This post went to Patronizers at the beginning of August, and the world at the beginning of September.
Wow, is it raining. The word “acquerne” has nothing to do with water, but I believe the acquerne are crazy damp and none too pleased.
Anyway. In the name of Dog I’m tired, but here’s where things stand.
Most importantly, I learned how to pronounce “floccinaucinihilipilification” and “hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia.” That should guarantee I live my next life as ringworm.
Run Your Own Mail Server is now through copyedit and print layout. The paperback proof arrived in my hands about an hour ago. This paper back is the same thickness as a hardcover most other Mastery books. This is my last chance to find and fix any errors in my best selling indie tech book EVER but hey, no pressure. I can’t say I’m happy with the book because I am never “happy” with any of my books, but I am not displeased. The dang thing is done. Nobody else wanted to write it, but I believe independence is vital, so I had to. Yes people have written excellent tutorials, but a tutorial isn’t the same as an in-depth book. RYOMS is context-rich, something most tutorials lack.
Getting RYOMS to this stage feels disorienting. I’ve spent so long with this book filling my head, having it in print feels like a scoop of my brain is in my hands. I need to let it settle before reviewing it.
Amidst the copyedit corrections and page layouts and so on, I did get to write some short fiction for anthology calls. I’m not sure if the tales work, but they knocked the RYOMS rust out of my head, so that’s good. She Who Must Be Obeyed’s broken leg is healing, so that’s good. The garden refused to provide squash but the next morning offered up a twelve-inch Ambush Zucchini, so we have food and that’s also good.
Been pondering publishing schedules and Kickstarter timings. I normally launch Kickstarters when I send the book to copyedit, because at that point I’m confident the book will actually come out. I can’t launch a new Kickstarter until the old one fulfills, for obvious reasons. I find that I might want to run three before the end of the year, however: Dear Abyss, Networking for Systems Administrators 2/e, and one I can’t yet discuss. I doubt I have time to fit them all in using that model. Clearly, I need to leverage standard Mean Time Between Failure/Mean Time to Repair logic here, and reduce my Mean Time To Fulfillment. If I delay the Kickstarter launch when the book is back from copyedit, I can fulfill more quickly and launch the next. It feels wrong, but that’s mostly because I’ve trained myself to release books as soon as humanly possible. I want sponsors, Patronizers, and Kickstarter backers to get theirs before the general public can–with exceptions for people who live in places with slow mail service, sorry South Africa. (People in South Africa order my books? How did this happen? What’s going on?)
The switch from video hangouts over to Discord is complete. Not much traffic there, but I’m posting things. If you’re a Discord user at the right tier or above, say hello.
Next week I’m going to a writers’ meeting in Las Vegas. If you’re in the area, there will be a gelato meetup Monday night. Ostensibly, this is to work out the contents for a series of anthologies. In practice, I’m there to pick people’s brains about neat things they’re doing. Foil-edged tech books with embossed dust jackets, anyone? I don’t know that I’ll do any of those things, but I want the knowledge so I can choose the right project. We’re in a covid surge so I’ll be masking everywhere indoors except my hotel room.
The one major piece of work left is the RYOMS special edition. I have to write a page for it and add certain carefully-honed commentary throughout, much as I did for the Networknomicon. I’ve also commissioned special interior art for it. I plan to have that ready by 20 August, so I can get a proof and do the final order of all the sponsor, Patronizer, and backer copies. I don’t know that the books will arrive here by the end of August, but it’ll be dang close.
While I wait for those books to arrive I can work on integrating print book sales into tiltedwindmillpress.com, so I can sell print/ebook bundles on an ongoing but hands-free basis. Looks like I’ll be using Bookvault for the back end on that. They print North American sales in the US, and the rest of the world in the UK. My “worst case scenario” is shipping to Australia, and shipping costs from the UK to Australia are much better than from the US. It won’t beat Amazon Prime’s free in-country shipping, but folks who want to buy print direct from me probably don’t have Amazon Prime. I’m hoping to be able to offer a cheaper price on direct print/ebook bundle sales, perhaps through a coupon, to offset some of the shipping costs.
RYOMS will be the first book I offer direct print sales for. I’ll add other books as time permits.
After all that, what will I write next? I’ve decided to work on a second edition of Networking for Systems Administrators, which needs a couple new chapters and a meticulous audit. I’d also like to finish the $ git commit murder trilogy, so I’m going to take a run at $ git merge murder.
I also have to a tax attorney investigating my finances and my intellectual property inventory. Because I asked him to. RYOMS was an income shock, and might have made it sensible to start depreciating my IP like the big companies do. Disney is still depreciating Cinderella, and there’s no reason I can’t do the same. The question is, will accounting expenses outweigh the financial gains? If the answer is no, I’ll spin up “Burke and Hare Press” in the next few months as a C-corp and proceed. TWP will become an imprint thereof, and I’ll contract to provide books to the corporation. I’ll have to negotiate carefully, though; that Lucas dude who’s going to run B&H press is known to be a jerk, and I must protect my intellectual property from him.
No wonder business people are mad.
Anyway, that’s this month. Hope all of you are enjoying your fading summer. Or, for those of you down south, your fading winter. Whatever’s fading, enjoy it.