The Yakverse Chronicles

Volume 3 of my Art of Gig series is finally out -- free and online

Those of you who’ve been reading me a while know that I ran a short-run newsletter called the Art of Gig between 2018-20. This was mainly nonfiction essays about the gig economy and indie consulting life, which I published as a two-volume set a couple of years ago. But I also wrote a series of absurdist consulting fiction stories which I didn’t get around to publishing then.

Well, thanks to ChatGPT I was able to put together a nice online Volume 3 (now titled The Yakverse Chronicles) that you can now read online for free at the newly vibe-recoded Art of Gig site. You can also buy the two non-fiction volumes via that link.

These stories haven’t been available online since I shuttered the newsletter in 2020, and I periodically get requests for access from those who remember enjoying them. Well, here you go. I may publish ebook/print versions later, but at least an online version is available now.

Fun fact: the Yak Collective , which I helped start in 2020, was named for the secret society and yak motif that features in these stories. It’s been chugging along for 5 years, and is one of my most rewarding activities these days!

A bit more backstory. Originally, I put these stories into a Roam graph with the intent of trying to bootstrap an extended universe project around them, with contributions from others set in the Yakverse. I’d intended to call this original set of stories “The Original Series.” I haven’t had the bandwidth to pull that off, but if there is still interest, I’m happy to revive that project. If you’re interested, join The Yak Collective, discord and indicate your interest in this thread. Naturally I’ll try to host the project there.

This project has also been an great exercise in AI-assisted new model of self-publishing. I’ve always wanted to do online books, but did not like the heavyweight solutions available. Thanks to AI and vibe-coding, I don’t need them. This simple static html version is all I want. At least for now. I barely had to touch the code. ChatGPT did 99.99% of what I wanted. There are a few rough edges left that I’ll get around to fixing later.

For those interested, here is the publishing protocol (in this case there was a detour through Roam and markdown, but you should be able to do this directly with posts exported as html from Substack).

Yakverse Static Book Production Protocol

1. Ingest & Normalize the Source

• Accept a ZIP containing Markdown or HTML chapters, a toc.md, and an images/ folder.

• Extract the directory.

• Normalize filenames into consistent, slugified chapter identifiers.

• Load the TOC as the spine that defines canonical chapter order.

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2. Parse, Clean, and Canonicalize Content

Apply a deterministic cleaning pass:

• Strip Roam-specific tokens, block markers, and unwanted formatting.

• Convert Roam-style dialog bullets into real paragraphs + typographic dialog formatting.

• Convert bold → italics consistently.

• Replace Roam image stubs ([[IMGTOKEN]]) with correct relative paths (images/...).

• Convert outbound links to footnotes and resolve any internal cross-links to the correct chapter pages.

• Normalize headings, spacing, paragraph breaks, em-dashes, ellipses, and punctuation.

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3. HTML Conversion Pipeline

For each chapter:

• Convert cleaned Markdown → semantic HTML using a consistent template.

• Insert chapter number, title, and a slugline (“In which…”) generated by reading the content.

• Inject consistent navigation elements (prev / next / index).

• Preserve structural invariants: spacing, footnote format, image float behavior.

Bug-fixing loop rule:
Regenerate only the affected chapter, not the whole book, ensuring global consistency remains intact.

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4. Global Assembly

• Generate a unified style.css with typography, layout, image styling, footnotes, and mobile responsiveness.

• Generate an index.html representing Volume 3 and incorporating the Art of Gig site structure.

• Integrate the two print volumes (covers, blurbs, Amazon links) into a coherent 3-volume homepage layout.

Additional revision cycle included:

• Moving to a two-column TOC + cover layout for Volume 3.

• Rewriting the homepage copy manually and reintegrating into the static generator.

• Ensuring consistency of metadata, headers, and project framing across all volumes.

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5. Cover Production Loop

Three-step process for the Volume 3 cover:

1. Extract visual style from embedded illustrations (palette, hand-drawn line qualities, tone).

2. Generate three conceptual cover designs (iconographic, narrative vignette, abstract glyph).

3. Select one (yak silhouette + glowing briefcase) and regenerate it:

   • With exact preservation of the originally generated image

   • Add title, author, and subtype text

   • Re-run with iteration until the layout matched the original composition precisely

Final spec delivered as a hi-resolution PNG suitable for both web and print.

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6. Deployment Prep

• Package all files (HTML, CSS, images, cover) into a static site.

• Validate links, image paths, and footnotes.

• Test on desktop and mobile.

• Deliver as a deployable ZIP.

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7. Optional Future Extensions (Protocol Hooks)

The protocol is built to support:

• EPUB or MOBI export from the cleaned Markdown

• Adding search or analytics to the static site

• Re-running selective chapters through cleaning/formatting rules

• Using a different source format (HTML instead of Markdown)

• Rebuilding the homepage with new framing or additional volumes

Everything remains deterministic and supports incremental regeneration.