Category: writing

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“OpenZFS Mastery” device names options

The original FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS books recommended managing disks by labels based on serial number.

  pool: vm
 state: ONLINE
config:

	NAME                   STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	vm                     ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/WD-WCC4N0JSJDKF  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/WD-WMC4N0M8NRXM  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

I do this on hosts with multiple storage devices. It’s great for reality, with copy-and-paste terminals. It’s terrible for an educational book. The brain cannot absorb this easily. I see two ways around this. There’s the method used in the original books:

  pool: compost
 state: ONLINE
  scan: none requested
config:

NAME       STATE READ WRITE CKSUM
compost    ONLINE   0     0     0
gpt/zfs0   ONLINE   0     0     0
gpt/zfs1   ONLINE   0     0     0

Easy to understand. A terrible example. Readers of the first book did this, despite the copious warnings not to.

It was suggested that I could use truncated fake serial numbers from different manufacturers.

  pool: vm
 state: ONLINE
config:

	NAME             STATE     READ WRITE CKSUM
	vm               ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/WD-WCC4N0  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/SEA-4N0M8  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/TOSH-9262  ONLINE       0     0     0
	  gpt/NCC-1701A  ONLINE       0     0     0

errors: No known data errors

This is obviously fake. It also obviously represents serial numbers.

So, the question for my nonfiction readers is: how does the latter example stick in your brain? Is it not only readable but absorbable?

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Dear writers: Delete your Findaway Voices account NOW

[update in next post]

When Findaway Voices first appeared, it made it comparatively easy for independent authors to do audiobooks. Audio was still hard, mind you, but it was possible.

Spotify bought Findaway. They began playing with payments, refunds, and returns. And now, the licensing terms have changed.

Accordingly, you hereby grant Spotify a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free, fully paid, irrevocable, worldwide license to reproduce, make available, perform and display, translate, modify, create derivative works from (such as transcripts of User Content), distribute, and otherwise use any such User Content through any medium, whether alone or in combination with other Content or materials, in any manner and by any means, method or technology, whether now known or hereafter created, in connection with the Service, the promotion, advertising or marketing of the Service, and the operation of Spotify’s (and its successors’ and affiliates’) business, including for systems and products management, improvement and development, testing, training, modeling and implementation in connection with the Spotify Service. Where applicable and to the extent permitted under applicable law, you also agree to waive, and not to enforce, any “moral rights” or equivalent rights, such as your right to object to derogatory treatment of such User Content. Nothing in these Terms prohibits any use of User Content by Spotify that may be taken without a license.

Spotify may now do anything they want with your audiobook. They will–not can, will–feed it to their AI system and use it to rip off your work. They specifically declare you can’t complain about derogatory uses. They can mix your book with work you find abhorrent and release it as a new product. They can use a speech recognition system and create a printed version of your book.

I have one audiobook. I pulled it from distribution when the royalties problems started and I stopped getting paid. That audiobook became exclusive to my store on 17 January 2023. It has fewer sales, but I’ve made more than I did in all the years before. (“But exposure,” some folks will say. People die of exposure.)

It’s not enough to stop distributing your work via Findaway. If you use them to store your audio files and nothing else, the new terms apply. They have no automatic option to delete titles from their site. I just sent this email to their technical support.

Hello,

Findaway’s new terms of service are unacceptable. Please delete my
book and my entire account.

Thank you.

No need to be rude. It’s not the tech support flunky’s fault.

Also, I’m super happy with how my one lone audiobook came out. If it sold more, I’d do more.

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Finding a way to “Speak the Truth”

One of my biggest rules for writing nonfiction is “speak the truth.” It might be *my* truth, others might disagree, but that truth is absolutely necessary.

A book I’m planning to write after Run Your Own Mail Server really needs to use Debian as the reference platform, for reasons I’m not gonna get into here. But my heart is obviously and publicly in BSD-land. How could I write this and be truthful?

I’ve been chewing this over for a while, but the obvious just hit me: it’s about voice and theme.

I need to write this book with a motif and theme that fits the topic. I’d been pondering using a Trek motif, but this specifically needs a DS9 theme.

Specifically, a “O’Brien managing Terok Nor” theme.

