Hugh Howey's Blog, page 44

Data in the Form of Applause

I wrote this blog post quite a few weeks ago and am just now getting around to publishing it. Much of the sentiment went into an article for Slate, so I held off until that story ran. I’ve been on this particular soapbox for a long, long time. During my book tour a year ago, I often slid into a speech about the roots of storytelling. Those roots are why I made involuntary gagging sounds while reading William Petrocelli suggest that no good writer should care what their readers think.

In reaction to the news that streaming digital book services might aggregate the reading habits of its users and offer that data to publishers and authors, William had this to say:

Good writers know that this is nonsense. They don’t need to monitor a reader’s viewing habits to tell them what to write. They develop their own vision and their own style, and they know that the most important thing they have to offer is their authenticity.

William closes his long rant with the opinions of two NYT readers, and we can assume that by “giving them the last word,” he agrees with the ridiculous views they spout:

Art is a supremely individual expression. It doesn’t ask permission; it doesn’t take an exit poll and adjust accordingly. Artists say what they know, paint what they see — they have no choice in the matter — and it’s our privilege to be brought into their world, so distinct from our own, and to be altered by that experience. Once artists start asking how many “likes” they’ve garnered, or listening to customer-satisfaction surveys to increase their sales, they’re no longer making art; they’re moving product.

And:

It doesn’t surprise me that many companies are eager to profit from easily acquired electronic data about reading habits or anything else, but what does surprise me is that writers would openly embrace the idea of tracking their readers as they read so that the writers might modify their writing in hopes of increasing sales. Writers such as these could be described as “tech savvy,” or known by an adjective that predates the digital age: hacks.

Taking this hard line that writers are the sole creators of their work and should take input from no one seems outright insane to me. Writers shouldn’t take their agents’ and editors’ suggestions into account? What about their spouse’s input? What about beta readers? Nobody?

Some writers might be writing to create pure art, and that’s wonderful. I respect that. But many others are writing to entertain or enlighten, and these are equally valid reasons. Knowing when we are doing any of these things, or when we are failing to do them, is invaluable. I would love to know when my readers put down my book and never pick it back up. Actors on stage, musicians performing live, comedians — they all have this feedback loop, and it can enhance their art. It doesn’t have to diminish it.

Not everything new needs to be hated, just because it’s new. That’s the vibe I get from this article and from the two comments selected. It’s especially daft because what these people are railing against isn’t new. It gets back to the root of storytelling, which was oral and would’ve included audience participation and would’ve hinged on audience reactions. The sterile, unchanging, single-sourced novel is a comparatively modern tradition, one that had its brief day and is now going the way of the dodo. Good riddance. Let’s get back to our roots. Those who want to pretend that the new is somehow ancient can bask in their ignorance of history. Meanwhile, I’m going to celebrate the live aspects of writing for a participatory audience. I’m going to serialize and write for a live audience. I’m going to celebrate fan fiction and wiki-fiction and Twitter and the madness of a hundred voices swirling on the wind while I fashion my stories.

Because that’s the way it has always been done. And if these hipsters were true hipsters, they would reach further back into the past than the last two hundred years and embrace what is human and universal in all of us. Storytelling. Live. With a community. So we know when someone is listening.

 

Turning Chaff into Wheat

I was overjoyed yesterday to learn that the staff at the Nelson Literary Agency was referring to my agent, Kristin Nelson, as “‘Lil Kris” around the office. I often wonder if my rarely-read blog does any good in the world. Yesterday, it did some good. It resulted in affectionate mockery and belly laughs. I could die happy.

Alas, I’m not dead.* I’m here working on another blog post, all because a Tweet led me to this Issues on the Ether roundup, which led me to this essay by Ian Ellard, which everyone should go read right now before they waste another second with my drivel. Go on. It’s pure genius.

I especially love this bit:

When I write a novel, I own 100% of it.

That’s the gorgeous thing about it. It is unnibbled braincress. I take the seed of my experience of being alive, and water it with the artists’ arrogance that anyone will care, and this thing, this novel grows. And it’s all mine. 100%.

