Writers Without Walls is a fortnightly newsletter aimed at providing support, information, education and a community of writers supporting writers. With a focus on helping writers transition from Web2 to Web3. A project that JD had been working on for some time until he saw a post by David, another writer and good friend of JD’s, enquiring about any writers interested in starting a newsletter together. JD quickly did a mental pivot and responded…

After a few discussions, finding out they had more in common than we previously thought. Such as their dislike of the current system of getting published and how little writers actually earn. Both in traditional publishing and self-publishing. But also their experiences in Web3 and how they could help other writers in their journey to make a living out of their writing and protect themselves.
They decided, excitedly, to go ahead with the idea.
Starting today, the newsletter will be on Substack, Zirkels.com and Medium. Then the community will come on Entre. Our profile is set up and ready to go once the launch of Entre’s Communities goes ahead.
Check us out on Entre here - Writers Without Walls
James and David met on a decentralized social media platform, Bitclout, as it was known then, now DeSo. A friendship started to form, and they both were involved with Flick’s “Vaults” launch with their respective works. Since then, they’ve supported each other and shared their discoveries while exploring Web3 opportunities for writers.

Who are these guys?

David J Meyer

David lives in the mountains of North Carolina. He enjoys writing short stories in multiple genres, but his heart truly lies in the dystopian/post-apocalyptic world.
He learned to write, like most kids, in kindergarten and then spent the next 12 years of school learning to hate reading and writing. The school curriculum made him read books he had no interest in and write papers for the approval of one audience member, the teacher.

In 2018, he found out how wrong he was and began reading and writing again for enjoyment. And once that fire sparked, his love for writing grew like a forest fire.
Last year, he released his first self-published work, Life or Death, on Amazon and Gumroad. He recently launched those same stories on Readl as NFTs.
In 2021, David had the vision of releasing the full Life or Death book as an NFT securely stored on-chain, but no solution existed.
He has spent the past year building Spatium Stories, a platform that allows authors and readers to securely publish, read, sell, and collect NFT Books on the DeSo blockchain. Spatium profile on DeSo.
They just launched their beta a couple of weeks ago and are releasing their secure cloud reader this week!
David also writes a lot of blogs about a large range of topics and publishes those on Substack and Zirkels.
Lastly, he’s planning on writing his first full book in 2023: a dystopian trilogy about a corrupt world that controls the population by only allowing a quarter of humanity to be awake in each season of the year.

James D Armstrong

James is known as JD. He is from Perth in Western Australia. He writes predominantly short stories of the horror/thriller genre. His first collection, “Do You Dare?” was published in 2018 after dying in 2015, realising that would be his one big regret.
The collection is available on Amazon, on his website
JamesDaleArmstrong.com and available to read for free to holders of his creator coin on DeSo, via Zirkles. JD's profile on Deso Do You Dare? on Zirkles
and he is in the middle of releasing them as individual NFTs per short story on the Readl platform - Do You Dare?
Collect all 10 NFTs on the Readl platform to go in the draw for a personally signed paperback copy of the complete collection.

Featured Articles

Each newsletter will feature articles from David and JD and a selected member of the Writer’s Without Walls community.

From David’s Desk.

​TikTok, Amazon exploit authors.

I feel like TikTok and social media as a whole have created some of the most fascinating case studies for psychologists.
But that’s not why we’re here.
There was this trend on TikTok (which has mysteriously disappeared) where people figured out you could return your ebooks on Amazon. 
You read that right! Return an ebook.
I didn’t even know this feature existed. But if you accidentally purchase a book for your kindle, or purchase one and try the first page or so and hate it, you can totally return it.
That seems harmless, right? Perhaps even helpful?

Read the full article here → ​TikTok, Amazon exploit authors.

From JD’s Desk

Writing is Hard — Here are some tips.

I know what you are thinking. Oh god, not another article on writing by a writer.
Or that’s what you would think if you were on that platform. The one that can’t be named. You know the one. Fine, I’ll tell you. It’s Medium. I’ve been on Medium since 2018. I wrote one article around when Facebook was looking at doing Libra.

Facebooks Libra is NOT a Cryptocurrency

Then nothing for three years. I then decided to have a go at it, but before I did, I thought I’d do some research. So that’s why I’m putting this here. Not because I think things will get so crap here like Medium. But hopefully, it will save some budding writers time and wasted energy. Also, save them a massive headfuck in the process.

Read the full article here → Writing is Hard — Here are some tips.

Writer of This Issue

This section will highlight a different writer for each issue, chosen from the community on Entre. We are waiting for the launch of communities. We will choose a writer that subscribes to this substack by clicking the button at the bottom. Or subscribers to our Zirkels blog here → Click the bell to subscribe.

Our Sponsors

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Each newsletter will list all current sponsors and link to their website, promotion, etc.
The top sponsor not only will show up on the blog at Zirkels, but they will also get a write-up in the “Our Sponsors” section above the other mentions. The format of this will be discussed with the top sponsor prior. To qualify, the sponsorship must have been in effect for at least 7 days prior. Contact will be made a few days prior to discuss the format.

Originally published on our Substack 30Oct22