believe in communication that is human centric. I’m a fiction writer. How could I not want to write for people?

2. It’s clear positioning.
If you want someone to pump out social truisms, 3-step guides, and ‘top 10’ articles, that’s not me. Repelling the wrong clients is just as important as attracting the right ones.

3. It’s a mark of quality.
I aim to work on high value projects, not $50 per keyword-stuffed blog content.

4. Purple monkey dishwasher
(would an LLM write that???)

Overall, I’m not against AI. That is not a position that’s tenable anymore.
I use Lumo for quick research, lists of items, quotes, and to summarize books and podcasts.
But using it to actually write just takes all the joy and meaning away.

Contrary to what AI shillers say, meaningful writing is worth more than ever before.
LLMs produce millions of words virtually for free. That’s why the internet is filled with shit content and no-one’s marketing is working any more.

There is no magic formula for cutting through the sea of slop.
As with anything, it’s about time, effort, and value.

We’re in the period where entrepreneurs and founders are figuring out what they can and can’t automate. Certain types of writing tasks can be automated. But if you automate your vision, message, and reduce the time spent in your community, your authenticity trends to zero too.

I recently read a podcaster’s book. I’m the perfect age to be in his target audience, so I was keen to see how he’d relate Bitcoin to my struggles. The book was written with AI (maybe 20-30% was the author’s work). It was awful. I felt no connection to his experience, his opinions. If he couldn’t put the work into writing it, why should I bother to read it?

Machine content is always derivative, and derivative work is less valuable than original work.

When ChatGPT started eating freelancers’ lunches (mostly due to short-sighted budgetary decisions), I thought long and hard about what AI can never do:

• Invent novel analogies & frameworks

• Understand biology & the mind

• Generate niche humour

• Vary voice effectively

• Share experiences

• Offer real opinions

• Write with rhythm

• Craft stories

We read to learn things. But we also read to connect with others.
We don’t feel a connection with billion-page internet libraries.

Technology advances at an exponential pace, but human connection is one thing I think won’t change.

Next time, I become a children’s author.

Chapter 9 — Becoming Hemingway

I started to introduce myself as a writer.

Maybe it was because I wasn’t doing much else.

I spent Spring 2019 in Seville. Stories virtually leapt out at every corner and found their way onto my laptop. It’s a pretty inspiring place, especially when most of your day is spent writing in a bullfighting-themed cafe, and shooting the shit over brandy with your writing buddy (yes, everyone has a bit of a Hemingway phase).

It felt good to have some paid publications, hear my story read on a podcast, and be able to carry my book around with me to every cafe. People are reluctant to introduce themselves as a writer if they aren’t doing it full-time for a plum wage.

NEWSFLASH — I don’t know a single short story writer who earns a living doing only that. Plus, now I do earn a living completely from writing, it’s not as sexy as people think. Terms like ‘content’, ‘op-eds’, and ‘thought leadership’ tend to make eyes glaze over.

You’re a writer if you live it. Simple as that.

After Seville, I walked the Camino de Santiago in northern Spain. Thirty days of flat landscapes, blisters, and searching for small-town supermarkets daring enough to stock items as exotic as hummus and guacamole.

You have a lot of time to think on the Camino. Walk, arrive, wash your pants, find some food, chat a bit, and wait for the next day. Almost everyone I met wrote a diary. A bit like with photos, I’ve never really been one for diaries or morning pages. I need to have the capacity to forget an image, a thought, or an idea. What tends to stick deep is the feelings, sensory data, and the sentiment that comes out between the lines of a story.

My Camino experience manifested in a novel, written in one month while I worked in a hostel in Morocco. Between serving tea, checking in guests, and cleaning toilets, I wrote 2,000 words a day. There was one point when I realized I hadn’t left the hostel for three days or so. It was intense.

‘Network Trail’ is the story of Geoffrey Rossi, a middle-aged ex-rail engineer and wannabe comedian who runs a hostel for walkers of a path running the length of Great Britain (similar to Spain’s Camino de Santiago).

Geoffrey makes a LOT of train jokes, suffers a break up and personal loss, which leads him to walk the trail himself, culminating in a life-altering experience at the end of it all.

In writing the book, I learned how uncomfortable I am following the typical novel story structure.

The novel is OK. It works as a story. It delves into creativity, masculinity, and mental health. But the submission process to literary agents with names like Ridley Farquois III and Camille Winter-Smythe made me lose interest in the entire sector and lose conviction in the project.

Since then, things have gotten much worse in traditional publishing, so I don’t see myself rushing back to it.

Still, I’m glad to have written a novel.

Maybe someday, I’ll finish my next one.

Chapter 10 — Teaching Others

Pro writers never stop learning. Even accomplished novelists and those who teach Master’s students keep improving their vocabulary, their technique, their knowledge.

That’s one of the things I like about writing. The line between student and teacher is fluid; it is not defined by qualifications, awards, or book sales. Teachers must learn to collate and impart useful techniques, then give considered and honest feedback.

I began helping others online with their writing in 2019.
Back then, it was often PhD theses, university applications, and business texts.

But as I helped language students online, I honed my own knowledge of the English language. I learned how to critique texts so students would improve next time. And I developed frameworks to explain best practices for style, voice, and technique (depending on the context).

• Teaching is perhaps the best base for becoming a pro writer.

• You develop efficient research skills.

• You can appreciate your strengths and blind spots.

• You become a concise explainer.

In addition to teaching, I built profiles on sites like Substack and Medium. While I continued with my creative outlet of writing short stories, I needed to make sense of the materials and techniques I was producing for students. My columns on Substack were mostly on literature and short stories, while I wrote more about language and technique on Medium.

When you start out writing, it’s more about creating something from within; as you move forward in your writing career, you feel the need to reach more readers.

Publishing on sites where you must build an audience from the millions of readers already on the platform turns you from blogger to writer. It’s not all about algorithms and clickbait titles, though. Both sites are ‘semi-professional’ in that they are open for all to publish, but editors and readers expect a certain level of quality.

When regularly publishing on ‘semi-pro’ platforms, writers develop good habits — understanding the structures that resonate, going deeper with research and evidence, formatting for readability, and proofreading thoroughly.

The days of building your writing chops from shadowing a wizened editor at a local newspaper are over. Writers need to find their own reasons to develop and share their skills. They need a semi-pro stepping stone before launching a business. And they need to keep learning.

I suppose that’s what I did in 2019/20. More short online courses and workshops, analyzing (not just consuming) top blogs and articles, and reading the odd book on writing craft.

This was all done while I travelled in Asia, searching for possible ‘digital nomad’ bases.

And just as I found one, Covid struck, and I returned to the UK for lockdown.

Chapter 11 - The Covid Diaries

I’m thankful for the Covid summer. Yes, there were nonsensical rule changes, paranoid neighbours, death, sadness, and constant media updates, but when you have to stay put and work on yourself, good things can happen.

Summer 2020 in southern England was beautiful. No cliché weather for once.

I ticked off all the lockdown cliches — daily Yoga, fitness, and writing a book — all while revelling in the online education boom.

Many of my stories and books begin with a desire to master a topic.

• A story about a Country singer.

• Trying my hand at Horror.

• A book about ‘time’.

The trigger for my book was how our experience of time was turned on its head during Covid. Days were suddenly hard to track; time was malleable.

With no idea for the story in mind, I began to research what time actually comprised: biology, philosophy, physics, language, narrative, chemistry, astronomy, and more. I listened to podcasts, discovered Carlo Rovelli’s book, read Einstein’s Dreams, and went down the rabbit hole of how time itself is a mere construct.

Short stories are a way to explore themes without investing years in a fully blown book project. With time, I thought to expose the fractal: eighteen approaches to time with brief character narratives, all connected by one place.

I researched, I wrote, I edited, I paid for professional feedback, I submitted, I got a ‘maybe’, I waited, I queried again, got a ‘yes’, celebrated, edited again, and eventually, my book was scheduled for 2022 publication.

Here are the terms the independent publisher offered me to put my first traditionally published book into the world:

• Production costs: paid by publisher

• Other rights: publisher takes a percentage

• Marketing: some tweets by the publisher

• Distribution: a ropey website with 25-dollar worldwide shipping and no Amazon version

• Print: black & white pamphlet with no eBook.

• Author copies: bought at discount

• Royalties: 0%

While the terms seem laughable, independent publishing is a rough business. The publisher was a one-woman operation, probably making a significant loss. Her model supports excellent literary works that would not be published elsewhere. She put real effort and care into editing.

Going through the process, doing an online launch, sending copies around the world (to reduce the silly shipping cost), and being able to call myself an author without the self-publishing caveat was life-changing. The book is with another publisher now, but I’m grateful to the first person who took a chance on me.

Fifteen Shades of Time is a book I’m proud of. I think it contributes to the canon of narratives on the subject. So does David Eagleman, the author of a best-selling book on afterlives with a similar structure. I was thrilled he read my book and gave a cover quote.