That’s not just a noble sentiment, but a wonderfully expressed sentiment. Ian goes on to suggest that selling all 100% of a novel for a lump sum might not be a great idea in 2022. It might not even be a great idea today. Instead, he sees collaborative publishing with cover artists, beta readers, and editors lending a hand for a cut of proceeds:

People like Bill came along, and John, and Sarah, and my darling Buckles, and they said, “Hey, you’re a writer, I’m an artist” or “Hey, you’re a writer, I can help you in this way or that way”.

And we said: “We can’t pay.” And they said: “That’s okay, give me 2%”; they said: “That’s okay, give me 10%.”

 

 

This is similar to the idea I espoused yesterday of agents-turned-producers. But I like Ian’s idea even better. Imagine a world of literary talent scouts. The sports world has them. The modeling world has them. Think of the amount of writing out there, ready to be analyzed for its worth. You have WattPad and scores of fan fiction sites. You have blogs and Facebook feeds. I can easily imagine someone like my editor, David Gatewood, spotting raw talent in the wild and offering to shore it up a bit in exchange for a percentage of future sales. David goes on to recommend Mike Tabor or Jason Gurley for cover art, and they provide artwork worth hundreds of dollars in exchange for some small percentage of ownership. After all, these people have contributed to the final product.

It’s an inversion of Kickstarter. Rather than beg readers for contributions with no idea of the quality of the final product, you have the financial backers begging to be included in something they see as worthy. ACX already offers this financial scheme, so it’s not as outlandish or impossible as you might think. Any self-published author can sign up for an account at Audible’s ACX site and submit their manuscript for auditions. Talented voice actors from all over the world can submit samples of their work. You get to hear people reading your novel. One of the options for financing audiobooks on ACX is a royalty split. This might be how books are produced in the future. One of many ways, at least.

There’s a need for this, because editing and cover art are expensive and writers are often dead-ass broke. It can cost $2,000 and up (way up) to create a polished, professional novel. But what’s expensive in monetary terms for the writer is far cheaper for the cover artist and editor, who might volunteer their time simply because they believe in a product. It’s what investors do. It’s what those voice actors on ACX do. This isn’t a gamble; it’s a calculated risk. For some, it’s the simple joy of collaborative creation. All we need now are the tools to handle the distribution of funds, and I could see Amazon working this into their KDP dashboard quite easily. Here’s what they would need to do:

Provide passwords with limited dashboard access to each contributor. This way, each contributor could monitor the sales of the work in real-time and make sure the funds disbursed match the sales tallied.
Require that financial changes have authorization from all contributors. In order to update banking information, all contributors would have to okay the change. So no contributor could siphon off funds from any of the others.
Set up permissions for each account, so the cover artist can update cover art with an okay from the author, the editor can do the same for blurbs and descriptions, and the formatter can do the same for metadata.
Here’s the biggie: Rather than have KDP accounts for individual authors, allow the creation of KDP accounts for individual works or series of works. Not only would this be great for anthologies with multiple authors, it would allow collaborators on single works to have a central dashboard just for that title. The current system of having author-centric dashboards wouldn’t go away, but this would provide a secondary type of account, and that’s one that revolves around the work itself.

A complete overhaul in how books are financed might seem extreme, but it’s already happening. There are panels at most writing conferences these days on crowdsourcing your next novel. But I think this inversion of crowdsourcing to talent-scouting is far more powerful. These aren’t gatekeepers; anyone can still publish whatever they want. It’s curators who know they have something they can contribute to a work of art they believe in.

In his essay on the future of book production, Ian goes on to imagine a world with far fewer outlets for books and what this will mean for midlisters and aspiring writers. Ian warns Porter Anderson on Issues on the Ether (emphasis mine):

We will not truly enter the era of the Centrifuge until all the bricks and mortar stores are gone. Until there really is only one route to market again. If that happens, there will be bestsellers and no-sellers, daily wheat and eternal chaff, and nothing in between. In that situation, the only thing that matters is access to capital; can my investor (my publishing house or my rich aunt and uncle) afford the up-front costs associated with making me a bestseller?

