Why not accept money for your audiobooks? Why give them away for free?

I think I have covered this before, but a fresh look might have some value. Immediately below are in-summary bulletpoints, with details after that where necessary:

1. For more than any other reason, I simply don't want to. Every other reason boils down to this one in one way or another.
2. The raw power of free stuff.
3. Every time I release an audiobook, it strengthens and advances conservatism.
4. We need a more educated voter base.
5. The most wide open door is a zero-cost of entry.
6. Having a fascination with progressivism, this greatly reduces potential customers.
7. Past lessons learned from the Tea Party era.
8. For works of the Founders, competition from commercial works.
9. The Founding Fathers deserve to have their voices heard. A substitute must arise.
10. Fellow conservatives have helped me, so I respond the same.
11. New: The advantage of having de-monitization as my starting point.

First , third, fourth and ninth are self explanatory I believe.

Second: the raw power of free stuff.

In my opinion, one of the greatest powers shunned by the conservative movement is free-stuff. I of course mean free-stuff that isn't sourced from government, which is called charity, but in reality it is held far and wide among conservatives as almost a badge of honor to cast aspersion and shade toward the prospect of free stuff. If it had value some might think, someone would be charging for it and leveraging the power of the markets to promote it. This whole narrative is of course false, and it is been damaging to conservatism for decades. The real-world effect is conservatives have willingly built a monopoly for progressives and let them live there rent free. The powerful rent free monopoly of free stuff.

I give my charity time to conservatism and to some extent I do so while putting a target on that monopoly.

And yes, free stuff is extremely powerful. On average most of my audiobooks have between 10-15 thousand downloads, and several have upwards of 40 thousand downloads.

Fourth: a more educated voter base.

The amount of historical works that should be considered but simply aren't considered, I wouldn't even know where to begin. However, if I can double how many people are more familiar with the works that made the country it can only have a positive return in my favor. I think this one is probably self explanatory as well but I wanted to expand on it. Additionally, a break with "endless modernity" would serve us all well.

Sixth: my fascination with progressivism.

This answer lies in my side-bar "about" quote from Sun Tzu. We need to get a better handle on the enemy which we do not have, and yes I put myself in that category as well. I still have much more to learn about progressivism no matter how far down this road I've already gone. So in the short term, there wouldn't be people buying them anyways. But in the long run, we must, MUST, know the enemy. So even with a book written by progressives for progressives, this knowledge of them only strenghtens the resolve to advance and honor the Constitution.

Seventh: lessons learned from the Tea Party era.

This is one that I have not written about here before, but is very motivating for me. At the time I knew organizers personally so I can vouch first hand that organizing is extremely time-consuming and painstaking work. Most organizers simply couldn’t afford to be an organizer without finding a way to be an organizer and get paid for it.

The media weaponized this and used it to great effect. I was personally heartbroken when I saw so many fellow conservatives demonize conservative organizers who got paid for it, as if they were taking advantage and getting paid too much or otherwise had sinister motives. It’s all water under the bridge at this point as very very few remember anymore.

But I saw this and realized(this was one of the most important, out of many reasons) that I would never ask for a dime for any of my audiobooks. Never. One more point on this, is that even referring to it as the Tea Party "era" is heartbreaking, but there's a stigma in conservatism generally that shuns activism. "I have a job, so I can't be bothered to lift a finger for the Constitution." No, people don't usually word it THAT way, but that's what you said. Yes, that is what you said. You value your job more than your liberty, and we're all paying the price now for such widespread apathy.

Eighth: competition from commercial works.

As one example. George Washington has several commercial audiobooks available on Audible, so, pragmatically, why would I spend my time recording one? There are also public domain audiobooks of Washington. Great as the man was, this just does not need to be a focus of mine. For one, many other great Founders don't have audiobooks - commercial or public domain. It would be much more beneficial to conservatism to fill that void instead.

Tenth: the Founding Fathers deserve to have their voices heard.

This is a huge problem that only a hard core conservative firebrand activist can resolve. Have you ever noticed something about commercial works? The problem with commercial works is that they are compilations. They aren't direct original sources. What I mean, is that the work tells a story, and often times that story isn't accurate. So to some extent, the commercial work isn't really about the Founder. The commercial work is about the historian. By recording a Founding Father from an original work, you are making it purely about the Founder. Plus at this point most historians are dishonest, so by recording the original work you're also de-fanging those who commit historical malpractice.

You want to hurt the 1619 Project? Free and open source audiobooks are one prime example of how to advance your cause. Time to pick out a microphone and use your weapon. You're the only one stopping you.

Now realistically microphones did not exist at the time of the founding, so the Founders can never and will never be able to speak for themselves as it has come to be known. But they can still have a voice, if conservatives gave it to them. To use a phrase, "The Founding Fathers speak for me, so I speak for them", in the most literal sense - a word for word recording of an original source without any commentary whatsoever. Only a word-for-word recording would be sufficient. We don't need to and we shouldn't change their contexts and meanings.

I will say it because I need to: One day I would like to work with fellow conservatives in the creation of open source audiobooks. The reality is that right now, one man cannot do this in the span of one lifetime and complete the work. There are too many Founding Fathers, and they wrote way too much. And that's not including the philosophers they read (Locke and Adam Smith, for example), the first-generation histories that got it right about the founding, and even many of the second-generation written histories that got it right. 100 years (assuming I'm lucky to live to that age) is not enough time. Luckily there is some of this work already done, but that still doesn't bring it down to one lifespan.

I can think of worse things than giving charity time directly to the Founding Fathers. That is the real world result.

Eleventh: the De-Monetized advantage.

This only became an advantage to me in the last year or several. I started out doing free or pro-bono work for many other reasons, and the reasons are different now because finances are being used as an aggressive banking target. But the reality is that this does give me a rare advantage that I know many in the conservative world simply can’t afford.

I actually have probably forgotten a few, but I think this is a good summary statement or re-statement about the value of what is being accomplished here. I think I should close with this: I'm not telling anybody how they should live, though I have called out a few false premises. I only give away because I choose to and that is my choice alone. At the end of the day, you do what's best for you.

But DO NOT think that de-monitization and censorship go hand in hand because they absolutely do not. Censorship can come alone, and de-monitization cannot silence us all.