Refactoring English: Month 18 ·<br>mtlynch.io« Previous<br>One-Line Summary<br>The book is done! Well, sort of.New here?<br>Hi, I’m Michael. I’m a software developer and founder of small, indie tech businesses. I’m currently working on a book called Refactoring English: Effective Writing for Software Developers.<br>Every month, I publish a retrospective like this one to share how things are going with my book and my professional life overall.
Highlights 🔗︎<br>I’ve completed all 22 chapters of my book.<br>I thought AI made prototyping faster, but now I’m not so sure.<br>Goal grades 🔗︎<br>At the start of each month, I declare what I’d like to accomplish. Here’s how I did against those goals:<br>Get Refactoring English to “content complete” 🔗︎<br>Result : I’ve completed all chapters.<br>Grade : A<br>This has felt like it was a week away for six weeks, so I’m glad to finally have all the chapters done.<br>Create a tool that allows Refactoring English readers to give feedback as they read the book 🔗︎<br>Result : The tool is only about 40% complete.<br>Grade : C<br>This seemed like it should basically be a 2-3-day project, but I realized it’s more difficult than it seemed, especially due to the great blockade.<br>Refactoring English metrics 🔗︎
MetricApril 2026May 2026ChangeUnique visitors2,5781,752-826 (-32%)Revenue from pre-orders$587.73$407.61-$180.12 (-31%)Total Revenue$587.73$407.61-$180.12 (-31%)Eep, I continue to neglect marketing, and the numbers are suffering for it.<br>I was desperate to get the last few chapters of the book done, so I focused only on that rather than investing in any marketing.<br>Bug bounty metrics 🔗︎<br>I’ve continued pursuing security bug bounties, but I’ve reduced my time on them. I’m not quite doing the 70/30 split I planned, but maybe like 60/40.<br>The main vendor I’ve been working with paid me another $7k (bringing me to $17k total) for reports, but they’ve slowed down on processing reports, so I’ve mostly stopped searching for new bugs in their code.<br>I submitted bugs to a few other programs to check if any are processing bug reports quickly, but none of them are:<br>KeePassXC - I submitted an RCE to Zero Day Initiative on May 18th, but I haven’t heard any response.For KeePassXC users, this isn’t a zero-click attack or something that could compromise your database by just visiting a malicious website, so don’t get too worried.
Cloudflare - I submitted a DoS / logic bypass via HackerOne on May 22nd. No response.<br>Proton - I submitted one low-severity issue. They asked for a video proof of concept, so I made one on May 29th, and they said to wait to hear back.<br>When is the book “done?” 🔗︎<br>I’ve completed all the chapters of the book, which is a relief, but I don’t consider it officially “done.”<br>I wrote the book over the past year and a half, usually focusing on a single chapter at a time. I haven’t ever read my own book cover-to-cover to make sure it’s all consistent. I want to do at least a few complete readthroughs before I call it done.<br>Why wasn’t I continuously revising the book? 🔗︎<br>I originally planned to continuously edit the book based on reader feedback. That way, when I got to the last chapter, the book would be pretty much done because the rest of the book would have had so many revisions based on comments from readers.<br>In reality, I integrated reader feedback far less than I expected.<br>I found it hard to split my focus between revising past chapters and writing new ones. If I spent a week revising old chapters, it didn’t feel like forward progress. When I added a new chapter, it meant that my public progress meter got a little fuller, which was motivating.<br>Progress meter from book website<br>The other reason I didn’t continuously revise is that I didn’t reach out to readers as much as I planned. Part of that is that I constantly felt behind on the book, so there was always a sense of, “I want to get this chapter out, and then I’ll invest more into reader outreach.”<br>But even when I reached out to readers, it rarely impacted the book. The most common responses from readers were, “I like the book” or, “I haven’t started it yet.”<br>When I did get detailed feedback, I wasn’t always sure how to integrate it. In some cases, I agreed with the feedback, so it was an easy decision. Usually, though, the reader would suggest adding something that I didn’t think was necessary. And that’s not to say the reader was wrong, but I’d want to see a pattern in reader feedback before I go against my intuition, and I wasn’t getting enough feedback to see a pattern.<br>My reader feedback tool 🔗︎<br>Now that I’ve completed all the chapters, I feel like I have more space to reach out to readers.<br>I like the idea of Help this Book, a web app that allows readers to give feedback directly in...