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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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Charity Auction: DNSSEC Mastery proof for Black Girls Code

I have another unique physical artifact, which means it’s time for another charity auction.

I’ve run auctions for the Soroptimists, the Ottawa Mission, and multiple ones for the FreeBSD and OpenBSD foundations. I’m a writer so I can’t give as much to charities as I would like, but I seem to have developed a knack for persuading other people to give to charity and that’s the same thing, right?

I’m auctioning off the print proof of DNSSEC Mastery, 2nd edition.

A proof is a prepublication version of a book, printed so the publisher can double check that the spine text is actually on the spine and the cover art is right side up and the correct words are on the proper pages and that the typesetter didn’t forget the commas. It’s stamped with a Not For Resale banner so unscrupulous folks can’t sell it ahead of time. Only one print proof of DNSSEC Mastery exists.

I’ll sign this book, add a personalized note declaring that this tome was won at charity auction and thus demonstrates the winner’s sound moral and ethical character, and ship it by the best means available for $15 or less.

This time, you’ll be supporting Black Girl Code. They do good work and have chapters all over the US, including here in Detroit, as well as South Africa.

The auction rules are:

Comment on this post to bid. All bids in US dollars. I advise bidders to click the “notify me of new comments by email” button, so they can see when they’re outbid.

The auction runs from now until 5PM EST 28 February. If the bidding goes nuts in the last few minutes, I’ll leave it open until it settles down. There’s no sniping this auction at the last moment, as I want the bids to escalate.

Once the auction closes, send your donation to BGC within two days.

Send me your receipt. Once I have the receipt, I mail you the book.

If you don’t donate within a few days, or don’t send me your receipt, the number two winner has their chance.

As always, I must remind you that you don’t need to win a silly book to donate. You can be of sound character without a reward from me.

Another auction will follow this one: the Domesticate your Badgers proof, for my alma madder the Clarion Foundation.

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DNSSEC Mastery, second edition, creeping out

The e-book of the new edition of DNSSEC Mastery is starting to appear in stores. The print book will be delayed a couple of weeks, as I need to redesign my print textbooks to compensate for changes in the business.

I’ll update the book’s entry on my website with new stores as they list the book.

Sponsors and Patronizers should have already received their e-books. I’ll be sending print copies as soon as possible I chain allows it.

The best place to buy this book, of course, is in my store. I have also updated the Total Mastery bundle that contains all of the Mastery titles to include this one and exclude the obsolete edition. I never expected anyone to buy that Total Mastery bundle, but people do so I guess I should keep it up-to-date?

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New book: “Domesticate Your Badgers”

The Kickstarter is over, backers and Patronizers have their ebooks, so I can now offer Domesticate Your Badgers: Become a Better Writer through Deliberate Practice to the rest of the world.

Sort of.

If you want to read it today, you can buy it directly from me at my bookstore. At all other stores, the ebook is on pre-order and will be released on 1 March 2022. The print book will be on pre-order shortly.

Is this a lame scheme to steer readers to purchase directly from me? No. That’s merely a super convenient side effect.

I want a chance to get Patronizers and Kickstarter backers who elected for print editions their copies before the book is broadly available. While the supply chain is still fubar and printers are backed up, I hope that I can get my print copies by March. That’s realistic but, you know, plague changes everything.

If you’d rather pre-order from a big ebookstore, that’s fine. The DYB page has links for your convenience.

I will say that of all the books I’ve released, this might be the prettiest. I wanted illustrations that ranged from “OMG adorable!” to “joyful WTF,” and Pamela Mosiejczuk knocked it out of the park.

So: if you ask how I write all these books, I’ll point you at Domesticate Your Badgers.

If you ask how I make a living writing books, I’ll point you at Cash Flow for Creators.

Save yourself some trouble, and buy them both.

Domesticate Your Badgers

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2021 Income Sources

In 2019 and 2020, I published posts on where folks buy my books. People seem interested, so I’m doing it again for 2021. I suspect that covid is skewing the data, but perhaps this is simply the new normal.

My income still comes from writing books. I don’t consult. I don’t generally accept speaking fees. (I did make a couple hundred bucks speaking to a lunchtime crowd at a big tech firm this year, but that was a rare event and I have no particular desire to do it again.) I desire to make my living as an author, creating and licensing intellectual property. For the writers out there, I’m a hybrid wide author. I want my books available in every channel that offers reasonable terms.

How did 2021 look?

  • Amazon – 33.94%
  • Royalties – 17.74%
  • Direct sales – 15.63%
  • Ingramspark – 8.15%
  • Kickstarter – 6.38%
  • Patreon – 4.68%
  • Sponsorships – 4.42%
  • Direct patronizers – 4.24%
  • Gumroad – 1.91%
  • Apple – 1.05%
  • Kobo – 0.61%
  • Aerio – 0.57%
  • Google – 0.32%
  • Draft2Digital – 0.27%
  • tips – 0.13%
  • Barnes & Noble – 0.07%
  • Redbubble – 0.05%

Everything that’s listed here is part of my deliberate publishing strategy. My minuscule affiliate income and other minor streams are excluded. I use them, and every so often someone drops fifty bucks in my bank account, but they are not part of my strategy.

Amazon is still my biggest single distributor. I do not prioritize them, or use their exclusive programs like Kindle Unlimited. Indeed, I want to reduce the amount I sell through Amazon and increase other channels. This percentage is basically unchanged since last year. It appears to be the natural floor. Next year might be different, though. OpenBSD Storage Mastery will be on Amazon in print, but not on Kindle. Kindle users will be able to buy Kindle versions in lots of places, just not on Amazon.

Royalties are traditional publishing income. This is slightly up from last year, thanks to me selling short stories to Fiction River as well as the Absolute books going into Humble Bundles. Can’t knock that.

