by Travis Williams | Apr 19, 2022 | News & Updates, Banner Posts
Go forth with your ideas. Be productive. Make more pies.
My friends at Siretona Creative recently mentioned the Slicing Pie company to me. They have a software product that allows business partners to efficiently manage shared dynamic equity in a startup with multiple stakeholders. This idea seemed to have merit to me.
But it’s interesting to reflect on the economic metaphor of the sliced pie
There is no pie of fixed resources that is being sliced into tinier and tinier slices in the market by increasing demand and increasing populations.
At some point you were probably exposed to the idea that the more people there are the thinner we have to slice the pie of finite resources to provide for everyone. That’s not a logical sentiment, however, because people are creative, not dead weight.
However, your slice of the finite resource pie doesn’t have to be forever shrinking thereby decreasing your opportunities. Instead, abundance and prosperity grows when two interdependent dynamics are set free.
These two dynamics:
1) Division of labor, and
2) Freedom of association.
Set ’em free.
First, increasing division of labor is accomplished by increasing population.
Yep, even immigrants. Even illegal immigrants.
Larger, growing populations divide labor so that individuals specialize with greater and greater specificity according to their own choices increasing the quality and quantity of the output of their labor.
The key there is “according to their own choices.”
Division of labor doesn’t divide the pie into smaller units, it provides the people needed to create more pies that didn’t exist before.
People are creative, not dead weight.
It’s legitimate and even honorable to fight against population controls as well as war and tyranny.
Also, don’t try to do everything yourself. Delegate, network, collaborate. Share the burden, share the joy, share the income, and share the victory.
Greed is counterproductive and leads to shrinking pie pieces.
Second, freedom of association allows division of labor to exist. A society that values greater freedom of association leads to individuals interacting with one another in their own self-interest in ways that are win-win for everyone.
For instance, the value a reader places on acquiring a book to read is greater than the value they place on the money they part with to get the book. This is a win-win transaction for both the author and the reader in the free market.
Another example is in the labor market. People who work to provide labor and those who pay for that labor find each other and engage in an employee-employer or contractor-consultant relationship that is an expression of freedom of association.
If it’s not win-win, they have the freedom to part ways.
In society, there is nothing but individuals.
Individuals may choose to act in harmony, but it’s an error to anthropomorphize the collective. Governments, corporations, even families, are collections of individuals having agency and responsibility.
If individuals in a society are free, then people have the liberty to make purchases, live where they choose, read or write and publish what they want, take jobs or hire workers or do anything else. There is no Marxist exploitation of workers in a society that values freedom of association. The opposite is true. Socialism leads to statist coercion, undervaluing individual freedom and, ultimately, the cooking of fewer pies.
Individuals enjoy liberty if they are unencumbered by bureaucracy, central planning of the economy, and geopolitical barriers. Capricious legal restrictions, entrepreneurship licensing, and arbitrary law enforcement, are antithetical to liberty.
Furthermore, travel restrictions, lockdowns, fees, taxes, censorship, compulsory standards, mandates, regulatory compliance, coercion, enforcement, conscription, or anything else that limits individuals stopping them from pursuing their own choices decreases individual freedom of association.
It’s not just governments that encumber freedoms.
There is also a problem when the individuals who have government power—or who have benefited from it—sit idly by allowing others to keep us from acting in ways that are in our individual self-interest.
Finally, markets scale up or down in a way that is fractal—small parts look a lot like the bigger picture. This is the key to shared success and prosperity. Within a market, abundance increases for each individual who chooses to act. The pie doesn’t shrink.
People aren’t mere consumers. They are also creative producers.
Increasing prosperity is enjoyed by each person who chooses to engage in the economy with their own influence and in that way participate in the division of labor. The pie grows each time a person engages their freedom to associate in the market with whomever they choose in whatever way they choose.
Whole countries can grow in a free market environment, or you can experience the extraordinary power of a free market individually. Even if only one person chooses to act in a way that takes these concepts seriously, that person will benefit.
That means you. Go make more pies.
Travis
Travis Williams earns sales commissions from qualifying purchases made by following links on this webpage to Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.com.
by Travis Williams | Apr 18, 2022 | Uncategorized
Get your free copy of Uly Quits His Job!
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
The novel is Uly Quits His Job.
It’s not about quitting.
It’s about not quitting.
In my book, Uly gives himself a fresh start.
He tries to get back home where he can start over. Along the way, he meets people who help him and others who don’t. Uly works to persevere even as circumstances don’t go his way.
Uly Quits His Job is Southern fiction with Christian themes and a hint of Southern gothic.