After the Covid summer, I moved to a place where time runs slower: The Canary Islands.

Chapter 12 — Riding a bike

Here is a list of work-related things I never thought I’d do:

• Create video courses

• Build a website (or six)

• Host a podcast / livestream

• Hire an assistant (+ fire an assistant)

• Sell products and services on Zoom calls

• Become a social media influencer (sort of)

• Help dozens of clients get published or promoted

• Run a paid community with 100+ members (not OnlyFans)

After all, I was just a lowly English teacher.
Before 2019, I wrote lesson plans, taught classes, and marked homework.

Well, after switching to online classes offering writing help, I began to learn more about how coaching differs from teaching and how digital businesses differ from teaching via online platforms.

I learned that a coaching session has no fixed price.
Value is completely subjective.

Everything depends on framing, strategies, and results.

I was liberated from the idea that my time was worth 10 Euros an hour, or 20, or even 250!

All of the items on the list occurred within three years or so. They were terrifying and difficult at first, but practice makes better, and once you get more comfortable with each process, it’s like riding a bike.

To improve more quickly, I took courses on marketing and business management, read a ton, joined helpful online communities, posted daily on socials, and, most importantly, I got used to failing fast.

The benefit of an online coaching business is that you start with a laptop and very few overheads. The only investment you make is your time, so you need to adapt quickly and test the market a lot.

I never thought I’d enjoy making videos, penning articles about language, and spending so much time on LinkedIn. But I did. My posts got millions of views (combined), and I attracted a little army of followers.

Being my own boss was scary and rewarding in equal measure. The highs are 10 times higher than when you are working for someone else; the lows are devastating (more on this in a future chapter).

What I loved most was the actual coaching: getting on weekly calls with clients, giving advice and learning from community members, editing great work, and getting messages about struggles and successes.

The problem with a coaching business is the ‘business’ part. You spend 90% of your time doing marketing, sales, and admin, and only 10% doing what you love.

How did my own writing fit into all of this?
1. Growing my skills in content writing — course materials, articles, and web copy.
2. Using LinkedIn as a creative outlet — writing funny slideshows about badgers and awful corpo influencers.
3. Continuing my narrative writing — I prepared to publish my second book of short fiction.

More on my second book next time…

Have you started a digital business?
What did you love/hate about it?

Chapter 5 — An Imaginary Machine Gun

23rd December 2015. I’m stuck in Madrid airport. Flight cancelled.

I’m holding a ukulele case, but when a fellow stranded passenger asks what instrument I play, I look over my shoulder, then whisper that it’s a Uzi.

I eventually escape the airport with no security issues, but that imaginary weapon becomes the reason I write stories today.

Why?

A few months later, I saw a writing competition on Twitter. “Comment with the first line of a story,” they said. “The best one wins a free spot on our next short-fiction course.

There was no way I would have paid the 480 pounds to take an online course, but I had a strong feeling that my cheesy machine-gun line would win the prize. It did, and I was thrust into studying and writing short fiction for 6 weeks.

This was my first time studying an online course. Nowadays we click through the materials at light speed and put the videos on 2.5x speed to ‘get to the end’. Back then, I took time to study, read, consider, comment, and submit my work.

I can’t remember which stories we read (maybe O. Henry, Dickens, D.H. Lawrence — that kind of thing). The course broke down the aspects for short stories like characters, descriptions, point of view, tense and time, form etc.

Before the course, I never read short stories. They weren’t well rounded narratives like movies or novels. “What’s the point if it’s not finished.” During 2016, I realised that short stories are not magazine fillers or training wheels for authors. It’s an art form which may not be en vogue (or commercially viable), but one which can make a reader think or feel just as much as a 500-page book.

Since then, I’ve read over 1,000 short stories, and written over 100. Yes, it’s a bit of a writerly, insular world, short fiction, but they are beautiful puzzles. Typical hero’s journeys or 3-act screenplays feel static and predictable compared to the kaleidoscope shapes and forms of short stories.

Most of all, the reader does a lot of the writing themselves, filling in gaps and considering the unwritten ending.

Some of my favourite short-story authors:

V.S. Pritchett, Jose Luis Borges, Flannery O’Connor, Anton Chekhov, Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis, Italo Calvino. No particular order.

Rather than recommend one of my stories (even the one inspired by my Madrid airport adventure), I implore you to pick one of the greats. You’ll find stories online from all of these authors. Pick one up, look into the kaleidoscope, and admire the shifting patterns.

Chapter 6 — Harvesting Seeds

After my short-story course in summer 2016, I took a teaching job in Pamplona.

You may associate this city with medieval forts and running bulls, but teaching English to disinterested executives at an adhesive-manufacturing plant on a drab industrial estate was not what I expected from northern Spain.

Neil Gaiman says, ‘Boring jobs are good for writing’. I agree.

My days involved exercises on the present perfect and second conditional tenses; my nights were fuelled by creativity.

To be fair to English teaching, learning and teaching more complex rules of the language did give me a good basis for writing more accurately and eventually editing.

I remember the moment I became a ‘published writer’. I was driving back from the ‘glue factory’ with a colleague. “It’s just 500 words or so,” I said. “But I have a piece out in Flash Fiction Magazine.’ She indicated vague interest.

“It’s about kids on a school trip to St. Petersburg who encounter a dead body.” “Oh?” she said, then looked at her phone.

It’s actually about a dog that I saw on my trip to St. Petersburg. I didn’t see a dead body, and I was 18 at the time, not 9. Still, you can store little idea seeds in the bank of your mind until they are ready to be watered with a little thought. The dog’s owner, a beggar, had taught it to hold a little bucket for coins on the street. There’s not a person on earth who wouldn’t want to give a humble pooch with a bowed head and hangdog eyes a few rubles. I thought about how the owner trained it, how much money it made, why we are more inclined to give an animal money, and what, if it could, the dog would spend the money on. If you’re a writer, the questions, situations, and projections start firing in your mind when you have a mildly interesting experience. You can nurture this, but I don’t think it’s something that can be entirely trained.

V.S. Pritchett said most short stories are “something glimpsed from the corner of the eye, in passing.” That was literally the case for the dog in this story. Writers have to glimpse. We have to experience the character, the place, the event, the seed that is stored in our minds. The one that makes us ask a million questions.

And that connection has to be lived. That is a story’s biological link to the reader. Stories without any grounding in reality feel fake.

So, for the next few years, I set about finding all the seeds I had stored in my mind and putting them down on paper so that others could steal a glimpse.

Read Frozen Stiff

Chapter 7 — Write. Edit. Submit. Repeat.

This became my mantra. Story after story.

I never kept a writing schedule, but I’d say I put in 10-20 hours a week most weeks.

I would write on the go, in a coffee shop, libraries, at my tiny desk, at work, in bed.

Over the course of two years, I wrote probably 50 stories and published 20. Each story HAD to be different in theme, main character, genre, form, style. It was as if I needed to prove I could write with variety. And it wasn’t that my prose was looking for its natural home. Sure, I’m better at some genres than others, but all that matters is that I cover more ground.

I discovered how Litmags work: They are generally run at a loss by passionate writers. Eventually, all of them fold, and you find few readers. Still, they do fantastic work giving writers a platform and helping share challenging stories. In my experience, it’s all about fit and timing. If you want to get your story published, submit it to a magazine that perfectly matches the genre, ethos and style of your work. Most will pay a token amount (if anything). It’s also good to find magazines with editors who care about making your work better, and to find them before other authors mail in 50,000 submissions! Use platforms like Chill Subs or The Submissions Grinder to find outlets. The other route to payment and publication as a short story writer is competitions. These are ‘pay to enter’ opportunities which are judged by industry professionals, Litmag editors and often other writers. It’s crucial to adhere to the rules, read previous winners’ work, understand the judging criteria and who the judges are. My tip is to save stories until the PERFECT competition arrives. I’ve won a couple of competitions and been runner up or shortlisted in a dozen or so. I learnt to search for emerging competitions and not to get lured in by the big prize money opportunities. My biggest payment was 250 pounds for a competition on the theme of ‘dark-wild sea’. I already had the story written, and the judge agreed it fitted perfectly in the anthology.

Through all of my successes (and my many failures), I learned that established writers can easily judge the authority of other writers. They read your stories. They know the editors of certain magazines. They hang out in the same forums and attend the same workshops.

But newer writers and non-writers have no frame of reference other than a book. If you introduce yourself as a fiction writer but you don’t have a book, that doesn’t make a lot of sense.

And so, as my work moved towards helping English learners with their writing, I decided it was time to get some writing authority. At the end of 2018, I published my first book.