What publishing houses remain will be supermassive, fighting over the big blockbusters. There will be no middling advances.

And once that’s true, what does a non-blockbusting writer need a publishing house for? Editorial excellence? Cover design? A sales force? What’s the point?

I think Ian is spot-on. When publishers are paying more than $10,000,000 (that’s ten million!) for a 2-book series, the day of the blockbuster is well and truly here. That same sum could finance dozens of careers for new authors, resulting in an outpouring of voices and quality reads. Instead, readers are going to get two books. Two. The publisher will profit mightily by selling these two books to millions of readers and pouring all of their advertising might into a single basket. But are readers better served with this miniscule selection? Is the larger writing community? Welcome to the world of Hollywood sequels, spin-offs, remakes, and adaptations, where breaking in is nearly impossible, the rich get richer, and more people are left out in the cold.

Unless, that is, the reader remains in charge of curation. And some of those readers, with talents of their own, become patrons. And only if tools can be put into place that marry the various skills that go into great novels, tools that will allow the disbursement of funds to be seamless and perfectly automated, tools that help establish joint ownership of works of literature. When that day comes, stories will have found yet another path to production. And more of the people slaving away anonymously in large publishing houses will earn full-time careers at home in their pajamas, pounding chaff and making wheat, and readers will never go hungry again.

_________________________________________________

*Unless you’re reading this many years from now, and maybe you’re laughing, because you know that I am dead, to which I say: Laugh while you can, buddy. Your time is coming.**

**Unless you all have sorted that out in the future, in which case know that I’m sobbing right now, here in the past, while you’re out there in the future, laughing.***

***Hope you’re happy.

Lil’ Kris in da House

During a brief exchange with an industry observer today, I likened publishers to travel agents. My point was that travel agents used to fill a role that anyone can now bypass thanks to the miracle of the internet. The industry observer made a reference to literary agents, which I thought missed the point, but it did get me thinking about the role literary agents might play in the publishing world of tomorrow.

We know what happened to travel agents. The internet practically eradicated them, and the same tech is now disrupting the book industry. And not just for e-books and indies. More print books are purchased online these days than any other place, and print on demand paperbacks are now indistinguishable from the mass produced variety. The power and need for publishers is eroding much as travel agents found themselves made obsolete by websites like Expedia and Travelocity. But what does that mean for literary agents?

I often look at the music industry for insight. Remember when music stores abounded? There are people who think this can’t happen to bookstores. Maybe they’re right. But surely we can appreciate the massive disruption the internet caused one industry and seek out parallels or possibilities in another. (It’s apropos, perhaps, that the Grammy for Best New Artist went to Macklemore and Ryan last night, a duo that self-produced their excellent album THE HEIST, which includes four songs that touch on the nature of going it alone as an artist.)

Looking at the music industry, I foresee a future where literary agents act like producers. Take Dr. Dre as an example, who happens to be one of my favorites in the biz. His ear for talent and business savvy have led to a stable of stars that include Snoop and Emenem. He started his own label (as many musicians and producers now do). Physical production might be offloaded to a larger label in a separate distribution deal, something we’ve already seen in the publishing world with Tucker Max and John Locke, but digital editions and touring can now take place with a producer at the helm. Music labels are feeling a squeeze as the cost of production and distribution plummet. And those costs are coming down more rapidly and to lower lows in the book industry (creating a book requires far less in the way of specialized equipment). Which means publishers are necessary only for what they can do to help a writer reach their audience. And it turns out that agents are doing more and more of these things every day.

Kristin (or Lil’ Kris, as her authors refer to her), gets our work into Overdrive and out to libraries. She handles e-book distribution to every major retailer; we just have to upload a single set of files and metadata. She plays matchmaker between her writers and editors, cover artists, formatters, and the like. How long before she sets up print-on-demand editions? How long before she facilitates audiobooks through ACX? If not her, then some other agent.

