Whilst I’ve been cogitating over the past few days, I made yet another discovery that gave me another load of work to do.
This is the news story here that Meta’s terms of service will change on 30 October and will then allow Meta to scrape websites associated with commercial accounts and train its AI, and this is a follow-up 2 days later.
The updated version says that Meta has removed the word ‘train’ from its list of ‘allowed use’ cases. Either way, it’s still enough for me to close down my writing page on FB and seriously consider closing down my personal profile page.
I will keep the personal profile going for now, but I won’t be sharing a lot of information to it.
I’ve been slowly going through my writing page on FB, first of all removing any reference to anywhere people can also find me off Meta, and then slowly deleting all of my posts, apart from latest news posts. This includes the auto-posted blog posts. But it’s a long slog, because FB won’t often let us do a bulk-delete. It leaves things dangling, even though they’ve been removed or deleted, and this to me is the biggest con of all.
It’s forced me to consider what I might include in future in the newsletter, which will be revived soon, what I’ll include on Instagram, which will probably also fall by the wayside as it’s Meta too, although not a commercial/business account, and what I’ll include on here.
I’ve already decided that some things, like my writing processes, will only appear as premium articles on Patreon. This is because these blog posts go towards the writers’ guides I write on the same topics and there’s no point having them available for free for ever on the internet if I want people to buy the books. It’s also unfair on people who buy the books if others can still find the same material free of charge.
Here are some links, then, for readers who want to stay in touch with me and my writing:
Words Worth Writing: I’ll carry on blogging, but perhaps not in as much detail as I have previously. Readers can subscribe to the blog without committing to a newsletter or having to open a Patreon account. Blog posts, book reviews, month ahead plans, monthly wrap-ups, all of these will still be on the blog, completely free of monetary charge.
Medium: Blog posts, book reviews, month ahead plans, monthly wrap-ups, all of these will be on Medium, behind the Medium members’ paywall but with a link at the top for non-members to continue reading for free.
Patreon: Book reviews, month ahead plans, monthly wrap-ups, all of these will be available to subscribers on the FREE plan. There will be no regular blog posts on Patreon (apart from those like this one), but there will be premium articles and products available to purchase separately or on the tiered paid plans. Premium posts include Chapters – from books that are already published and for works in progress – writing advice, writing processes, and a short story at least every month.
Newsletter: Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll get a short story every issue in return, plus exclusive links to both the newsletter archive, in case there are any you missed, and the bookazine. It’s likely some of the personal news, such as holidays and photographs, will be shifted to the newsletter.
BlueSky: BlueSky is what Twitter used to be before it got silly. I never got along with Twitter and I jumped ship for BlueSky not long after Twitter changed to X.
Facebook: Yes, my personal profile is still on there, for the time being. I do think, though, that this is simply a sign of things to come, so don’t be surprised if this too disappears at some point in the future. However, I don’t generally accept friend requests from people I don’t know.
LinkTree: Also keep an eye on my link tree as this will include the most up to date information.
Buy my books: My books are all currently on Books2Read but I’m slowly adding them to GumRoad as well. The prices are likely to go down on GumRoad to reflect the GumRoad admin costs, but for now the books are cheaper via Books2Read.
Ko-fi: You can also buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. This needs populating with material, but I haven’t decided yet which to include.
Everyone is also able to comment directly on this blog post, and those who have them can contact me via email or phone.
More details will be provided once I’ve sorted everything out. In the meantime, thank you for reading!
This post appears on Words Worth Writing and Medium.