Official release date is May 27th.
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
One very intentional aspect of the story is my desire to celebrate aspects of “the good life.”
What is the good life?
There doesn’t seem to be a concise answer, but I’ll take a stab at it.
The good life includes living in a society where opportunity and options abound for everyone; a society where no individuals are making it unlikely that other individuals can pursue their own interests.
For instance, a society characterized by opportunity and options—one where the good life is possible—would have robust entrepreneurship.
Therefore, I celebrate entrepreneurial businesses in my book. Many of the characters have a business or work for one.
That may sound mundane, but think back to other books you’ve read—or movies or TV shows you’ve watched. Were the characters working for businesses? Was entrepreneurship celebrated?
Furthermore, the good life is not possible unless individuals are free to worship as they choose without coercion or fear of being mocked, discriminated against, or murdered.
If you have the liberty to serve God, participate in a faith community, and express a position of faith freely—or the liberty to not do those things—you have a better chance of being able to successfully seek and find the good life.
Several of the characters in Uly Quits His Job are leaders in Christian ministry. They have started ministries, they go to church, they sing in choirs.
They express their faith confidently.
In my book, I also celebrate classic cars, good breakfasts, interesting people, Georgia, the South, southern cities, and southern accents. Perseverance and not quitting are in there too.
The hardcover edition will be released on May 27th.
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
The ebook is already available for purchase on Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble Nook among other outlets.
But you can also get it for free.
I would like for you to enjoy reading Uly Quits His Job and share it with others. For that reason—and to promote the novel to more people—I’m giving it away for free.
My request is that you download the book, read it, and post an honest review of it online anywhere you choose—but wait until May 27th to post the review.
Post your review on May 27th.
DOWNLOAD IT HERE
Your honest opinion in a review anywhere online on any website in any media is valuable to me. To download the book, I ask for your email address. This will put you on my email list for reminders to post a review on May 27th. That’s about it. You won’t get many emails from me unless you choose to receive updates.
To receive updates from me and get more frequent emails, subscribe to updates on the home page. My email list is where I will be announcing availability of all the other editions of Uly I have planned: Paperback, Large Print Paperback, Audiobook, and Braille editions are in the pipeline. Lots of options in other words.
I believe in options. The good life includes living in a society where options abound.
To request a download of the free Advance Reader Copy (ARC) of Uly Quits His Job, follow these simple steps:
- Click this link—REQUEST YOUR FREE COPY.
- The link will take you to a webpage with a form.
- Enter your email in the form.
- Watch for an email from me in your inbox.
- Click the button in the email to confirm your request.
- Download Uly Quits His Job.
Then read it, craft a brilliant and insightful review, and post it on May 27th.
That’s it.
Thank you for reading all the way to here. If you would like to support my food and shelter habit, you can buy Uly Quits His Job online now.
Travis
Travis Williams earns sales commissions from qualifying purchases made by following links on this webpage to Apple Books and Amazon.com.
by Travis Williams | Apr 16, 2022 | Banner Posts
This is most of the first email I send from my list
When you sign up to receive updates from me, this is what you start with.
I spent four years writing Uly Quits His Job (his name is pronounced “YOO-lee”). I also designed the cover.
I live in Georgia a two-hour drive south of Atlanta. I was born in Alabama. Growing up, we had dogs and cats. I had a special Sheltie named Rocky. I love dogs, but they aren’t allowed under the current feline regime. Two cats have me well-trained.
A while back I missed the first day of a week-long online course on marketing for authors. We knew each other but the facilitator didn’t. She asked the authors to take turns introducing each other to her.
Nicola MacCameron, author of the “Leoshine” science fiction series, chose to introduce me. Though I wasn’t there, I watched the recording later.
When she introduced me, Nicola mentioned the work I did on Stealth, a WW2 historical novel by our mutual friend, Robert Stermscheg.
Here is some of what She said.
“I will pick Travis because he is such a collaborator with me. He lives in Georgia and he’s written Uly Quits His Job, which is Southern fiction, which is its own genre and has its own cultural markers.
“He is a graphic designer and has designed a fantasy alphabet for me for my book. It’s just absolutely stunning. He’s very creative. He’s done book covers … He has influenced every book cover that Siretona has produced since last summer. He has an amazing eye for detail and he copy edits as well. Doesn’t he?”
The remainder of this note is available as the first email I send when you join the list to receive updates.
Travis
by Travis Williams | Apr 16, 2022 | Feature Post
This is the unabridged version
In my novel, Uly Quits His Job, I mention in the Afterword that readers can learn more about my dad on my website. The novel contains a shorter version of the Afterword.