We’re already seeing authors turn to production the way Dr. Dre did: JA Konrath publishes joint works with other authors. He also spearheaded a flash-fiction outburst last year. He has other projects in the pipeline. I foresee other indie authors moving away from writing, having told the stories they wanted to tell, and using their accumulated wisdom to publish works from other writers. They could take 15% of everything an author makes and still leave that self-published artist with far more in earnings than a big publisher currently does. And they wouldn’t own any of the rights. Kristin doesn’t own my work, but she’ll make 15% in perpetuity, and she deserves every penny. This could be the future not just for agents, but for publishing in general. More freelancers and less corporations. More taste-makers with taste we trust.

In music, the curators of talent have branched out in just this way. They are now the producers of the final products that we enjoy. And we quickly learn that we like what our favorite producer likes. I trust certain artists to generate music that I’ll enjoy, even across genres. Kristin has sent me two of my favorite reads of 2013 (THE DARWIN ELEVATOR and BIRD BOX). How long will it be before readers are saying, “Yo, Lil’ Kris just produced another hit!”? Has anyone ever said that about Random House? Not within earshot of me. But the day is coming that they say it about an agent or an author who now curates new talent. At least, I think so.

You People are Killing Me.

My readers are so . . . normal.

 

 

And then check out what Stefan did:

 



 

Seriously. I have sand coming out of my nose.

Bread and Roses

They weren’t even supposed to have jobs, these interlopers. They weren’t supposed to earn a living on their own. That’s what the gatekeepers said — men and husbands and fathers. They said this lesser race of people were supposed to be satisfied. They should be grateful to subsist on scraps and on domestic crumbs.

The 1912 textile strikes were led primarily by women, who were treated horribly in the workplace even as they fought to improve conditions for all. The slogan that emerged from the 1912 strikes was: We want bread, but we want roses, too! Women workers demanded fair wages and fair treatment all at once. They fought for an increase in pay and a promise not to be discriminated against.

There are parallels one century later. I don’t want to compare anyone’s working conditions to what women went through at the turn of the 20th century (or today for that matter), but once again we see interlopers fighting for the rights of all workers, even as they fight for dignity and respect. Once again, you have the very people being denigrated and judged and barred from entry working out here on the curb for the better treatment of those on the factory floor.

We have to. Because we sure as hell aren’t getting any help from our leadership.

Scott Turow, the head of the Authors Guild, spends his time fighting for publishers and for bookstores — the very parties who stand between writers and readers. These publishing partners can be great facilitators or they can be great abusers, and it should be the job of the Authors Guild to ensure which. Just as it should be a union’s job to make sure factory and retail don’t harm the transfer of labor to the consumer.

Instead, the Authors Guild came out for price-fixing and higher costs to readers.  Scott Turow sees Amazon as the enemy, even as an increasing number of authors today make a living primarily through self-publishing and e-books. I have yet to see Scott lash out at publishers for their unfair contracts and horrid pay. When HarperCollins released data showing that it makes more from an e-book sale than a hardback sale while the author makes less, where was Scott? Where was anyone representing authors?

I don’t have much of a platform, and nobody should really care what I think  – but this is my blog, so let me tell you where I stand on things these days. And let me also introduce you to the people who stand for me and with me, whether they mean to or not.

I stand for the ability of those who choose to write for a living to have the best opportunities possible. It’s a narrow focus, but it’s one I’m passionate about. I’ve been passionate about this for longer than I’ve been writing. It goes back to my book review and bookstore employee days. As a reader who loved stories, I cared for those who created them. Now that I’m on the other side and have become friends with storytellers, this cause is strengthened. And the more I learn about the abuses authors suffer, the more I want to speak out.

