IMAGINARYPLANET.NET
IMAGINARYPLANET.NET
Here's a biographical summary about me, my ebook press, my blog, my book projects and passions, and my background.
I have worked in Texas as a technical writer, teacher and IT support guy for various organizations and IT companies. Here's my Linkedin profile, web portfolio and resume. Here is a longer bio page on my blog.
The Robert's Roundup email newsletter publishes every two months. It compiles my recent online writing and publication news from Personville Press. For the most recent updates, check my blog, and social media.
Because of my lifelong passion for books, in 2010 I started an ebook publishing company called Personville Press. Personville is a "ghost" town located 100 miles south of Dallas. Here is a selfie I took of the town's last remaining road sign.
Over the years I have developed expertise as both an ebook formatter and fiction editor. In 2025 I made a 13 minute video describing my publishing adventures. I have also been producing literary "Elevator Pitches" videos for Personville ebooks. I post occasional announcements and publishing news here.
I have been an advocate for copyright reform and expanding the public domain. Personville Press has started publishing a series called "Personville Modern Classics" which digitizes overlooked literary works. I am proud of my critical study about Robert Hillyer's 1942 novel, My Heart for Hostage which accompanied the release of the ebook.
Ebook Freebies: My publishing house has published several ebooks which are free to download. See here, here, and here.
The Idiotprogrammer weblog is a weblog which I have been writing for since 2001. I use it to write about topics in arts, technology, writing and publishing. Here is a small sample of my writings. Here is a list of my posts in chronological order. One project I did recently, the 1965 Project takes a deep dive into the cultural gems from that year.
I started blogging in 2000 on the Diaryland and blogger platform. As luck would have it, I was one of the first few people to try WordPress in 2003 (which I self-hosted on my personal web server at my apartment). I have run the imaginaryplanet.net domain since 2000.
This weblog has evolved over time. For a while I posted mainly about technical topics that interested me at the time. Occasionally I would use it to write humor pieces or rants or speeches I made elsewhere. Most of my blog postings are about ephemeral things. In 2026 I expect to publish an essay collection, Non-Crappy Things from my Blog.
Since 2018 I have been writing Robert's Roundup, a bimonthly column about indie ebooks and authors. Here's how to score yourself some cheap or free ebooks . For almost a decade I wrote articles for Teleread.com/Teleread.org (also here).
At any given moment I post things on my Social Media Linkdumps or Music Discovery megaposts. Over the years I have been posting summary reviews of music albums (500 so far). I also have been keeping a journal of what I've read and watched since 2005.
Favorite authors: Jack Matthews, Milan Kundera, Robert Silverberg, Dino Buzzati, Hans Christian Andersen, Franz Kafka, Ray Bradbury, Bill McKibben, Mike Royko, Alistair Cooke, John Updike.
Personville Press has been publishing ebooks by Ohio author Jack Matthews. I have interviewed him several times and like to call myself the president of the Jack Matthews international fan club.
Over the years, I have published a lot of cool interviews with artists and authors. My most recent interview is here.
If you've read this far, you probably would like to know more about my hobbies and personal life.
Although I am mostly a Texan, I was born in New York. Through Peace Corps and the Open Society Institute, I have lived and taught university students in Vlore, Albania and Lutsk, Ukraine. These are places still dear to my heart. I also have dual USA/Irish citizenship.
I am unmarried and have lived in Texas for most of my life. Currently I live in Katy (which is part of West Houston).
I used to attend geek conferences like South by Southwest and perform at local live storytelling events—though not as much recently.
I dabble in coding (and that's why I sometimes use the nickname "idiotprogrammer"). I produce all my ebooks with Docbook XML and XSLT and CSS. I have also written simple code and scripts on occasion and have worked with several distinguished programmers during my career. Partially because it appeals to my retro sensibility, I have started coding some static HTML web pages (like the one you are reading now). It's fun and relaxing. Don't worry. I still like using content management systems and use WordPress (and its cool block editor) for most of my online projects.
For over a decade, I volunteered occasionally as an editor at Wikipedia and Distributed Proofreaders. I also used to answer questions about ebook formatting and technology at Ebooks Stack Exchange. Some organizations I have supported for a long time are U.S. Peace Corps, Project Gutenberg, Climate Change Lobby (CCL), and various advocacy groups for artists, open source software and copyright reform.
I am passionate about the Eurovision Song Contest, TV sitcoms and vegetarian food. In the past I have been passionate about Dungeons and Dragons, swimming, and bicycling. I still am into those things, just not as much.
Audio. Go to my listen/download page of audio interviews and guest appearances on podcast episodes to hear me jabber on about various things.
Photos. Here's my photos on Facebook and my old Flickr account (for more ancient photos). If you are lucky, you can take a photo with me when I am sporting one of my reknowned "I'd Rather Be Reading" T-shirts.
Alas, I have never ridden a horse, grown a beard, sung karaoke or visited California. That could change though.
My email is idiotprogrammer AT fastmailbox.net (Delete the spaces and substitute AT with @). You can reach me on the Signal app (idiotprogrammer.23) I live in the 77494 area code in Katy, Texas. My phone number is not exactly a state secret, but if you need it, just email me.
Generally I post everything first on my blog (usually inside a megapost) and then some things trickle onto social media. Every two months I collect my most interesting stuff and put it inside my Robert's Roundup email newsletter and send it out.
My Facebook profile contains a lot of photos and personal news, but I've been posting there less frequently. Here's why. I enjoy Mastodon very much and have been posting here a lot: https://booktoot.club/@nagletx . I publish basically the same stuff on my blue sky account which is nagletx.bsky.social. I also hang out on the r/selfpublish subreddit semi-often.
I received my B.A. in English from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas and M.A. in creative writing from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. During my study, I participated in fiction writing workshops with J.M. Coetzee (W), John Barth (W), Stephen Dixon (W), Robert Flynn (W), and Joyce Carol Oates (W).
Later I received training in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) and Instructional Technology. I completed various technical certifications (A+, Network+, LPIC-1 and CIW Foundations) and attended bootcamps and technical conferences about Drupal, Plone, Python and WordPress.