NOW I can write this book and be truthful. (bang)(clang)(grind) (BOOOM)

The detail that this requires a DS9 rewatch is purely incidental.

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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–backer books have started to arrive in the last day or two–but they’re on their way so it’s not a complete failure.

Last, the Fiction River anthology Broken Dreams comes out today. The author list includes my name. The book description says something about alternate history, in Detroit, with orcs. It’s at all major retailers, and a bunch of minor ones.

If I had pushed, I could have released “Letters to ed(1)” today, but that’s too much even for me. A couple more weeks on that one. Consider yourself warned.

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“$ git sync murder” is out, so: how many books have I written?

The hardcovers are in stores now, so I think it’s official. $ git sync murder is out everywhere except my print bookstore. You can get it at all of the usual stores. I have the ebook in my store.

Every time I release a new book, or dare to show my face in public, folks ask me how many books I’ve written. My answer is, “define written and book.” That’s not as snarky an answer as you might think.

First, they’re asking the wrong question. I’ve written many books that were not published and that you will never read. Immortal Clay didn’t pick up a bunch of 4-star and 5-star reviews by being the first novel I ever wrote. It got those by being my fifteenth finished novel in a series of deliberate practice that continues to this day, and my first published novel. So, let’s change the question to “how many books have you published?”

Here’s the current output of the SNMP object where I keep my publications catalog. (Accessing this object is an easter egg in the Networknomicon or, if you’re still attached to your sanity, SNMP Mastery.)

