Hugh Howey's Blog, page 43

Thank you, Taiwan!

In twelve hours, I begin the 25-hour series of flights that will return me to my timezone. Taiwan, you will be missed. I’ve never felt so sad to leave a book tour stop. I feel like I’m supposed to stay here for a month or two and write a novel. I hope to be back soon.

At one of my book events, a member of the audience asked what the Taiwanese reader meant to me. My answer came without hesitation: For all the success I’ve had in so many markets, the readers of Taiwan made my book #1 in theirs. Now they are #1 to me. The warm reception and the many gifts will not be forgotten. Thank you.

Submit. But Don’t Say “Uncle.”

There’s this one scene in The Matrix that gives me goosebumps every time. It isn’t Neo learning Kung Fu from a compact flash chip. It isn’t the woman in the red dress or the rooftop chase. It’s not even the spectacular lobby scene, which has probably killed countless home theater speaker cones. No, it’s the very short scene where Switch (the woman in white) is about to be unplugged. Once she realizes this, the surety and the finality of it, she shakes her head and mutters: “Not like this. Not like this.”

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I get weepy every time I see that scene. It’s not that she’s afraid to die, it’s that she  doesn’t want it to be in some chickenshit at-a-distance manner. She wants to go out fighting. She wants to see Fate take her. She wants to be present for her death, not logged in to some lie.

But that’s not what this blog post is about. I want talk about my second-favorite scene in The Matrix (and I knew you’d want to know what my first one was, so I went ahead and answered). Again, it’s not any of the aforementioned ones; it’s the scene where Agent Smith tells Morpheus that humans are a virus, a cancer. It’s when he wipes Morpheus’s sweaty head and complains of the stench of our race. That scene makes me angry. It twists my emotions up. It’s the scene that later allows the climax of the film to satisfyingly unknot those emotions. When Smith is blown to bits by Neo at the end, I pump my fists and yell because of what Smith said to Morpheus.

^^ **Retro-Active Spoiler Alert!** ^^

Why do I bring this up? Well, I read a blog post a while back from a writer named Paul. Paul — like Agent Smith — had found himself in the company of something vile (me and others like me). He was disgusted by our stench. Paul is a writer, you see (and judging by his blog post, a rather decent one). Paul self-published, and he hates himself for it. He regrets it. So he took his book down in order to submit it to agents (he also took his blog down, which is a shame). Here’s an excerpt of that blog post:

I know how much crap is out there. There’s more crap out there in the self-pub world than there is in the bookstores (I know, having worked in one), somewhere on the order of ten thousand to one. And the gap is growing. Do you want to know what I hate most about having self-published? It’s this: I have to stand next to them. Shoulder to shoulder. And now their stink is on me.

Paul’s post got me thinking about a solution. Because, you see, there really is a problem here. There are authors out there who need validation. There are authors want to know if they have what it takes, if they are wasting their time, if they need to put more work in, and they want to hear this from professionals. These writers are willing to give up control of their work in order to have themselves measured. They are willing to limit their print book to a 3-6 month window of availability on dwindling store shelves for a thumbs up or a thumbs down. They are willing to accept 12.5% royalties instead of 70%, all for the pleasure of hearing that they are good enough.

In many ways, traditional publishing has become the new vanity press. Authors used to spend a lot of money for the ego boost of being an “author” and holding their “book.” Now they simply give up a lot of money in order to think of themselves as “real authors” who can hold their “real book.” It’s still ego and money lost. But I understand the urge. I get it. I can empathize with the need to feel good enough (even though I think we’re on the verge of indie being hip in literature the way it is in other arts).

So how can writers like Paul know if they have the right stuff? It’s a serious question. I remember when I wrote my first rough draft; I was dying to know if it was good enough to be put out there. I sent the manuscript to family and friends. I begged people to read it. I would have paid a lot of money to have some expert read it and give me their opinion. And I didn’t have a lot of money, but I remember thinking that I would gladly hand that first manuscript of mine to an agent, along with a $100 bill, and beg them to just give me their opinion.

I hear from readers all the time who are going through this. Readers just like Paul. I get drafts sent to me by aspiring writers. These writers want me to read their work, just a paragraph or a page, and let them know if they have what it takes (like I know). But I’m not a pro. I’m just a guy. But I do have a solution, a pretty ingenious one. You probably think it has to do with sending me $100 bills — and I like where your head’s at — but don’t jump ahead. First, let’s hear more from Paul, so we can really understand this writer’s needs:

Here’s the thing: I can be told I’m not doing the hard work because it’s true. Self-publishing my novel allowed me to bypass the route of my fathers. I’m ashamed for having done it. But because of my shame, the other day I started submitting my manuscript to agents. I will, as I did up till about a year ago, reap the benefits of the winnowing process that traditional publishing affords the fledgling writer. If and when my work gets rejected, I owe it to Ray Bradbury, Theodore Sturgeon, and the rest of my heroes to realize that the reason why it was rejected is because it was not good enough to publish. Sure it was someone’s opinion, but it was an informed opinion. You go look at twenty thousand manuscripts and tell me you can’t tell a good one from a bad one when you’re through. I owe it to every one of my literary fathers to give the rejected piece a second look. I owe it to John W. Campbell for chrissake.

It seems Paul and I share some of the same heroes. I like Paul’s gumption. He goes on to say:

Listen. There’s nothing that scares me more than the notion that someday I may realize that I indeed don’t have what it takes to be a real writer. It’s a fear that all but the most self-deluded of us have. But the damage is surely done when we shut ourselves off and look away from the gauge. Then there’s no hope at all.

