I was inconsiderate but now I’m everywhere

Derek,

Is your POSEE code open?

how are you sharing it on Substack>
Yes see github.com/sivers for the code. Substack has no API yet so I copy-paste the articles by hand. — Derek

Hi Derek,

I've been wanting to reach out to you about self-publishing books i am writing. Do you recommend Amazon Kindle or what? WOuld you want to endorse one?

Peace,

Patrick Purcell LMFT

Hi Derek,

I have also been thinking of posting videos of me and eventually, Christina, when she feels better. I am on a creative roll with books and ideas to market. A friend Tim Denari doess boomerpedia. A niece Lexi Weinbaum is on Tik Tok reading her book and a first cosin of Christina's Laura Schroff has a book Invisible Thread that has been on NY TIMES best seller list. I am happy to hear your choice. Do you know or have you done anything for beginners at posting like Is an iPhone 17 Pro good enough to record and post.

Thanks,

Patrick

Very cool Derek! I always thought substack would be a good place for your writing. Like if a younger Derek was starting today, he might use that platform. Just subscribed there and looking forward to also hang out in this awesome little town here!

I was attracted to your work from the TED Talk and a couple of other stories from you. I didn't really become a fan until I commented on a blog post or sent you a note and it was answered.

The paragraph about that is when I started eliminating all the "no-reply" accepted notes and made sure that no matter what, in any size organization, when a user hits reply on an email, it reaches us. In any channel, we see that it is read and, most of the time, answered.

It is a decision that has made me money, but mostly it gave me a chance to talk to a variety of interesting human beings. Thank you for the inspiration.
☺ Thanks Warren! — Derek

I'm a stay at home type too, hate to travel, especially since I'm getting old

Derek - thanks for sharing the link to POSSE. Interesting syndication model.

I'm glad, Derek! This reminds me of how many musicians I know wanted to only sell MP3s off their own site. I described to them that being distributed to many platforms (like Apple, Pandora, Amazon etc..) makes it more like having a food product available in every grocery store across the country (and world?) compared to having it only in a single little store on one street in the world.

Was the record producer right? What was his reasoning? I like independent thought and action. I especially enjoy when someone goes against the grain because they see something I can’t.

It is like your time in the woods. It allows You to think independently. In my opinion this will ultimately make You stronger.

There is so much noise in the world; it drowns out what we need to hear - our own voice.

You’re on to something; it will be intriguing to see how this drives You and what it will produce. Good Luck, Steve

Boo-hoo, LinkedIn! The network is now completely dominated by AI bots.
Yeah, no LinkedIn. That's where I draw the line. — Derek

And I'm thinking you've got a program that auto-distributes.

Very wise, grasshopper.

Not sure how I feel about this one! I love visiting this corner of the internet, and prefer to click on your emails to come here than to surf the big social sites... I hope you don't stop sending those emails and posting to your own domain!

Derek, I need you to text me directly. It’s the only way you can reach me these days.

It's great to see you when I open facebook and instagram!

Great move. Sometime back I read a Seth Godin post and he mentioned - Platform is the goal. I was struck with the insight in the point. Thanks.

I think a key element to this is to actually point your post to a place where people can find engagement with them

The algorithm does not treat off platform links well even if they are relevant to your post

Instead of completely abandoning a site, I would just post the notice saying that this is here for consumption, but if you want engagement head over here

—Robert Sterbal robert@sterbal.com 412-977-3526 mosaics: www.facebook.com/groups/1783957901820381/

I created a harness to automatically syndicate to Substack if you don’t already have one. Images n all: source is an HTML file. B

Example;

open.substack.com/pub/makingaiagents/p/your-agent-needs-its-own-browser?r=obqn&utm_medium=ios

I just finished writing my first essay and am considering how to publish it. The timing and content of your message is uncanny. Thank you. I’ll see you on Substack, but now maybe elsewhere too!

Hey Derek! Great to hear from you my friend and congrats on venturing out. It's cool you have really revved up your socials! Way to go! I will add you on TikTok now (my handle is @WhiskeyChild) and look forward to seeing some of your vids on there and beyond!
Trey:)
WhiskeyChild.com

Threads is missing there! Why?

Why not mention feed readers? That’s how *I* get to know about new posts on your site. And always have. So to me, you’ve been considerate enough before. ;)

It appears that the one that I am using (Mastodon) is still just your website.

