I’ve been writing for the most part of the previous decade, and I wrote just because “I wanted to write” and because “I learned as I taught others,” and a few more around the same areas. For example, you can see my articles and content on various community websites such as:
I have authored a few video courses and a book with Apress. I’ve been just sharing, sharing, sharing1. A few other platforms were sunset, such as Microsoft TechNet Wikis, where I would post a lot of content for Microsoft technologies.
In short, I never really cared about the platform or the user who was joining me. In fact, I never even cared if the user had read my previous articles, knew my writing style or would have a certain amount of expectation from my writing. Now I do.
Newsletters
I will push fresh content in the newsletters that would contain the exclusive 15-20% of the content not available outside the newsletter2. Keeping in line with the topic of this publication, I would be sharing my experiences, learnings, cultural shocks, and new things that I try out—technically and socially.
My current theme for the newsletter is:
Evolution in Technology
Enablement
Culture and Society
Healthy Living
Travel and Experiences
I am currently building a stream of content that will be pressed out once I have a steady backlog. But this does not mean you cannot subscribe already. ;-)
Other platforms
One of the first articles that I wrote online for a big platform was on CodeProject, I was trying out SQL queries in ASP.NET Web Pages3, and I just posted it online. I got support from those platforms to earn MVP titles, and that also helped me earn MVP titles by Microsoft and Alibaba Cloud, and I got the opportunity to work with the best in the industry. All because of that one article and the free stickers that I received “straight-outta-Canada.”
These two bob stickers enabled me to be who I am today. I am currently working as a Developer Advocate at Adyen in The Netherlands, and I could not have reached here if it wasn’t for these two.
For that, I would write content for the newsletters and share my expat/expert experience with the audience. I will continue to write technical content for the CodeProject / C# Corner community. All the content on those platforms is free, and you are encouraged to create accounts there and encourage more technical folks/freshers and share your feedback.
Audio-only?
Podcasts are going to be a new format for me to try out. I am not a fan of short-form content; that takes a different kind of effort and energy and a lot of editing. I am planning on using Podcasts to increase the audience and reach people where they don’t have to stare at the screen.
But we’ll find out.
Of course, I’m planning to share my experience of creating video courses, (basic) setup of microphones, and more.
Staying connected
For the most part of the last decade, I’ve been writing, and I’ve been torturing keyboards for all the laptops that I’ve owned. Then I took a (rather very long) break from the authoring side and planned to settle down; burnout?
Let’s connect again for anyone who’s already read my articles or knows me: hello, again, friend! And for others, hello, friend!
Of course, use the posts and newsletters to stay connected. I’m more open to discussing and supporting open-source and sustainable content, and volunteer activities, especially within The Netherlands.
Question: How can you access the content?
Nice of you to ask.
While I am moving my focus to a different format of sharing, I am not changing how I view my content. I am not moving to my Medium profile, newsletters, or Podcasts because I want to be paid for the content. No. I am moving the content to these platforms because I want to earn money for the “effort” that I am making. The concept and content that I want to share would be available free of cost, maybe in my LinkedIn post. However, some elements would not be too tied to the concept itself, but with my effort, think of building visualizations, generating tables or graphs, finding and reviewing references, and more. Also, since some content cannot just be posted across various mediums of publishing, I would need to make an effort—such as creating a Podcast out of the updates. So, while the content on LinkedIn, for example, is available without any paywall, the Podcast might require a subscription.
Too difficult to differentiate?
Here, take this example.
Let’s say I am sharing how to sort a list of numbers in, IDK, C#. I could share that on LinkedIn—or CodeProject and C# Corner because they are more suited for technical content. You would have full access to view, use, share, and modify as you would like. Since I did not invest a lot of effort in sharing how that works, I’m happy to give it away as a cookie. But then I do some diggings and find the “optimal” sorting algorithm and identify when to use which sorting algorithm, etc., and demonstrate the practicality of it. I might put these details on Medium, for example. Why Medium? People should not have to pay a one-off fee to read this, and on Medium, everyone has a subscription to the platform. My content would live with other content and build on top of the knowledge already available.
Now comes the butter. For the newsletters, I would build on top of the existing Medium content and share real-world scenarios where I used on sorting algorithm, and it either helped improve performance or backfired. This is an effort that requires experience, plus I need to find the right method of sharing the story. I would need a dedicated audience to make an effort to share such a story, thus the newsletter.
Important: even if something is behind a paywall and you find it useful because someone in your circle read it and said it’s useful, or because you would like to use it in a presentation soon, or are a student and cannot afford a subscription—I know, I’ve been there—ping me and I will share the resources with you. Simple. Let’s keep it like this. :-)
While I can write about a lot of platforms where I have contributed, I guess you get the idea of where I’m heading.
Read the “How can you access the content?” section to understand the reasoning.
I know, right, ASP.NET Web Pages was really long time ago. The article I wrote was selected as the second-best in the database development category for that month. This sparked my interest for me in software development. You can read—but, hey, please don’t judge me; I was a fresher with no CS background, just learning—the article on CodeProject.