Chapter 8 — Dedication

UnPhiltered — Chapter 8 In late 2018, I spent one hundred hours editing, arranging, typesetting pages, and designing a cover for Foreign Voices. I worked in my bedroom on a battered laptop so small I had to bring it right in front of my face to see the changes. All of the stories I included had appeared in magazines and anthologies, so I bundled them together and prepared to self-publish.

Christmas was coming. Surely, all my friends, colleagues, and digital stalkers would want to buy my first book as a present. I’d be signing copies left and right.

It’s a lot to learn, self-publishing — compiling front and back matter, understanding Amazon’s ranking systems, keywords, eBook deals, reviews, royalties. You begin to realize why most publishing houses dedicate entire teams to book launches. But my team was just me, so, for about three weeks, I blasted through it all. Late nights, endless how-tos and instructional videos, and lots of trial and error.

Christmas didn’t really matter. The more pressing deadline was that my father was dying of cancer the next room over.

I’d flown back to be there at the end.

To help.

The days went, and we lost all sense of time. The only way to track it was by how thin he got.

He never did talk much, my dad. Nearly 30 years in the navy.

He never even acknowledged that he was dying. Each day was just a mission with a new difficulty.

We watched quiz shows together, reminisced about our climbing trips, and looked through a coffee table book of military weaponry. Mostly, I buried myself in my own book project.

Two weeks before he passed, a proof copy arrived in the mail. I went straight to my father’s bed and showed him, directing him to page 7.

I guess, like him, I wasn’t used to talking. There was no pre-prepared speech thanking him for being my dad. For the maths tutoring. For standing on the touchline. For leading the way up countless mountains.

When he turned to the page and saw the words, he froze. I watched him try and swallow a fist-sized lump in his throat.

When we locked eyes, we both said nothing.

We just sat there and listened to the echo of those three words.

“For my father”

Christopher Roy Charter

1950—2018

(pictured in Scotland, 2007).

* This article covers chapters 1-4 of UnPhiltered from 2008-2015. Chapters are published weekly as notes on Substack and other socials.

Chapter 1 - Executive Summary

What I’m about to say is a lie.
Ready?

I’ve always been a writer. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been churning out effortless stories and witty takes.

Now for the truth...

“I’ve always written” is a tired trope, and it ignores the work writers do to improve. Reading helps. Good teachers help. But we all start from zero.

For example, the first story I wrote (aged 6) was about the 1960s singer, Sir Cliff Richard, blowing up a fish and chip shop. I believe it ended with an innocent diner enquiring, ‘Why is there a grenade in my fish and chips?’

Talent is nonsense, and most young writers get stuck pumping out stuffy essays until they can graduate, get a job as a corporate drone, and start pumping out stuffy reports and insincere emails. Actually, the most creative aspect of my job in advertising was finding the right statistics to sell billboard space to other London-based media twonks.

It was at this job that I started writing an industry-insider blog about how much of a circlejerk advertising is. The blog was called ‘Executive Summary’, and it was absolutely terrible. (I still have access to it, but I don’t want you to see it.)

They say you have to write a million words of crap to learn your trade. Well, this blog was 100+ posts full of thinly veiled outrage, half-baked stories, and poorly drawn characters. I even used the company photocopier to scan in ‘bad’ classified ad examples I wanted to dissect.

There was an anonymous column in ‘Media Week’ at the time (2008-11). I dreamed of my secret blog getting picked up by The Evening Standard or the London Lite, so commuters could chuckle at the bile and wit in my columns. Three things stopped this from happening:

1. I didn’t know how to attract readers.

2. I didn’t know how to approach a publisher

3. The blog was terrible.

I assumed there would be thousands of ‘cubicle farm tales’ or ‘boardroom secrets’ blogs out there, but I struggled to find them. No writers’ community. No readers. So, even though I wrote an ‘anonymous’ column, I told everyone in the office about it (omitting the fact I wrote it on company time).

This actually got me into a bit of hot water, as the PR manager at the firm called a meeting with me and suggested I not rib the director’s mates so viciously.

“It’s a personal blog,” I said. “I don’t use real identities or company names.”
I went straight back to my desk to work on a new post.

Two lessons there:
Always stand up to censorship.
Framing words as fiction stops you getting censored.

Blogging in the 2000s was great. It truly was a little secret club of terrible writers who had figured out that they could publish, and no one could stop them.

I learned a bit about formatting, the web, and how difficult it is to get readers as an anonymous blogger.

My final post (April 2011) reads as follows.

“Hi all,
I have decided to move on from my position in advertising to bigger and better things. Essentially, I wanted to halt my progress towards becoming a fully blown media wanker.”

Then I logged off and went to live in Buenos Aires.

Chapter 2 — The Monday Night Club

“A university professor, a gay rights activist, a sewage farmer, a sailor, a pensioner, and a barmaid walk into a bar. This is not a joke.”

In Chapter 1, I told you about my brilliant Fish-and-Chip-shop story and my woeful office blog.

Before we get onto ‘the wandering years’ (including Argentina, Mexico, Asia, and Spain), I’ll shed light on the origins of my creative writing.

Back in 2010, I’d decided to leave my advertising job and had cooked up a scheme to teach English abroad. Argentina seemed like an exotic destination — far away enough that I couldn’t turn back, and close enough in terms of ‘European’ culture. I took Spanish classes at an adult-ed center called City Lit (I still remember reciting the Spanish alphabet to myself again and again on the cycle ride home).

Then, after I could recite my Spanish ABCs, I took a creative writing course. There was no real trigger for this, but it felt good to learn again, so I signed up for Monday night writing sessions. When you break the cycle of 9-5 exhaustion, Netflix, and hangovers, you realise you can learn anything, even on a Monday night.

In a way, I think the best motivation for taking a writing course is ‘just to see’. I had no goals of publishing anything. I’ve always collected creative outlets: music, poetry, comedy videos [file missing], and passive-aggressive blogs.

The quote at the beginning of this post relates to the City Lit writing course I took in 2010.
It was run by a very patient feminist writer called Zoe Fairbairns. Each week, we studied some examples of poetry, fiction, descriptions, and so on, before sharing our own writing with the class.

I began to read a greater variety of writing. Short stories weren’t pointlessly brief stories anymore — they became puzzles to unravel. We learned to read twice (once for enjoyment, and once to ask ‘how?’). After 2 or 3 weeks, I began to see that the real story was the twelve disparate characters who attended the course with me. Not one of them came from a boring 9-5 background. They all led weird and wonderful lifestyles, which resulted in us sharing stories over stale machine coffee at 9pm every Monday night. Outside, the grey London drizzle fell, and I dreamed of Buenos Aires.

The result? I didn’t keep in touch with anyone, and I didn’t even start writing fiction for another 5 years!

But the people on the course stayed with me to the extent that I immortalized them in fiction when I did start to craft stories. In 2019, my humorous take on the course, ‘The Monday Night Club’, was shortlisted for a comedy writing competition. You can read it here .

Oh, and I changed the nice course leader, Zoe, into a pompous prick called Marcus.

Chapter 3 — Good Airs

The quarter-life crisis arrives a few years into your career.

‘Is this it?’ You think.
‘I’m supposed to do this for the next 40-45 years? Maybe if I redouble my efforts, forgo avocado toast forever, and marry a countess, we might be able to afford a two-bedroom flat above a betting shop in a commuter town called something like Wallythorpe or Pynchbottom-on-Thames.’

I left for South America.

Travel makes you live in the moment. The only looking back you do is to organise your experiences into a coherent blog for your family and friends — you know, so they remember to be jealous.

My site was called Tall Travels.
I wrote weekly. Raw, sarcastic, and poorly edited posts.

I had all the tools I needed to create something great — a sharp observer’s eye, creativity, unlimited time and energy, inspiring people, and formative experiences.

I particularly fell in love with Argentine culture in Buenos Aires — midnight dinners, literary discussions, film festivals, rock music, street art — I drank it all in… especially ‘yerba mate’, which I drank before the Hollywood celebrities. I learned Spanish, played 5-a-side football with locals, and wrote songs on a faulty steel-stringed guitar.

Tall Travels was self-expression. I still believe that your primary audience should be yourself. However, that does confuse potential readers of your travel blog. They expect ‘10 Cozy Cafes in Buenos Aires’s Upmarket Palermo Neighborhood’, not ‘A Conversation Between Overweight Farmers on a 14-Hour Bus Journey’.

My travel blog never looked attractive. In fact, I’ve always been against taking pictures. It feels like an alternate version of reality, and pressing your face to an SLR eyepiece and clicking the shutter means you are not really looking at life. You’re not really experiencing your trip. I took a few shots on a clunky digital camera — Machu Picchu, the expansive Bolivian Salt Flats, the grassy Pampas of the Andean foothills — but they never felt like mine. One time, I watched hundreds of tourists scramble to take the same photo at Iguazu Falls, then I wrote about it in the hostel.

The posts were rants. I needed to process why everyone seemed to act so differently. This formed part of my ‘write a million words of garbage’ training.