Besides that, the content that you post is also relevant ...
I made my own ActivityPub client on my own website. ☺ — Derek

Hi Derek,

Just wanted to report a bug: the generated preview link in Bluesky takes me to a 404 error page.
E.g. the article's link is sive.rs/u11 but it redirects to m.sive.rs/Sivers-Useful_Not_True-11.mp4
Ouch. Thanks for telling me. Fixed now. — Derek

Some insolent, unsolicited feedback, Derek.

I use Speechify. The internet reads itself to me now. I'm not sure how prolific your audio is, but you could lend your voice to it, and then we could listen to you speak your posts to us.

I already find you on your site and now Substack! But you just wrote a post about being considerate. So, one more channel?
I already do that. Almost every post on my site has me reading the audio, and this one will have it soon too. — Derek

> If you have something worth spreading, it’s considerate to spread it widely, to reach people through their favorite medium.

The worthiness of something is determined by the people on the receiving end. They'll decide if something is worth spreading, and if they do, they'll do the spreading. I don't feel like we should be the ones deciding if our content is worth spreading everywhere.

Please add a discussion channel to your Telegram, so we can reply and comment. Thanks :)

What an endeavor! I look forward to what you experience by casting this wider, more considerate net. It is not what I would suggest, though I’m not privy to your goals for leaving Jersey metaphorically. It is labor-intensive and defies my thinking about niching down in order to grow audience, counterintuitive as that seems. And ironically, especially on a thing called the world WIDE web.

FYI, The only socials I’m on are YouTube (will connect there) and LinkedIn.

Cheering you on to be sure! As ever, your fan…

I am torn by this shift, not because of your choices (as those are yours and yours alone), but about the one I have been gradually making.

Similar to but not the same as your 23 hours offline, I have been quite progressively retreating away from all social media creation (including Substack) as a means of giving myself less pressure and more time for writing whatever I want whenever I want and no stats to tempt me to do, change, or monitor how I'm going.

When I post for my own site (gwilsonswork.com), I'm doing it for whoever might have wanted to come and stay; no comments enabled a la a bit of Godin. But the minute I share something on another platform, I find myself feeling silently anxious about how the algorithms will share it, if I'll be 'penalised' for not logging in daily or turning on Paid features (Substack), and overall feeling like it's a time-suck to copy and reformat things for every platform one at a time.

Perhaps I will give POSSE a go, or perhaps I will continue my retreat as a more hard-line means of cutting myself off from those platform-inspired anxieties so I can just get back to thinking and writing.

This is so Derek Sivers of you! Starting to use all socials again and at the same time going offline 23 hours a day! Love it

I’m curious about the implementation here. Have you automated all of these, or do you do some manually? I love the POSSE idea, and I’ve got stuff setup between my website, Micro.Blog, BlueSky, Mastodon, and Threads. But haven’t been able to figure out how to automate to Facebook, X, etc.

Hi Derek!
Following you on most of your social media now. Your email got my attention!

Excellent strategy. I like the parallel you draw with the guys who didn't want to go to New York. I also publish on Substack; I've subscribed there, as well as on your Facebook and Instagram. Looking forward to reading and sharing your writing. 🙋‍♀️

Not sure I agree with this one. Unlike having to drive to New Jersey, everyone has a web browser and opening a link is instantaneous (or at least, no slower than opening an Instagram post).

Having your only internet presence be a website that you control adds no difficulty for readers but also brings us a little closer to a more wholesome, personable internet. It’s an act of resistance to the Silicon Valley behemoths who already govern so much of our lives.

I highly recommend “Ten arguments for deleting your social media accounts right now” by Jaron Lanier.

Hey. Thanks for posting. I first thought you didn't like social media. Maybe that's still the case but I can see the benefit of being in all places. Guess it's a matter of not being constantly checking the feed in those places. Only DM or mentions.

I resonate with this tension! There's something profound about truly owning your work, which only feels true on your personal site. And sharing on different socials takes effort. But ultimately, it's where other people spend their the time, so sometimes you do just need to go to where they are :)

Nice to see this forum especially for those of us who aren't on social media. Good to see you get more accessible!

After more than 20 years of doing open source social media stuff I finally gave it all up back in September. I don’t miss it, and I still have IRC and forums to keep me social.

I love this, Derek! I would love to know if you figure out a way to automate this and how are you doing it. Thanks for sharing like always.

