Joe sez: I'm going to be taking a blogging break during August, but I've got twelve guest posts scheduled this month, so they'll appear as slotted.
Today it's Patrice Fitzgerald and Hugh Howey...
Kudos to author Tess Gerritsen for creating the Alzheimer’s
fundraiser and to Joe for encouraging us to support it by offering guest blog
spots. I asked Hugh Howey,
self-publishing pioneer and author of the bestselling dystopian trilogy that
starts with WOOL, to join me for an interview.
Patrice:
So you've gotten a million questions around the topic "how does it
feel to be a big name author?" But, practically speaking, how has it
changed you as a writer… or has it… to know that your next book, DUST, has been
preordered in the thousands--I'm guessing--and is being highly anticipated by
fans? Does that spur you on or keep you up at night? And do you get
better tables at restaurants Recognized on the street? Hounded by
book groupies? Tell the truth!
Hugh: Ha!
Recognized on the street! I'm not one of those authors like Harlan Coben whose
face takes up the entire back jacket of his hardbacks. Which is a good thing.
For all of us.
I don't think about the pressure of a vast
audience. I write the stories I care about. If I was going
to succumb to pressure, I would have written WOOL 6 and 7 and 8.
Instead, I left my bestselling novel on an island and wrote something way off
in left field. And then I did very little to promote this new work. I don't put
links at the end of my books to urge people to purchase the next one. I just
convince myself that I'm still writing for an audience of none, enjoy what I'm
doing, and publish as quietly as possible.
Patrice:
You're a little bit controversial (though not, perhaps, as much as our
esteemed host, Joe) for your outspoken views about self-publishing.
Clearly, 99.9% of writers of any stripe will not reach the level of
success you've had with WOOL. Yet, you maintain that there is little
downside to jumping in and publishing one's own book. Do you believe that
everyone is better off doing that first?
Hugh: Yes,
and I've been very careful to distance my anecdotal and outlying success with
the reasons I give for self-publishing. I made a conscious decision to
self-publish my second novel, despite having a contract and offer from a small
press. Before WOOL took off, I was posting on writing forums that we are better
off owning our material for all of time, that these works will never go out of
print, and that going directly to the reader is better than applying to editors
and their slush pile shovelers. I was mocked for this philosophy. When I
suggested that agents would one day approach self-published authors, I was told
I was crazy. Maybe this is why I look up to Joe so much. He shows us every day
that logic trumps experience. The people who tell you that they have twenty
years of experience in this industry? Back away from them slowly. This business
is changing too fast for any of us to pretend to be experts.
As for the 99.9% who won't see my level of
success, I would point out that 99.9% of those who submit material to the
traditional machine will never see a similar level of success. It isn't like
our option is to self-publish OR see how well our novel does fronted out on an
endcap in a bookstore. Our options are to self-publish OR spend a few years
landing an agent, another year selling the book to a publisher, a year waiting
for that book to come out, and then three months spine-out on dwindling
bookshelves before you are out of print and nobody cares about you anymore. If
you're lucky. Most likely, you'll never even get an agent. Because you aren't
Snooki.
Patrice: You have a traditional print publishing deal
with Simon & Schuster in the U.S. and Random House in the U.K., as well as
publishing arrangements in twenty-something other countries for translated
versions. Yet you still publish your own ebooks and sell print copies to
fans out of your house, at least for the U.S. editions. Did that take
some fancy contract drafting? Or did you just say, "I want to keep
doing what I'm already doing successfully" and they rolled over and said,
"Okay, Hugh Howey, but only for you..." ?
Hugh: It
takes a whole lot of not caring to get away with what I do. It takes that, and
it takes an incredible and tolerant agent like Kristin Nelson. We've been in
contract negotiations, and someone will put forward a clause that runs counter
to my publishing philosophy, and we'll both just say that it's a deal-breaker.
We've walked away from multiple seven-figure deals without breaking a sweat. It
helps when you're totally fine doing things your own way. I still self-publish
everything I write from the get-go. If anyone wants to make an offer afterward,
I'm always open. I love having those discussions. But as soon as the deal
doesn't make sense for the reader (like higher e-book prices, windowing,
limiting the number of works I can publish), the deal is off. My attitude
is that publishers need writers far more than writers need publishers. If we
can work together, awesome. But the days of dictating unfair deals to us are
dwindling, and fast.
