Sam is going to see that star
There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
Hi friend,
How are you? It’s been a minute.
I feel like I keep saying this, but I've moved since my last letter. This time I’m still in Providence, which is...well, it’s Providence. The old place was untenable. An upstairs neighbor who, swear to god, loved to move furniture around overnight. An eye-watering chemical smell of unknown origins that I couldn't keep out. About 1/5th of the building turned into short-term rentals. And so on. Bad scene.
But I'm out of there now, in a better place literally, which aids the lifelong effort to be in a better place figuratively. I’m still sad, of course, as I have seemingly always been. And I still get Big Sad here and there. But it doesn't stick around as long, and I can still get out of bed in the morning. I'm living with someone I love on purpose, and a cat I love because he's ours, and life could be a lot worse.
Nearly Open to Work
I've been seeing successful, historically self-employed industry colleagues turning on LinkedIn's "Open to Work” banner, and I don't have to wonder why. Check in on your indie / small business / freelance friends. It’s rough out there.
I'm still making — trying to make — my own go of it. It's been ... effortful? Demoralizing? Draining. Often satisfying, often fun. I like choosing my projects. I like going to the grocery store at 2pm. I like using as many em dashes as I like. I like not having to force eye contact with extroverts and listening to loud music while I work and taking a walk whenever I need to.
Effortful or no, I do prefer this solo and of late low-income life to working for someone else. But I might not have a choice here before long. Do let a fellow know if you know of any teams who need professional development training in writing, content design, or content strategy. Or a consultant to help turn chaos into clarity, which is what I do best.
Now Available Nowhere
A Book Apart (ABA), publisher of my first and so far only finished book, Writing for Designers, has closed up shop.
Many authors were understandably upset about how it went down, and how some things had been handled before the long slow slide to the end. We all got stiffed on some royalty payments, and folks with more recent and/or popular titles got hit hard.
Me, I mostly feel gratitude and sympathy. Glad to have been part of it. The book existed, the thing happened. And I’ve often been the person pulling the plug on something people love that I couldn’t quite make work. It sucks.
The final months involved a lengthy collective negotiation. We landed on publishing rights back at no cost and operations ceasing completely. The CEO, Katel LeDû, and creative director, Jason Santa Maria, have been generous with their time and expertise since, nicely packaging up files and providing guidance on the publishing industry and book design.
Helpful or no, I got overwhelmed by the timeline, options, and to-do list. The easiest thing was just to cease sales, wait for my mental fog to clear, and regroup.
The fog is clearing. And while I swore I was just going to remove the ABA branding and pop a simple ebook up on my website, I have instead started working on a new edition. I’m thinking of it more like a director's cut at this point than a sequel; I'm dropping the voiceover, and Sam is going to see that star.
Authors with their shit together have already launched new sites or otherwise kept their titles for sale, and I've no doubt they would appreciate your patronage.
If you want to stay in the loop on Writing for Designers: The Barely Revised Edition (working title), simply remain subscribed. But maybe invite a friend to subscribe, too?
New Workshop: Communicating Change
I ran a workshop at the Button conference last year about communicating changes in products and services to your customers and/or users. It’s based on a talk I’ve been giving on and off since the 2012 Information Architecture Summit in New Orleans.
The one-shot workshop proved to be a good format for this topic, so I'm running one myself here soon, on August 15.
Early bird through July 31, which is $295 USD. If you would very much like to attend but can't afford it, send a note and I'll see what we can do.
New Course: The Practice of Content Strategy
Content strategy is a big tent; an encompassing discipline that overlaps and/or shares DNA with many adjacent disciplines in business strategy, writing, content, and design. So it can be a hard to find your footing.
I'm pretty good at helping people find that footing. I've turned what I know about the practice of content strategy from my 15-year career into a six-week live online course. It first ran in the spring for 9 students. Folks seemed to like it. Some testimonials:
This course was a great dive into how to apply content strategy as both a job and as a practice. It provides multiple tools for how to approach and understand content strategy whether that is as a specifically titled job or as part of a general role in content.
The course's approach to content strategy as a practice and discipline rather than a specific job makes it broadly applicable to a variety of content-related roles and situations. I saw a lot of ways to apply what we were learning about content strategy to my role in technical writing.
I'm running it again starting September 3. Classes are recorded and there's an online community and discussion groups, so even if you can only make 4 or 5 of the sessions, you can complete the course.
Early bird runs through July 31 and is $895, but for you, my friend, it is a mere $595 with the code YGEFSK.
(That's how I abbreviate the name of this email list, btw: You Get Email From Scott Kubie.)
That’s all for now.
I hope you're well, safe, and as happy as can be expected.
Until next time,
Scott