John Higgs's Octannual Manual #64

The final Octannual Manual in this form - time for change!

Happy midwinter!

This has been quite a year for me. I’ve published two books and written the bulk of the next one (although that won’t be out for bloody ages). I’ve done over 30 public events, including dream gigs at places like Glastonbury Festival, Yale(!) and the Soho Curzon. Thanks to everyone who’s bought a book, listened to the audio or come to an event - without you, none of this would happen.

There won’t be as many events next year but they will be pretty special. To start things off, I’ll be marking the first anniversary of David Lynch’s death on January 16 by talking about him with Robin Ince at the BFI Library - tickets for this are available now, it would be great if you can make it.

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THE FUTURE OF THIS NEWSLETTER

This is the 64th edition of the Octannual Manual. Given that it appears eight times a year, this means that it’s now been going for eight years - longer than the entire Beatles recording career! This also brings us neatly up to the end of the first quarter of the twenty-first century, so all-in-all it’s a good time to reflect and to rejig things ready to face the next quarter century.

The plan is to do things differently next year. From today, a new paid subscription tier has opened up - but it is something a little different to your usual paid Substacks.

Don’t worry, things won’t change drastically for free subscribers. You will all still receive octannual news updates as before. But there will also be - for those who want them - longer essays called the New Moon Letters. And best of all, there will also a yearly collection of miscellany, the Midsummer Annual, mailed to paying subscribers as a physical book every year, at no extra cost.

I’ll explain my thinking behind all this. This Venn diagram is a good place to start. This is the world that writers of books have to navigate:

The books I write are attempts to hit the golden middle section here - things that I want to write, you want to read, and which don’t confuse the publishing industry too greatly. But this does leave a larger chunk of good stuff unwritten - the type of thing that is a bit out there for some, but which for others is the real gold.

The original purpose of this newsletter was to update the people who enjoy my books on what I’ve got coming up. I often included mini-essays along with general news in past newsletters, but I tried to keep them short as possible in order to not annoy those who were just after an update. And many of the things I was writing about really needed more space.

So from January I will also start writing the New Moon Letters - new essays on all sorts of topics that will arrive every new moon. The New Moon Letters will be longer essays than have appeared in past Octannual Manuals, but still manageable in email form. Now, I realise that it is usually the full moon - all bright and powerful - that gets the attention. But I have a soft spot for the new moon, when there is nothing in the sky but absence and a sense of potential, out of which all that follows grows, so that is what these essays will mark.

In the years since I started the Octannual Manual, email newsletters have gone from being a boring, old-school form of communication to one of the few areas of the internet immune to AI and algorithmic manipulation. Paid newsletters have become a real boon to writers and readers, as they can fund the writing of less mainstream work, yet I have long held off going down this route. Something about their basic model has seemed off to me. They can push your favourite writers and thinkers into endlessly spamming you with any vague thoughts they have, as they desperately try to provide value for money. The quality-to-quantity ratio, in other words, can be a little off. I’m sure we’ve all received the “here’s what I’ve been watching on telly” email in some form or other.

As well as this, I’ve also got a huge amount of writing from the past fifteen years or so filling up my hard drive - essays, book forewords, interviews and miscellaneous oddities. Much of this is rare, unseen or otherwise lost somewhere among the four corners of the Internet, and a lot of it is worth returning to. It would be easy to put all this out on a paid Substack tier, but in my heart of hearts I just feel these things work better in printed books.

So every midsummer I will also put out a physical annual collection of new and old writing. Paid subscribers will receive an email in early June requesting an up-to-date mailing address, and a signed book will arrive in the post a few weeks later, at no extra cost. This is for subscribers anywhere in the world (but only if their country’s tariff regime at the time of posting makes it financially plausible, I’m sure you understand.)

Again, I realise that midwinter is the traditional time for publishing annuals, but I am drawn to celebrating midsummer, for reasons I will probably write about in a future New Moon Letter. I’ll speak more about what the contents of the first one will be nearer the time. I’ve no idea what its cover will be yet, so consider this mock-up for illustrative purposes only (although I am fond of it…)

These Midsummer Annuals will build into a nice little collection over the coming years, and they will be quite rare, as the print run will be only a little more than the number of paid subscribers. Who knows, maybe they will worth a few quid on eBay one day? I’m aiming for each one to be around 150 pages or 50,000 words, based on my prejudice that collections of writers’ miscellany are great, but only for the first 150 pages.

So - to recap: For free subscribers, things won’t be that different. They will still get octannual updates. These will have less mini-essays than before, but the occasional New Moon Letter will be free to all when it seems appropriate, so it should all balance out.

But those who upgrade to a paid subscription will get the usual octannual updates, plus the New Moon Letters, and also a signed copy of that year’s Midsummer Annual in the post each summer. The cost is £6 per month or £60 per year. You can upgrade now, if that appeals.

I wish you a Merry Christmas, and the jolliest of new years! See you next time when we’ll be rested and ready - or we’d better be, for the second quarter of the twenty-first century is about to kick off…

jhx