My success has largely come from putting the
reader first, and that's what I demand from any publisher I work with. Simon
& Schuster and Random House UK have both demonstrated to me over and over
again that they care about the reader. S&S agreed to a simultaneous
paperback and hardback release. Who does that? Random House UK did a
paper-on-board hardback for under ten pounds. They've done some incredible
giveaways, and they allowed readers in on the process with some awesome
contests, all the sorts of things I think publishers should do more of. It's
why I love working with both of these houses. And I love that they tolerate me
doing the things I enjoy doing.
Patrice: You've taken the unusual step of allowing
others to write and charge for books set in your world, otherwise known as the
"WOOLiverse." Full disclosure: I'm one of them.
Why are you doing this Aren't there risks?
Hugh: It
doesn't occur to me not to
allow this. Someone asked if they could write in my world. Who would I be to
tell them no? I value freedom above all else. I value creativity, art, and
artists. I can't imagine telling someone that they aren't allowed to write
about my characters. All I feel is flattered and honored by the suggestion. And
I can't imagine asking someone to give away their hard work. I believe artists
should get paid if at all possible. As foreign as my stance is to others, any
other stance would be foreign to me.
Are there risks? I don't see any. I have one
more work coming out in this universe, and then I leave it to others. The
greatest thing that has happened to me in the past few years has been the
opportunity to connect directly with so many readers. The second-greatest thing
has been seeing talented writers such as yourself connect with those same
readers! Contrary to what many writers seem to think, we aren't in competition
with one another. We need each other. If someone can write in my world and
entice readers away to their own works, I'll cheer them on until I'm hoarse.
Patrice: Amazon's
newly-launched Kindle Worlds programs makes formal the arrangement you've
already had with some other writers to allow them to jump into the WOOLiverse
and write "Silo stories." How do you see this as different from
what is already happening, and what new opportunities do you think this program
will bring to writers and fans?
Hugh: My
hope is that Kindle Worlds will give these stories greater exposure. There is
so much room for exploration in the Silo Saga. I can't possibly cover it all.
And fans have shown an incredible thirst for more adventures.
Patrice: Okay… advice to writers time. What would
you tell someone reading this who has an idea, or a book, and wants to get eyeballs
on his or her words as quickly as possible.
Hugh: Start with the first sentence. Make it so
incredibly compelling that readers have to read the next sentence to see what
happens next. Repeat until you reach the end of the story.
Possible first sentences:
Losing my virginity to a ninja was not what I had in mind on my
eighteenth birthday.
I've always wanted to know what it felt like to
kill a man, and now I know.
If you are reading this, you have exactly three
days left to live, and I am already dead.
Maybe those aren't the best examples, but I put
all of two minutes into coming up with them. I'm already thinking of the books
I would write to go along with these openings. I think I could entice readers
to stick with me for a page or two. If I can do that, I can give these lines
away in a Tweet or a Facebook status and gain a reader. I could give the first
pages or even an entire book away and trust that they'll tell others or come
back for more.
The misconception out there is that writing
requires a mastery of language, but nothing could be further from the truth. We
don't need perfect prose to launch a writing career; we need entertaining
storytelling. Story is king and prose is pawn. Knock readers' socks off. Shock
them. Wow them. Give away your work and wow them some more. Basically: Ninjas +
Sex, and you can’t go wrong.
Patrice:
And what about that movie deal… are you and Ridley Scott buds now?
Hugh: I
wish! Ridley enjoyed my work and is pretty sure that he can make a mediocre
book into an amazing film. And I hope he's right. I get asked all the time how
much involvement I would have in the film, and the answer is that I don’t want
any part of the project. I would just hamper the development. The producers
were kind enough to fly me out to Hollywood to meet the screenwriter and go
over some ideas, and that was more than I asked for. Nothing will change the
book I wrote. That’s the part I can control. I’d rather stay out of the way and
be surprised by what they come up with.
Patrice: Now that all your wildest
writing dreams have come true, what do you still wish for, Hugh?
Hugh: For
Ridley Scott to be my bud, obviously.
Also, to be able to come up with something to
write tomorrow. And the next day. Because it still feels like magic and
something I'm not capable of. I feel like I'm bumbling along and faking it most
of the time. I hope I can keep faking it. Because it's fun to look back at the
things I write that feel a whole lot smarter than I know myself to be.
Patrice: Many thanks to Hugh for answering my
questions, and to Joe for hosting us.
I'm watching the phenomenon that is WOOL continue to spread around the
world, and I'm thrilled that I was invited to play in Hugh Howey's
universe. Now, if you haven't read them
already, grab WOOL and SHIFT so that you'll be up to speed when DUST comes out
on August 17th. There's
nobody more excited than I am to find out how the story ends...!
(And
then you'll be all set to read my Silo stories….)
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