When change rocks your boat and how a homestead can cope

When you wake to disappointment

Some days you get out of bed, check your emails, and what you hoped was going to be a day full of homestead abundance, crashes to the floor, and your soul breaks. I had a day like that last Thursday.  I got a mass mailing from Amazon because I post Amazon affiliate links on my blog. Amazon told me they are changing their user agreement and that beginning tomorrow, March 1^st, I will be penalized for telling you about free Kindle books on my blog.  Not just a little penalty, but 100% penalty.  Ouch.

A time for courage and joy

After I picked my broken soul off the floor and cried a bit, I did what all seasoned homesteaders do when they lose something precious; I looked for a way to carry on with courage and joy.  If you’ve been hanging around with me for any length of time, you know that almost a year and half ago I started listing free Kindle books on my blog to help my homesteader, prepper, and fiberarts-self-reliant friends to have a more abundant life.  Gracious, they were free, and while some of the books were unedited duds, many were pretty informative, and some were real treasures of homestead abundance.  What I loved about listing the free books was that I could quickly, get valuable information into the hands of thousands of people for only a few hours of my time, each day.  And that valuable information, when applied made a huge difference in peoples’ joy, confidence in the future, and ability to be self-reliant.  Folks, who read the books, stopped being fearful of the economy and these perilous times, and instead, looked to the future with confidence.  I loved that I didn’t have to write a book or a blog post on each of the self-reliant subjects to help you, but I could just point you to the best free Kindle books each day.  It was an amazing gift for the season that we had it.  Did you enjoy it, too?

A reciprocal relationship

What amazing reciprocity – Amazon told me what books were free, I sorted through them and found the best ones in the categories that you love best, and posted it in an organized post to make it easy for you to find what you were looking for.  I know you started expecting the daily post and looking forward to the time when it would go live.  Maybe you even hung around my blog waiting for it, as some folks did.  And I didn’t have to charge you for the service, because if you bought anything, Amazon gave me 4% of most of your purchases if you clicked on my link before putting it in your shopping cart.  You got free books and I got an honorarium for my efforts.  Granted most days I didn’t even make minimum wage for my time, and the cost of my website tripled, because of the increase in traffic.  Still, it seemed worth it, because so many folks were helped.  Many folks realized their own significance for the first time and we started talking each evening about “homestead abundance”.  It was a special love that started because of the gift of a book.

What the change will mean to you

That’s all changing tomorrow.  Tomorrow, Amazon told me, if I continue to list free books on my website or on my Facebook page, Amazon will take away 100% of my Amazon affiliate income – no more honorariums.  I’ll even lose the earned income that I get when folks click on the Amazon ads on my other pages, and buy my advertised items.  Change is painful.  I’m telling you this, in case you went to my blog today looking for the daily free Kindle books for homesteaders post and were wondering why it’s gone.  Now you know.  It was fun while it lasted though.  It was something special that we shared for a season.

In a way, I’m glad for this, because beginning tomorrow our relationship will change.  I will be able to write about the things that I’m really passionate about like holistic husbandry, herbal medicine, healthy home cooking, and building your homestead business.  I won’t have to worry about disappointing someone who isn’t here for the same reasons that you are.  And I’ll be able to focus more on encouraging people like you, who are looking for and celebrating their homestead abundance every day.

Members-Only Book Club

Today, I started up a members’ only book club, so that I can continue to give you a daily list of free Kindle books.  I’m offering it at a special introductory price, both because this is a new service, and because there might be a few glitches to work out.  This members’ only book club isn’t for everyone.  In fact, its only for the folks that value their time and want someone else to look for the free homestead Kindle books for them and curate the list with discernment.  Those who want to search for free books at Amazon, on their own may do so with my blessing.  To get more information on the Member’s Only book club go here. 

Refocus

Life is short – I’m a grandma, after all.  Who knows how many hours are left in God’s book for me.  And I realized as I was re-evaluating how I was using my time, that I want to focus on people that care about themselves, their holistic health, their creative expression, and their stewardship of the creation.  I want to pour my mentoring and writing into folks that want a better, more self-reliant life.  I want to change the world, one family, one homestead at a time.  I’m still a purple sheep.  And if you are getting this then you are, too.

So consider this letter an explanation for the changes that have taken place on the Joybilee Farm blog in the last two weeks.  Another change is that my site was hacked by one of my competitors (or his fan) and I had to rebuild it, so I seized the opportunity to move it – something that was in the plans for this spring anyway – you can find the Joybilee Farm blog at the new address http://www.joybileefarm.com – please change your book marks.  And if you are a Canadian fibre artist – my old blog URL is for sale.  Fiberarts.ca/fibrearts.ca/fibreart.ca are all up for auction.  Let me know if you are interested.  The old URL has a 48,000 US Alexa rank.  Not bad for a Canadian site.

Homestead abundance for the journey.