SNMP table: TWP-MIB::mwlBooksTable

 titleIndex                                             title year      genre      length
          1                                       Gatecrasher 1992    fiction full-length
          2                               Believe it or Else! 1993    fiction full-length
          3                           Gatecrasher 2nd edition 1995    fiction full-length
          4                 Women who Run with the Werewolves 1995    fiction   anthology
          5                                      Absolute BSD 2002 nonfiction full-length
          6                                  Absolute OpenBSD 2003 nonfiction full-length
          7                   Cisco Routers for the Desperate 2004 nonfiction full-length
          8                                         PGP & GPG 2006 nonfiction full-length
          9                     Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd edition 2007 nonfiction full-length
         10      Cisco Routers for the Desperate, 2nd edition 2009 nonfiction full-length
         11                             Network Flow Analysis 2010 nonfiction full-length
         12                           Horror Library volume 2 2010    fiction   anthology
         13                                   Opening the Eye 2011    fiction       story
         14                               Breaking the Circle 2011    fiction       story
         15                                       SSH Mastery 2012 nonfiction full-length
         16           Vicious Redemption: Five Dark Fantasies 2012    fiction full-length
         17                                    DNSSEC Mastery 2013 nonfiction full-length
         18                                      Sudo Mastery 2013 nonfiction full-length
         19                          Absolute OpenBSD, 2nd ed 2013 nonfiction full-length
         20                       No More Lonesome Blue Rings 2013    fiction       story
         21                            Sticky Supersaturation 2013    fiction       story
         22                                          Lavender 2013    fiction       story
         23                                        Pax Canina 2013    fiction       story
         24                              Wednesday's Seagulls 2013    fiction       story
         25               FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials 2014 nonfiction full-length
         26                                     Immortal Clay 2014    fiction full-length
         27                               Waking Up Yesterday 2014    fiction       story
         28                                   Calling Control 2014    fiction       story
         29                                Moonlight's Apples 2014    fiction       story
         30             Networking for Systems Administrators 2015 nonfiction full-length
         31                                   Tarsnap Mastery 2015 nonfiction full-length
         32                              FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS 2015 nonfiction full-length
         33                                     Forever Falls 2015    fiction     novella
         34              Spilled Mirovar (Prohibition Orcs 1) 2015    fiction       story
         35                                      Whisker Line 2015    fiction       story
         36                                    Wifi and Romex 2015    fiction       story
         37                                       PAM Mastery 2016 nonfiction full-length
         38                     FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS 2016 nonfiction full-length
         39                   FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZedFS 2016 nonfiction full-length
         40                   Kipuka Blues (Immortal Clay #2) 2016    fiction full-length
         41                                   Hydrogen Sleets 2016    fiction full-length
         42             Drowned Mirovar (Prohibition Orcs #2) 2016    fiction     novella
         43                  Butterfly Stomp Waltz (Beaks #1) 2016    fiction full-length
         44           Earthquake Kitten Kiss (Beaks spin-off) 2016    fiction     novella
         45                        Butterfly Stomp (Beaks #0) 2016    fiction full-length
         46             Forced to Talk, Like, With Your Mouth 2016    fiction       story
         47            FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems 2016 nonfiction full-length
         48                                 git commit murder 2017    fiction full-length
         49                                savaged by systemd 2017    fiction       story
         50                          Httpd and Relayd Mastery 2017 nonfiction full-length
         51                                        Ed Mastery 2018 nonfiction     novella
         52               Ed Mastery, Manly McManface Edition 2018 nonfiction     novella
         53                          SSH Mastery, 2nd edition 2018 nonfiction full-length
         54                     Absolute FreeBSD, 3rd edition 2018 nonfiction full-length
         55                           Bedazzled by Blockchain 2018    fiction       story
         56                                         Face Less 2018    fiction       story
         57                Boundary Shock: Tuesday After Next 2018    fiction   anthology
         58 Boundary Shock: Robots, Androids, Cyborgs, Oh My! 2018    fiction   anthology
         59                         Sudo Mastery, 2nd edition 2019 nonfiction full-length
         60                            FreeBSD Mastery: Jails 2019 nonfiction full-length
         61                     Terrapin Sky Tango (Beaks #2) 2019    fiction full-length
         62                                 Winner Breaks All 2019    fiction       story
         63             Boundary Shock: Apocalypse Descending 2019    fiction   anthology
         64                      Fiction River: Superstitious 2019    fiction   anthology
         65                                 Snot-Nosed Aliens 2019    fiction   anthology
         66                        An Interpretation of Moles 2019    fiction   anthology
         67                                      SNMP Mastery 2020 nonfiction full-length
         68                      Boundary Shock: Alien Dreams 2020    fiction   anthology
         69                                The Networknomicon 2020 nonfiction full-length
         70                            Cash Flow for Creators 2020 nonfiction full-length
         71              Boundary Shock: What Might Have Been 2020    fiction   anthology
         72                                  Face The Strange 2020    fiction   anthology
         73                                  Bloody Christmas 2020    fiction   anthology
         74                              Drinking Heavy Water 2020    fiction full-length
         75                                        Final Gift 2020    fiction       story
         76                                    Woolen Torment 2020    fiction       story
         77                   Drums with Delusions of Godhood 2020    fiction       story
         78                    Uncollected Anthology: Deities 2020    fiction   anthology
         79                                    Woolen Torment 2021    fiction       story
         80               Aidan Redding Against the Universes 2021    fiction full-length
         81                            Fiction River: Chances 2021    fiction   anthology
         82           Fiction River: Dark and Deadly Passions 2021    fiction   anthology
         83                                       TLS Mastery 2021 nonfiction full-length
         84                                    Only Footnotes 2021 nonfiction     novella
         85                                   git sync murder 2021    fiction full-length
         86                        The Holiday Spectacular #2 2021    fiction   anthology

That’s 86 things with my name on the cover, excluding articles in periodicals and web sites. (I don’t have the energy to go through all that stuff.) So, I’ve published 86 books.

Except some of these are stories in anthologies. Anthologies are written by multiple authors. They’re only partially “by me.” Excluding those, the catalog has 70 entries. I have published 70 books.

Except some of those are basically chapbooks: single stories, put out on their own in print. I have many more stories than these, by the way, but they’re electronic-only. I ran out of energy before I collected all that information.

47 things with my name on them that are classified as either “full-length” or “novella.” This categorization is incorrect, however. The word “novella” means “a short novel.” The definition on “novel” has bloated over the last one hundred fifty years, driven by manufacturing concerns. Arthur Conan Doyle’s first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, is about 43,000 words. Publishers would laugh at Doyle today and tell him to try a chapbook publisher based on the length alone. In the 1920s, a 20,000-word tale was considered a novel and might be published as such. I have a great big stack of Rex Stout mystery novels, and many of them contain fewer than 40,000 words.