Writing comes easy when you are feeding your soul with so many new experiences. When everything is the same, you have to trick yourself to draw the words out.

Like many forms of writing, travel blogs aren’t very honest. But, I captured the landscapes in the camera of my mind. The characters of Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina told the kinds of stories I’d never heard before. I wrote those stories later, after I processed what they meant.

Mexico would be the next place to feed my writing journey. And luckily, I like spicy food.

Read my story about two very different ladies in La Recoleta Cemetery. It’s available for free in the preview of my first book, Foreign Voices.

Chapter 4 — Cinematic Moments

It’s Autumn 2015, and I’m watching my buddy’s horse in an unsanctioned winner-takes-all race on a farm outside Oaxaca City.

The horses thunder down the quarter mile of red dirt track towards the finish line. A few dozen spectators watch from their pickup trucks, beers in hand. The sun bakes down.

This is like a movie, I think. I’m not sure who the main character is, or what happens at the end, but it’s a moment.

I had many such moments in Mexico. Witnessing a shooting in a bar, haggling with vendors at the weekly market that brought half the state to my little backwater town, riding through the mangroves, past a crocodile farm to an isolated surf beach.

Drugs. Dances. Day of the Dead. Every day something wild. Almost every experience in my three years living in Oaxaca was worthy of writing about.

Writers must fill their tank with inspiration (as well as tequila). It’s a feeling - that kernel of an idea stored in the vault of your mind. I collected years worth of material from my travels through Latin America.

In Oaxaca, I had the best job of my life. I was teaching English to university students.
While I wasn’t very successful in getting them to say much other than ‘teeeeaaacher’ and ‘may I go bathroom?’, there were many advantages to the job:

Creative freedom in lesson planning.
Several free hours a day to write my blog.
Copious amounts of tacos.

The university staff comprised a host of pompous Mexican professors teaching nutrition, nursing, and municipal planning; the students were sweet yet naive rural kids who were more likely to have studied Pokemon than Potemkin. Still, lessons were fun, and I tried not to be pretentious, even insisting the class called me Phil instead of ‘teeeaaacherrrr’ (which took away 50% of their vocabulary).

Some of my teaching colleagues were authors and bloggers too. We had A LOT of free time.

We jotted down many observations about life in the town, our travels, and our work. My blog, Tall Travels, softened a little. It became a site for cultural commentary as well as travel stories. I was processing life, crunching the data, and refining the output.

And later, the seeds of those cinematic moments grew into the stories of my first book.

The next year, I moved to Spain and called myself a writer for the first time. That was when the real work started

Two examples of stories from Mexico.
The Feature Race - a fictionalized version of the race I attended in Oaxaca.

Market Day - a poem about the weekly market in Miahuatlán

In the next chapters, I become a published writer and author.

As you may or may not know, my professional and creative writing have taken a rather economic turn in the last couple of years.

In 2023, I launched 21 Futures: a freedom fiction project.

We publish stories, anthologies, and books which propagate libertarian and cypherpunk ideals.

Order from our store

Today marks the publication of our second book. And in a week when the European Central Bank announced the launch of the dystopian Digital Euro (coming in October), the chilling tag line of the book is truly apt.

We were never prepared…

For more information on 21 Futures, or to submit your work, visit our site.
I’m the chief editor, and I always reply to submissions within 21 days.

21 Futures: Financial Fallout

Currencies debased.
Privacy under attack.
Cash goes underground.
The crushing weight of debt.

Welcome to a system designed to keep us poor.
The harder we work, the less we gain.

And as we struggle, the noose only tightens.
And then, when we have nothing left to lose, we turn on those who rigged the game.

We stand and fight.

These 21 stories portray unfortunate yet brilliant heroes fighting the powers that triggered financial fallout.

Money is broken, but hope is not lost.

Order on Amazon

Praise for Financial Fallout:

“There are so many little surprises in this collection of stories that I want to keep it open in front of me. Each author has some new take on something meaningful. Don't miss it!”
Paul Rosenberg, Author of A Lodging of Wayfaring Men.

“The stories collected in this volume offer a glimpse into a wide range of possible futures, each one a thought-provoking commentary on the world we live in today.”
Max Hillebrand, CEO ZkSnacks

Hope you enjoyed the update on my writing, editing and publishing career.

Keep living free.

Phil.

‘Terribili’ in was selected as the best translation of ‘Awful’, but it can also mean ‘tremendous’. Ain’t language interesting?

Working with Mariarosaria Musco, a professional literary translator was a great experience. She offered lots of notes and explanations on her choices. She even added a few sentences to explain jokes where necessary.

Aquista il libro

A lot of humour comes from wordplay (which can’t be translated) or localized in-jokes. In both cases, the translator and author need to work together to find a solution that the local audience will understand and connect with.

For example, one of the characters is called Uncle Uncle. His name cannot be changed to Zio Zio as he represents ‘U’ in the alphabet. Thankfully, English is widespread enough, that explaining the concept of Zio Uncle is not too hard.

Brands, shops, places, and a few other things were either generalized or localized in the translations. But of course, the names of the uncles remain. One of my ideas with the book was to create a diverse set of uncles from around the world, so while Gado or Vlad might seem like a strange name in Italy, readers should still appreciate the ‘worldwide’ idea.

Speaking of worldwide, I have several more translations in the works — Spanish, Romanian, German, Polish, and Portuguese. I can wait to have a picture of all 7 books next to each other!

Learning Curves

Being honest, sales of the English version have been disappointing. Despite many positive reviews, it’s yet to break the 100 copies mark, and I wasn’t able to get it into the charts or help people find it organically.

Perhaps those two ideas were naive. This is Amazon KDP we are talking about. Organic search does not really exist, and competition is fierce. Serious indie authors spend tens of thousands on marketing and often spend their days tweaking paid ad campaigns.

After launching three books and rebuilding my writing business in a new niche, I was burned out last year. I’d love to sell more copies of my books, but I’m unable and unwilling to become a full-time marketer. I have another business to run! (check out my new site for my work in the bitcoin space).

Marketing children’s books is a great deal harder as an indie author. It seems that it’s mostly about connecting with the right institutions, reaching time-starved parents, and booking in-person events.

Perhaps when the Spanish version is out, I’ll have more ganas to book in events and readings. Anyway, life is a learning curve (and now, it’s mostly about marketing).

Wishing you well with your reading and writing.

Ci vidiamo presto.

It’s been just over one week since launch, and The A-Z of Rotten Uncles reached #31 in the Children’s Humour category (12th Dec).

I’ve received great feedback from the readers I know personally. It really gives me a kick knowing friends are reading this book with their kids or gifting it to niblings. So much more fun than my oh-so-serious literary fiction.

Before launch I was worried. I was highly concerned that the book wouldn’t get many reviews, but as you can see, we’ve garnered 21 Amazon reviews in just 10 days. Amazing. Most of these reviews have come from ARC readers of this newsletter, supporters in my Multilingual Writers’ Community, and people who have bought and read the book already.

We’ve also had several reviews from Caterina’s children’s book network in Italy. I can’t wait until the book is out in Italian (Jan/Feb 2025) so we can reach more little readers.

What the reviewers are saying

Feel free to peruse the reviews on Amazon. If you’d like to add one, please do!

This review came from copywriting legend and her daughter, J.

(J actually gave the book 4 and three-quarter stars due to some imperfections in the ARC copy. Fair enough!)

Next came some some short, sweet, and hopefully honest reviews from the USA…

I actually love getting 4-star reviews. There are so many great children’s books, who is to say the A-Z of Rotten Uncles will be a favourite for everyone? Whenever an ARC reviewer asks me what to write in their reviews, I say the same thing. Read the book and be honest!

Here are some of the reviews coming in from Italy. Molto grazie!

There’s still time to order before Christmas!
(unless you live in the Canary Islands, where books take 2-3 years to arrive)

Get the book in time for Christmas

With all these rave reviews, you might be wondering why the book is rated at 4.6 out of 5.

Allow me to draw your attention to our first bad review. Two stars.

Again, I really don’t mind bad reviews (as long as they are honest).

I’m always happy to hear about typos and typesetting issues (so I can fix them). I still haven’t seen a physical copy of the book, but I’m confident there are no major errors with formatting, punctuation, and typos.

It’s possible this reviewer saw a digital ARC copy, this review is not a verified purchase and was posted one day after launch. In fact the book isn’t ‘a story’ (cute or otherwise). It’s a set of 26 character profiles.

I’m not really sure why someone would choose to post a fake review, but people are weird. Maybe ‘Stephanie the Amazon Troll’ will make it into my next book, The A-Z of Awful Aunts.

Anyway, I don’t want to leave on a sour note. 4.6 out of 5 is all right by me. I’m truly grateful to all those who left a review (even smelly Stephanie).

