Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 30

DYB Auction for Clarion 2020 Students

A “Domesticate Your Badgers” reader had this to say

Forty-odd books ago and in a previous millennium, I attended the Clarion writing workshop. I had the privilege of spending six weeks locked in a Michigan State University graduate dorm with half a dozen pro writers and about thirty wannabes like myself. It was my first taste of what it was like to live as a working writer, down to and including immediate abject humiliation. Many of my classmates have gone on to win awards, be voted in as scienc...

New Sponsorships Open, and More Crowdfunding

The subject says the exciting bit. Now that I have shipped out the print sponsor gifts for the new DNSSEC Mastery, I can open sponsorships for the next tech book–OpenBSD Mastery: Filesystems. I expect this to be large for a Mastery book, so the e-book sponsorship is an extra five dollars. Sorry, folks, the price of gelato keeps going up. I know this isn’t real inflation, it’s the gelato oligarchs pushing for even greater profit, but a writer needs his delicious cold dairy fix.

Print sponsorship ...

DNSSEC, Badgers, and Orcs, Oh My!

Talk about one weeeird mass escape.

DNSSEC Mastery, 2nd edition hardcovers, paperbacks, and ebooks should now be available everywhere, so that book’s officially out.

Today is the official release date for Domesticate Your Badgers. I made this a pre-order, so it’s available in all formats everywhere. I don’t bother with preorders for tech books, but I wanted the Kickstarter backers to get a chance to have theirs in-hand before the general public could order it. It didn’t quite work that way–backe...

“DNSSEC Mastery 2/e” Auction Winners

The auction for the print proof of DNSSEC Mastery, 2nd edition is over. Bob Beck won, with a bid of $667.

Kate Ebneter, perhaps my most notorious Patronizer, offered to match the winning bid.

That’s a total of $1334 for Black Girls Code. I’m sure they can do something worthwhile with that.

Posting this tonight because tomorrow, I have not one but two books coming out…

Charity Auction: DNSSEC Mastery proof for Black Girls Code

I have another unique physical artifact, which means it’s time for another charity auction.

I’ve run auctions for the Soroptimists, the Ottawa Mission, and multiple ones for the FreeBSD and OpenBSD foundations. I’m a writer so I can’t give as much to charities as I would like, but I seem to have developed a knack for persuading other people to give to charity and that’s the same thing, right?

I’m auctioning off the print proof of DNSSEC Mastery, 2nd edition.

A proof is a prepublication version ...

DNSSEC Mastery, second edition, creeping out

The e-book of the new edition of DNSSEC Mastery is starting to appear in stores. The print book will be delayed a couple of weeks, as I need to redesign my print textbooks to compensate for changes in the business.

I’ll update the book’s entry on my website with new stores as they list the book.

Sponsors and Patronizers should have already received their e-books. I’ll be sending print copies as soon as possible I chain allows it.

The best place to buy this book, of course, is in my store. I have...

New book: “Domesticate Your Badgers”

The Kickstarter is over, backers and Patronizers have their ebooks, so I can now offer Domesticate Your Badgers: Become a Better Writer through Deliberate Practice to the rest of the world.

Sort of.

If you want to read it today, you can buy it directly from me at my bookstore. At all other stores, the ebook is on pre-order and will be released on 1 March 2022. The print book will be on pre-order shortly.

Is this a lame scheme to steer readers to purchase directly from me? No. That’s merely a sup...

2021 Income Sources

In 2019 and 2020, I published posts on where folks buy my books. People seem interested, so I’m doing it again for 2021. I suspect that covid is skewing the data, but perhaps this is simply the new normal.

My income still comes from writing books. I don’t consult. I don’t generally accept speaking fees. (I did make a couple hundred bucks speaking to a lunchtime crowd at a big tech firm this year, but that was a rare event and I have no particular desire to do it again.) I desire to make my livin...

The New York Times, featuring: me?

Several years ago (yes, December 2020, but covid distorts time), I tweeted about my Capital One credit card. The world validated my thoughts. I moved on.

A few weeks ago, a New York Times reporter discovered that tweet as she was researching a story.

Which leads to me being on the front page of the New York Times’ Business section. It has my picture and everything. (In case the Times removes the page, here’s an archive.)

The reporter skillfully caught the most important thing I said during the w...

Screwing Up, and Recovering

I scheduled an all-Patronizer video hangout for last Saturday, and didn’t show up. This is obviously unacceptable. I’ve already apologized to my Patronizers on the various sites they back me on, but I wanted to blog about dealing with this kind of screwup.

The root cause was pretty simple: my house has been full of workmen for several days, busting concrete and ripping out walls to fix a tiny leak in 70-year-old plumbing. It was either that, or let the bathroom fall into the basement. I am not a...