I nearly wept when I read this. I feel this every morning when I wake up. I feel it every night as I lay in bed and worry that I can’t do this, that I’m no good at it. These doubts consume me. What does Paul suggest?

But let’s just imagine for a moment that there is such a thing as a test one can take to assess actual writing talent, and I take that test, and my results reveal that I don’t have what it takes. Would you want my work out there knowing I failed such a test? Be honest.

God, yes, Paul, tell me more. Where do I take this test?

Well there is such a test. Unfortunately it’s not something one can take in one afternoon. It’s the traditional publishing route.

Hmm. Go on…

Because what it all comes down to is this, that when it comes to aesthetics, whose opinion shall I trust? Some anonymous reviewer on Amazon? When I need the right gauge do I look to hurlygurl544, or the agent that took on Dan Simmons or Neil Gaiman as a client? Which one do you think, based on probability alone and nothing else, has a better idea of what good writing is?

Uh, the reader! Right? I mean, the editor is just guessing about what the reader will like. They don’t know. If they did, they would’ve been snapping up BDSM fan fiction years ago. They would’ve been clamoring for teen vampire novels before the ink was dry on Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire. Sasquatch sex! Agents know these things, is that what you’re saying? What readers want? Better than the readers themselves? Then why do agents and publishers get it wrong more often than they get it right? Why do a handful of blockbusters pay for all the other books that fail (with none of us able to predict which will be which)? And why is practically every great book rejected a dozen times before it’s eventually accepted somewhere (if indeed ever)? How did a Pulitzer Prize winner fail to get published in dozens of attempts? If the test works, why did John Kennedy Toole and many others like him fail?

When I submit to a publisher/agent/editor, I am in league with Simmons and Gaiman and every one of my heroes. They all went through it.

Oh. I understand. I feel this same compulsion, believe me. As much as I want readers to love my works, I also feel this urge to prove myself, to be recognized by the arbiters of taste. I admit it. But choosing a path isn’t going to affect your work (I’ve blogged about this before). Submitting a manuscript doesn’t put you in league with Simmons and Gaiman (If only it were that simple!). And self-publishing doesn’t rub the stench of my shitty writing onto you. Your work is great or not-great no matter what you do with it.

But I have good news. Your blog post has pointed me toward a solution. An ingenious solution. You want to know if your work is good enough, right? You want that feedback from agents, editors, and publishers rather than readers? Here’s the good news for you and every other aspiring writer reading this: That feedback is free. It doesn’t require sending me $100 bills at all (dammit).

Submit your manuscript to the traditional engine, Paul. Learn from those rejection letters. Hone your craft and edit your work until it shines. And when it finally passes muster, when agents begin clamoring for it, take a deep breath. You’ve done it. You’ve won the adulation from those heroes that you’ve craved these many years. Pop the champagne. And now take that book and self-publish the motherfucker.

If the accepting agent will come along, bring them with you. Ask them to shop it overseas, which is difficult to do on your own. Ask them to take it to Hollywood, which is a dark forest best not penetrated without a guide. Ask them to get a deal that retains your rights—a contract that treats you like a human being. If they balk, walk away. You got what you came for. Or go find another agent who shares your vision. But whatever you do, Paul, don’t sign a contract that will take your work from you indefinitely, one that gives your book a mere 3-6 month window spine-out on a bookstore shelf, one that pays you one fifth of what you can make on your own for each sale, one that doesn’t allow you to discount your works or give them away for free.

Submit. Win that acceptance you crave. And then self-publish. You got what you came for. The arbiter of good taste and high art told you it was good enough. Publish your work and include in the product description a copy of their golden ticket: their email accepting you into their hallowed halls. Just don’t get all giddy and sign the oppressive boilerplate that your heroes never had the courage nor power nor technology to stand up to and change. Instead, help make that change a reality.

Join the Bella Andres and Liliana Harts and JA Konraths and Barry Eislers and Brenna Aubreys. Join the Terry Goodkinds, the Lawrence Blocks, the Jim Carreys, the Macklemore and Ryans, the Louis C.K.s, and the Brandon Saundersons. Join the many who are staying indie despite lucrative offers. Or at least, if you do go upwind where our stench is weakest, pay attention to the changes that are coming. When you see contracts that begin to pay a decent royalty, when you see non-complete clauses go away, when you see indefinite terms become defined ones, at least have the dignity to thank us.

Because we are just as scared as any other writer that our work isn’t good enough. I promise you that. But we do know our art deserves better than what they’re offering. And that’s what self-publishing is all about. It’s not going it alone because we’ve been turned back at any gates. It’s about banding together and laying siege to an old order that needs to update their crumbling castles. We’ve been so busy trying to cross their moats that we’ve failed to realize how much better it is out here on the rolling hills and under the open skies where all the readers are. If you truly need an invite before you feel comfortable setting up your own stall, by all means, seek it out! Their input is free. The rejections are free. Their acceptance won’t cost you a thing.

Unless you take them up on it, of course.

Some Things Children Can Learn From Dr. Seuss (A Guest Post by Nikolas Baron)

“That’s why I tell you to keep your eyes wide. Keep them wide open… at least on one side”.

- Dr. Seuss

I went to an old bookstore the other day, and while browsing the selection of books catered for children, amid the Spongebob Square Pants and Dora the Explorer cartoons, I spotted a treasure trove of possibly the best books ever written. I probably didn’t think so much about the significance and meaning behind each book when I was younger, since the colorful visuals and rhymes stimulated and entertained me to no ends. For example, months after reading Green Eggs and Ham, I stubbornly refused to eat anything that remotely resembled eggs or ham, and it was a perfect excuse to reject anything green as well. I’d simply repeat “I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-am” over and over until my parents backed down. It was then that I realized the power of Dr. Seuss.

