Laying Out a Print Book With CSS

In which I embark on a quixotic quest to make a physical book using web rendering technology.

March 19, 2023

I Asked ChatGPT To Write My Book Synopsis

I’ve been reading a lot about ChatGPT, the latest large language model to come out of OpenAI. I just spent the last year painstakingly writing a technothriller, and wanted to know how close I was to obsolete. I decided to kick the tires and ran ChatGPT through some of the tasks I went through making The Anshar Gambit. It’s not ready to write a book yet, but I thought the output was pretty damned impressive....

December 3, 2022

Cryptography Primer

Encryption is a fancy word for a simple concept. You can think of encrypting a message as putting it inside a box with a padlock and locking it. No one can read what’s inside unless they have the same key you used to lock it.

November 10, 2022

Ghost Comm

Talking silently is obviously a huge advantage in combat; it’s one step away from telepathy. It sounds like crazy sci-fi, but most of the pieces already exist today.

November 5, 2022

Write the Query Letter First

Picture your future. You’ve written your masterpiece. You’re ready to find an agent who can sell your book to Hachette or Tor or whatever. What do you do next?

October 31, 2022

Intro to Independent Author Mailing Lists

The only thing harder than writing a book is selling a book. I enjoy reading what I wrote, and I think others will too. But helping people to find it in the crowded world of independent publishing? Tricky.

October 19, 2022