Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 33

the Write Stuff bundle, featuring: me!

My book Cash Flow for Creators lays out exactly how I make a living in this deranged business. You can get your own copy for a paltry $6.99.

Right now, you can get it for $5 as part of the 2021 Write Stuff Bundle at Storybundle. Plus three other books and classes on building a career from your craft. That’s even cheaper than my usual cheap. Or you can spend $20, and get ten excellent business books from people who know what they’re doing, who make a living with their craft, and who are cheerfull...

Sponsorship Notes on “TLS Mastery”

Here’s the heap of TLS Mastery sponsorship gifts, awaiting my poor postman.

I get asked about how sponsorships work, so I’m going to record a few notes here.

37 print sponsors at $100 each, plus 55 ebook sponsors at $25 each? In traditional publishing, we would call that an “advance.”

Except that I have to pay to purchase and mail the rewards. When I first tried sponsorships back in 2016, I calculated I’d have to pay about $10 for shipping for each print sponsor. Surely most of my sponsors wou...

TLS Mastery Release, Sponsor Gifts, and Acknowledgements

As if 2020 wasn’t sufficiently rough, I spent it writing about TLS.

Now, I’m done.

TLS Mastery has escaped.

Beastie EditionTux Edition

Transport Layer Security, or TLS, makes ecommerce and online banking possible. It protects your passwords and your privacy. Let’s Encrypt transformed TLS from an expensive tool to a free one. TLS understanding and debugging is an essential sysadmin skill you must have.

TLS Mastery takes you through:

How TLS worksWhat TLS provides, and what it doesn’tWrapping ...

My Penguicon 2021 Schedule

I’ll be speaking at the virtualized Penguicon 2021, and hanging around several events making a nuisance of myself. Fortunately, these online events are moderated and they’ll mute me any time I start to make trouble.

If you’re looking to see me, though, here’s my presentation schedule. (Events I will attend, but not as any sort of speaker, are not shown.)

22 April (Thursday)

7PM: Author Reception (hangout)

24 April (Saturday)

12PM: Becoming a Better Writer (presentation)
2PM: Reading (probably W...

“Only Footnotes” Now Available

My newest nonfiction release, Only Footnotes, is now in stores.

More than one person over on the Fediverse has informed me that this makes this book and/or my ouvre Pratchett-complete. Which I gather is something like Turing-complete, but cooler.

In case you missed it, or doubted that it was a real thing, here’s the release announcement–now with store links.

Only Footnotes. Because that’s why you read his books.

Academics hate footnotes. Michael W Lucas loves them. What he does with them wouldn...

New Book: Only Footnotes

I know perfectly well why you people read my books. It’s for the footnotes.

Some of you buy the Mastery books for the cover art, but those few who open the things do so for the footnotes.

My conscience has been at me again, the filthy bastard. Charging everyone exorbitant rates for a handful of footnotes is robbery. I should produce books that people want to read. I have therefore collected all of the footnotes from all of my books in a handsome collectible hardcover edition.

Announcing: Only Fo...

New podcast interview: Alive After Reading

If I was to choose a pseudonym, one pronounced “Need A Writer” would be too on-the-nose even for me.

Tim Niederriter was born that way.

Tim interviewed me for his podcast Alive After Reading. I signed on thinking that I’d promote the new Montague Portal stuff (the first short novel, Forever Falls, is now free everywhere, Drinking Heavy Water is fresh out, and there’s an omnibus collecting all things Montague Portal).

Instead, we mostly talked about the craft of writing. Specifically, how to beco...

My first “What is Wrong With You?” Patron Cert

On both Patreon and in my store, I have a What is Wrong With You? Patronizer tier. It is a paltry $250 per month, chump change for all you dot-com gazillionares out there.

So you like the idea of throwing money down a well, but don’t want to pollute the water table? Burning cash increases atmospheric CO2 levels? And using bills as toilet paper wrecks the plumbing?

Send your excess cash to Lucas, who will safely dispose of it in the gelato shop.

This is the daft level, for the true Lucas Loony. Y...

“TLS Mastery” pre-order on my web store

Publishers have researched the best book release strategy for decades. Even the indie folks have done lots of number-crunching to determine the best day to release a book, and how to optimize that release. Me? My indie book release strategy is “trebuchet this mess into the cold world as soon as it’s done.”

Running a pre-order through Kobo or Apple or one of the little, less relevant retailers requires knowing the release date. My release date is “day back from copyedit + days to lay out in print...

New Montague Portal omnibus, and a free novel

I’ve released an omnibus of Montague Portal novels and stories, Aidan Redding Against the Universes.

It collects Forever Falls, Hydrogen Sleets, Drinking Heavy Water, Sticky Supersaturation, and No More Lonesome Blue Rings in one convenient doorstop. Yes, in this order. It’s not exactly chronological, but Montague Portal fans have strong opinions on the order they should be read in and who am I to argue?

You can grab this omnibus in ebook, print, or a luxurious dual-layer illustrated hardcover ...