Dr. Seuss was also probably the reason why I loved writing and coming up with my own stories–well, Dr. Seuss and, of course, the endless praise I seemed to receive every time I showed these stories to my mother. His books incite so much creativity and endless possibilities; it is no wonder why they are simply timeless. For children taking their first steps with literacy, I highly recommend using Dr. Seuss as a starting point, not only to encourage the child to read but also to instil fundamental values that seem to have been lost with modern-day offerings.

Here are some key lessons that are highly comprehensible for children and might give them some inspiration to think creatively and express themselves through words.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” This is from the book I Can Read With My Eyes Shut. This brilliant read starts really simply and ends with the Cat in the Hat explaining to the Young Cat the excitement and joys one can get from reading and how expanding one’s knowledge can get one to go places.
“Try them, try them, and you may! Try them and you may, I say.” I don’t think anyone is unfamiliar with Green Eggs and Ham. No matter how reluctant a child is to read and write at the beginning, don’t give up. Get them to try different mediums other than the traditional paper and pen. Read on interactive technology like the iPad, which has excellent graphics that come to life. When toddlers are just learning to write and even holding a pencil is difficult, try layering the table with shaving foam and allow the learning to get a little messy.
“Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than you.” From Happy Birthday to You! A child who understands this will be way ahead of many adults. Any author would tell you that the best kinds of writing are the kinds that are sincere and genuine, and those feelings can’t be created. They have to be felt and then simply expressed.
“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” From the book, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish. When a child starts writing stories, they might contain flying unicorns or pink elephants. Let their imaginations run wild; it’s the best trait a child has. We are only limited by our own imaginations.

These few life lessons are my favorite ones that inspired me as a young child and have remained with me ever since. Hard copies of books are getting increasingly difficult to find, so as soon as your children are old enough, expose them to technology and the abundant offerings that are available online. Moreover, allowing your children to come up with their own short stories is a brilliant way to encourage them to write. Always be diligent in going through their stories with them and encouraging the right use of grammar. After all, mastering a language starts with a good foundation. One program that I have found very useful in this regard is Grammarly, an online proofreading site that is ten times more accurate than any of the word processors available. From grade school up, Grammarly will be that perfect tool to make learning grammar fun, especially for children who are working with their own writing.

“Children want the same things we want. To laugh, to be challenged, to be entertained, and delighted.”

- Dr. Seuss

By Nikolas Baron 

I Suck at Writing

A few of you are nodding. But for those who don’t believe me, I assure you that my writing skills are well below par. Watching a rough draft emerge from my fingertips in realtime would induce nausea. It’s a haphazard, drunken affair.

But I’m a decent editor. That’s my trick, and the trick to turning out a great manuscript. Writing engaging prose requires three things, none of which are easy to pass along to another: You need a flexible vocabulary, an ear for the rhythm of words, and a plot people will care about.

How do you obtain these three things? I say absorption. By reading a metric ton of books, mostly the good kind. This is why writing classes aren’t always helpful. Sure, you will get some practice by doing and by workshopping with peers and seeing what works and what doesn’t, but it’s hard to have a clear discussion about why one piece does or does not shine. It’s either good or it’s bad, and it’s often evident at a glance. This is why a lot of craft discussions descend into bickering about rules and the hard and fast of grammar. Everything you’ve ever heard about passive voice and -ing and -ly endings and the like is bunk. All the great writers ignore these rules. But we don’t have the vocabulary to talk about what really makes for great writing. It either is or it isn’t.

Let’s look at the three facets of great writing again.

Vocabulary is one of the hardest of these three to learn in that it takes years to accumulate. There is no recipe here other than to read beyond your current level and to employ a dictionary. I never write with a thesaurus (some of you are like: “Dude, we can tell”), but it’s a good idea to do this while studying creative writing. It can break the flow and wreck the next two facets we’re about to discuss, but you have to expand your vocabulary. And the reason is not to show off. It has nothing to do with wowing or impressing the reader. It isn’t even to achieve greater clarity or brevity or any of the logical and obvious fruits of this endeavor. The primary reason you need a strong vocabulary is to achieve pleasant rhythm with your words.

Rhythm is everything. Prose is music. Sentences are trills that tickle our minds like fingers on piano keys. Did you like that last sentence? Read it again a few times. Note the rise and fall on the stress of each word. Granted, this is not my best effort. It’s not even a sentence I edited. I just wrote what felt musical to my ears while also conveying information as clearly and concisely as possible. Rhythm requires mixing up long sentences and short. It requires repetition, so that key concepts are stressed a second time, that they may lodge in the brain. It often means breaking rules and dropping commas where they don’t belong, signaling to the reader to take a breath, to pause, to relax, to prepare for more to come.

Like vocabulary, learning rhythm is all about absorption. I used to spend hours memorizing Shakespeare’s sonnets. No, not to get laid, though that was often an unintended byproduct. It was more about listening to a perfect tuning fork and humming those oscillations in my head. It was about singing with prose until key phrases — collections of words — became part of my exo-vocabulary. What I think of as my beyond-vocabulary. The key to learning rhythm is not to master rules but to develop an ear for prose that sings on key. All great editing happens here, even if you don’t understand the process while it’s taking place. Here is where your mind trips on a sentence; something is wrong, but you’re not sure what; a repeated word, perhaps. You play and play and rearrange until it shines, and then you leave it alone.