This is the unabridged one.
About my dad
My father, Paul B. Williams, loved my sister, his grandchildren and me. He also loved my mom, Linda, and always wanted to be there for her. They met during high school and were married for forty-nine years.
He was an active outdoorsman, 10K, 5K, and marathon runner, bicyclist and bird watcher. He was a woodworker and built cabinets for our kitchen and built-ins for our living room.
He designed and carved long bows to give away as gifts to friends and family. He was also a primitive archer—he hunted with the bows and arrows he made. Daddy was an accomplished and frequent fisherman. He even bow hunted for fish.
He could cook. He loved to grill chicken and fish and would slow-cook a turkey and ham together overnight for Thanksgiving. He cooked big pots of wild game stew occasionally. My mom learned not to assume that it was chicken soup. He also loved to garden, and he grew grapes with which he made wine and jelly.
He could install plumbing, electrical wiring, doors, and windows. He could lay stone and cement blocks and work on cars. He painted still lifes and landscapes.
He was an adult Sunday school teacher and lead Christian mission trips to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean. His teams would collaborate with local project leaders to help build houses, churches, and toilets. He made multiple trips with teams to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
My dad had a bachelors degree in zoology and a masters in parasitology and microbiology, all from Auburn University in Alabama. He knew the common and scientific names of all the plants and animals in his environment—all the trees, snakes, insects, spiders, and birds. I know, because when I was a boy I would quiz him.
My father was also an entrepreneur and businessman. In 1981 he co-founded Owen & Williams Fish Farm. He and his extraordinarily loyal employees grew the farm into a thriving provider of fish for stocking ponds and lakes throughout the southeastern United States and well beyond. As I write this in 2022, the fish farm is still an active, successful business.
It wasn’t a stroke
In the summer of 2013, my dad lost the ability to say the letter r. When he said a word with an r in it, his tongue simply didn’t create the sound. I suspected that he had suffered a mini-stroke that damaged a nerve controlling the tip of his tongue.
I was very wrong.
In February 2014, he was diagnosed with ALS. The disease progressed quickly, and he died in November of 2016.
Back in 2014, after he was diagnosed, my mom and dad traded in their two-year old hybrid Camry that they loved to purchase a wheelchair accessible van.
In an interview, my mom said about my dad, “Having the van and being able to go and do as much as we could during the last year-and-nine-months of his life was invaluable.”
Accessible transportation gave them the opportunity to get out of the house to do normal every day activities, attend church, go to doctors’ appointments, and travel on vacation to Gulf Shores, Alabama. Daddy had always fished off the pier at Orange Beach there in Gulf Shores, and he didn’t stop when he could only fish with my mom’s help while riding in a wheelchair.
Not long after Daddy passed away, Mama was thinking about what she could do to help individuals with ALS and their families. She knew of a man with ALS who was in need of an accessible van. She had also been wrestling with how best to honor my father’s memory. The ALS Association chapter in Georgia had been an extraordinary resource for our family. The people there are truly dedicated to helping others.
All of this was heavy on her heart, and she had been praying about it.
Accessible transportation is important to quality of life
One day she was driving home after having gone to buy groceries when it occurred to her that all ALS patients and their families have a considerable need for accessible transportation. Having access to a vehicle that can accommodate limited mobility is one of the most important ways that ALS patients maintain their quality of life for as long as possible. That was certainly what our family had experienced.
In the interview I mentioned, my mom also says, “I realized that there had to be a way to help people who could not afford a van.”
She had the idea to provide transportation to ALS patients and their families for absolutely any reason at no cost to them. She didn’t want to limit the service to medical needs. She says it best, “Not just to have a way to go to the clinic, or a way to go to the doctor, or a way to go to the hospital, but a way to enjoy life.”
She decided to call the ALS Association. She asked them if the idea was doable. They said that it was absolutely doable without a doubt.
Partnering with the ALS Association
In 2017, Linda Williams and the Georgia chapter of the ALS Association created the Paul B. Williams ALS Transportation Program. In the interview, she says the program “allows patients with ALS to live to the very fullest all their days—to just add to the quality of their life.”
Through the program, which is administered by the Georgia ALS Association, individuals and their families living with ALS in Georgia can rent an accessible van at no cost to themselves for any purpose for short trips and long ones, in state or out-of-state. They can also request a ride from local vendors who provide short trips for non-emergency transportation to people with disabilities. For ALS patients in Georgia, the Paul B. Williams ALS Transportation Program pays the vendor.