Thanks, Derek! This is the path for journalism as well, possibly with more variants.

Who fights it the most? I would say Facebook. That platform does more to throttle efforts to reach out than any other. But it also has a different audience than X or LinkedIn. So even within social media, there are necessarily multiple routes.

But the other thing you can do with multiple routes, is you can tailor your message for that specific route and their audience. That's worth considering.

what about spotify? does that count? i know you can’t post there but i’d enjoy checking out what you like to listen to. maybe find some new music too.

Silence really is golden (and difficult to find).

I have this website....
www.jbpravda.com

Should I be more considerate, albeit Brooklyn born?

Blessings
Jack Nicholson lookalike

Whoa! This is a huge update! Social media is something I've struggled with because I don't like the economics of it (BUMMER, per Jaron Lanier), but I can see the argument for meeting people where they are. This just gave me something to really think about.

Hi Derek,

Would you consider providing seed grant as an angel investor for an entrepreneur?

Hao

I have to get on this as well. Set a deadline to write a script and record, strip a short video out of it, post it everywhere, pair it with a Substack article, then repeat every week until I make some friends.

I feel inspired and torn. I have been off social media for years because it intuitively felt like — I don't want to invest my energy and consciousness onto a platform that has values misaligned with mine. This still feels true, *and* what if I'm wrong? What if it would serve more to express myself there?

So yeah, I feel torn at this moment.

I do want to be shared widely, and I'm not yet sure it's in integrity for me to be on a platform like facebook, tiktok, etc. (And, what if I'm wrong about that? That's what I'll be chewing on).

Thank you for sharing so much with us, Derek. Deeply appreciate that you exist and let us in in the ways you do. You rock.

To avoid redundancy and give a unique edge benefit to following me depending on the platform, I share something a little different but still connected to my main mission depending on the vibes of the platform:
(either @emzhung or find me at Emile Hung)

Linkedin - main that encapsulates both missions of mine (ghostwriting and Nutrition No-Brainer)

Newsletter - main for developing long-form in a way that isn't as isolated as in just a standalone website or blog

X - similar to Linkedin but has some spontaneity and casualness, more for real in the moment updates sometimes (prefer its text basedness than to "instant" of "instagram"

Instagram (I like the gallery layout to the profiles so..)- homemade recipes

Tiktok (lots of quicks so instead would share storyworthy moments worth sharing)- storytelling shorts

Youtube (allows and feels more for longer investment of time)- deeper dives/more personality-based

Facebook (wildcard one...but sharing a personal challenge and advice of what I actually overcame): burnout for international medical students

I think this going to become more popular, posting from one place so people can confirm it wasnt spoofed or ai generated. Hope youre doing well enjoying the kiwi life.

Derek,

This is same Kevin as previous comment #47.

My wife and I host a podcast, Better Than Therapy. You've been on our short dream list of 'dream guests. We would LOVELOVELOVELOVELOVE LOVE!! to have a conversation with you about THIS TOPIC (and whatever else naturally emerges). Would you be opposed to exploring this as a possibility even a tiny bit more?


p.s. About 15 years ago, when I had yet to leap into entrepreneurship — I was young, and I emailed you to let you know a link was down or something, on your site. You emailed me back, and asked what I was working on, etc. That tiny act blew my mind. At the time, it was paradigm rattling that the Great Derek Sivers (lol!) would care about little me. Thank you for who you BE! Big Love.

AI is Killing the Music.
Soon, when you go to your favorite Night Spot
the Stage will only have a Loud Speaker
connected to Spotify.
The Grammy Show will only have a
Thumb Drive Jockey.
With No HUMAN Creativity,
It Will All SUCK !!!

Dave Kaspersin
Dynamic Recording

Hi Derek, please add me to the list of people clamoring for you to say a bit more about how you implemented this? Your link to POSSE is helpful, but POSSE doesn't seem to implement with X.com, facebook, and maybe others?
My code is at codeberg.org/sivers/sivers but there are friendly tools to do it for you. — Derek

Wow, cannot believe it! What about Audible for the audio books?!
Yes my audiobooks are all at Audible — Derek

Oh, and now I'm seeing your NOW page, and that you're not doing podcasts now. Cheers!

