Michael W. Lucas's Blog, page 34

My books on Google Play, for now

Google has been actively hostile to authors for years. That has changed, somewhat. You can now find much of my fiction and nonfiction on Google Play, for now. I rather expect Google to reverse their less-hostile stance without warning, so these might come down as quickly as they appeared.

What do I mean when I say that Google has been hostile to authors? Forget the bit where they scan millions of in-copyright books and make the text available. That’s a separate problem.

Google Play offers separa...

Private Patronizer site out of beta

My homebrew Patreon is successfully processing renewals. A variety of stupid mistakes and bone-headed misconfigurations have been addressed. Patronizers can subscribe to posts by email. I hereby declare it out of public beta.

This is not a statement that it’s bug free, mind you. I’m sure I’ll find new problems. My fans are dedicated to illuminating me through providing exciting, inexplicable errors, and they are legion.

If you were pondering switching but didn’t want to be a guinea pig, you shou...

“TLS Mastery” first draft done!

I’ve completed a rough cut of TLS Mastery, and am now looking for tech reviewers who know TLS. If you know more about TLS than the above average sysadmin and would like to review the manuscript, please drop me a note at mwl at mwl dot io with the subject “TLS Reviewer” or use the contact form. I’ll be collecting feedback until 28 February. Then I integrate everything and make a real book.

I’ve given the manuscript to sponsors, plus the Digital Reader and above Patronizers. (Thus proving you don’...

2020 Income Sources

My post on where my income came from in 2019 stirred interest, so I’m sharing the same information this year.

I had this bright idea that I could perhaps extract and share other useful information from my business data. I dug and found many strange things–but, while they’re interesting, they’re not actionable. It was all minutae like “Cash Flow for Creators sold five times as many copies on my own e-bookstore as it sold in all other channels combined.”

That’s not just interesting, it’s downright...

Private Patreon Public Beta

This weekend, I built my own private patronage site at https://www.tiltedwindmillpress.com/product-category/patronizer/

My test users say this works. Consider this a Public Beta. There will be bumps. But if you want to have nothing between me and you but a stack of obstreperous software and recalcitrant payment gateways, this is your chance.

It functions slightly different than Patreon in a couple ways. Fees on $1 and $5 transfers eat a big chunk of the money. The $1/month “See the Sausage Being...

New Montague Portal novel: “Drinking Heavy Water”

I’m pleased to announce the next Montague Portal novel, Drinking Heavy Water. Take five hundred breaths and never go home again.

SECOND CONTACT

Aidan Redding’s entire goal for her time in this universe: behave. For once. Discovering seafaring aliens trashes that plan.

The aliens raise questions. Her co-workers raise more.

The answers explain it all. And ruin everything.

On a world where gravity changes every second, Redding finds herself involuntarily allied with a mathematician from Soviet Tex...

More on Print Orders

For the love of Rat, don’t send money before I give you a quote and confirm your book is still available. First-come first-serve means exactly that.

Here’s how I’m processing orders:

Each morning, I get up and read the emails with the subject BOOKS. I collect the books each person wants, put them in the correct size envelope, weigh them, and make a quote with shipping. Each envelope gets a sticky note with the person’s name and the weight.

The next morning, I see who paid. I sign those books a...

Direct Print Book Sale

I write too dang much. And every time I have a new book out, I grab a few extra copies. An author always has a use for extra copies. He can sell them to avid readers at conferences. He can hand them to reviewers. He can level furniture and clog the plumbing. When a reader asks if I’ll sign a book, I say “catch me at a conference.” It’s all good.

Provided that said author ever leaves the house. Which is not the case for 2020.

Every single one of my 2020 events was cancelled. No AsiaBSDCon, no Pen...

Temporally Shifting Bundles

A few days ago I wrote about the Big Time Bundle. It was supposed to expire last week.

I’m not saying that the US election broke space and time, forcing us to reset the end date. But the election definitely squeezed all of the air out of the world, and disrupted much of our publicity.

So we reset time.

The Big Time bundle is available for three more days. Ten books, by award-winning authors like Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Robert J Sawyer. And one by yours truly. All DRM-free. Dirt cheap. Part o...

Last-Minute Public Reading, on Halloween

On 31 October 2020, Halloween, I’ll be giving a last-minute online reading at Privacy Week. You’ll get snippets of $ git commit murder and a sneak peek at “TLS Mastery.” We’ll have time for a Q&A afterwards, and then a breakout session for those who for some reason want yet more time with me.

This is a last minute event; I’m filling in for someone who cannot make it. The time isn’t yet set, but it’ll be either 15:30 or 16:30 EDT. I’ll find out tomorrow. It will also appear on the Privacy Week sc...