I like the Internet. I like wandering down random rabbit holes in service of curiousity. I like how it exposes me to ideas and experiences that are far removed from me. I also like exploring the multitude of platforms, and their respective apps (or vica versa). While social media has become less my thing, I still have the habit of signing up for random things, just to see how they work. I was one of those who downloaded what felt like every app and then never used it afterwards. I still have apps on my phones that I haven’t opened in two years and yet I still can’t bring myself to delete them. Yes, I am one of those who carries two smartphones – one Android and one iOS – with the exact same apps on each.
Writing this, I took a break to go through my phones and found Mentorist, Flipboard, Later, Moment, Rhymers Block, Make Time, Quora, One Football, and a couple of fitness apps. I honestly have no idea when I last opened any of them.
And my email inboxes are chock-a-block with emails from sites that I signed up for, as well as newsletters. At the beginning of each year, cleaning out emails that I never got around to and unsubscribing from newsletters I can’t remember why I signed up for, takes many hours. Yet, as each year concludes, it feels like I am subscribed to as many, if not more, than before the inbox housekeeping.
I am also drawn to platforms that can help me generate revenue online as a writer. It’s uncertain how easy it is based in Africa when everything is structured for the US and parts of Europe, as I explored in Making Money Off Newsletters and Other Content.
Bookshop.org is the latest platform, which “works to connect readers with independent booksellers all over the world.” As an avid reader who has finally written my own book, I am all for supporting booksellers, but I only realised they only ship books to the US after I registered.
I have created a list of some of the books I read in 2023. If you are in the US and are interested, check it out HERE. Plus, my book Listen To Your Footsteps is available on Bookshop, so I figure it doesn’t hurt to support the platform as an affiliate. And, while Stripe does not support anywhere in Africa, it does have a workaround, which many of these types of platforms don’t have.
It probably makes sense to revisit platforms like Patreon, but to be honest, I don’t have the capacity to run it consistently, which is what all platforms need. I need to prioritise being more consistent in this space, with my newsletter and my podcast. Plus, I have started contemplating writing another book.