So here’s what I think the Authors Guild should be saying. Here is what their platform should be. (And I’m too busy running a hypothetical publishing house in Houston, so for goodness sake, don’t think I want another job. I don’t):

1. No more digital rights until e-book royalties are 50% of net. Right now, e-book royalties at the Big 5 are 25% of net. They do not compete on this front. There is no budging. As shown by literary agent Brian DeFiore (in a post that has been taken down but is summarized here and elsewhere) the increase in profits at major publishers right now is coming on the backs of authors. Go read the summary and then come back. If this was the only thing going on in publishing today, it would be more than enough for our outrage. While publishers bemoan the advent of e-books in public, they profit. While they claim they can’t pay a dime more for e-book sales, they take money from the pockets of hardworking writers and stuff it into their own. Are you angry? You should be.

2. No more “Most Favored Nation” Clauses. These clauses are one of the primary reasons authors can’t get more than 25% of net on e-book sales. These clauses may be unconstitutional for the anticompetitive result they have. You would think a lawyer like Scott Turow might be interested in fighting these rather than accepting them in his own contracts. The way the clause works is this: Any author with one of these clauses in their contract is guaranteed to receive the same royalty rate on digital book sales as any other author in that publishing house. Which means if I am given 50% of net, the likes of Stephen King and Scott Turow will get 50% of net.

I would love for publishers to simply give all authors 50% of net on e-book sales (see #1), but part of their reluctance in negotiating even a single fair contract is the thousands of existing revenue streams that would be impacted. We need to break the ice, which means the agents and authors who agreed to these clauses should fight to have them struck from existing contracts. And no new contracts should be signed if they include this clause. But that would require authors like Scott Turow — who undoubtedly has this clause in his own contracts — to . . . I don’t know . . . care about other authors.

3. No more DRM for Guild members. The Authors Guild should come out against punishing the paying customer. Authors should be encourage to only sign publishing contracts that stipulate no digital rights management on their e-books. We don’t handcuff readers to our hardbacks. We don’t make it impossible for them to pass the book off to a friend or spouse when they’re done. We don’t care if they sell it to a used bookstore, which then sells it to someone else. DRM harms the paying and honest reader and poses a 5-second annoyance to the illegitimate user. The Authors Guild should demand an end to DRM.

4. Fair pricing for e-books. The Authors Guild should be arguing for lower e-book prices, not higher. Again, Scott Turow’s reign as president of the Authors Guild has seen him arguing the opposite of what is good for writers. And once again, readers are harmed as well. Lower e-book prices mean more sales for more authors. The lower the prices get, the less authors compete with one another. Today, it is more common than not to find readers who load up on e-books and only finish a fraction of what they purchase. Part of what they are purchasing is the convenience of choice. It is the portable library that does not clutter the home.

I have not seen this discussed anywhere before, but the economic reality of this is like reverse insurance for authors. A reader spends $20 on 5 e-books, and the royalties are split between those 5 authors. Only one of the books is read to completion, and yet none of the purchases cause regret. Since reading requires more of an investment in time than listening to music or watching movies, this habit of buying at impulse price, sampling, and not returning is a way of distributing wealth to more writers without harming the reader, the manufacturer, or the distributor. But publishers and the Authors Guild want to get in the way of this by supporting collusion and the $14.99 e-book. Who does that help? Bookstores and the handful of big-name authors (like Scott) who can command $14.99 for a bundle of electrons. Who does it hurt? The little guy and gal. The debut authors. The readers. The mid-lister. Is your pulse pounding? It should be.

5. No More Non-Compete Clauses. The Authors Guild should recommend to its members that they refuse to sign contracts with any form of a non-compete clause. They should also be writing public letters to publishers demanding that these unfair clauses be stricken from all future contracts. Instead, we get not a peep from the Authors Guild on this issue. I’ve railed against non-competes before, but you don’t stop striking until working conditions change, so let me wave my placard once more. Non-competes give publishers the unchecked ability to control a writer’s output and hence their career. They don’t even serve a purpose. It hasn’t been shown that a similar release from an author in a short time window will do anything other than increase the sales of both books. Like the stance on DRM and the reluctance to work with libraries, this is a policy based on fear and not on reality. Speaking of operating with fear as a guid…

6. Stop Fighting Free. Authors should have the ability to give away copies of their e-books. Maybe not unlimited copies indefinitely, but there should be some sort of new clause structured that opens the door for free promotions solely at the author’s discretion. Neil Gaiman once convinced his publisher to offer American Gods for free, online, for a period of one month. His print sales of the same book shot up 300% (see p.17 of this awesome free book). The publisher pulled the promotion at the end of the month, and the sales went back to normal. Even with such direct correlation, fear won out, and Neil has been unable to repeat the experiment.

