From Inbox to Bookshelf
Moving from temporary attention to permanent presence; from eyeballs to belly-buttons
I’ve been thinking lately about what I’m doing here. Here and here-here. Maybe you are, too. This newsletter, Tarnished Pennies, was supposed to be a place where I dump vomit out my brain on stuff that felt trapped inside the noggin that contained it. The brain, not the ideas. I have no idea where ideas are kept as they have no mass, they occupy no real space yet they are real, they exist. It’s a weird existence and the only reason I hope there is a God so I can finally get an answer to this dumb question at the Gate.
In September of last year, I collected the previous decade worth of stuff I wrote and bound that all up in a book, my second such collection. Since then, I have found writing this newsletter — difficult — to use an understated word. I seem to have run out of ideas, a purpose for this newsletter. It may shock a lot of y’alls, but fewer and fewer people are interested in aging wyte dudes opine on life.
No, really. It gets tedious. Ask your granddad or — if you are old enough — your dad.
So, I got to thinking about what I want to keep doing and what I don’t. Firstly, the easy thing. I don’t want to grind out a newsletter just to grind it out. I like writing, but when I need a break, I would like to take one without my readers going bonkers on me (thanks,
for reminding me how fickle readers can be. If you haven’t already, subscribe to The Department of Salad. Fair warning, there’s a lot of chopping!)So far, I’m going on about eight months of just not having a whole lot to say. Tarnished Pennies will be here and will have a story when I have a story.
What I want, though, is to keep making music and build my average, hobby, busking harmonica band that I hope never, ever goes pro. I’m going to share more of the process like practices, ad hoc “concerts” and open mics when I play them. Music keeps me sane and — as attractive as insanity sounds — I’m pretty sure there are some dark sides to it. I might be wrong, but I don’t think I want to risk insanity to find out. Besides, how would I know if I am insane?
I’m gonna share more stuff at 100Harmonicas.
Lastly, I like books. I like reading them, writing them and making them, so there is this thing I soft-launched because I’ve done it for me and a few friends and thought, “What if I just offered it to anyone?” I have no idea if there is a market for it, but I’m willing to poke around to find out.
It’s a new newsletter/service that sifts through your Substack (and/or Medium) stories and binds them up in a retail shelf-ready book. The primary purpose of this is to have a physical collection of your work, but if luck smiles, you will also have an industry-standard, retail-ready book. You can also use this as an appreciation gift for your most loyal readers. SharktoothPress (or Little Legacy Books, I’m not sure yet)
Here’s my thinking, let me know in the comments what you think:
There’s a difference between capturing someone’s fleeting attention and establishing a permanent presence in their life. When a newsletter transforms into a physical book, it moves from a temporary digital rental to permanent physical ownership.
Email newsletters exist in a curious limbo. While they reach your audience’s inbox, they remain fundamentally their property. The subscriber maintains complete control— they can delete, archive, or simply scroll past your carefully crafted words with a casual thumb swipe. This is the “eyeballs” economy, where success is measured in momentary attention and fleeting glances.
A physical book operates in the “belly-button” economy. It claims territory. It occupies space in someone’s home, commanding a presence digital content simply cannot. When your book sits on a reader’s shelf, it remains visible whether their devices are on or off, whether your newsletter has been read or buried beneath hundreds of others.
This belly-button real estate—physical proximity to your audience’s living space —represents the ultimate promotional achievement. Your ideas aren’t just visiting their digital world; they’ve been invited into the intimacy of home. Each time they pass by your book, your name registers in their peripheral vision. Your cover design becomes part of their visual landscape. Your ideas occupy physical, mental and emotional space in their life.
The transformation from newsletter to book converts ephemeral content that lives on borrowed and rented digital real estate into a permanent physical asset that claims its own space. Emails compete for attention in a crowded digital space while books stake a claim in the physical world — one that can last for generations.
Few things help readers transform “their newsletters” into “my book”— moving from eyeballs to belly-buttons, from temporary attention to permanent presence.
Maybe you just need a knowledgable guide to help you get from your collection of essays to a bound book or maybe you need someone to do the whole project for you, sorta planning on offering both. No fluffing, no grifting, just pretty boring craft.
I’m gonna build out more as the ideas gel, but I’ll take your thoughts in the comments.
*No fewer than nine em-dashes were used in this story. I apologize for nothing.
†I’ve always wondered what writers here on Substack do for a living (not all of us are making bank writing a newsletter) so I’ll tell you want I do. I create software for the youth soccer tournament market under the brand TourneyCentral. It’s going on twenty-seven years now and quite frankly, I’m very tired of the software industry. At some point, it’s like factory work; relentless, tedious, repetitive. I have an English degree, I didn’t aspire to be in tech and am looking for ways to combine my love of writing, music and books to figure out the next act of my life. This is me exploring.