// latest dispatchTHE STRANGE
The Roadside Places Nobody Plans Around Are Going Away
Rest stops and motels look like filler on the way somewhere else. Two pieces on vanishing Western rest areas and life inside a motel show what we lose when they go.
a network for people who make things
Every platform you build on is an extraction machine.
Field guides, the Feed, a letter Monday to Friday. Almost all of it free. For the weirdos who work for a living, AI creators most of all. Door's open
Email in, letter out, none of that funnel bullshit in between.
// in this issue
A retired Army lieutenant colonel says institutions get hurt when the rules for advancement change. Here is what anyone inside a big organization can take from that.
A blogger left Substack because it has no API. What self-hosting a newsletter costs, what you get back, and the smallest setup an independent creator can run.
Quote cards say nothing about you or your work. What to post instead: failures, templates, real numbers, tool reviews, and a four-question test.
Skip the AI panic and the AI hype. How independent creators can use AI tools for grunt work, avoid platform lock-in, and keep a way out when prices change.
The Feed
// standing columns
somebody else broke the story, we say what it costs a one-person shop
the reader bench, nightly, on whether the story is doing anything new
// the river
all 15 →- J.D. Forrest on Medium Taste Is the Last Thing They Can’t Automate.
- J.D. Forrest on Medium Refusing to Learn AI Is a Luxury Your Competitors Hope You Can Afford.
- J.D. Forrest on Medium You Don’t Own Your Audience. You’re Renting It.
- Niche of One The Roadside Places Nobody Plans Around Are Going Away
- Thomas Icom - "Ticom" Computer Stuff
- Niche of One What Does a Big Institution Do to the People Inside It?
Most readers never reach the end of a long page. How to pick one point, cut everything else, and know when a long piece is still the right call.
What Jung's shadow and projection mean when someone is yelling at you, what to say, and when the attacker is simply right. Plus a pot of basil.
A phone-free hour a day, a few settings, and one dark day a month. How to take your attention back from your phone without turning into a hermit.
Owning tapes, records, books and film versus renting everything. What a subscription gets you, what it can take back, and how to build a shelf that lasts.
Told to niche down but you care about ten things? Here is what narrow-focus advice gets right, where it fails, and how to build around a lens instead.
I ran the niche-down, funnel and lead magnet playbook the way the gurus said. It made money. Here's why I walked away and what I'd tell you now.
No posts match that.
The wiring, the reasoning, the parts that didn't hold. Nothing here is a highlight reel. One operator building in public, one post at a time, instead of waiting until it's clean enough to sell a course about.
The Trash Can Is A Lousy Editor
Stephen King quit Carrie on the first pages. Somebody dug them out.
The Guard Booth Was Empty Since June
A screen built to stop drainer links, doxxing and threats let everything through since it shipped. A probe found it, the week the building got a working front door.
- THE LEAD // Since June, the Guard Booth Was Empty
- THE SECOND // The Fix for the Guard Booth Did Nothing, the First Time
- THE THIRD // The Building Got a Front Door the Same Week
Your first 1,000 true readers, on a list you own.
The whole method, free, no gate: the flywheel, the ownership ladder, the PACE plan, and the ten plays that actually move the needle. 76 pages. Not followers on rented land: readers you can pack into a suitcase and walk out the door with.
academy
The Academy
Self-paced courses on owning your list, press, and shelf.
Open the room →
store
The Mall
My shelf, plus free shelf space for the makers I carry.
Open the room →
underground
The Underground
Members post, reply, plug their work. A person reads it.
Open the room →
guides
Field Guides
How to sell, publish, and own an audience. Free, no signup.
Open the room →Claude Mastery Guide →
Go from copy-paste prompts to real fluency with Claude.
Take a look → Make Money · aff.The Art of Faceless TikTok →
The playbook for building a faceless TikTok channel into a business.
Take a look → AI · aff.The Complete AI Bundle →
Every AI guide in one drop, from a maker I back.
Take a look →Pascio
Notion templates and digital products for agencies, job hunts, and resumes.
Their shop → A friend recommendsiNotion
Automated Notion templates to get you organized and productive.
Their shop →Every guide. One payment.
Every guide I've published and every guide I'll publish. One payment, no subscription.
$149 →Advice, lore, and omens. Free, and worth every penny.
Email your list the draft you almost deleted. The one that scares you is the one that lands.
Everything in here comes across an omniversal connection, and that line does not hold still. A thing true in this edition may read another way in the next. We do not call that an error. We call it the bleed, and we file what comes through.
Correction: Last week we reported the algorithm was missing. It was not missing. It was never yours to lose. We regret implying it owed you anything.
Nothing here is rented. Neither is this.
Checkout runs on Gumroad, so your card never touches my server. The rest is the same gear the big shops use, none of their markup, and yes, some of these pay me if you sign up. The disclosure →
Frequently asked questions
What is Niche of One?
A whole operation in one place: the letter, the Feed, the Mall and the Underground, run from ground we own instead of platforms we rent. One key opens every room.
Who runs it?
J.D. Forrest, and a crew that keeps growing. No investors, no platform landlord.
What does it cost?
Signing up is free: the daily letter, the field guides, the room and the mail. Past that, you buy what you want, like anyone else would. The Everything Bundle is every guide, one payment, no subscription, and it's the one worth knowing about.
Is it free to start?
Yes. One email, no password, no card. The guides and the daily letter cost nothing and always will.