Finally, I’m doing my part to spread the work of other authors.

Want more books? Check out these links:

Free adventures in Sci-Fi and Fantasy

Middle Grade & Children’s Books

Treasures of Darkness

Thanks for reading.

Be nice to your niblings, and have a swell December.

Phil

It’s launch day.

You know what that means?

I’m casting a very complicated and powerful spell which will force you to drop EVERYTHING, run to the nearest computer, type in ‘Amazon dot com’, buy the book, and then finish off by doing ten celebratory star jumps (the star jumps are very important).

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon Spain

I’m not gonna lie. It’s been a mammoth effort to get this book out before Christmas, so you BETTER NOT have bought your nieces and nephews any presents yet. This book is the only present they will ever need — until the next book in the series launches.

Even though the book was written (I completed it in 2022), there was a bunch of work to do in organising the illustrations, production, reviews, and marketing for this book.

Plus, I had to write this blog every two weeks, which took up loads of Sunday evening TV-watching time.

I still don’t have a copy because snail mail takes between 2 and 24 weeks to reach Gran Canaria. Now is your chance to teach me a valuable lesson about the pitfalls of paradise islands by getting the book in your hands before me.

I’m not sure you can tell (God, I’m a great designer), but this picture of me casually enjoying the book under a palm tree is actually a mockup I created in Canva.

What else, Phil?

[Secret message to all my ARC downloaders and readers: pssst. Add your reviews now!]

A big thank you if you plan to get the book. If you live in a country served by Amazon, your copy will arrive before Christmas. If not, you’ll have to settle for the eBook. Or you could fly to the Canary Islands and meet me under the palm tree.

Oh, and if you are in the market for other children’s books, check out these sales promos?

Stories for Little Dreamers

Holiday books for kids and tweens

Middle-grade Book Fair

Remember to click one of the links or suffer bad sleep for the next 17-25 years.

***

These emails will not stop. I mean, I’m not gonna spam you a bunch (maybe once every two weeks), but I do want to keep you updated on the project.

Next stop? Conquering the Roman Empire.

The Italian translation is coming in January…

Until then, be nice to your niblings.

Your launch date is coming. You’ve got everything lined up.

• Ready to post on every platform

• DMs and WhatsApp firing

• Requests to share and repost

• MAKE SOME NOISE!

Now, I’m not an expert on Amazon algorithms, topping the charts, and selling thousands of copies. In fact, that’s not an attainable goal for most indie authors. We don’t have huge marketing budgets and technical know-how.

Miracles don’t happen in self-publishing.

There is no ‘word of mouth’ organic overnight success. Books do well if you have the marketing dollars and savvy to sell them. Of course, covers, descriptions, and the product itself matter. But Amazon is an infinitely large library, not a curated local bookshop. Readers must be directed to your title.

If a ‘big bang launch’ goes well for indie authors, here’s what they can expect:

• A large number of people like their social media posts

• Word spreads and more people know you’ve launched a book

• Encouraging sales for 1-2 days

• Lots of people will ask you in person how your book is selling (trying to understand how much money you have made)

I can’t say I’ve experienced a true ‘big bang’ launch. My latest book (a republication of my time novella) reached a decent number of people. It reached #1 in three categories on Amazon (when it was free). I certainly experienced some of the points above. But it hasn’t translated into sales yet. Marketing is a long game.

If the launch doesn’t make a lot of noise (e.g. it gets drowned out by Black Friday and Christmas promos), you might get disheartened.

But remember: publishing a book is a success. All indie authors struggle to sell more copies — that’s part of the game. For a release to reach critical mass on Amazon (to appear in organic searches and hover around the top 20 of certain categories), more than Facebook likes are required.

Reviews are crucial. Once a product has enough social proof, it can be advertised. If the product and approach are good, and if you can point a ready-made audience to it, you might achieve a positive ROI. Maybe.

But none of this happens at once.

For me, with my children’s book, it doesn’t need to.

I admire the writers who can consistently market and find new ways to talk about their books for 18 months. That is the kind of slow-burn approach that onboards new readers to your audience and mailing list.

Maybe they’ll leave a review. Perhaps they’ll buy books 2, 3, and 4 in the series.

My idea for the A-Z of Rotten Uncles is to continue talking about it in 2025.

There will be lots of reviews and milestones to post. The book will be translated into Italian, Spanish, Romanian (and maybe more languages). I’ll be heading to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair to thrust it into the hands of confused publishing execs. Book two will be released in 2025.

Authors, I’d love to know if you struggle to focus on your previously published books. Onto the next one, right? I’ve always been someone who thrives on the challenge. Once I’ve hit publish and ‘done it’, my mind shifts to the next more challenging challenge. This time, I won’t just move on to the next project.

Reviews and learnings

This is my third self-published title, but my first children’s book.

I’m learning new lessons all the time. For example, ARC sites can’t help kidlit authors get reviews! After listing two adult books (not smutty ones) on Book Funnel, they’ve received over 100 downloads each from promo pages like this one (for free sci-fi reads).

However, I’ve struggled to get any takers to review the A-Z of Rotten Uncles on Hidden Gems and Book Sirens. It seems that most people on their mailing lists prefer genre fiction (the sexier the better).

And Book Funnel seems to have far more sales promos than free ones (which build reviews). I have added Uncles to a couple of these.

With Christmas approaching, authors are queuing up to promote their midgrade books. If you are in the market for some independent books for kids aged 6-12, check out these pages:

Holiday Gift Guide for Kids and Tweens

The Perfect Christmas Stories for Little Dreamers

(please visit the links or the Uncles will be EJECTED from future promos).

All this is to say, the A-Z of Rotten Uncles is available for presale. Find the book in the promo campaigns, the header, or by searching Amazon.

The Uncles are coming for you next week!

You’ll smell them as they approach — they are ROTTEN.

Be nice to your niblings.

See you on launch day…

I’m approaching my third book launch of the year.
No, I’m not that prolific, it’s just how things worked out.

I’ve done this before, so why am I nervous this time? Perhaps because with the A-Z of Rotten Uncles (my self-pub project), I aim to sell copies. There’s no skirting around the performance metric for this one — I want lots of people to read the book!

I’ve already organised three translations. Plus, I’m planning to travel to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in 2025 to promote the project.

There are a ton of marketing tasks I’ve not even started. And every day, I seem to uncover a new aspect of self-publishing which will take hundreds of hours to do well. Really, the self-doubt stems from my struggle to sell, sell, sell.

Writing the sequel will be child’s play compared to wrangling with advanced review copies and Amazon KDP.

Speaking of the Advanced Review Copies, get it below. Read my amazingly funny funniness in the A-Z of Rotten Uncles. The eBook is delivered via email for free (in the hope you’ll review it on Amazon in December).

Download it now (free)

Readers have described the book as:

• "Hilarious"

• "Extremely Phil"

• "Wonderfully entertaining"

• “Entertainigly wonderful”

• "Good for adults AND kids"

• "Quite funny" (I only ‘quite’ like the person who said this).

Stop what you are doing, and download the book now.

Where was I? Oh yes, the dread.

I’m also nervous because I’m waiting. It’s squeaky bum time before the proof copy arrives.

The book is supposed to launch in just over two weeks, and the proof copy is stuck on a boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean (probably).

In the meantime, I’m learning a lot about how publishers and indie authors secure reviews, gain momentum, and eventually sell books.

Essentially, indie authors cross-promote through links like this one (see if you can spot my two books) or this one (for fantasy and sci-fi lovers). Readers can download as many eBooks as they care to. The authors hope you’ll read the book, spread the word, and post a review. If you can’t be bothered, please still click the links so I don’t become the scourge of indie author groups!

Getting early reviews for children’s books is especially hard. Kids aren’t lining up to help out authors. And to be fair, it’s often parents who buy mid-grade readers for their children (or niblings). Will they donate their time to reduce my dread? I guess I’ll know in how things went by January.

On the plus side, a friend reminded me today that my children’s project is my first (quite) funny book. I love the challenge of making people laugh, even if those people are ten years old and think farts are the height of comedy sophistication.

I’ve written some humour articles and stories, but this is my first funny book. And after all the reviews, promotion and post mortem is finished, I’ll get back to the drawing board. Well, the writing board.

The A-Z of Awful Aunts is coming in 2025.

Be nice to your niblings.

Speak soon.

Phil

p.s. Get the review copy of the book!

This post is about mind-bending flash fiction (rather than Rotten Uncles and childish humour).

I'm writing to tell you that my latest book, Fifteen Shades of Time is out now. And for the next 24 hourss, you can get it 100% free on Amazon.

note: set the domain to your primary Amazon account to get the eBook in your country.

If you have ever wanted to read my stories, now is the time!

Every download and review really helps me out. This book has already climbed to #1 in the Time Travel Science Fiction and Physics of Time categories. I hope it can reach the top in other categories too.