The best way to learn this art is through practice. Working with a great editor helps. Seeing how someone else tickles those mental keys, recognizing where a bad passage suddenly becomes a thing of beauty, studying what changed and why and making these changes in our future prose — these are the keys to becoming a great writer. I liken mastering rhythm to playing chess. You have to see twelve moves at once, and then concentrate solely on the most sublime of options. In chess, you “look” ahead. With writing, you “listen” ahead. You hear the words in your virtual ears, and you only set them down if they sound pure. Read poetry. Strike those tuning forks. Hum until you can hum on key. A broad vocabulary works wonders, as each word is a new note, a new power, a chess piece that can zig or zag or leap clear across the board, opening up options you never knew existed.

The third and final key to great writing is plot, which is both the information conveyed by your prose and how you convey that information. There are unusual aspects to good plotting that most writers would say do not belong in this discussion. As far as I know, I’m the only idiot who would suggest that rhythm is a key function of plot. But I believe that repetition of certain words and adhering to consistent paragraph lengths are just as crucial as laying down clues in a murder mystery. Sentence length is important. Sentence fragments are. Here are the sharp tacks that nail information into the readers’ brains, that give them something concrete to remember and file away, so that the long and flowing sentences that build clause upon clause, where the words rise and fall like the sea against a pier, are where the brain may relax and briefly shut off so that the prose washes through us and over us and in this moment of reverie we are able to process those pinpricks of information, ideas that came sudden and swift and seemed important, taken in as we listen to what rambles on, arriving more as raw emotion than content. Because the reader might need to recall such details that we drop like sharp tacks. Some things must not be forgotten.

Read that last sentence again. It is practically punctuated with periods, is it not? Must. Not. Be. Forgotten. There is no clear flow between these words, which makes them like beating drums, and it is that rhythm that makes the sentence stand out and its contents lodge in our skulls. Before we go on about plot, it’s important to see how vocabulary is a tool for mastering rhythm and how rhythm conveys information. Without these things, a story is the bare bones of an outline. A body is found. A woman suspects a man. It was her sister all along. You can set down most plots with brevity that verges on haiku. To turn that into a book, you need vocabulary and rhythm.

Plot is also about knowing when to stop. Breaking sentences into paragraphs is a filing system of sorts. Each paragraph is a single document, filed away into folders we call chapters. Putting too much into a single paragraph will cause most of it to be forgotten. It works for Proust, as he wants his words to fill you up to bursting so that they become a raw emotion and not a thing remembered or even understood; but don’t be Proust if you care to plot. Study him for rhythm. For plot, you want digestible lengths of things. Sentences that grab, often with their simplicity. You gain here not by working hard but by choosing chess moves wisely. And your chapters should end with a bang, with dynamism, with a forward lean, so that pages are turned in the middle of the night and angry emails about lack of sleep are sent to writers the next day. All of this, remember, is as important as clues in a murder mystery or fights and kisses in a romance.

I suck at writing, but I’m a decent editor. If you asked me to teach you how to write, I couldn’t. I would be horrible at that. But I can show you how to bend your words once they already exist on paper. I can point to what’s shrill and what flows. I can suggest where a plot is weak, where a character spends too much time brooding, where some dialog is needed to give the reader’s mind a break, where an info dump is jarring, where a love interest is needed, where characters sound too much alike, where “he said” and “she said” are plenty and how and where to place them, that few people employ names when speaking to one another, all the concepts that make for great writing that have to be seen to be understood.

My editor, of course, is cringing right now with my claims of being able to do what he does. He sees the drafts I send him and the work they still require. But he is also complimentary of how clean my drafts are in comparison to others. And he compliments my prose. These things are functions of my inner editor, who is a lot sharper than my inner writer. I’ve seen this the past two months as I’ve worked with John Joseph Adams to edit a dozen stories for an upcoming anthology. If I could give a class on the craft of writing, it would exist in the track changes of these Word documents, my suggestions and edits to these massively accomplished writers. Which gave me an idea. Stand the fuck back.

I believe in self-publishing, in the right for any and all to express themselves with words. Furthermore, I believe that every person has the right to be remunerated for their offerings. Not the expectation that anyone will, but the dignity to ask. I believe in the audaciousness of leaving that guitar case open while strumming on the streets. A free sample is there, a click on a product page no different than strolling for half a block while chords are played and the music washes over you. If it’s a discordant mess, others have the right to shout at you with 1-stars and tell you to shut up, to practice more, to grab their dollar back from the case or never place it there to begin with. They have the right to hurt your feelings, which is why expressing ourselves in public is so raw and dangerous. That danger comes with the territory.

We like to think that only those with talent will engage the market, but this will never be the case. Wishing will not make it so. Every season of American Idol is full of tone-deaf hopefuls with adoring tone-deaf parents, an echo chamber of support around an absence of talent, and yet a firm belief that this is music they’re making. Simon Cowell and his ilk are needed. But the only Simon Cowell who matters is the reader. All other Simon Cowell’s get it wrong often enough to make them tragic. It only takes one innocent and beautiful story murdered to make those erected gates a terrible thing. It only takes a rant here and a rant there to dissuade the nervous and talented not to bare their beautiful souls on the streets that we might weep at what they bring to the world. Demanding that people sing only in the privacy of their own homes, or only to the self-appointed music masters who might unlock their doors and grant them the freedoms that all artists should have, or to suggest that these plebes can belt a tune but they may not open their palms for payment — these ideas are abhorrent to me. Enough with the fucking gatekeepers.