Outstanding Derek I will get to those sites as time permits, been busy but making time to make time.
Thanks Brother

Hello Derek, first of all I want to thank-you for taking your precious time to help your readers and complete strangers that you don't even know. It really shows how kind hearted and loving you are. Thank-you for that, we all appreciate. Now I would like to ask you a question, I'm 15, I'm desiring to go to it or top unis in uk or usa, (currently I'm based in uk), if you went back to the age of 15 what key principles would you incorporate to have maximum potential?

how do comments across the various channels work? I assume broadcast-only--you still read/engage w comments on your own site, but doing it everywhere is just ~too ~much. Wish to confirm
Most APIs notify me of comments so I can import them all into my inbox on my own server, and reply from there, not caring (or even knowing) which platform the comment came from. — Derek

Awesome! Great idea.

Mould you add Nostr to the 'cities' that you come to visit?

The Posse model is similar to something that Chris Brogan said a long time ago (or maybe it was Seth Godin? not exactly sure), but that you wanted to own your own piece of the internet by putting your content on YOUR website, but that your customers didn't live there. They lived in all the outposts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), so if you wanted to reach those people, you had to go there. The point was to (try to) drive traffic back to your site. Solid advice, since any of the social networks (the outposts) could shut you down in a minute for reasons beyond your control. It's nice to see it reiterated and refined. Always a pleasure to read your work, sir.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this. I don’t know if this will happen but it’s what I’d like to see happen, so I’m building some experiments for how it might happen. Like you, I’d like to see the blog return as the source of truth for content. In the near future, I see agents being a core way people get their content needs met. Especially people who want less infinite scroll and more intentional/customisable consumption habits. One agent serves you what you like, when you like how you like it, because it has your context. No more having to go to multiple platforms. RSS or an evolution of it might have its day yet… social platforms are just aggregators anyway… when/if agents become mainstream I’m not sure they’ll be as popular as they are now. What you reckon?
Agreed! But many people just won't go outside their one platform of choice. — Derek

"Substack has no API yet so I copy-paste the articles by hand."

I used Claude to build a tool to automatically load articles from Gdocs to Substack. LMK if you want to try it or would like something similar to go from a different platform.

While my website billpetro.com is the canonical source of all my writing, I syndicate my blog articles to all the social platforms. Just the title, and a link (with an image).

I have profilers on each of these platforms:

Facebook, X/Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, Tumblr, Reddit, Quora Space, Warpcast, and Digg

Congratulations on spreading the word of Derek across the world. I read this in conjunction with your 23 hours offline blog. I'm curious about how you managed to keep everybody updated on all these platforms without spending all your time doing it. Please share
I wrote a script that posts to their APIs from my own server. — Derek

It IS helpful to be everywhere your potential readers/viewers/listeners might discover you.

Meeting people where they are makes sense. But I think an additional consideration should be taken.
Books (long form)
blogs/ website (short/ medium form)
Twitter BluSky X (short form)
YouTube (long form)
Reels / Tik Tok (short form)

All of these audiences are different. Hence, why they have different preferences of media consumption. If you aren't going to enter each of these mediums tailoring to their audience (let's say their culture) are you really meeting them there- being considerate?

I like the concept of Website being the master source. But each of these works needs rework, a specialized tailoring to be effective and impactful alin each separate medium. I wonder how that relates to the guy in New Jersey. Maybe he knows he likes his area. Maybe he was inconsiderate, maybe he knew he didn't know the latest trends and algorithms so never made the trip into Manhattan.

These are just thoughts I have as I see Mr. Beast and now corporate America try to navigate the Internet and have a presence on every platform available

Couldn’t agree more. I came to the same conclusion recently too. Building highways to our doorsteps.

If it can be automated, then there's no reason not to do it, but if it turns into more manual work, which means less of your own content, then I personally still have a trade-off with the decision when I think it through for myself. In addition, other platforms need the content in a different form or with images, etc. But the most exciting question for me is whether you then only post there and ignore the interaction, because otherwise it becomes a never-ending story and one hour online a day is not enough. What were your thoughts on this?
I’ve built step 1 which sends the text/video/image out, but step 2 is to have the replies (to me only) come into my server so I can just handle them like an inbox on my server, and never have to see the other stuff. — Derek

Derek,

This brings me back to the early days of the internet. At the university they gave everyone a website. I found Matt’s script archive and put together a Perl cgi script to let people post comments.

I was thinking of your email subject about being 23 hours offline. I still take my notes on a Midori A5 paper notebook. But when I want to digitize it, I take a picture of the notes and send it to one of the LLMs to transcribe.