Let’s take a nonfiction “novella.” Ed Mastery. It is a short book, but it’s unquestionably “a book.”

Alternately, consider Drowned Mirovar the second Prohibition Orcs tale. It’s over 30,000 words. In the era it was set, it would be a full novel that would appear first in a magazine, then as a standalone book. Today, it’s a prologue. As it’s packaged, it’s “a book.” It would look just fine on the shelf next to any of my 1950s novels.

Then there are collections. Vicious Redepmtion is a collection of my short stories. Aidan Redding Against the Universes collects short stories and novels. They’re listed here as “full-length,” which they certainly are. Should I could those as books?

Surely there’s a culturally-accepted standard or industry standard on how to count the number of books you’ve written?

Er… no.

Isaac Asimov established a standard that “if I appear in it, it counts.” He counted anthologies. He counted chapbooks. By that standard, I’ve published 86 books. I am uncomfortable with this definition.

I know authors who won’t count anything shorter than 60,000 words. By that standard, I’ve published 22 books. It excludes all of the Mastery titles except SNMP Mastery. That’s clearly not right for me, either.

For me, the original question is about milestones. It’s about accomplishments. I want to be able to say “I made this thing” and stand by it.

My preferred definition is, if I whack you with it, will it leave a mark? Bystanders would object, however. And I have created some titles that, while they’d leave a mark, I don’t consider them independent books. An example would be the Bail Bond Denied edition of FreeBSD Mastery: Jails. It is literally the exact same text as the regular FreeBSD Mastery: Jails, but with a cover drawn in crayon by yours truly. It is a thing. It gets offered up for charity auctions. I have a small amount of pride in it. It’s not really a discrete book.

So I’m trying this definition.

a) 15,000 words or longer
b) requiring distinct and discrete effort to create
c) something I’m not embarrassed to call “a book.”

This definition lets me exclude titles like the ZedFS version of FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS, the Beck and Provost editions of Terrapin Sky Tango, and the Manly McManface version of Ed Mastery. Only Footnotes might have brand new footnotes in it, but it wasn’t hard to make. It’s excluded. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of these, but only because they polish my reputation as the good sort of troll. I knocked them all off in a morning. (They’re still in the pic of me with one copy of every edition of everything I’ve written, because that picture is only for fun.)

It lets me include works like Ed Mastery and Cash Flow for Creators. I spent three weeks writing the cash flow book, and thirty years learning how to write the cash flow book. It include volumes like the Networknomicon, because producing that required a whole bunch of work. It was a different sort of labor for me, but that unspeakable tome fine educational work is clearly a discrete, unique book.

I’m also counting collections. Again, the “how many books have you published” question is about milestones. Writing enough of A Thing to create a collection is a milestone. Aidan Redding Against the Universes is the closest thing to a Brandon Sanderson doorstop I’ve produced on the fiction side. (Also, that hardcover has two different covers, one on the dust jacket and one on the laminate, and they’re both lovely.)

Applying this definition leaves me with these titles.