But what to do about raising the bar? What to do that we might help people sing without scaring off the shy talent among us? What can I do beyond this blog post spilling everything I think I know about not sucking at writing? I am not Brandon Sanderson, who might possibly be the best instructor of craft out there, who can stand at a blackboard and show in chaulk how to tell a great story. I do my best through editing. Which brings me to the idea that I warned you about: What if we taught by working as editors? As mentors?

I am aiming for a clearer schedule in the future. Less traveling and more writing. But as I learn how much I enjoy editing, and how useful it can be for other writers to see a different set of chess moves and how the game of their stories might have played out, I realize that there’s an opportunity here to help. So I’m thinking of offering my services as an editor (to which my editor half-chokes and spits on his screen). No, not as a new profession in lieu of writing, but as a kind of applied workshop. It would work something like this:

Once a month, I will take submitted short stories that are no more than 5,000 words in length. Each will have a brief synopsis at the beginning, something that resembles haiku in brevity if not in perfect form. Each month, I will return one of these short stories to the author with heaps of notes in track changes. Not only what I would do, but why I would do it. I will treat your work as if it were my own. I will destroy it. And here is where I should warn you: I can be an angry editor, not least of all to myself. I learned to write from a long succession of angry editors. Dr. Dennis Goldsberry was the first, a cantankerous and lovely old man who warned his freshman college English class that to get an A on a paper, it must force him to set that paper down, move to the window, and shed a tear. I demand perfection from my own work (knowing I’ll never approximate it). I hold every writer to the same standard. That makes for angry edits. I am Simon Cowell, barking in the margins.

I also won’t do this for free. Not because I care about the money; I have no pressing need in this regard; but because I want to cut down on submissions and only receive them from those who care. From those who want to tackle writing as an impassioned hobby or even as a profession. But wait, it gets worse: Your manuscript and my edits will be available to any and all to read. Which I guarantee will cut down on submissions more than the fee. If you’ve ever workshopped or participated in a critique group in which you were the one publicly critiqued, you know what torture this is on a writer’s soul. You will be an example. I won’t be surprised if nobody volunteers.

Each work will go into a new section of the new forums I’ll be unveiling in a couple of months. The first manuscript will be edited in May and revealed in June. If we manage to get twelve of these submitted and edited in a year, I’ll probably combine them in an anthology that is meant to instruct as much as entertain. There is a lot to balk at here, not the least of which is that I’m not nearly skilled enough at writing to have the audacity to claim I can instruct. Hey, I don’t even have a college degree. I have no formal training other than a dozen meetings with a writing group. I’m nobody to offer this, and I welcome the crickets and even the howls of “hack.”

But writing only gets better through an application of effort and through mentorship. I want self-publishing to be a viable alternative to selling our art to the highest bidder. Self-publishing is liberating and can be far more lucrative than publishing by any other means. The openness of this space and these tools that allow anyone to publish are multiplying the chorus of voices that readers may sample. Voices they encounter as they stroll from block to block through an ever-sprawling metropolis of literature. How can I help make those voices prettier? Maybe I’m an ass to suggest that I can. But a blog post with my ideas on what makes for good writing is a start. Working with aspiring writers is another way. Making those lessons public is a third.

Once the new forums are up, there will be instructions on what to submit, how, and where. You will own the rights to your work and will be free to publish however you see fit. As will I. I’ll have the ability to publish the rough draft and the final product. You really should think about this before you fire something off to me. We’ll have a very simple contract of sorts, and it’ll be full of warnings. This won’t be fun for any who participate. It’ll be work, ugly and cruel. But we will improve, you and I. And the reader will benefit.

Until then, happy writing. Go read some Shakespeare. Strike that fork. Hum a tune.

A Letter from ‘Lil Kris

Dear Hugh Howey UK Fans:

I want to take a moment to thank British fans for your patience regarding the availability of the full eBook version of SAND, his new novel, at UK retail outlets—especially when it had been made available on this side of the pond.

I acknowledge your frustration; I embrace your right to be indignant. But perhaps unbeknownst to you, you have a vital role to play in all the changes unfolding in the publishing industry. And know that your unflagging enthusiasm and patience will be rewarded!

Random House Century UK released the WOOL (Silo Saga) Trilogy in 2013. RH showed innovation and true partnership to make the series the success it is and every part of the experience was exciting, creative, and enjoyable—so much in fact that Howey eschewed indie publishing in the UK for his latest release because he values the partnership created. (Not to mention the sheer joy of working with his editor Jack Fogg and the whole Random House Century UK team once again!)

Every negotiation is an opportunity to create a tiny bit of change in how publishing works in this global landscape. If there is one thing that I want you to know about Hugh and me, his literary agent, it is this: we are committed to advocating on behalf of change for authors in this rapidly evolving industry. For anything within our power. Always.

And this commitment to advocacy takes time and many conversations.

You’ll be happy to know that the full eBook version of SAND will be available starting on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2014 on retail sites from all the usual UK suspects.

So thank you once again. Random House Century is going to make SAND extraordinary with many exciting ideas and plans in the works. It’s worth the wait.

Yours Sincerely,

Kristin Nelson, Nelson Literary Agency

A One-Man Operation

So, my publisher in Taiwan is a badass. Yes, a singular badass. Erik runs Nautilus Publishing all by himself. He designs the cover art, writes the blurbs, translates the books, answers the phone, handles email, and tugs handcarts loaded with books to his booth at the Taiwan International Book Fair Exposition.

And everything he touches turns to gold. I have no idea how any of this is possible. I’m in awe of the man. Gobsmacked and awed. The #1 bestselling work of science fiction in Taiwan was translated and published by him, and he’s only been doing this since 2010. WOOL looks poised to overtake that work. There are 50,000+ copies in print. Fifty thousand! And DUST, which he launched last week, debuted at #1 in all of Taiwan.

