(1 of 4) I just came across a rant from some guy from back in January—angry that I'd suggested to readers here that they recommend to this fellow the Proof books be added to his widely read list of recommended Trump books. It reminded me of something I've wanted to say for a bit.
(2 of 4) Being an author isn't how some seem to think. I'm a professor and not wealthy. I don't have a publicist; the marketing teams that work on my books are limited in what they can/do do—in part because they're working on many books at the same time. They don't work "for me."
(3 of 4) I hate—hate—marketing. I've no native interest in it. But getting word out about my books falls to me. Not because I think I'm great, but because if I don't get the word out it doesn't get out. What does get out—widely—are attacks on me. So I have to fight on two fronts.
(4 of 4) If my defensiveness or promotion bugs you, understand that I'm just a guy trying to get emergency info out there on my own and often unsure how to do it. I'm doing my best and don't mean to offend. I'll also say that in an emergency we have to look at content, not style.
PS/ If, in an emergency, someone who says they're attuned to that emergency—a purveyor of info or reader of it—says they ignore a guy because they don't like his style, understand that that means they think we're *not* in an emergency. Emergencies are definitionally "post-style."
PS2/ I've given all I can—time, energy, my health, and yes, money—to try to get information out in an emergency. I'm sorry if I sometimes did so inartfully. I hope you'll take from my inartfulness that I'm being genuine on here. I do not have some slick production team behind me.
PS3/ When I was 18, I hadn't done anything—and thought I was remarkable. Now that it's 25 years later, I've done a lot—and I've never thought myself *less* remarkable. So if you read into this feed—from 2015 to 2020—that I think I'm the cat's meow, I promise you that you misread.
PS4/ That said, it's my fault if my excitement over the fight to spread accurate intel in the Age of Trump, or my excitement—quickly translated from heart to head to hands to Twitter—that something I researched came to fruition, came off as vanity. It wasn't what was in my heart.
PS5/ I truly believe we're all—all of us Americans, and indirectly the rest of the world too—in an emergency. If someone you hate says something accurate that needs to be heard, spread it widely. There's no time anymore to bemoan a stranger's style or armchair-psychoanalyze them.
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