Wrote a privacy policy

See previous post.  Also, see the sidebar under "My Profile."

Privacy Policy

When you sign up for my newsletter:

I can see your email address when I log in to TinyLetter.  As far as personal info goes, that's it.  I can't see your name, country of origin, or anything of the kind.  I can see a few statistics relating to how many times you've opened my newsletter, but there's not anything more specific than that in those numbers.  The only personal stuff is your email address.  This is what your "profile" looks like on my TinyLetter dashboard:

(That's the profile for my own email address, by the way, the one you see on my blog's sidebar.  I scrubbed it out because I don't want some bot scraping it off the internet.)

And that's it.  Nothing in that image is a clickable link.  What you see is all there is.

Note: It's possible that TinyLetter has some data about you that it doesn't share with me, such as your IP address and country of origin.  I can't speak to that one way or another.  I can only speak for myself, and I don't have that info.

I won't sell your email address to anyone, or give it away, or anything like that.  I'll only use it for the intended purpose: to send you my newsletter.  If that changes, then I'll tell you in advance and give you the opportunity to opt out.  I doubt it'll change, though, because I really don't want to mess with this sort of stuff.  I just want to write books, sell those books, and market those books.  I hate spam, and I hate spammers, and I have no intention of becoming a spammer.

What I WILL do is send you the occasional email.  The rate has been once a month recently, but I make no promises with regards to frequency.  It's sort of on an "as I feel it's needed" basis.  I'll try to send them often enough so you don't forget about me, but not so often that you get sick of me.

On tracking cookies: I don't think my blog has any.  I certainly haven't installed any, nor do I plan to.  If anything on my blog is tracking you, then it was put there by Blogger, not me.  If cookies concern you, then I'd encourage you to set your browser to delete them when you close the browser.  That's what I do with Firefox, and it works well enough for me.  I don't even think about cookies anymore because I know Firefox will nuke them as soon as I click the X in the top right corner.

5/25/2018 UPDATE:  I got the following notice from Blogger:

European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used and data collected on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies, and other data collected by Google.

You are responsible for confirming this notice actually works for your blog, and that it displays. If you employ other cookies, for example by adding third party features, this notice may not work for you. If you include functionality from other providers there may be extra information collected from your users. 

So there you go.  Proceed accordingly.

Any time you want to unsubscribe, just click the "unsubscribe" link in the newsletter.  You'll find it at the very bottom.  I may start adding it to the top, too, just as a redundancy.

I am NOT enrolled in the Amazon Affiliates program or any other such program that pays me for purchases made via links I provide on my blog.  (Or however that works; not sure.)  A link I post might be an affiliate link, but it belongs to someone else, not me.  If this changes, then I'll explicitly say so in the promotion.

If you have any questions about any of this stuff, please don't hesitate to send me an email.  I'm happy to clarify things when possible.

That's all for now.  I reserve the right to update this Privacy Policy at any time and for any reason.

Progress report

I've started the second draft of book 3.  I'm working my way through my notes right now, and then once that's done, I'll cut scenes if necessary and move stuff around.  Then I'll basically re-write the whole thing at the paragraph and sentence level (leaving the broader structure unchanged).  No promises regarding a release date.  Life has a way of upsetting my plans, and I know better than to try to make predictions.

I'm working on a new cover for Mr. Wilson, and I think I'm getting close.  This cover design stuff isn't easy, and it takes me a few iterations just to get something that doesn't suck.

I intend to come up with a Privacy Policy soon.  This is due to the GDPR thing that the EU is doing.  I'm basically going to see what other authors have and copy their policies.  Other than that, I don't plan on doing anything regarding the EU's latest regulatory experiment.  Not at this time, anyway.  I reserve the right to do whatever I deem necessary to stay out of trouble.

I logged into Bookbub the other day--something I mostly only do once a month when applying for a deal--and saw I had some notifications.  I clicked on them and discovered I have some Bookbub followers.  Pretty cool, huh?  I guess that means they get emails from Bookbub when I release something new.  Anyway, if any of my Bookbub followers are reading this, welcome to the blog, and feel free to introduce yourself in the comments if you're so inclined.

Just as I feared, the weather here transitioned from late winter to early summer with almost zero spring in between.  Highs last week were in the upper 80s.  This week has been rainy, so the temps have been lower, but I also saw the first mosquito of the year today--and got my first bite--so it's now officially mosquito season.

That's all for now.  Back to the grind...

First draft is done!

The first draft of Book 3 of the Wheel of Fire series is done.  It clocks in at 95,000 words and change.  I usually add material during revision, so I expect the final product to be somewhere between 90,000 and 130,000 words.  That's just an estimate, though.  No promises.

It took me about three months, and I'm frankly kind of embarrassed about that.  I should have finished this thing up faster.  But the past is the past, and all I can do is try to do better next time.

My order of business now is as follows: write the second draft, make a revised outline for book 4, work on the outlines for the rest of the series, do a little cover work, and then start the Kindle edit for book 3.

I also intend to run an ad or two for Clouds of Venus.  I'm trying to decide whether to do that before or after Memorial Day weekend.  I think I might wait until after.

But for now, a milestone is accomplished, so I'm going to take a day to wallow in some good feels.  I may even watch a movie or do something equally extravagant.  :D

Thanks, readers!

Patty Jansen's latest promotion has ended.  I made several sales of Mind Games.  I hope y'all who purchased it enjoy the book.  I hope you've already read Hostile Planet, too, otherwise you might get confused.

Thanks again.  :)

A little more love from Apple

Something is afoot at Apple.  Not sure what it is... but I like it.

Here's a chart of free downloads of Clouds of Venus at Apple.  It spans March 1 to the present.

The daily downloads have increased lately, as one can plainly see.  A spike that lasts a few days can easily be dismissed as an anomaly.  But this spike has lasted for a couple of weeks now, which suggests it's a change in trend, not just signal noise.

Perhaps it's Apple's algorithm promoting me a little more.  Or maybe some book blogger left a positive review somewhere.  Lots of possibilities.  Who knows...

Whatever the reason, it's cool to see.  And if any new-to-my-work readers are reading this, I hope you enjoy the book.  :)

Patty Jansen's May Promotion: all books 99 cents

Time for another book sale.  :D  Patty Jansen is running a promotion this weekend, and my own Mind Games is a part of it.  All books are 99 cents.

Direct link:

http://pattyjansen.com/promo/5-6-may-2018-99c-promo/

So check it out.  It's a great way to sample other authors' works on the cheap.  You might just find your new favorite series.

In the meantime, thanks for supporting me and all the other independent authors.  :)