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46 votes
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US literary magazine retracts Israeli writer’s coexistence essay amid mass resignations
25 votes -
How to subtitle your book so people will read it: Tajja Isen on balancing the demands of marketing with artistic vision
13 votes -
Etsy sellers are turning free fanfiction into printed and bound physical books [against the wishes of the authors], and listing them for sale for more than $100 per book
59 votes -
The price is wrong: How error-riddled scores get in the way of promoting music of marginalized composers
12 votes -
The ambitious plan to open up a treasure trove of Black history
8 votes -
The Sad Bastard Cookbook - No longer available on Amazon
16 votes -
[Molly White] – Migrating from Substack to self-hosted Ghost: the details
32 votes -
Substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis, the company said today
46 votes -
Reducing the friction of publishing online?
I'm looking for ways to make it easier to publish on my personal blog. I've had WordPress blogs in the past, and I find that they set up a constant grind of upgrading — upgrading core, upgrading...
I'm looking for ways to make it easier to publish on my personal blog. I've had WordPress blogs in the past, and I find that they set up a constant grind of upgrading — upgrading core, upgrading plugins, reconfiguring the upgraded components, fixing the things the upgrades break...
It was stealing too much of the little time I have to devote to my blog. So, when I built my current blog, I built in on a static site generator (11ty). It took longer to set up than just writing HTML and CSS, but it does make it a bit quicker to get something up since it will build pages from markdown, and it doesn't require a ton of upgrading every time I want to sit down and write something. Sure, I could upgrade a library or two each time I sit down with it, but it's just spitting out HTML so I don't really need to.
That said, it's still more friction than I want. I'm currently obsessed with mmm.page. I love the playful UI. I love the design language it encourages. I love how it makes the tech get out of the way and puts you closer to getting your content out. That said, there are several things I don't love:
- It's not accessible. I can't pick which elements to use. I can't write alt text for images.
- It's not open source. This means a lot of things. It means when the developer loses interest, it will die. It means we can't evaluate it. It means we can't self-host it. Speaking of these...
- Development seems to be slow. There's one item on the roadmap. It was suggested in April. I have a feeling it's not making the money the developer had hoped and they've lost enthusiasm for it.
- We can't self-host it. Now, this means I'm stuck paying $10 a month. Tomorrow, that could go up to $20, and there's nothing I can do about it.
- There's no easily apparent escape hatch. I guess I could just download the pages it wrote and host them elsewhere, but that's probably not ideal. If the developer does decide to close up shop or double the price, I want an easy way to take my site and go somewhere else.
- As far as I can tell, it doesn't support RSS. I am a staunch believer in RSS, and I believe the web sucks without it. I won't want to run a site that doesn't offer it.
All these problems leave me with a web site that provides too much friction and a solution to that problem that leaves many others in its wake. Does anyone know of an alternative that's similar that could address some or most of these issues? I'm a developer and I still would like to be able to publish online without doing developer-y stuff, so it's easy to see how social media has been able to bottle up so much content on the web. I'd love to think there's something that could bring us out of this dystopia... or at least make it easier for me to share a list of the games I've been playing recently. 😅
26 votes -
In WWII paperback books were mobilized to improve morale
9 votes -
The Norway model: How the Scandinavian country became a literary powerhouse
8 votes -
Has it ever been harder to make a living as an author in the Anglosphere?
13 votes -
Scholastic Book Fair will discontinue separate collection of race and gender books
23 votes -
Scholastic to separate books on race, gender and sexuality for US book fairs
26 votes -
The US library system, once the best in the world, faces death by a thousand cuts
39 votes -
A publisher published a book on educational technology generated by AI. Authors of a cited source found plagiarism
10 votes -
Bill Willingham sends Fables into the public domain
39 votes -
KKR to acquire Simon & Schuster from Paramount Global for $1.62 billion
14 votes -
‘I can’t stress how much BookTok sells’: Teen literary influencers swaying publishers
13 votes -
I’m excited to try podcasting!
9 votes -
‘Not for machines to harvest’: Data revolts break out against AI
40 votes -
The shady world of Brave selling copyrighted data for AI training
59 votes -
Independent journalist uncovers a ring dedicated to publishing low quality articles and increasing publishing credits
35 votes -
Vice, decayed digital colossus, files for bankruptcy
21 votes -
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?
8 votes -
Speed trap | Google promised to create a better, faster web for media companies with a new standard called AMP. In the end, it ruined the trust publishers had in the internet giant.
14 votes -
Buzzfeed News is shutting down, laying off 15% of its US workforce
11 votes -
The end of computer magazines in America
6 votes -
Judge decides against Internet Archive
20 votes -
DPReview.com to close
9 votes -
I was a sensitivity reader – until I realised why I was hired
6 votes -
BuzzFeed says it will use AI to help create content, stock jumps 150%
8 votes -
Dungeons & Dragons’ new license tightens its grip on competition
28 votes -
OSTP issues guidance to make Federally funded research freely available without delay
12 votes -
‘Zombie papers’ just won’t die. Retracted papers by notorious fraudster still cited years later.
9 votes -
The Penguin Classics Marvel Collection breathes new life into iconic stories
3 votes -
The Talented Mr. Bernardini - A young Italian is accused of pulling off the book world’s most perplexing crime. Who is he?
7 votes -
The attack of zombie science - They look like scientific papers. But they’re distorting and killing science.
8 votes -
Adblocking does not constitute copyright infringement, German court rules
11 votes -
A new publishing platform for comic books will give creators a greater stake
6 votes -
How to save the novel - self-censorship and problematic language in modern fiction
4 votes -
‘Tortured phrases’ give away fabricated research papers
16 votes -
Printer jam: Serious supply issues disrupt the book industry’s 2020 fall season
4 votes -
Stop saying print journalism is dead. Sixty magazines launched during this crazy year
10 votes -
The e-cigarette company Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal, with all the articles written by authors on its payroll, to ‘prove’ that its product has a public benefit
25 votes -
Substack just made a major new hire as it goes after comic-book writers and expands its fiction efforts
4 votes -
Scale was the god that failed
10 votes -
Marvel picks Penguin Random House as new distributor
4 votes -
Why I am obsessed with the forbidden Seuss
11 votes