          1                                       Gatecrasher 1992    fiction full-length
          2                               Believe it or Else! 1993    fiction full-length
          3                           Gatecrasher 2nd edition 1995    fiction full-length
          5                                      Absolute BSD 2002 nonfiction full-length
          6                                  Absolute OpenBSD 2003 nonfiction full-length
          7                   Cisco Routers for the Desperate 2004 nonfiction full-length
          8                                         PGP & GPG 2006 nonfiction full-length
          9                     Absolute FreeBSD, 2nd edition 2007 nonfiction full-length
         10      Cisco Routers for the Desperate, 2nd edition 2009 nonfiction full-length
         11                             Network Flow Analysis 2010 nonfiction full-length
         15                                       SSH Mastery 2012 nonfiction full-length
         16           Vicious Redemption: Five Dark Fantasies 2012    fiction full-length
         17                                    DNSSEC Mastery 2013 nonfiction full-length
         18                                      Sudo Mastery 2013 nonfiction full-length
         19                          Absolute OpenBSD, 2nd ed 2013 nonfiction full-length
         25               FreeBSD Mastery: Storage Essentials 2014 nonfiction full-length
         26                                     Immortal Clay 2014    fiction full-length
         30             Networking for Systems Administrators 2015 nonfiction full-length
         31                                   Tarsnap Mastery 2015 nonfiction full-length
         32                              FreeBSD Mastery: ZFS 2015 nonfiction full-length
         33                                     Forever Falls 2015    fiction     novella
         37                                       PAM Mastery 2016 nonfiction full-length
         38                     FreeBSD Mastery: Advanced ZFS 2016 nonfiction full-length
         40                   Kipuka Blues (Immortal Clay #2) 2016    fiction full-length
         41                                   Hydrogen Sleets 2016    fiction full-length
         42             Drowned Mirovar (Prohibition Orcs #2) 2016    fiction     novella
         43                  Butterfly Stomp Waltz (Beaks #1) 2016    fiction full-length
         44           Earthquake Kitten Kiss (Beaks spin-off) 2016    fiction     novella
         47            FreeBSD Mastery: Specialty Filesystems 2016 nonfiction full-length
         48                                 git commit murder 2017    fiction full-length
         50                          Httpd and Relayd Mastery 2017 nonfiction full-length
         51                                        Ed Mastery 2018 nonfiction     novella
         52               Ed Mastery, Manly McManface Edition 2018 nonfiction     novella
         53                          SSH Mastery, 2nd edition 2018 nonfiction full-length
         54                     Absolute FreeBSD, 3rd edition 2018 nonfiction full-length
         59                         Sudo Mastery, 2nd edition 2019 nonfiction full-length
         60                            FreeBSD Mastery: Jails 2019 nonfiction full-length
         61                     Terrapin Sky Tango (Beaks #2) 2019    fiction full-length
         67                                      SNMP Mastery 2020 nonfiction full-length
         69                                The Networknomicon 2020 nonfiction full-length
         70                            Cash Flow for Creators 2020 nonfiction full-length
         74                              Drinking Heavy Water 2020    fiction full-length
         80               Aidan Redding Against the Universes 2021    fiction full-length
         83                                       TLS Mastery 2021 nonfiction full-length
         85                                   git sync murder 2021    fiction full-length

This makes $ git sync murder my 45th book.

Could this definition be gamed? Sure it could. But I don’t care enough to game it. I stopped counting my releases somewhere around 17 or 18 books. I counted titles on my brag shelf at one point a few years ago, using my gut as a definition, and got a number like 31 or 33 or something like that. I haven’t cared enough to count until today, when I’m putting off doing real work. Now that I’ve counted, I suspect I’ll maintain a silent count until I break 50 and then lose count again. 50 is a milestone, after all.

If you want to argue about my definitions, please find someone else to argue with.

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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 cheerfully sharing how to do the same.

I’m delighted to be in this bundle, and not just because bundle curator Kris Rusch called Cash Flow for Creators “one of the most important books you’ll read all year.” (Mind you, I’m gonna keep that quote in a safe place so that when the world catches on to what a complete doofus I am, I can take it out and cuddle it.) But there’s some top-notch writers and business people in this bundle.

Johanna Rothman is best known as a business and technology consultant. She also writes charming heart-warming stories that remind me of fairy tales for some reason, because they’re totally not fairy tales. Except when they are. I’ve met Johanna at several conferences, and for a quiet and unassuming itty-bitty lady she knows how to put herself out there. I’d absolutely listen to her on getting speaking slots at a conference. Or, in this case, read her Writing a Conference Proposal the Conference Wants and Accepts.

Joanna Penn writes top-notch fiction and hosts the Creative Penn podcast. I was lucky enough to have lunch with her at a conference on the Oregon coast a few years ago and frankly, I have no idea how she gets the energy to do half of her stuff. She’s a smart people, and has built one heck of a creative business doing this weird… what’s that word? Oh, yes. “Planning.” Something I constantly and consistently fail to do. I really ought to perform the exercises in Your Author Business Plan. I should also take her advice that I need to weasel my way onto more podcasts, because the whole “wait patiently for invitations” thing doesn’t work well.