Seriously. How? Where’s the sales team? Where’s the marketing team? Where is the person who runs to Staples for office supplies? How does he do it?

I grilled him over dinner, eager to divine the man’s secrets. Two books a year? And they’re always bestsellers? Spill it, man.

“The blurb,” he says. “The synopsis. You have to grab the reader with the synopsis.”

C’mon. He’s pulling my leg. It’s not that easy.

“Oh, and a good cover.”

Whatever. He’s not telling me. My guess is a deal with the devil. I mean, the guy bats 1.000 in an industry where the whiffs are more common than contact. And he’s doing it alone.

Here’s what his madness has caused: Today, I found myself on a stage behind a broad desk arranged with placards and microphones. Beside me is the minister of culture. Next is a former COO of a major publishing house. And then the president of the book fair. A dozen cameras film from the back of the room. A hundred or so people snap away with their fancy cameras and scribble notes or hold tape recorders. It’s the press conference to open the fair. I’m the only person within five miles wearing a t-shirt. I have to stand and give a five-minute speech. Afterward, a cluster of reporters ask questions and scribble my responses.

Three more video interviews. Then we tour the largest and busiest bookstore I’ve ever seen in my entire life (Yeah, Powell’s, this place was massive). There are piles of WOOL and DUST everywhere. English editions as well. After dinner, I get back to the hotel where three of the staff are waiting with books for me to sign. Is this what being famous feels like? If so, I can stand a week of it. It helps knowing that a normal life awaits back home.

And c’mon Erik, this isn’t about some synopsis or book cover. What did you do, man? Did you really translate my book? Or is this some old Asimov work with my name plastered on the cover? I’ve gotta know.

This Post is Bad for You. Don’t Read it.

Really bummed about Philip Seymour Hoffman. Like, in tears bummed. One of the actors I would go out of my way to catch even in bit parts is gone. I saw PATCH ADAMS on the big screen and BOOGIE NIGHTS on the little screen in the same year, and I remember being floored by this talent, this guy who dared yell at my beloved Robin Williams, but do so with such authenticity and zeal that I was like, “Yeah, Robin, chillax, man.” Which probably wasn’t the point of the scene, but Hoffman was fond of stealing them. He didn’t care. He was just too damn talented. I can imagine directors yelling “cut” and shaking their heads and asking Phillip to do it one more time, but not quite so good. “You’re supposed to be unlikable,” they would say. Or: “You’re the supporting actor. Stop hurt everyone’s feelings by making this look easy.”

The last time I felt this sense of loss for a young actor, we were losing Heath Ledger, also to an accidental overdose. (Yeah, 46 is young. To me, anyway.) And maybe it’s wrong to get angry at drugs when this stuff happens, maybe it’s too soon, maybe we’re supposed to grieve for a few weeks or months before we look back and get pissed at the needle or the pill, but I’m all jetlagged and upset, and dammit I need something to blame other than the man we just lost.

I find few things sadder than addiction. Poisoning oneself in an attempt at happiness? What’s sadder than that? I had to watch FLIGHT twice, painful both times, just to appreciate how brilliantly that film portrayed the tragedy of addiction. And poor Jesse Pinkman. Yeah, I finally caught the last two seasons of BREAKING BAD. And every damn time he’d kick the habit and then use again, I wanted to strangle him through the screen.

This is the part where I get in trouble, so stop reading right now.

I don’t know if I’d be strong enough to do this if I had kids (it’s easy to give parenting advice to the world when you don’t have any of your own), but I think we’re going about the whole drug thing in the wrong way, and I think it’s getting people killed. Again, it’s probably poor form to make this about drugs so soon after Hoffman’s death, but that same reluctance to tackle this issue, to be honest about it all, does real harm. I can’t be pissed at the man who slid into addiction. Practically no one is stronger than the allure of such cheap happiness. I’m angry. And I think we could do a better job. But it would mean losing the bullshit.

Because that’s the way we talk about drugs with our youth today: We bullshit them. And they know it. “Drugs are bad for you,” we say. “Drugs are horrible.” This invariably comes a decade or so after we’ve taught them we’re full of crap with that whole Santa thing. They’ve got their lying parents on one side, telling them that alcohol and drugs are horrible, and they’ve got their friends on the other side saying how great that buzz feels, and you’ve gotta try this, it’s the best thing ever, man.

Whom do they believe? The people who lied about the Tooth Fairy? Everything parents say is no good — from sweets, to staying up late, to the joys of small explosions — kids quickly find out they like. A lot. We teach them not to trust us. And do their friends ever lie to them? Not about stuff like this.

“Mom and Dad are trying to keep us from being happy, aren’t they?” they think. “Trying to keep all the joy in the world to themselves. Alcohol is bad, but Dad gets to crack a few after work, doesn’t he? I watch him smack his lips and sigh and smile like nothing else makes him smile. He’s always laughing with his friends when they watch the game and have a few drinks. Having all that fun. And they tell me smoking is bad, but I catch Aunt Susan puffing away behind the oak at the cookout, bliss leaking from every pore, looking so serene. There’s a pattern here. Anything they tell me not to do, they think I’m not mature enough to handle. They keep all the good stuff to themselves. Here’s my chance to be an adult, to be as mature as my friends. Sure, pass it here. I’ll try that. Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”

Our brilliant plan is to say “just don’t do it.” Meanwhile, their peers, whom they respect and trust far more than their parents, say “just try it a little. You’ll love it.” That’s a tough battle for parents to win. Because we’re lying to them, and they know it. Their friends are telling the truth, and they know it. This pattern has been established over and over.