This idea of limited free promotions is not original. Amazon provides this ability through their KDP Select program, giving authors the ability to give away as many copies of their books as they can by providing 5 “free days” for every 90 days of exclusivity. Publishers should do the same thing, and the Authors Guild should help fight for this ability. Let’s adopt the Amazon model and say that authors get 5 promotion days every financial quarter. The author alone can opt in; the publisher can’t give away their book without their permission. With coordinated promotions, this could be a huge boon for new, struggling, and midlist authors, the very three segments of the writing population we should be fighting for. This is the sort of progressive thinking our representatives should be doing. Admittedly, I’m cheating a little by grabbing ideas from that great Satan to authors, Amazon. Speaking of which…

7. The Authors Guild Should Embrace Amazon as a Friend to Writers and Readers. Until publishers make these changes, the Authors Guild should be celebrating Amazon for increasing readership, increasing the diversity of published voices, lowering prices for readers while also increasing royalties for writers, and revolutionizing reading in a way that keeps it relevant. Blaming Amazon for the move of goods out of physical stores and onto online stores is ridiculous. This is the inevitable result of the creation of the internet. This is the freedom of shoppers to choose. It was going to happen, no matter what. And here’s something that I doubt has been said before: Thank God it was Amazon.

Think about it for a moment. It could have been WalMart or Costco or a number of other massive retailers who began shipping books at a discount through an online portal. It could have been a retail giant that sells everything that began to sell books online. Instead, it was an online bookseller who branched out into other products. There is a massive difference. The love of books remains at the heart of Amazon. Those who have worked with the people behind that smiling logo know this. From Jeff Bezos (who married a writer and started out by selling books out of his garage) down to the people I met on the factory floor of the CreateSpace printing facility, I’ve never been around a group who loves books more. The Authors Guild should be championing Amazon for what they’ve done for readers and writers. The pressure for fairer contracts and wages is coming primarily from here. The champion for the status quo and more abuses is coming from the guild of my profession. Dystopian novels can’t satirize this sort of thing without being mocked for being ridiculous.

Those are just a few of the platform changes I would love to see our guild fight for. But they do not. They will not. Fortunately, I’m not out here on the curb alone. I’ve said this numerous times in numerous places, but the great irony of the stigma of self-publishing is that self-publishing will be the force that brings about positive change for all writers. Authors like Sue Grafton and Jonathan Franzen will denigrate us, just as women were made to feel unworthy of the work they produced, but the competitive nature of our publishing freedom will be an agent of change. And people like JA Konrath, Barry Eisler, Kris Rusch, The Passive Guy, and David Gaughran will lead the way.

They won’t be the only ones. Authors like Brenna Aubrey, who survey the publishing landscape and choose freedom over tyranny, will make a massive difference. There are thousands of authors like her and more coming every day. Brave authors who believe in themselves and their convictions. There are also authors like Paulo Bacigalupi who will win national awards while publishing with the small presses that aren’t just fighting for these changes but in many cases are already implementing them. There will also be established authors with massive hearts like John Scalzi, who despite their incredible successes with major publishers will stand up and demand fair treatment when they see abuses and win change as a result. Neil Gaiman has already been mentioned as a writer who has fought for the power to give books away to readers. And outside of publishing, artists like Louis CK, Amanda Palmer, and Macklemore and Ryan will serve as powerful examples to publishing houses.

But none of these writers or artists are as powerful as the real group bringing about change, and that’s the readers. A swelling number of readers are actively seeking out indie books. They use websites like IndieReader.com and Amazon’s bestseller lists to find new and fresh voices. They share recommendations on social media. They write reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. Readers will be the ones who force change. Just as a boycott of goods will quickly win concessions where a strike might not, their millions of individual decisions based on economics and taste will get us there. Because the Authors Guild sure as hell won’t.

