To celebrate its 20th anniversary, Take Control Books is discounting all titles it offers to just $5! This includes eleven books by yours truly! No coupon is needed. The sale ends on 26 October 2023 at the end of the day Central Time. What’s that again? This:

$5 off all Take Control Books!

Back in 2003, Tonya Engst of TidBITS asked if I wanted to be part of an experiment in ebook publishing. Several computer book authors and I had been talking about whether someone could launch an author-oriented publishing company that split profits fairly due to a far lower overhead for ebooks. Tonya and her husband, Adam, decided around that time to take the plunge—I can’t recall if inspired by that discussion or independently!—as they already had a dedicated and loyal audience through TidBITS. Some people had been reading TidBITS already for over 20 years at that point. (TidBITS started in 1990, and is likely the longest continuously published email newsletter and is among the oldest internet news sites.)

We launched with a handful of books that hit pain points for readers under the Take Control Books banner. The Engsts had set it up so that every sale produced an email receipt for each author. I left the “ding” sound for incoming email on and had a steady “ding, ding, ding” of sales into the thousands over a few days. It marked a significant change in my career, and Take Control ebook writing has remained a solid or large portion of my income for 20 years, with ebbs in flows in reader interest and my areas of expertise. I currently have eight actively updated books at Take Control! (Three others  moving into retirement.)

Adam and Tonya split proceeds after expenses with authors (with no advances), a model that continues to this day under Joe Kissell, who, as the best-selling Take Control author, purchased the publishing company from the Engsts when they were ready to make changes in their careers.

The best part of writing Take Control Books is email, real-world conversations, and social-media posts from readers for whom some tip, set of instructions, chapter, or entire book has made a difference to them—solving a frustration, letting them set something up safely for a relative, or giving them a new technique or strategy to pursue their work or joy.

Thank you to readers old and new for 20 glorious years!