I'm Not Turning Into an Influencer

My plans for zensounds in 2024

On New Year’s Eve, we usually stay home and go to bed early.

We don’t drink, and our dog hates fireworks, so we’ll just make pizza and watch some YouTube videos on off-grid living and permaculture gardening.

Looking back on the year, it was a time of growth – in the past 12 months, my number of subscribers has multiplicated by the factor five.

Among those new subscribers, there were a few potential clients, which led to new project work, and magazine editors, who started commissioning me for their publications.

Unfortunately, freelance journalism doesn’t pay well: I rarely get offered more than $400 for a story, with the average fee being much lower.

Some writers churn out an artist feature in a day; I usually need two.

Prominent writers have discussed this issue on Substack: Ted Gioia has been turning down every offer from legacy media for the last three years, and Erik Hoel keeps turning down the New York Times.

They can make more money by publishing newsletters – and they don’t care about the fame or ‘exposure’ they get through a legacy media site, which also isn’t what it once was.

Most freelance writers make a living by juggling journalistic and commercial work, like PR and marketing copywriting; personally, I have been consulting companies on their editorial and content strategy.

While I don’t come anywhere near the numbers of Erik Hoel or Ted Gioia, with your help I’d love to turn my growing newsletter into one of my actual ‘jobs’ next year.

Here’s my plan.

• The weekly posts will stay free. They will go behind the archive paywall after a few weeks, same as before.

• The newsletter will stay independent. I will stick to my principles: Zero commercial/corporate influence on zensounds. No promotion, ads, ‘collaborations’ or sponsorships. I’m not turning into an ‘influencer.’

• There will be some additional exclusive posts for paid subscribers only.

As a paying reader, you’ll have full archive access, you’ll get every one of my posts, and you’ll actively support the writing you enjoy.

Thanks for considering!

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Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on How Nichiren Buddhism Saved His Life

Start your year on a positive tip with some words of motivation and wisdom from Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, the L.A. based multi-instrumentalist and composer who has worked with everybody from Flying Lotus to Anderson Paak.

In my interview for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, the leading independent Buddhist journal in the West, Atwood-Ferguson opens up about how he overcame his severe depression by committing to a daily meditation practice.

We also spoke about the genesis of his massive triple debut album “Les Jardins Mystiques, Vol. 1”, released on Brainfeeder in November.

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Media Diet

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Listening: Keith Jarrett, Eyes Of The Heart (1979)

Jarrett on piano and soprano sax, Dewey Redman on tenor, Charlie Haden on bass, Paul Motian on drums – a stellar live recording in three pieces, recorded in 1976 and released on ECM.

Reading: Annie Dillard, The Writing Life (1989)

A poetic but still apt description of a writers’ daily routine:

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order – willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

Watching: Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Memoria (2021)

The Thai indie director’s first foray into English language cinema with an outstanding performance from Tilda Swinton – a fascinatingly slow meditation on dreams, human memory and the inscrutability of our everyday lives.