Wal of Books Digest?
My desire to paint the world with the colors I want to see includes the nostalgia of a printed magazine or digest. I loved sitting in the doctor's office as a kid because it meant I could read whatever issues of Highlights they had. I desperately wanted Nickelodeon magazine because of their commercials. I loved skimming through Reader's Digest as it arrived at my family home as my mother has a subscription. Even to this day, I still read the single issue of Playstation magazine that I got in 1999 whenever I come across it in my mother's attic. What's new in this issue? What games could I play? Could I make whatever recipe they have for me this time? All of these things that I felt as a reader are things that I want to be able to provide as a creator.
I want to be able to make something that I can reliably put out that someone is waiting for on a monthly or seasonal basis: something in print that they can look forward to. I create such a variety of things, I feel like it would be the perfect way to showcase and catalog my journey. This isn't something I personally care about, but it would definitely help in creating my own brand. That will please all of my supporters who think I should be focusing more on monetizing my work and making it into a lucrative business. They have to constantly hear me say "I just wanna create, that will come later," so this will be my compromise for the time being in a way, and not entirely because I see it as a small first step towards building what they expect of me. It will be a way for me to stay out in the light instead of always retreating to the darkness to create, as I am want to do. People will see that I'm alive and making stuff that is relevant to the time and that more is to come. I will not let my fears, past and current keep me from moving forward in this fashion.
I'm actually hesitant about doing this because I actually made a zine before during what I call my quarantine arc. I was so afraid of never seeing my friends and family again during the quarantine of 2020 that I plunged myself into working on the zine that I made monthly for my Basement Pretzel brand. I tried to link everything together to my YouTube channel in a way that I now think made zero sense and it cost me my sanity, finances, and my connection with other people. I was wracking my brain for ways to make my zine unique and interesting that it ended up just being something I beat myself into doing, running on fumes creatively and humanly. For a long time for WoB, I've been avoiding even attempting to do a magazine or digest because I was worried that the stink of shame from my last run with the Pretzel zine.
I no longer feel like I can make that excuse for myself anymore, seeing how far I've come with my books. It would be a disservice to my books to put this sort of thing off any longer.
I think if I manage my time and efforts appropriately, I can deliver consistently with a proper Wal of Books digest. I simply need to lock in for a bit and sort out the details then follow the plan I've made and trust in the process. I can see every other aspect of my project benefitting from this digest. I think I'll start off seasonal, or four times a year, just to figure out the kinks. I would say "I want to eventually do it monthly," or something in the future, but I feel like I've said so many things like that in the past and I don't think they serve someone like me at this time. I make statements like that and I look into the future I predict for myself for so long that it fades away. That future, it's so alluring, however I need to be here in the present so that my prediction can come to pass.
I would like to set it up so subscribers of a certain tier on Patreon will get these digests as they become available and the rest I'll sell on Etsy. Does this sound like a good start? Please let me know your thoughts and perhaps I'll drop a free version of what I'd like to become a series.