This was fun.

I really appreciate your way of living.

Do you use a tool to post across all of these channels?
I use their APIs to post to all at once. — Derek

Dear Derek 👋😃
Those are interesting thoughts... Finding places to share our creations is so important!!
Thank you and great to hear from you!!
Tunes ahead!!
Rachel 💓👋🎶😃

Hey Derek,

Do you use a tool to manage your posts / simultaneously post on all these channels? If so, what is it or which do you recommend?
Yep. See github.com/sivers/sivers for the code, and for videos I do advance scheduling of daily uploads. — Derek

I'm assuming you arrived at this thought within your new setting; case in point! Your thoughts were able to take you to a past experience and bring it current, with new meaning and urgency.
That's also great advice that I will take with me.
It's interesting how being away from social media caused you to look at it a different way, putting into perspective it's ability to reach a whole array of demographics. Beautifully paradoxical!

If you're just posting links and not interacting with people, then I don't know if that's being less inconsiderate so much as simply a distribution strategy. You're not really "there" in Manhattan; you're just posting signs that point back to your little town in New Jersey. Still, I appreciate that you're casting a broad net and making it easier to find your stuff.
I also interact. — Derek

Thank you for sharing the POSSE link! It helped with something I've been pondering. Have a great day!

Hi Derek,

I simply cannot image you posting your pearls of wisdom on all those social networks.
Did you hire a social manager(s)?
Or did you wrote the code which posts all that for you with a couple of clicks?

Loving how you live your life.
Yarve
Just code. I have no team, no employees. — Derek

Hi Derek, if you were a musician again, today, which platforms would you use to spread your music widely,
I don't know. — Derek

Well done Derek ! Always good to reach more people 🧜‍♀️🎶😎🤘🎸🙏🪷

Thanks Derek - this is such a good reminder to me that it's important to 'travel' the world, to discover and experience and stretch myself. (And maybe all the more critical to balance deep periods of introversion and isolation?). Thanks also for listing your master sources - inspiring as always,

The first time I heard about you, Derek, was actually on a podcast. Right after that, I ordered a physical copy of How to Live. Since it came with the digital .epub version, I skimmed through it while waiting for the book to arrive. Later, I looked you up on Instagram—the “social media town” I spend most of my time in—but couldn’t find a single post. Honestly, that feels like exactly the right call! Keep going, Derek !

Ps. Such a sweet story about the record producer!

Derek - Good to see you here, there, and everywhere. - Marc

Hi Derek
In your email you misspelt
Inconsiderate as
inconderate
I thought there was a word I had never heard of !!
All the best
Ne

The eternal battle between leading a simple life, versus being considerate to others - Or, could it be considerate, to invite people to your personal environment, so you can offer them your most authentic experience? Useful, and true? :)

I understood this analogy, but when I went to your instagram page I instantly felt my brain focus flooded by everything else that's on that site. I didn't feel the precision of seeing your email, and going straight to your bare bones site. I prefer the feeling of space (and page layout) of your little town. :-)

I still feel thrilled "discovering" hidden gem websites like this. So even if you publish everywhere, don't discontinue publishing on your website.
Never! I’m more likely to stop syndicating. This website is my home. ☺ — Derek

Dear Derek, what a privilege it is to continually see you grow and blossom in all your beautiful humanity. I know you're not perfect. But your integrity and commitment touches the heart. Your helpful and nurturing nature is nothing short of beautiful. Grateful for the generosity of such masters with a mature and philanthropic heart. I wish you a long, healthy, and prosperous life full of child-like joy and happiness.

I have no commercial interest.
I remember when blogs were new and one was advised to keep them short and post often. Blog posts today are considered to be longer than other media. But blogs were, back then, were considered to be shorter than discussing over coffee.

A novelist pointed out that book-lovers were having off-line conversations to their hearts content, and genuinely not caring about missing out on computer life.

My blog essays of 700 or 900 words are what I write to my hearts content. I don't want to publish shorter or more often. After all, in the off-line world I adjust my topic, words, sentence length and paragraph length to match the motivation of the listener. That's common sense. On-line, I'm missing out on folks who genuinely prefer Twitter. That is Okay, because my tribe is print-lovers who read blogs.

Just reread “Your Music and People” for the 3rd time. Thank you for practicing what you preach : )