Fifteen Shades of Time:

What exactly is time?

This question even troubles world-renowned scientists.

This book presents fifteen possibilities all bound into one compelling narrative.

Troubled philosopher Luca Cangemi wrestles with the fabric of time in a lecture that will transform the lives of every person in attendance: a grieving mother desperate to finish her degree, an immortal delivery driver, a psychonaut hell-bent on documenting her trips, a boy who dreams of living on Mars, and many others.

They all discover something incredible about the nature of time.

Will you discover it too?

Get the eBook (US)

Get the eBook (UK)

Get the eBook (Spain)

This novella will interest future seekers, metaphysical deep-thinkers, sci-fi philosophers, and time-travel aficionados.

Check out some of the early reviews for the book.

If you read the book, please leave a review. These are crucial for every book launch.

I hope you have a good time reading my work. And I hope you see your words in print soon too.

Phil

Fairly quick one this week. It’s announcement time.

First off, I’d like to announce my genius.
(I believe this to be superior to Oscar Wilde’s idea of ‘declaring’ his genius)

And now for the main announcement — no, not the cover, you’ll have to scroll much further down for that one.

Release Date

The release date will be 5th December 2024.

DO NOT BUY ANY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS FOR YOUR NIBLINGS UNTIL THAT DATE.

The A-Z of Rotten Uncles — Publishing on Amazon December 5th, 2024:

Did you know, one in every 89 uncles in the world is rotten?

In this book, you’ll discover just how nasty they can be. Your own rotten uncle probably bought you this book because he is too lazy to think of a better present. Or maybe he just wants to look great in comparison to these 26 AWFUL uncles.

They’re BAD! (and their names all start with a different letter)

Could these 26 men be the worst uncles in the world?

You decide.

The cover reveal is coming soon (but not yet).

Advanced Reader Copies

Caterina and I would love for you to read this book absolutely free (and before it’s even released). You can even show it to your nephew or niece if they’d like.

Interested in a digital copy of the book in exchange for an honest review?

Just email philipcharterauthor@gmail.com and I’ll send you a copy. Or comment on this post and we can organise from there.

Garnering reviews on Amazon is notoriously difficult. After promising to review you, readers often say things like:

• I’ll post it now. Pinkie promise.

• I’ve got another 3 books in my TBR pile, but I’ll start your book soon.

• Can’t reply at the moment, we’re all hiding under our desks until the fiscal assessor leaves the premises.

• I told you the dining room chairs were already sold to another bidder. Stop messaging me!

• Sorry, the dog ate your book, and then I ate the dog, so I haven’t read it.

• I would love to write a review, but I’ve just been incarcerated on Christmas Island for the next 18 years for doubting the existence of Rudolph the Reindeer. It’s a real pity (good luck with the launch though)

• What is Amazon?

• I haven’t forgotten! I promise to post the review on or before March 58th, 2089.

I’d love to send out 100 copies to readers of this newsletter (and all their family members). Please reach out if you ACTUALLY have an Amazon account, and will write a review on or around December 5th.

Based on my niece (one of the lucky first readers), the book will take about 31 and a half minutes to read. Then it will take you 31 and a half days to stop laughing.

Comment or send me an email to get your copy.

Cover Reveal!

in 3…

2…

1…

1.5…

3.14159…

31 and a half days

58th March…

ZERO!

What do you think?

Hope you like it. I’d like to thank my own genius for inventing such a Rotten GIT as ultra-competitive Uncle Barry.

(Also thanks to Caterina for drawing him)

That’s it.

• 5th December

• Ask me for a digital review copy

• Admire Uncle Barry in full technicolour glory.

And be nice to your niblings.

Bye for now.

Dream big, they say.

OK.

I dream that in the next few years, this book will be available in 10 languages, readable for upwards of 3 billion people.

Think I’m crazy? Well, I have a plan.

In addition to writing silly books about rotten uncles, I’ve spent years helping multilingual writers publish in English. In that time, I’ve gotten to know some talented people — writers, authors, speakers, coaches, translators, and illustrators (including the illustrator for this book, Caterina Baldi).

In order to keep momentum rolling after our English release, I’m arranging for translation into other languages. The first translation will be… you’ve guessed it, Italian. We’ll be launching in Italian in January 2025.

Literary translator Mariarosaria Musco will be taking care of business.

How can a self-published project afford to pay translators?

This publication is all about building in the open and being honest. Here goes.

I’m not paying translators upfront for their work. They’ll receive a (generous) split of the royalties.

As a freelancer myself, I know we prefer payment up front. But sometimes I take on projects which promise a cut of the spoils instead of advanced payment. In fact all of my book projects work on that basis.

I know I may be criticised for this approach, but the options are these: only publish in English or invite translators to be shareholders so we can reach more people.

So what am I offering?

For translation of the 11,000-word manuscript, I'm offering the following:

• Your name on the cover

• Use of the work in your portfolio

• Support with translation and localization of terms

• Promotion through socials and newsletters (30k+ followers)

• 80% of the royalties in your market

Of course, royalties depend on how the book sells. This model gives translators an incentive to be more than contractors. We’ll be part of a team, and the more translators market and push the book, the better it will work out financially for them.

As a rough estimate (based on Amazon KDP paperback royalties) translators would receive around 200 Euros if the books sells 100 copies. For 500 copies, they would receive 1000 Euros (and so on).

More risk, more reward. That’s my idea.

Are you an experienced translator (we don’t demand that you are a sworn or full-time professional)? Perhaps this would be your first book project, and you’d like to help out.

We are seeking translators for early 2025 in the following languages (all from English) — Spanish, German, French, Turkish, Arabic, and Portuguese. If you translate from English into a different language and you’d like to work together, get in touch — phil@englishwritingcoach.uk

With a team effort, I believe this book can travel around the globe. I’ve got a lot more marketing tricks up my sleeve, and I’m looking forward to working with a global team of uncle peddlers.

Next time, I’ll share more about how we plan to market and launch the book.

Be nice to your niblings.

See you next time.

It makes sense. Books make fantastic presents.

They’re not too expensive ($10-$25), and they show that you understand the giftee.

Whether you’ve bought a crime thriller because your mum loves murdery stories, or you’ve bought a Tolkien box-set because your daughter is weirdly obsessed with Frodo Baggins, you’ve put some thought into it.

Maybe you want the person to read the same book as you so you can share in its glory. Maybe you write personalised messages inside the cover.
Maybe you want them to think of you every time they see it on the bookshelf.

Books make great presents.

So, in my ultimate wisdom, I’ve decided to copy this strategy.

The A-Z of Rotten Uncles is aimed at uncles who need a Christmas present for their 7-11-year-old niece or nephew.

Let’s imagine a time-starved uncle searches Amazon for ‘presents for niece’. They’ll find a book which makes them look brilliant compared to the 26 featured rotters.

That’s the idea.

I promised a sneak peek into the characters featured in the book.

Here it is.

Uncle Dilshan has particularly poor hygiene standards.

Uncle Karl watches a lot of conspiracy videos. He has a few strange theories about the ‘coal trolls’.

Uncle Barry is VERY competitive. He wants to win at everything, even if it’s just shopping in the supermarket.

Uncle Jiffy is always in a rush. He acts like he is still 19 and goes to raves in his suped-up boy-racer hatchback. He is a forty-one-year-old pharmacist from Slough.

All of these brilliant illustrations will be in the book (along with many others).

Next time, I’ll have more information on how you can get involved in the project and we’ll announce the publication date.

Drive safe, don’t be so competitive, avoid those dodgy YouTube channels, and for God’s sake, take a shower!

And be nice to your niblings.

See you next time.

Phil

I recently wrote a humour piece for The Haven called The Last Non-Marketer on Earth. It might seem like I love talking about my own books, but in reality, I face crippling doubts when writing ‘buy it now’ content.

It’s no different when I try to sell a copy in person. Recently, I presented my book to a family friend saying, “Well, I have to try and talk you into buying my book.”

“Oh, you’re too kind,” she said, putting the book straight into her handbag. “Thank you very much.”

I was so embarrassed, I just took the ‘L’ and pretended I didn’t want her to pay.

If I’m selling a service, and I get a ‘no’, that’s not a problem. But getting rejected when selling the very book that contains part of your soul is crushing. Hearing crickets when you post about it online is almost as bad.

Book promo for Before. During. After. has been on my to-do list for months:
chasing reviews, writing posts, taking photos.

I will literally clean the house from top to bottom, polish the silverware and organise my three cupboards of tupperware by size order before knuckling down to promotion. And failure to sell the books close to my heart is so painful, I had to take a break from doing it.

Perhaps that time to reflect is what led to my sarcastic anti-marketing essay in The Haven.

Yet, at least with a book, you’re selling one product. Readers aren’t rejecting YOU. It’s just that your book isn’t right for them.

What can you do? Adjust your strategy and go again.