Because it’s a program that is administered through the Georgia chapter of the ALS Association, it benefits from being part of their non-profit foundation and fundraising efforts. All the costs incurred by the program for van rentals, travel assistance and even vehicle modifications and grants toward the purchase of a van are borne by donations given to the program.
While my mother, family and friends donate funds to the Transportation Program regularly, many others do so as well. Interested foundations have given grants to the Georgia ALS Association to maintain the program. A portion of the royalties I receive from the sale of my books will also be donated to the Paul B. Williams ALS Transportation Program.
Patients who have used the program have expressed tremendous gratitude for it. Many people have said that they were blessed by the opportunities they’ve had to use it. It is an extraordinary program, and it helps people. This is one of the primary reasons that my family and I are very interested in keeping the program active and well-funded.
As I completed the manuscript for Uly Quits His Job, a friend noted that the way in which the program provides help to people who are in need is mirrored in the book by the help that some characters give Uly. While that was not intentional, perhaps it was subconscious.
Since there does seem to be a connection, I decided to share some information about the Transportation Program with readers.
Travis Williams
April 2022
by Travis Williams | Apr 16, 2022 | Feature Post, News & Updates
Writing my novel, Uly Quits His Job, is like digging post holes.
For most of his adult life, my father, Paul B. Williams, delighted in having a small farm with garden vegetables, and when I was young, a variety of farm animals.
When I was a kid, we had goats, chickens, ducks, rabbits and pigs for many years. My dad especially liked Nubian goats and rabbits with the long floppy ears.
Before we could have farm animals; however, we needed a fence.
When I was seven, we moved to rural Georgia from rural Alabama. Before too long, my dad had decided to build a fence around three or four acres of land next to our house. This was the fence that would eventually keep all those farm animals from wandering off.
Daddy acquired a truck load of old railroad ties that he was going to use for the fence posts. Railroad ties are huge and heavy and have to be in the ground deep enough to remain upright. It’s a big job to use railroad ties for fence posts.
In addition, south Georgia is notorious for an abundance of red clay in its soil. If it hasn’t rained in a while, the clay packs down hard and becomes slick and thick when it does rain.
Every day Daddy would come home from his day job and start digging post holes until dark. He spent countless hours digging several each day in the hard-baked red dirt.
My dad was tall, strong and athletic but the difficulty of digging holes in the hard red clay was wearing him out. He would never give up on his dream of having farm animals, but something had to give.
For a time he quit working on the fence. Then one day he said to my mom, Linda, “I think I’ll just dig one post hole every day.”
One post hole at a time. One a day.
Before I was eight, we were installing the wire fencing onto the poles. Building the fence might have taken an extra month or two but so what?
To this day, we refer to the sequence of jobs that have to be done to complete a project as “post holes.”
That’s the right attitude to have when writing, publishing and launching a book into the world. It’s a complicated, step-by-step process that takes time.
I had written a book and the draft was done. At that point there was a long checklist of tasks that had to be completed from rounds of edits to marketing efforts. The list in the project management software used by my publisher, Siretona Creative, gave me pause when I first saw it. Then I realized there were sublists. But that was okay. Each task is a “post hole.”
I spent three hours chatting online one day with tech support trying to troubleshoot how to properly set up DNS numbers for my domain name. I have no idea what that means, but I refuse to be overwhelmed.
That task was one post hole.
I took care of another one today. I’ll dig another one tomorrow.
The wonderful part about it, is that I’m not tackling these jobs alone. Many of you reading this have dug your own post holes for me by helping me in one way or another. I’m incredibly grateful for your volunteer help.
Others of you are staff members at Siretona Creative. You have to dig many of your own post holes that will benefit me that I don’t even know about.
Finally, the community of writers that I’ve met through Siretona is remarkable. I would never have guessed—actually I was skeptical—that the community that Colleen McCubbin has put together at Siretona would have value.
I was wrong to be skeptical.
I thought that I just needed to know where to dig the post holes and when to dig them. In fact I need the encouragement of my new friends in Siretona’s “Nestbuilder Community” to keep digging the post holes. It’s a long fence.
As with most things in life that are worth doing, writing a book is not something I can do quickly or easily. First, there is no book without the inspiration that comes to me from the Holy Spirit. The characters don’t exist anywhere except on the page where I wrote them into existence, but it seems like the Creator creates them.
Second, the help, support and encouragement of friends and family is what makes it possible for me to keep pushing this project forward. That, and the good example my Mama and Daddy provided of being undaunted by difficulty.
Before long after we dig the last “post hole,” Uly Quits His Job will be released to the public. Thank you for joining me on this journey.
Travis
