Category: Nonfiction Books

I spent $25 on a Reddit ad that ran for the last week, for PAM Mastery. The ad (Pluggable Authentication Modules: Threat or Menace?) appeared in /r/CentOS, /r/Ubuntu, /r/sysadmin, /r/unix, /r/freebsd, /r/linux, /r/BSD, and /r/debian.

So what did I get for that?

62,521 impressions. 215 clicks through to the ad. 89 click-throughs to the book page.

How many of those translated to purchases? That’s pretty hard to guess, but: the links from my web site are affiliate links. When you buy the book from Amazon through my link, I get a few extra cents for referring you there. So, let’s assume that all of the affiliate purchases of PAM Mastery during that time came as a result of the Reddit ad. That’s going to overestimate the ad’s impact, but it’s the only real promo I did during that time.

So, the total sales I can attribute to the Reddit are:

One.

This isn’t Reddit’s fault. Maybe the ad sucks–I’ve never claimed to be an ad man. Maybe the cover image drew them in, but then they looked at my site or the book description and said “Oh, hell no.”

Or perhaps PAM just repulsed them.

Why advertise?

My book sales have been way down for the last few months–both fiction and nonfiction. PAM Mastery did not sell as well at release as some other books.

Other writers have reported similar slumps. (When pro writers get together, what do we talk about? Money, books written by people not in the room, and business.)

If sales continued that poorly, I would have had to make some changes.

Weirdly, though, my sales picked up… on November 9th. The day after election day. Other writers I know have reported similar surges.

A week does not mean that the writing is better. But the folks saying uncertainty is bad for business have a point.

Or perhaps advertising on Reddit brought people to my site, where they bought books that were not about PAM.

From my mug.org talk. You want more on PAM? Get my PAM book.

I’ve had books translated into nine different languages. The rotating banner at the top of my blog shows some of them.

A reader pointed me at a translation that I wasn’t aware of: FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS in Russian. Unfortunately, the translator didn’t get rights to do so before translating it.

This is not the first time this has happened. For future reference, I’m putting up a post about my response in this situation.

The fact that someone thinks that Allan and I did a good enough job on the book that they spent their own time and energy to translate it is a huge compliment. It really is. It’s incredibly flattering.

But it eliminates any hope the publisher (in this case, myself) has of selling translation rights for this book.

This translator has also put this under a Creative Commons license. As they’re not the copyright holder of the original work, they also don’t have the right to change the license. As the book says, the license is “all rights reserved.”

I’ve sent the site a nice note, asking them to take it down.

Translation rights for my books are available, either from No Starch Press or myself, depending on the book. Any publisher is happy to sell translation rights.

I sell books to support my family. Translation income is part of that. So, like any author, I have to politely insist that some of my biggest fans not translate my work.

Now that PAM Mastery is out, I’m starting work on my next project.

I’m taking a break from anything filesystem related. Yes, I want to do FreeBSD Mastery: Jails, but that involves a lot of filesystem stuff, so that goes on hold for a bit.

Instead, I’m starting a book on OpenBSD’s web stack. Between httpd, relayd, and CARP, plus assorted surrounding infrastructure like acme-client, OpenBSD’s got a pretty solid offering for its environment. It doesn’t do everything–but most of us don’t need everything.

And yes, while the reference platform will be OpenBSD, I’ll also mention the FreeBSD support.

This book should be easier to write than the PAM book. Which is good, because I’m still fighting anemia. I have no idea when this will be done.

I will offer sponsorships once I have enough of the book done that I’m confident I can actually finish it. And I have some novel ideas for this book, but that’ll also have to wait a bit.

cue Movie Voice Over Voice

They thought they knew PAM. They were wrong…

My long-dreaded PAM book is now available, in both print and ebook.

You can grab it at all the usual suspects–I mean, bookstores.

Get it before it gets you. I’m still waiting for Apple to get the book up in iTunes, but it should be there within a day or two.

Print proofs are on their way to me. If they look OK, you’ll be able to get the book in print next week.

If you want both Kindle and print versions, buy the print first. You’ll then be able to get the Kindle version for $2.99.

My long-dreaded PAM book now exists as a complete first draft.

I’m sorry.

I’ve somehow persuaded Dag-Erling Smørgrav, author of OpenPAM, to do a technical review. DES knows PAM, to his eternal regret, but I really could use more people to review the manuscript before it hits print.

If you know PAM, and would be interested in pointing out my errors before the rest of the world gets a chance, drop me an email with the subject PAM review. Tell me your familiarity with PAM, so I know the context of your feedback.

I’d need any feedback by Monday, 8 August 2016. That’s about four weeks. Given that this book is longer than Tarsnap Mastery but shorter than DNSSEC Mastery, that should be enough time.

I should say, though: this is a book on PAM. It’s not on LDAP, or SSSD, or Kerberos. I cover several add-on PAM modules, but all in the context of illustrating and leveraging PAM.

With luck, the book will be available Septemberish.

Two blog posts in one day, after a few weeks of silence? It happens. Weirder still, there will be another tomorrow. I’m asking for help from my tech book readers here.

Some things are such an integral part of my life that I can’t imagine others are unfamiliar with them. I’m considering using one of them for “PAM Mastery,” but I must consider that perhaps not everyone understands it. I don’t want to say what particular part of my life I’m talking about, as that would invalidate the test here.

So, with the following text, do you:

1) get the reference
2) if you do NOT get the reference, do you understand it anyway?

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A chain of PAM controls don’t resemble the strict allow/deny syntax you’ll find in applications like packet filters, web servers, and other Access Control Lists. They’re more like a long-standing committee in a centuries-old educational institution steeped in tradition and ritual, where each member has an unusual name, baroque responsibilities, and unusual privileges.

This committee votes on authentication in a specified, stately order. Each member has specific ways they can vote. Perhaps the Archchancellor starts the vote, and can either say “yes” or reject the whole proposal before anyone else gets a chance. The Dean can vote “no comment” or “no,” but doesn’t actually get to vote in favor of anything. The Senior Wrangler can vote either “no” or “yes, so long as nobody else objects.” If voting reaches as far as the Lecturer in Recent Runes he can either stay silent or declare, “yes, dang it, and the vote’s over, I win!”

Meanwhile, the Librarian has a seat at the table but can only take notes.