If you wanna write what you want, you have to sell your own bananas.

If You Hate Marketing, Why Self-Publish?

Here are all the reasons I’m getting back on the horse and selling my own wares.

1. I don’t hate everything about marketing.
   The creative planning, the strategy execution, and the psychology of copywriting are things I quite enjoy. It’s just the fear of failure I hate.
   

2. I’ve learned a lot about self-publishing.
   This has been from my previous attempts, and great resources on Substack and YouTube. Plus, writers in my online community and network have been kind enough to share their insights too. Third time’s a charm.
   

3. I’m done with traditional publishing.
   Big publishing sucks for authors. The querying process involves getting ghosted by dozens of smug Oxford graduates all with double-barrelled surnames. If you are lucky enough to snag a publishing deal, you’ll be fighting with red tape, suffering year-long delays, and earning pitiful royalties. Oh, and you’ll still have to do all of your own marketing.
   
   Self-publishing might not be ‘the big leagues’, but it’s fair. You make what you sell.
   

4. I have a bigger network and following now.
   In 2021, when I published the fisherwoman, I was mostly marketing at Facebook friends and the UK short-fiction community. Now I have a digital audience of around 30,000 (mostly on LinkedIn).
   
   Hopefully, some of the people who know me are also uncles looking for a present for their niblings. Networks of 30k are kind of handy for marketing too.
   

5. I believe in the project.
   Honestly, I sense long-term potential in this book.
   It’s something that could be translated and travel around the globe, and it could develop into a series. Also, with each iteration I learn more about marketing my work.
   

   ---

So can you really sell books without becoming a sell-out?

No one cares.

People see a book. They either buy it or they don’t.

Part of this Third Time Right Journey is me getting more comfortable with selling my work. I need to worry less about people saying ‘no’ and worry much much more about marketing my bananas.

Thanks for reading.

And be nice to your niblings.

Back when I had more time and less money, I hit upon the idea of writing a book for my nieces instead of buying them a Christmas present. This was 2014, a year when I had hours and hours of spare time trapped in my office at a university job in Mexico.

My nieces, Isabelle (3 and a half) and Orla (2), lived with their parents in Hong Kong. I was in Mexico, and the rest of our family was back in the UK. The last time I had seen them, Isabelle had asked who the mysterious figure on my jujitsu hoodie was.

Instead of explaining that I neither practiced jiujitsu nor knew the guy, I simply replied, ‘Why it’s Pop Pop Chicken Man.’

Soon, ‘Chicken Man’ became the focus of intense questions and developed into a sort of alter ego for me (a thin-legged uncle in a far-off land). Then, his ingenious catchphrase emerged (it’s just him saying “Oi!” a lot).

Summers were pretty slow at the university, so I started to work on a picture book for Christmas. I knew who the main character would be and had an idea for the story, but I faced a couple of problems: I couldn’t draw, and I didn’t know how to make a book.

Despite the threat of a copyright lawsuit, I decided to use Foghorn Leghorn to represent Chicken Man. There were plenty of PNG images of the character in different poses online. I proceeded to print and cut out the pictures, stick them onto the A4 spreads, and add text by hand. The basic story was that the chicken went around Hong Kong spewing questionable rhymes and bad puns in search of Isabelle and Orla.

I bound the pages with string and glued them into an unrelated but beautiful wooden notebook cover I’d purchased in Oaxaca.

The book was a smash hit with the girls (lots of pictures of them in it), but my plan to save money on gifts didn’t really work out. The production and postage costs for the book were about 50 pounds!

Producing this book took weeks of work. So when Christmas 2015 rolled around, I thought They’re not getting a book every bloody year!

The next installment came in 2016, and I have since followed the pattern of producing a story once every two years.

What’s cool is that in twenty-four months, the girls had moved on to being able to understand much more themselves. They wanted to turn the page and participate in the story.

That Christmas, the family was all together in the UK. Instead of a book, I had cobbled together an ‘animated story’ in the form of a PowerPoint presentation.

The girls could click through the slides and watch the characters move and talk. Many more characters were added, including two cat detectives who solved the mystery of the Milltown Thief (spoiler alert: it was Chicken Man).

Now, the girls could ‘watch’ this story back in Hong Kong. And as an added bonus, the postal cost was 0.

By 2018, the girls were six and nearly eight. They were developing into voracious readers capable of tearing through a mid-grade reader in a matter of minutes.

The story I produced was based on more bad chicken puns and the availability of two plushy toys (a chicken and an egg finger-puppet).

The Chicken and The Egg ran at about 4,000 words, and I took the pages to a print shop to produce two copies.

Rather than add pictures myself, I thought I’d leave this to the girls. It was fun to see how they imagined the characters. They really didn’t want to sully the books by drawing in them, but I insisted that I left spaces for that exact reason. I even had to threaten them with ‘NO MORE BOOKS’ unless they completed the pictures.

I’ll be honest, writing such an involved story AND producing the physical book was a lot of work for 2 ‘sales’. I’m relieved to see that the books are still on the girls’ bookshelves, though I’m not sure if the chicken and egg plushies survived.

Christmas 2020 saw a return to the lazy digital format — this time with poems. My nieces (now eight and nearly ten) were getting too old for simplistic stories where the chicken always found what he was looking for. So, I moved into education mode.

Poem Poem Chicken Man was a series of limericks based on previous characters and family members. The aim was to teach my nieces the form and for them to produce poems of their own.

According to their parents, this present was a resounding success because it kept them occupied for about an hour.

The last of the five books I produced for my nieces was the A-Z of Rotten Uncles. They are, to date, the only people apart from Caterina to have read the thing.

By 2022, they had their own Kindles, and it was cool to deliver the eBook to their personal devices. But, as any author will tell you, it’s not the same as holding the book in your hands.

That’s why, two years later, I’ve vowed to produce a paperback version with pictures. And this time, I’m hoping to get more than 2 readers!

Full List of Books Produced for My Nieces:

• 2014 - Pop Pop Chicken Man Goes to Hong Kong

• 2016 - Beefy and Big Eyes: The Milltown Mystery

• 2018 - The Chicken and The Egg

• 2020 - Poem Poem Chicken Man

• 2022 - The A-Z of Rotten Uncles

Thanks for reading.

Be nice to your niblings, and have an ‘eggcelent’ Sunday.

Phil

P.s. Here is a bonus shot of me being mean to Orla this summer during sunflower picking season.

You’ve published a book! 🎉

But so have about 1 million other people this year. 😟

That’s not an exaggeration. Figures vary, but my research tells me that your product is likely competing with a million other new books launched in the same year.

And what about all the other books on offer? Buyers have over 300 million to choose from. How the hell do we know what to buy?

4 scenarios for book buying in 2024 (in order of likelihood):

1. Buyer walks into a store (or browses online) for a present or something to read on holiday. They don’t have a specific book in mind. They leave with the latest bestseller or a heavily promoted title from a Big Five publisher.

2. Buyer knows exactly what they want and find it online through Google or Amazon. A friend has been raving about a new book and they want to read it too.

3. Buyer follows a link from a friend or family member who is promoting their book on social media.

4. Buyer (who is a keen reader) follows a genre author who writes trilogies or series. They see advertisements, posts or email marketing and buy through that.

Perhaps there are more scenarios, but I’d say (as a book buyer myself), these are the most likely scenarios.

Writers tend to focus on what they enjoy — writing. And in the months leading up to publication, writers often imagine a fifth scenario for book buying. Their book rises up the charts, garnering reviews, spreading via word of mouth, and selling well… all because it’s great.

Unfortunately, this rarely happens. Like, hardly EVER.

Book sales are not a meritocracy. They rely on marketing. That, in a nutshell, is what I’ve learned from two previous attempts at self-pub.

Enough of this yacking. Let’s travel back to the year I published my first book.

Foreign Voices (2018)

I collated my published stories from 2016-18 into a book of short fiction. My goal was this: to have a book. It seems silly because anyone can publish a book, but I could show this to my students and clients and say ‘Look, I told you I’m a writer’. Sometimes, a book is about authority not just sales.

I rushed the book to print because I had been told Christmas was a good time to launch. At that point, my dad was nearing the end, and I wanted him to hold the first proof copy. Thankfully, I got to watch him open the book and read the only dedication I’ve added to a book. For my father.

The Positives:

• I learned about what makes a book a book — front and back matter, copyright notices, ISBNs etc.

• After getting to grips with the KDP platform, I designed my own cover. I managed to produce a book which wouldn’t seem drastically out of place in a store.

• The reception was positive. Many friends and contacts had not read my work (which had appeared in literary magazines). I received lots of congratulations and well wishes.

The Negatives:

• I spent an insane amount of time tinkering with the typesetting and layout.

• I did virtually no marketing. No build-up, no plan, and no ARC copies sent. I believed that short-fiction fans around the world would magically find the book.

