The money has left my bank account, so I guess this is official: Tilted Windmill Press (the LLC under which I self-publish) is the official T-shirt sponsor of BSDCan 2013.
Why do this? First, it’s important to give back to my community. BSDCan is one of the biggest and oldest cross-BSD conferences, and this sponsorship will buy plane tickets for several speakers. Second, independent publishers must meet two standards: a) write good books, and b) don’t be a jerk. This should put a touch more weight on the “not a jerk” side of the scale. Plus, everybody who goes to BSDCan will get a T-shirt featuring the TWP busted knight logo. That’s pretty dang cool, to me at least.
As I know someone will ask, I’ll also say: the conference is being paid for out of TWP profits, not out of my pocket. Self-publishing does work, and can be profitable. See point 2 above.
And if I can sponsor a BSD conference, you can too! BSDCan has cool sponsorships available, as do EuroBSDcon, and NYCBSDCon. Admittedly, there’s nothing quite as cool as being the T-shirt sponsor, but still, if I can swing that surely you or your employer can do something.