Have you ever wondered what the numbers in the diary title refer to? Unless you’re terribly unobservant you’ve probably realized that each week’s number is the same as the Links column which follows it; that’s because they both refer to the week rather than the number of entries in that category (which for both is somewhat below 500). In other words, this is the five hundredth week of this blog. Every day for the last 500 weeks I’ve published a new column, and even though many are now news columns, link collections, or adaptations of Twitter threads, that’s still an awful lot of essays (over 3500 now, altogether). I’ve never been paid for any of it, nor have I paywalled or intrusively-monetized the site, and I don’t intend to; however, I think it’s time I got at least some compensation for an awful lot of time, effort and brainpower. That’s why I’ve started gathering my best work into collections; The Essential Maggie McNeill, Volume I came out last week, and you can buy it on Amazon; if you prefer a signed copy, I just got a box in yesterday and I’ll be adding it to my store today. I’d appreciate it if those of you who appreciate my writing would both buy it and review it, because that’s how things get marketed on Amazon. And now that I’ve figured out how to turn preparing these collections into a routine, I should (with any luck) be able to turn them out on a regular basis. I’m already almost halfway through with the primary edit for Volume II, and Shannon Reeves & I have already planned the next cover; I don’t foresee any difficulty in getting it out in April as planned. Then I’ll start compiling my next project, Ask Maggie, a two-volume collection of my advice columns, followed by a compilation of all my harlotographies and, if there’s sufficient demand, a third volume of The Essential Maggie McNeill, collecting my best essays from 2016-2019. With any luck I can start making an appreciable income on books every month; if even one breaks out into general notice, the rest will follow. And the more income I can be sure of every month, the more energy I can put into writing and speaking.