Insert Catchy NEW Welcome Title Here

Because I don't really know how to welcome you to my humble digital abode.

Photo by Abbat on Unsplash

Welcome, digital traveler. You have stumbled upon my Substack. My name is Oren Cohen. But if I had given myself a medieval name, it would probably be Olren because I keep mistyping my own name.

Please, sit, make yourself at home. Imagine you’re in my office. It looks a little like a mini library. There are books all around, ordered on shelves by series and not by color, as much as I love an aesthetic taste.

Among the books, you would find Mistborn, Stormlight Archive, and various other Sanderson works sitting together with the five books of A Song of Ice and Fire. You would discover extraordinary epics on different shelves, such as The Priory of The Orange Tree, Ten Princes of Amber, and The Lord of The Rings. One shelf would be dedicated to the entirety of The Dune collection, from original books by Frank Herbert to the prequels and continuations of the series by his son and co.

On other shelves, you would find books from various unknown writers with dedications on the first pages because I supported their authors on their Kickstarter for the book (or at least the Israeli version of it called Headstart).

In the middle of the room, you will find my desk. This is a workroom, so any gaming hardware you know I own cannot be found here, but you may see an article in editing on the monitor about a game, a book, or a TV show. The computer on the mahogany desk is a silver Mac Studio connected to a silver monitor.

A white keyboard, Bluetooth mouse, and a boiling hot Taster’s Choice coffee mug with a splash of milk are ordered before the monitor to keep me focused on the task. There’s a small bowl next to the coffee mug with the day’s treat. It could be something sweet like chocolate chip cookies or something salty like pistachios and pecans.

The room is lit with natural sunlight during the day but holds its own light during the evening.

As you look around, the computer plays Lofi Girl, so chill beats are coming from the computer to put us in a pleasant mood to catch up.

The dreamy description above is not what my life looks like. In truth, this publication is about the journey to get there. These days I live with my parents while I build up wealth to go live on my own. It’s hard to be in your 30s and live with boomer parents, but those are the only cards I can play right now.

This substack is also about having a voice that is mine. I’ve done this mistake so many times in life. I would start something that feels like a brand: Alive2Play, Geekosmos, Geek Peek, Nerdy Modern Blog, etc. and lose my own voice. Who’s Oren Cohen? He’s not here any more.

Building a brand that is different than your own name comes with molding yourself into a specific shape that you’re not always too familiar with. You’re essentially boxing yourself into one thing and that one thing is replicable so you can bring on more people to use it.

But alone? Never persisted in doing that. Going all in on this Substack will be the first time for me.

What’s The Plan?

For now, I’m going to ignore all the content creation rules that tell me not niching down is going to be bad. That means you may find wholly unrelated things on this Substack but all interest me in one way or another.

Will you be bombarded with articles you may not want to receive in your inbox? Hard no.

My plan is to only email everyone once a week with a general letter. Much like this letter is finding you. And at the end of this letter I will include links to everything I published that week. I’m also still discovering Substack’s features. If there’s a segmentation feature I have not found it yet.

How to Support Me?

The best way to support this publication is to become a founding or paid member. The next best is to share my work and bring in referrals. I have a specific initial paying members goal in mind: 170 monthly members. Once we reach that goal, I can start to turn the wheels towards investing more time into this publication and will have more wiggle room to invest into paying for editing work on YouTube.

The biggest goal for me would be to pass the 1200 annual paying members. When we reach that goal we’re delving into fully replacing my day job income and that means freedom of time and movement.

While I share my dream goals here with you, I don’t want you to feel pressured to support if you don’t think you can. My worst nightmare is to build my wealth while people hurt their own livelihood to make it happen. Don’t support this Substack if you can’t afford it!

What’s My Content Plan?

The one rule is to send a letter to all subscribers once a week. Today is Thursday, but from next week these will arrive every Friday. What would they be about? sharing something I learned that week that could be useful to you. Maybe even a quote. We’ll see how it resonates. At the bottom of those emails, I’ll include all posts I published this week.

If you’re interested in my coverage of nerdy podcasts, that’s where you’ll find it. Currently I’m working on covering Worlds Beyond Number and next week we also have a new season of Dimension 20 to cover called Burrow’s End.

In the video games department, I have just crossed about 60 hours of gameplay on Starfield and I have some thoughts to share on that front, too.

There are also some Marvel shows on Disney+ that I’d like to write about, too.

And in the educational front, there are still many coding-related articles I still want to write.

As I settle into the weekly letters, I also plan to include a podcast. Still not sure how to structure that one, but we’ll see. It will be published here and on my YouTube Channel.

There You Have It

I’m finally leaning into my own voice instead of hiding it behind brand names. I’m not sure how this will work, but I’m willing to give it a go. My lack of consistency has always been one of my negative points.

Is there anything you’d love to see me cover? Any questions about this Substack? Let me know in the comments below!