I gave up writing Windows books a long time ago. It’s not that I wanted to.

My Dan Gookin Teaches book series was really popular. Both Dan Gookin Teaches Windows 98 and Dan Gookin Teaches Windows ME sold quite well. They were very popular! I wanted them to go on forever!

But, like many publishing industry tragedies, the title wasn’t updated to Windows XP — one of the most popular versions of Windows ever. The series died a disappointing death. Despite that, I still get requests from readers, asking about a new edition. Not gonna happen.

I did, however, write a Windows XP title. It was given the worst name of any of my computer books ever: Naked Windows XP.

Huh?

The book was solid, but the stupid title and dumb cartoon cover sank the thing.

The Windows Vista title I wrote was suposed to be something completely new; it was an encyclopedia of everything you could do in Windows. I wanted to call it Windows Vista: Where the Bodies are Buried. The publisher called it Find Gold in Windows Vista. Lame.

Windows 7? I didn’t even bother. Repeated requests from readers of my earlier Dan Gookin Teaches series didn’t help convince any publisher. Nothing happened. No Windows 7 titles from me.

For Windows 8, which I’ve roundly disparaged on this blog, I decided to self-publish.

From experience, I knew that no publisher would be interested in me writing a Windows book. A few popular Windows titles are out there, and they push any competition off the shelf. So my goal was to self-publish a book, making it about 100 pages or so and keeping it to some handy how-to tips and tricks.

The book is titled Windows 8 Sucks, because Windows 8 does. It’s self-published on Amazon for Kindle, but also for the Kindle app you can find on most mobile gizmos.

I’ve not really pushed the book that well; I’m a writer not a marketing person. Still, it’s managed to sell a handful of copies. Even my publisher purchased one. According to her, “It’s pretty good!” She’s surprised that the title hasn’t moved.

So I’m trying to push the title, hence this blog post!

I’ve put the book on sale. It was originally $6.99. Now — only for you — it’s $2.99.

Why the change in price? I DON’T KNOW! I don’t do this marketing thing or this pricing thing very well. What’s the book worth? Well, if it were a 100 page print book, you’d probably pay $6.99 for it. That was my thought. Was I wrong? How would I know?

Bottom line: Windows 8 Sucks is a good title with solid information and plenty of fun. I would urge you to check it out, which is apparently the best marketing message I can muster. Well, that and, “Please don’t let this be yet another in a dismal line of Windows titles I’ve written that don’t sell.”

Thanks!