Stefon Mears once worked in computing, but he got better. I’ve known him for years, and the interesting thing about Stefon? It’s not his obsessive Blue Öyster Cult fandom, though that is one of his better traits. It’s not even that I once made him laugh so hard that bystanders asked if he was having a seizure and if they should call an ambulance. It’s that he’s just this guy, and he keeps writing book after book after book in the grand pulp tradition. One after another, he churns them out like Rex Stout or Zane Grey or Lester Dent or any number of others. We’ve talked about how to write a novel every month, and I overwhelmingly agree with the advice he gives in The 30-Day Novel and Beyond!

All this for five bucks. But the bonus books, for those who pay $20 or more?

Award-winning writers and editors Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch have survived several economic crashes in this trade. They were the first professional authors I ever met who understood that writers don’t write books; they create and license intellectual property. I don’t always totally agree with them, but they back up their arguments and make me think about why I’m doing the things I do. You can’t buy that. Except you can. In several ways. In this bundle.

Mark Leslie LeFebvre was a bookseller. He’s worked for Kobo and Draft2Digital. He’s a fantastic writer and editor. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s worked at a printer. He knows this business like I know that weird growth on the back of my left hand. (Don’t worry about me, they always drop off before they hatch.) I respect this man’s mad skillz enough that when I finish the Current Giant Epic Fiction Thing I’m working on, I’m going to buy an hour of his time to talk through how to optimally release it. If you want your work in bookstores and libraries, he’s the man to tell you how. Oh, hey–An Author’s Guide to Working With Libraries and Bookstores. What a coincidence!

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Tonya D Price at more than one conference. Her excellent writing survived MBA school, a feat not many people manage. A Writer’s Introduction to Social Media Marketing is exclusive to this bundle, so I haven’t read it. Yet.

Writer, editor, and game publisher Loren L Coleman might be best known for his work in Battletech, but I mostly know him for his phenomenal Kickstarter chops and his devoted Prohibition Orcs fandom. Anyone who can raise multiple millions in a Kickstarter has my attention. He recently Kickstarted Crowdfunding Your Ficton: a Best Practices Guide. Kickstarter is on my Things To Play With list, so I backed it. You can get his book after those of us wise enough to back him, but before the great unwashed masses.

A cut of the purchase price goes to each author. Another cut can go to Able Gamers, if you check the box. You should totally check the box.

Also, the price is completely “pay what you want.” None of us would mind if those of you with real jobs realized that this bundle is dang near theft and chose to pay a bit more for it. If you read these and act on their advice, you’ll turn a profit easily.

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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 become a better writer.

Yes, you can become a better writer. Hint: use the exact same techniques used by craftspeople for millennia.

Unrelated: the title of this episode of Alive After Reading is perhaps the most appropriate of any interview I have ever given.

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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 separate terms for traditional publishers than individual authors. I own my own publishing company, but I don’t produce books quickly enough to get access to the publisher terms. Fine.

Since its inception, Google Play has let individual authors put a suggested retail price on their books. Until recently, they reserved the right to cut the price for their customers. If they cut the price, they would pay the author their cut based on the suggested retail price. Google used this to boost their platform. They could take, say, SSH Mastery, and make it free for the next thousand downloads. I would make my $6 or so on each download. I get paid, so what could I possibly object to?

I object to it destroying my business, that’s what.

Modern publishing is an ecosystem. Changes in one distributor affect how other distributors behave. Other major ebook distributor either respects the suggested retail price I set on their platform (e.g., Gumroad) or they have a Most Favored Nation clause in their terms where they can match competitor prices. Apple had this for years, but I’m not certain of its status after the antitrust lawsuits. Amazon still has this MFN clause, and it actively monitors competitors for prices to match.

Here’s how this goes horribly wrong.

  • Google makes one of my best-selling books free.
  • Amazon sees it and price matches.
  • A few thousand people download the book on Google Play. I get paid for those.
  • Tens of thousands of people download the book on KDP. I do not get paid for those.
  • Google restores the suggested retail price.
  • I spend days begging Amazon to restore the normal price.
  • Everybody I might sell that book to got it for free.

That book is dead. I made a few thousand dollars in a month but that book brings in nothing more, forever.

Writing is a passive income game. I count on each live book to bring in a few hundred bucks a month. Some, I’m delighted if they bring in fifty bucks a month. I count on last year’s books to pay this year’s bills. If you want to know more about how this works, check out Cash Flow for Creators.

