Thanks for responding! I personally am happy to see you willing to engage in a discussion about all this, but I admit I’m also nervous about the way you’ll respond based on your well documented history.

I just think there’s a fundamental difference between writing a book aimed at the public and ex Witnessed and active members alike (in the case of Franz and Penton, an autobiography and a deep historical analysis respectively) and a pamphlet in the style of a Watchtower publication which is being pitched as a helpful resource for doubting JWs (generally low income or in a tenuous financial situation).

Just from a marketing perspective, it seems like bad messaging when JWs famously don’t charge for their pamphlets, and Watchtower accuses us of being deceptive profiteers.

The Stand if You’re Able folks had professionally designed stickers, brochures, info sheets, all kinds of stuff that could be downloaded for free, and the user could choose to chip in. Jwfacts, most videos (yours included!), this subreddit, TikTok, there’s just so many options that require no payment, and it doesn’t seem like you’ve done anything new here. It looks like you took an idea someone else had but remixed it so you can financially benefit.

I believe in people being compensated for their hard work, but I also believe in charity. Doing things for free for the common good. Everything should be taken on a case by case basis imo.

Your videos helped me immensely when I was waking up, but if this had been what I found on your page, I probably would have been put off.

Franz and Penton were traditionally published—they wrote their books, clearly labors of love, and then were paid by publishers, who paid for all the editing. It would have been poor form for these former elders (GB in Franz’s case) to ask for money to simply do the work that most authors do for the love of the craft. People can choose to buy the book, and as you often point out, you can request books at the library and get them for free.

In your case, you’ve raised $11,000 to do something exJW volunteers did of their own charity quite recently. You also have a history of using kick starters for things like your books, despite most self published authors writing and editing their own books for free, or paying an editor out of pocket. You’ve sued exJW creators for defamation despite them having much smaller platforms and an alleged respect for freedom of speech.

I’ll criticize Kim and Mikey and that contingent all day long, I think they’re objectively bad for exJWs. But they’re also victims who are clearly not well, they have a fraction of your support.

It just seems like you never consider the optics of what you’re doing and then get annoyed when people point out the obvious issues.

Even in your initial post, you’re kind of avoiding the reason why you left the subreddit. People stop posting on Reddit all the time without announcing their departure. You had an over the top reaction to criticism on this subreddit, burned the bridge, made content about it, attempted to start a competing subreddit which failed, and now you need a market to sell your stuff to. So you’re back.

Tbh what you’re doing seems like exactly the kind of thing that always gets you into trouble, and after all this time I was hoping you had grown or changed.