So what if we came clean with them right from the start? Just be honest. “Drugs are great,” we could tell them, before they hear it from their peers. “You take drugs, and everything feels amazing. Better than you’ve felt from any other thing in your life. That’s why, once you’ve tried drugs, you’ll never want to do anything else. You’ll throw your life away. You’ll live in the streets in a cardboard box smelling like piss, and you won’t care. You see, drugs are so damn good, so delicious, that you’ll never even care about your family again. That’s right. You’ll never care about me or your father. You won’t even care about your friends. Or going to school or having a job. All you’ll care about is how great that high feels, just for a little bit, and you’ll chase that feeling for the rest of your life. You’ll lie, beg, and steal to get it. And you’ll hate every dull moment in between, every moment that you’re not high. You’ll never enjoy anything else quite like you do now, not once you’ve tasted how great that sensation is. And however strong you think you are, nobody is stronger than drugs. They’re so good, they can take down anyone. Look at this list of people who had it all, who were at the top of their game and had all the money in the world. Every one of them died because of how good drugs are. They’d rather die than live sober. And you will too. You’ll want to die. They’ll kill you, they’re so good. All it takes is dipping a toe, and you’ll want to drown.”

What if we told kids the truth? Because then, when someone passes a joint and says, “You’re gonna love this,” the response is, “Oh, I know. I’ve heard that shit is the bomb. But I’d rather not know how good it is. Spoils the rest of your life, you know? Rather not know. But I believe you. Oh yes, I totally believe you.”

For some reason (maybe my parents were honest with me about drugs when I was young), it was how good drugs were that made me never want to try them. I believed my friends. Maybe I didn’t have their lie in my other ear that made me want to see who was being straight with me. All I knew was that drugs were so awesome that anyone who got into them would throw their entire life away in a never ending pursuit, a mad chase for a tail that didn’t exist. I was terrified of drugs. Still am. But not because someone was warning me that they were “bad.” It’s because I didn’t ever want to be beholden to something that was so all-powerfully good.

Kids are smart. Smarter than we give them credit for being. I remember feeling like an adult at age thirteen or fourteen. Like it was nonsense that I couldn’t drive already. These are the bright youngsters we’re trying to fool. Drugs are scary enough for what they are. These substances tap right into the pleasure centers of our brains, and it skews the world, makes everything else not-as-good. They wreck our ability to feel pleasure. Wouldn’t that scare you more than just hearing that drugs are vaguely “bad?”

Is this a dangerous thing to suggest, being honest with our kids? Is it better to absolve ourselves of guilt if they happen to try drugs on their own? Because this is what I suspect we get out of lying to them: At least we told them drugs sucked. We can’t be blamed if they gave it a try. We warned them. Now it’s their fault. Their friends’ faults. We never suggested that drugs would make them feel good, even though we knew. Because if we did suggest that, and then they tried them, we’d feel culpable. Wouldn’t we? So we stick to the lie. And maybe we’re to blame when they test us, when they decide to see whether their friends are telling the truth.

I don’t know. It just sucks. Rest in peace, Phillip. You’ll be missed.

Most Books Don’t Sell

It doesn’t matter how you publish, most books don’t sell very well. If you query your manuscript, there’s a 99% chance you won’t sell a single copy. If you self-publish, there’s probably an equal chance that you’ll never sell more than 1,000 copies. A great thread on KBoards pointed this out and serves to balance the numerous threads from those authors doing very well. The message is this: Don’t think you’re doing something wrong or that you aren’t successful if your book isn’t keeping up with your neighbor’s.

It’s a great message, one I agree with 100%. My attitude remains this: “You mean I’m ALLOWED to publish my book? Without asking permission? I can just do this? No one is going to stop me?”

I don’t take the miracle of publication for granted, much less that I might sell a copy. I marvel that I’m able to set up a book on CreateSpace for free and then order a $5 proof print copy and hold my work in my hands. It’s a book. A real book. Full of words. That I wrote. How crazy is that?

My dream when I set out on this adventure was simply to have written a book in my lifetime. I feel like I’m getting away with something devious when I hit “publish” and my book shows up on Amazon with all the other “real” books. Someone commented on Facebook today that it was weird to see me enthused about these things. I’ve been on book tours all around the world. I’ve sold millions of books. Shouldn’t it all be blasé by now? It isn’t.

Keeping this mindset — that publication itself is a miracle — ensures that every single sale, review, and email are a treasure. The other way to look at the world is to compare up and be disappointed. A publicist once told me about an author she was touring with in Spain. This author found out that his novel debuted at #2 on the New York Times list. He fell into an inconsolable funk for the rest of the book tour. That’s the other way of looking at the world, seeing what you missed. How many of us would go bonkers to even be on that list? I assume this author had been on the list before. That was no longer a goal, just placing. Now it was to be #1. There is always yet another goal, accomplishment, or reward taunting us over the horizon. Or inspiring us. How we look at the world dictates which.

Sadly, it isn’t often up to us. There’s no credit to take for our attitudes, and it’s difficult to blame others for theirs. Numerous psychological studies suggest that our innate base level of happiness is fixed. Winning the lottery results in only a temporary high. Losing a limb results in only a temporary low. Those who haven’t had either of these things happen to them balk at this suggestion; they claim that they would be supremely happy for a very long time or insanely depressed for the rest of their lives if they won the lottery or lost a limb. But that’s not what takes place.