• The timing of the book sucked, and I rushed it. There are a few weak stories I used to pad the book to 200 pages because I worried readers would consider it poor value.

Overall, I was happy to have a real book out there in the world. I kept writing and publishing stories and dreamed of competition success and getting signed by an agent.

The Fisherwoman and Other Stories (2021)

It took three years to put my next book together.

Again, I wanted to collate previously published stories and package them into another book. I had learned more about the publishing industry and the UK short-fiction scene by 2021.

I’d entered the book into a few competitions and submitted it to some indie presses, but with no success. So I decided that this time, I would make a plan.

The Positives:

• I managed to line up some reviews from key players in the UK LitMag scene.

• I got some promo quotes from well-known short-fiction authors.

• The quality of the stories was better (some prize-winning tales in there).

• I spent more effort marketing via my social channels and performed some live readings.

The Negatives:

• The production costs were higher. I paid for proofreading, typesetting, and cover design.

• While I love the unique cover image (a friend of mine produced it), it’s perhaps not as striking in thumbnail form. This impacted interest and sales quite a lot.

• The title was not as clear or engaging as Book 1.

• I didn’t have an email list or any effective channels to market the book.

• Again, I did not line up enough ARC reviews.

• I played around with KDP ads and generally lost money on the campaigns.

I was happy to be the father of two books, but The Fisherwoman didn’t really move my writing career forward by much. After this book was published, my focus changed as my next book was traditionally published just 6 months later.

Results and Key Learnings

For each book, I sold between 100 and 200 copies. While money was not my main motivator, I probably did no better than breaking even.

I spent thousands of hours producing these books, and they brought me a few hundred readers and little money. This might shock you, but remember that more than 90% of self-pub book titles sell under 200 copies.

That’s the reality of so much choice. It comes down to marketing, not quality. If you are not able to tell the right people about a product they need, your book launch will go exactly like my first two.

As a literary writer who uses the fairly out-of-favour format of short stories, I can’t expect too much more. Quite simply, collections are not commercial products. That’s why big publishers don’t want to touch them with a barge pole.

In addition, I’ve learned that reviews are everything. Being honest, I would think twice about buying a book with only 3 reviews, so I guess you would too. Authors need to show strong social proof, even if it doesn’t immediately come from buyers.

What I’ll do differently this time

The reason I’m returning to self-publishing is that I believe the A-Z of Rotten Uncles IS a commercial product. It’s something that any uncle around the world can buy for their 7-11-year-old nibling.

This time, I’m building hype earlier (starting 5-6 months out). I’m also looking to build a long tail for 2025 marketing. This will involve readings, events, book fairs, an email list, translations, and consistent social posts.

Now, I have a digital audience of 30k+ people (LinkedIn, Medium, Facebook, and mailing lists). But more than an audience, I have a network of brilliant writers, publishers, and professionals (many of whom are uncles). I’ll be looking to harness the power of my connections to help this book break through into that top 10% of the self-pub market.

I’ll be frequenting KidLit forums and Children’s Author groups to club together with other authors and make some noise.

Who knows, I might even spend some money on advertising.

And most importantly, I’ll be sending out hundreds of ARC invitations to contacts so I can get some Amazon reviews on the board early.

As you can tell, I don’t really know all that much about self-publishing. I’m learning as I go.

What have you learned from your Amazon adventures? If you have any tips on self-publishing, please drop them in the comments.

Thanks for reading.

Be nice to your niblings.

How did you get started in illustration and art? Was it always your dream?

I've always drawn. When I say "always," it's because I started when I was very young. I found the reality around me to be limited, so through drawing, I gave shape to the things I had in mind.

Quando ti sei approcciata all'illustrazione e all'arte? È sempre stato il tuo sogno? 

Ho sempre disegnato. Quando dico "sempre," è perché ho iniziato davvero da piccolissima. Percepivo la realtà per alcuni aspetti “limitata”, rispetto a quello che avevo in mente, così attraverso il disegno potevo forma a ciò che immaginavo.

How would you describe your style? What influences you more, your roots in Italy or your travel?

One falls in love with certain styles encountered during their artistic journey. Those who do my job or are born with this inclination have voracious eyes. There are authors I have considered masters, followed by others. My style can take different paths depending on the commission, but I believe that, in an overall view, my touch is distinguishable.

Come descriveresti il tuo stile? Cosa ti influenza di più, le tue radici italiane o i tuoi viaggi? 

Ci si innamora con gli occhi delle forme che vedi attorno a te e desideri riprodurlo, o creare qualcosa che abbia lo stesso magnetismo. Chi fa il mio lavoro credo che nasca con questa inclinazione o, ad ogni modo, ha occhi voraci. Ci sono autori che ho preso come maestri. Il mio stile può prendere strade diverse a seconda della commissione, ma credo che a colpo d’occhio sia riconoscibile.

What are some of your favourite projects you have worked on?

"Tre gatte nel bidet", my picture book, of course. Also, a lot of covers that I did for Gallimard Jeunesse.

Quali sono i progetti preferiti a cui hai lavorato?

Sicuramente “Tre gatte nel bidet", il mio albo illustrato. Ma anche molte copertine che ho realizzato per Gallimard Jeunesse.

You're a writer too. Could you tell us about your children's books and forthcoming novel?

The idea for Three Cats in the Bidet was inspired by a few pages from Konrad Lorenz's "King Solomon's Ring" about natural aquariums and the ability of organisms to reorganise balances. It's a theme that fascinates me greatly. When related to children, I think of today's families, who often face instability due to various factors. The most common ones that can disrupt a family's balance include a separation, a move, or the arrival of a new sibling. Through the three cats, I wanted to convey that new balances are always possible.

My next book is set in a circus in late 1800s France. It tells the story of a heart-sick puppy struggling to find its place in the world. Due to its health condition, it appears to everyone as an outcast, a burden. Only at the end does it learn to trust its abilities and to turn the circus's fate around. At that point, it will no longer need masters and will be able to soar towards a new freedom.

Sei anche una scrittrice. Potresti parlarci dei tuoi albi illustrati e del tuo prossimo romanzo?

L'idea di Tre gatte nel bidet è nata da alcune pagine di Lorenz Konrad "King Solomon's ring" sugli acquari naturali e sulla capacità degli organismi di riorganizzare gli equilibri. È un tema che mi affascina molto. Rapportata ai bambini, penso alle famiglie di oggi che spesso incontrano l'instabilità dovuta a tanti fattori. I più comuni che possono sovvertire l'equilibrio di una famiglia può essere una separazione, un trasloco, l'arrivo di un fratellino. Con le tre gatte ho voluto raccontare che nuovi equilibri sono sempre possibili.

Il mio prossimo libro è un romanzo ambientato in un circo nella Francia di fine 1800. Parla di un cagnetto malato di cuore che fatica a trovare il suo posto nel mondo. A causa delle sue condizioni fisiche, per molti è un peso, è talmente mal messo che nemmeno sua madre ritiene di farlo crescere, per risparmiargli le sofferenze della vita. Ma alla fine, Cane impara a fidarsi di sé e scopre abilità che solo lui possiede. A quel punto, non avrà più bisogno di padroni e potrà correre verso una nuova libertà.

Why did you decide to team up with Phil? What attracted you to the project?

I met Philip because I wanted to improve my English. He also offered creative writing courses, and I was thrilled! I had an incredible journey with him, unearthing a creativity that had been dormant for a long time...

Perché hai deciso di collaborare con Phil? Cosa ti ha attratto del progetto? 

Ho incontrato Philip perché volevo migliorare il mio inglese. Offriva corsi di scrittura creativa e ne ero entusiasta! Abbiamo fatto un bel percorso insieme, e grazie a lui ho riscoperto una creatività che era sommersa da troppo tempo...

What about your uncles - do you get on with them, or are they rotten?

Haha. I have several "unique" uncles. One who, at 100 years old, was climbing trees and driving a car; one who, at 80, is still a lady-killer; one is an athlete, one is a priest, one is a photographer, one is mute (he doesn't speak because he doesn't want to), and one is a hypochondriac who loves soap operas. I'd say that's quite enough :)

E per quanto riguarda i tuoi zii - hai un buon rapporto con loro o sono un disastro? 

Ahah. Ho diversi zii "unici". Uno (per l’esattezza, un prozio) a cento anni sale ancora sugli alberi e guida la macchina; un altro, a ottanta, è ancora un latin lover di successo; poi ho uno zio super sportivo, uno zio prete, uno zio fotografo, uno muto per scelta (non ne aveva voglia), e uno zio ipocondriaco amante delle soap opera. Posso dire che tengono alta l’asticella :)

Where can people find you online?

Instagram — @caterinabaldi.illustrator;
www.caterinabaldi.com

Thanks Caterina!

I’m looking forward to sharing a few sneak previews of the illustrations for our 26 rotten uncles.