Greetings, everyone. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?
I’m not back yet, not completely, but I find myself in other gap between temp jobs so I am once again able to put all of my (still limited) energy into KMS.
I am still planning on keeping a low profile, so to speak, until at least the beginning of May, when I should have the final round of tests back. I’m doing a lot better, and I’m back to what has been passing for 100% for the past few years, but I’m still not where I want to be, or where I feel I should be. I still have a lot of bad fatigue days, when I can’t concentrate and my short term memory becomes almost non-functional. Once I have a few more answers, I’ll post a full health update with a breakdown of what has been going on. For the time being, just know that I’m technically healthy, nothing of major concern has been found, and my recovery has mostly been about small changes and progress so far.
Taking time off has also meant that I’ve had time to re-evaluate some things, but my personal and professional priorities, and how I want KMS to function in the future. Now that I’m more able to work, I have a few new tools I want to try learning.
But, here is the rub: as it stands, I simply can’t afford to put in all the hours I have been for the last seven years, because financially, it hasn’t been worth it. No matter how much I publish or promote, KMS has never broken even, which means I’m subsidizing publication, editing, printing, shipping, product development, tech editing, and supply purchases with money from my day job.
It’s not that I mind doing things this way, it’s just that physically, emotionally, and financially I can’t keep working two essentially full time jobs when one of them offers no benefits or even a steady income.
I know that making KMS my one and only full time job is what is best for me, but it’s proven to be untenable. For years and years I bought into the lie of “if you build it, they will come.” “Just put your books on Amazon, it’ll give you passive income.” But no matter how much I promote, I am still invisible to the algorithm. I’ve worked with coaches, editors, talked to friends and colleagues and nothing improves.
Anyway, that is my sob story. The only way I can think to rectify this is to redistribute how I spend my time and energy. I’ve been putting a lot of energy into the free things I offer, like this blog, in the hopes that sharing samples of my work would funnel more people toward my books and Patreon, but that never happened. So instead I’m concentrating on tasks that have more of a direct impact, like providing more diverse content for my patrons.
The types of content you are used to seeing here, like Would This Kill Me in the 1800s, other research based posts, and detailed information on my projects, will be posted on Patreon in the future, with only the occasional teaser here on the blog. The blog will mostly be a place to find regular updates on what I’m working on and where to find me, upcoming releases, and that sort of thing. I don’t know yet how often I’ll be posting.
This isn’t the way I want to do things, but it’s the way I have to do them, at least for right now. Maybe one day that will change. I certainly hope so.
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