Direct sales are up a few points over 2020, which was up a few points over 2019. Good. Disintermediation remains my primary goal. Increasing this share makes me happy. I will continue to improve my bookstore to make this easier.

On the other paw, my IngramSpark share is down. IS handles non-Amazon print sales. People are not visiting bookstores, so this is not a surprise.

Kickstarter is a new category for me. It worked. This category is a little weird, though. While the other channels are raw income, this bucket includes the money I must spend to print and ship books. I plan to experiment more with Kickstarter, and perhaps even offer Kickstarter-like functionality on my own store.

At first glance, it looks like income from my Patronizers has plunged since 2020. Look a little further down, though, and you’ll see the share of income from my direct patronage makes up for it. My experiment in offering direct patronage sales hasn’t quite broken even, but it’s been successful enough that I’m willing to give it another year and see if I can grow it. Even if I can’t boost that any further, diversifying patronage sources and disintermediating roughly half of my backers is inherently worthwhile.

My Patronizers get a horrid deal, by the way. I don’t recommend it. But I appreciate every single Patronizer.

Sponsorship income is down, but I only had one book on sponsorship in 2020. If I want more sponsors, I must write more. That’s a goal for 2022. I’ll be using pre-scheduled Internet blocking software to reduce distraction.

I’m not going to go through the other channels one at a time. I will quote Blaze Ward in saying, “them nickles spend.” My comments on all of these are basically unchanged from previous years. I do wish Barnes and Noble would rise from the dead, though. I fondly remember wandering through their shelves, and deciding I would rather read a favorite author’s new book than eat.

So, to sum up:

  • If I lost any one channel, I would endure (yay)!
  • Disintermediate. Sell as directly to your customers as possible.
  • Try new things. Like Kickstarter. Or dropping Amazon Kindle as a distributor for a new book.

What else is coming up in 2022? More books. Print price increases. Gelato. Staying home, making words, and avoiding unclean idiots who choose to not get vaccinated.

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The New York Times, featuring: me?

Several years ago (yes, December 2020, but covid distorts time), I tweeted about my Capital One credit card. The world validated my thoughts. I moved on.

A few weeks ago, a New York Times reporter discovered that tweet as she was researching a story.

Which leads to me being on the front page of the New York Times’ Business section. It has my picture and everything. (In case the Times removes the page, here’s an archive.)

The reporter skillfully caught the most important thing I said during the whole hour-long conversation, and quoted me on it.

Also, the photographer worked miracles. Somehow, he made me look like I belong on the front page of the Crime Business section. I suspect sorcery, or perhaps a body double.

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Screwing Up, and Recovering

I scheduled an all-Patronizer video hangout for last Saturday, and didn’t show up. This is obviously unacceptable. I’ve already apologized to my Patronizers on the various sites they back me on, but I wanted to blog about dealing with this kind of screwup.

The root cause was pretty simple: my house has been full of workmen for several days, busting concrete and ripping out walls to fix a tiny leak in 70-year-old plumbing. It was either that, or let the bathroom fall into the basement. I am not accustomed to jackhammers under my feet. My nerves were, to put it mildly, frayed. I completely forgot about the video hangout, and decided to go to the dojo to work off some stress. I remembered about the hangout right before parking.

How do I keep this from happening again, and minimize the impact in case I do?

First, I have installed Zoom on my phone. If I forget about a hangout, I can now join from anywhere.

Second, my most consistent attendee now has my phone number. If I’m 15 minutes late to a hangout, he will call me.

Third, I must ensure that when I create the meeting in Zoom, the waiting room is disabled. If I don’t show up for hangout, people can talk to each other while my Designated External Memory calls to poke me. I’m looking for a way to make this the default for all meetings I create, because any process that relies on my brain is doomed to fail.

I have already scheduled a make-up hangout for next Saturday, so that my Patronizers can chide me in person.

When I became a full-time writer, I thought I would leave root cause failure analysis and remediation behind. Silly me.

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My Bookstore Now Using a CDN

When you buy ebooks direct from me via tiltedwindmillpress.com, your books will now be delivered via BookFunnel. After a purchase, they’ll send you an email containing your download links.

Why make this change after eight years? In short, customer service.

BookFunnel can help you sideload books onto your weird ereader. I cannot. Bookfunnel can cope with weird network issues more easily than I can. They have an actual support staff and multiple delivery channels, where TWP has me and I’d rather be writing. I should have made this change a few years ago, but the barely adequate is the enemy of the better.

The only personal information BookFunnel collects is your email address, so they can maintain a library of all the books you’ve bought and let you re-download them.

It also means I won’t be firing up tcpdump as you try to download your book, because your telco has a weird proxy server that chokes on zip files. Which is a clear win for everyone.

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Kickstarter Campaign Results

My small, low-risk trial of Kickstarter, where I hoped to raise $500? It 1768% funded.

I guess there’s a demand for this book?

My back-of-an-envelope math says that my total expenses will be about half of that. I’ll keep detailed notes, of course, but for a work with no obvious audience in a field where I’m not known, Kickstarter made writing DYB not a financial loss. Plus I’ve learned how Kickstarter works and how to assemble videos.

DYB is due back from copyedit in mid-December. With anything resembling luck, I’ll have the ebook for backers and Patronizers before the end of the month. Print will take longer.

My copyeditor has requested that I not send her two of my books simultaneously. (Other people’s sure. But not mine.) Once DYB returns, I’ll punt the DNSSEC over.

Will I do another Kickstarter? I’ll probably Kickstart a short fiction collection next year. If that works, I might both Kickstart and sponsor the OpenBSD storage book.

Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m off to get BookFunnel integrated into my bookstore so I can send people some books…