Free books are a valid promotion strategy. (I’ll be announcing a free novel soon, to suck people into the Montague Portal omnibus.) I need to control their use, however.

I half-expect Google to reassert their previous model at any time. Google is spectacularly indifferent to their users. When Google blinks, I’ll be turning them off.

Mind you, I’ll keep the books set up in their publisher dashboard. When they twitch back, I’ll turn them back on.

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The Worst that Can Happen to an Author

Kris Rusch has a lovely blog post today on the need for courage in the writing business. I started to comment on it, but the comment grew to such a length that would be rude to leave it. “Comment” does not mean “lengthy diatribe.” So:

A key component of courage is the willingness to accept the risk of pain, and perhaps actual pain. Publishing is full of emotional pain. Every time I write something, I wonder if I should make it public. If I should put it out there. And then I remind myself of the very worst that could happen.

The Book Police will show up at my door with their lead-type-studded cudgels to drag me by my ankles to the front lawn of the Library of Congress, where they’ll put me in stocks for the day with a sign hanging around my neck declaring me a Bad Writer and place a bushel basket of rotten fruit a few feet away for amateur literary critics’ throwing pleasure, while simultaneously the Bad Art Correction Squad will break out their erasers and hard drive degaussers and eliminate all trace of my work from meatspace and Internet alike.

No–wait. That’s not it. Sorry.

The worst that can happen is nobody notices. Nobody cares. That the thing I spent hours or weeks or even months writing gets no attention and attracts zero readers.

That hurts. I’d rather take rotten nectarines to the face for a few hours.

As long as I don’t publish, my comforting dream of this book’s explosive success remains alive. I avoid the risk of pain.

Writers, especially new writers, believe that their books are special. I hear writers call their books their babies, their special friends, their precious. And it’s simply not true. Or worse, they don’t call their books that. They call their book (singular) that.

If you’ve just finished writing your first book, or your second, this is understandable. It’s even natural.

But it’s a terrible mindset for any artist.

Writing is a creative skill, like any other art. You can learn to write just as you can learn to paint or throw clay or staple yourself to the world’s largest ball of string and have your friends set you rolling down the freeway and call it performance art. A potter would not expect to find success from their first successful vase. A painter would not expect their first portrait to win awards. No, these creators finish a piece, take a moment to appreciate and contemplate it, and start on the next one.

Successful writers are the same way.

Don’t get me wrong, the dream of success is great. The dream of fame and glory and supple book groupies can keep you going.

But being a writer is about being able to take a punch and either laugh it off or full-on ignore it. I’m a full time writer, and not a week goes by that I don’t get a scathing review from someone who didn’t read the book description or even look at the cover. (Don’t read your reviews. Seriously.)

Is that email from an unfamiliar sender spam? Or is it a vitriolic screed against one of my books or my entire career? Is it from someone who read the Immortal Clay novels and wants to helpfully inform me that I require intensive therapy, immediately and preferably inpatient, as if every single person who’s ever met me hasn’t already informed me? It might be from someone offering me money, so I guess I better open it.

People who’ve previously said they loved my books take lengthy detours to tell me this latest one is not up to scratch, but they figure I needed the money.

Being ignored hurts. Being noticed hurts more. Writers must have the courage to face the risk of emotional pain. Just as with athletic pain, critical pain gets easier to cope with the more you overcome it. It doesn’t get better. You grow stronger.

Yes, we all want our books to be noticed. To achieve success. The only way to make that dream reality is to consciously, deliberately, and with premeditation murder it and accept the risk. Your work cannot succeed so long as you hide it.

If you can’t accept the risk, feel free to cuddle your dream. Just don’t complain to any pro author about it. We want to help folks who are willing to take the necessary hits.

You’re willing to face the pain, but you need that dream of supple book groupies to keep you going? You need hope? That’s not only dandy, that’s human. Hope is the greatest gift.

But make a new dream for each book. Even if it’s the same old dream with the serial numbers filed off.

By the time I publish one book, I’ve already started writing the next book. The published book will live or die as readers dictate. But the book I’m halfway through writing right now? That one’s gonna hit big. I guarantee it.

I’m a potter fondling the next lump of freshly-scooped raw clay, convinced that this next piece will be my greatest triumph.