Hi, I’m back!

You might’ve noticed that I hadn’t posted any new content on this website since July 7, 2026, some ten weeks ago. Any time you notice a prolonged blogging pause on this website, assume that I am struggling with temporary health issues. I’ve always had bad eyesight, and one fairly common part of the aging process – I’m 59 years old – is posterior vitreous detachment. The vitreous detaches from the retina, a process which can last for several weeks or even months, and during that time, vision is blurred. I’ve tried to reduce screen time during the last few weeks, hence my absence from this website.

I spent less time in front of the computer, and more time outside, e.g., watching the sun rise in a nearby park. I took the photo which I chose as the “featured image” for this article during one such sunrise. No editing except cropping, just mother nature doing her thing. Sunrise is my favourite time of day, I try to watch the sun rise as often as possible.

I’ve now decided to resume my blogging activities, even though I still have blurry vision. I run a one-person business, and not being present online for a prolonged period of time is a problem, as website traffic plunges quickly, and it then takes many weeks to re-establish traffic to my website.

I did get some work done during the last few weeks. In fact, I’ve been quite busy, and have now made definite decisions in regard to the kind of books and the number of books I intend to publish this year, and in 2027.

I will publish two books before the end of the year 2026, one book in the spring of 2027, and two more books in the fourth quarter of 2027. None of those books will be written by me. I will publish texts written during the Victorian era, which were first published in British magazines; but I will contribute a few chapters of text to each book as an author, in addition to functioning as editor and publisher for each book.

I made one more important decision during the last few weeks. Those five books will exclusively be published in the United States of America, primarily through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing programme. I had vague plans to also publish those books at least in Austria, where I live and where my business is located, but copyright issues prevent me from doing so – at least for now.

In the USA, all texts published before 1923 are copyright-free. In Austria, as well as in many other countries, different copyright laws apply. In Austria, I would need to prove that an author has been dead for at least 70 years before I can use texts written by them. The books which I intend to publish contain many short texts written by many different authors. The time, effort, an cost involved in researching and verifying each author’s date of death would be more than I can handle. I therefore made the decision to publish those first five books exclusively in the USA in 2026 and 2027, and to concentrate on marketing those books only to an American readership.

I wish it were different; I wish I could publish those books in Austria as well, but it’s simply not possible at this time.

There will be other books; books written by fewer Victorian-era authors whose date of death I can easily verify; books written by me, in English or German, for which I hold the copyright; but none of those books will be published anytime soon. Maybe in 2028; definitely in 2029.

For now, I’m focused on getting the first two books published, and I’ll be describing the process in more detail in my next articles.