I have spread myself across a large number of blogs over the years, and it has it has not been the most efficient use of my time and energies. I should consolidate. To that end I'm going to take some of my other blogs private. In the case of blogs that have run their course anyway, such as my H G Wells blog, my Anthony Burgess read-through or my translation of Vida's Christiad, I might as well leave them publicly accessible (it's not as if many people access them, anyway). But with my various other blogs, I will take them offline.
This blog
used to be literature and related stuff, but has, latterly, functioned as a kind-of Author Website, announcing my publications and so on. Elsewhere is the Sibilant Fricative blog, which has been where I (mostly) posted science-fiction-y stuff. Then there's my Notebook on Medium. I've been posting stuff there for a while sometimes quite substantial pieces, original work, essays, reviews of things, some creative work; but I can't say Ive been impressed with Medium as a platform. The interface is limited, in terms of layout and posting, glitchy, and I have not been able to monetize my writing. One must accrue a large number of followers before it becomes possible to do this, and my appeal is too niche and limited to do so. Really what Medium wants is accounts with millions of followers: posting about Taylor Swift or One Weird Tricks or whatever. That's not me.
Since starting Substack-ships I have already received a number of paying subscribers, along with larger number of free subscribers. My aim will be to post about two third free-for-all to one third subscriber-only posts, and by bundling into one place my various interests—SF, literature, poetry, culture, reviews of stuff, this and that—I will be making something of a mixed cassoulet. But there you go.