As authors, we can be thrilled with a handful of sales a month or miserable with “only” 10,000. Our desire for and belief in free will makes us think we choose this reaction. Those same beliefs make us doubt study after study that tells us otherwise. Even though these studies have been replicated over and over.

I would counter, however, that knowing this about ourselves gives us the ability to make a concerted effort to see the world differently. That is, the more we are aware of our lack of free will, the more free will we exercise. We suddenly begin to “feel” ourselves reacting to our environment in a manner we find distasteful — and we immediately fight this urge. Learning that our attitudes are mostly reflex gives us impetus to change them. Understanding how limited our responses are makes us aware of those responses and also of possible alternatives.

This is a powerful muscle, once exercised. The positives in our lives can be drops of nectar, each one unique and delicious. And the negative can be responded to with honest positivity. Hate can be countered with love. Violence with an embrace. There’s nothing false about this; it’s simply a choice. A powerful one. How we feel should be up to us. So why don’t more of us spend the vast majority of our lives blissfully happy? It takes practice.

Most books don’t sell. Knowing this as a writer, how are you going to feel about publishing your book? One choice will have you turning to the next story with a smile on your face, disbelieving that you can make your works available for them to be discovered or not. The other choice is to give up in frustration, your expectations unmet. Are we free to choose between these two options? I like to think so. But first, we have to understand how difficult — how very nearly impossible it is to see the small good in the world. It takes effort. But it gets easier the more we try.

The Year of the Horse

6am here at the gate in West Palm Beach. I think it’s 7pm in Taiwan. It’ll take 25 hours to get there. And then I can watch the Super Bowl over breakfast, or something like that.

Really looking forward to this book fair. I was shocked when my publisher in Taiwan suggested I fly out. It turns out that — per capita — I’m probably better known in Taiwan than anywhere else. The translator is said to have done a masterful job with WOOL, turning it into a work of real literature, which means it’s probably not even about people living underground anymore. But hey, I don’t care if it’s about sheep! Just thrilled for the opportunity.

What am I looking forward to the most? Walking up 101 flights of stairs in one of the world’s tallest buildings. Yes, I’m going to suffer as my characters did. What elevator?

A Hug For Amazon

No, this isn’t because I’m doing my taxes and looking over 1099s. This hug is going out because of the ridiculousness of this post over on Forbes, where Amazon is mocked for reinvesting its earnings back into its business and into its customers. Has Amazon Derangement Syndrome gotten out of hand? I think so.

I wish more people would pick up Kevin Kelley’s excellent book What Technology Wants. Kevin shows us that technological and scientific progress flow downhill, picking up steam from each advancement and discovery, and following a course dictated by constraints on physics. Developments like powered flight do not happen simply because of a couple of ingenious bicycle building brothers. It has a lot to do with horsepower being delivered in an ever lighter package. Most major developments happen concurrently, often halfway around the world from each other (which is why invention is often credited to the wrong or multiple parties). Calculus, natural selection, the automobile, the airplane, the examples would take up this entire blog post (Kelley has to restrain himself as well, and he has an entire book in which to work).

The point is this: Bookstores were going to contract, no matter what. As soon as the internet gained mass adoption, this was going to be a thing. Same with big box retailers vs. mom and pop stores (South Park had a brilliant episode that exposed the fallacy of blaming WalMart for the inevitable). In the case of Amazon, the ire is magnified by our ardent love of bookstores. This is what I attribute many authors’ hatred of Amazon to. The same goes for the publishing industry (which receives its largest checks from Amazon) and the Authors Guild (which should be applauding Amazon) and aspiring writers (who do not dream of selling books but of seeing their books in bookstores).

These changes were going to happen. No matter what. Thank goodness they are being steered by a company that treats its customers as their number 1 priority. Thank goodness! But that’s not what we hear over at Forbes and elsewhere. We hear that Amazon is awful for delivering low prices and the best customer service down to regular people. Can’t everyone see they are hurting the investors! They are hurting banks and Wall Street! What about the 1%?! Profits should flow up to management and fatcats!

The article (amazing this is on Forbes) also misses something far more important: Amazon invests most of its earnings back into itself. This is what investors love about the company (and it’s how investments should work, rather than the glorified gambling of day trading). Amazon is opening up massive distribution centers all over the world. They are building a lead that no one will be able to surpass. The game is over, and it’s because Bezos took the long view rather than the shortcut of mounds of cash. This is a frugal company. That frugality runs right through the entire business, but it ends at the customer. The customer is treated like royalty.

And for the record, I had these same things to say about Amazon when I was a bookseller and not a book-writer. I used Amazon as a vendor in an independent bookstore, because it was often the best place to get out-of-print texts for my customers. Even though the store had been up and running for decades, I had to create their vendor entry in our system. I was the only one who used them (the warehouse would send down all smiley boxes without even checking the label). I fell in love with the company the first time I had to return something to them. I’ve been in love with the company ever since. Most of their customers feel the same way.

Believe me, I feel the pain of bookstores disappearing. I spent a huge chunk of my life in bookstores, both as an employee but far more often as a customer. I love bookstores. I also love music stores. And film photography. But I’m not going to let nostalgia cloud my thinking and have me rushing out as an industry pundit might to slam customers and wail for investors. I’m not going to rush out as an Authors Guild might and work against writers and readers while fighting for large corporations in the form of bookstore chains and major publishers. The customer comes first. I based my bookselling years on this philosophy. I now base my writing career on this philosophy. And I’m happy to send effusive hugs out to those who operate with the same goal in mind. The love flows down, people. And it should. Just like progress and innovation.