So that’s where I stand on the current state of the publishing industry. I want artists to earn a fair wage rather than to be squeezed with this sudden revenue stream from digital books. I don’t stand alone, but I wonder what would happen if we all stood together? I wonder what would happen if we had a guild that studied the changes in the market and fought for its members rather than for management? When the digital revolution hit Hollywood, look what happened there. The WGA rallied 12,000 members and went on strike. Hollywood was effectively shut down. As a result, the writers won higher royalties on streaming media, which had become a sudden source of revenue to studios and a pittance for writers in existing contracts. The market changed due to technology, and artists demanded that their contracts change to match.

Imagine what would happen if authors stood together and the Big 5 publishers were unable to sign new contracts for three months. Small presses — where authors are given fairer contracts but more limited distribution — would get a much-deserved boost. Independent authors would get a much-deserved boost. Readers would finally have a chance to catch up on their TBR piles. And the short term loss from debuting and renewing authors would be offset by long term and permanent gains across the profession. It would be an amazing stance for writers to take in order to stop the current squeeze on e-book royalties. Where again, let me repeat, publishers are making record profits on the backs of artists, and no one is doing a thing about it.

Hey, I’m not advocating for a strike. Don’t misunderstand me. I would never do that.

But maybe an Authors Guild would want to look into it. If we had one.

The Secret to Success

I have a secret that I want to share, a secret to success. You often hear that there are no shortcuts to getting what you want, but this isn’t true. There are serious shortcuts. Incredible shortcuts. I’m about to let you in on the most important one. I might even say it’s the only one.

You simply won’t believe how simple this secret is. You also won’t believe how nearly impossible it is to abide by the tip I’m about to give you. Most of you will shake your head and walk away. Many of you will agree with the principle but never act on it. There’s a good chance that not a single person will incorporate this into their daily routine and witness how utterly powerful this shortcut can be. But I’m going to spill it anyway.

This secret helped me ace my college classes with a fraction of the stress my peers felt. It has made me a valued employee at every job I’ve held. I like to think it makes me a good domestic partner. It certainly makes me a great homeowner. And I believe it’s the main reason that I’ve been so successful as a self-published author. My secret is this:

When I see something that needs doing, I do it.

There you go. Simple as that. How is this a shortcut? Because it forms a direct line between knowing a thing requires doing and having it done. The beauty of this principle is this: You’re going to spend the exact same amount of time actually doing things.

The first time I formalized this process was in college. I remember sitting in Dr. Goldsberry’s class as a writing assignment was handed out. There was a chorus of groans. As I looked over the assignment, I knew without a doubt that I would put this off until the night before it was due. And something hit me (maybe it was my contrarian nature, which is so pronounced that I often disagree with myself). I wondered — if I’m going to blast the work out in a single night — why not make it that night?

I went to the library after class and checked out source material. That night, back at the marina, I cranked out the entire story. It wasn’t fun, but it wasn’t going to be fun weeks later. Two days later, back at class, my peers were groaning about the assignment, forming study groups, talking about everything else getting heaped on them, and I felt light as a bird. This is when something else hit me: Not only would I do the same amount of work either way, the best thing about this process is that I would spend one day stressing rather than weeks.

The process became addicting. I believe this is an extension of my hatred of being in debt. Undone tasks weigh on me like a loan. I’m borrowing free time from my former self. I decided to do things as soon as they needed doing, giving myself the same amount of free time, but without all the weight on my shoulders. Dishes in the sink? They’ve gotta get done. They have to. What doesn’t have to happen is all the annoyance of tolerating them being there or stressing about who else might do them. It takes less time to just do it. The shortcut is a direct line between need and action. That’s the secret.

It isn’t easy, and it requires practice. This is a habit like an unused muscle.  You have to limber it up and exercise it.

I’ve had numerous people tell me that my turnaround time took them aback. A publisher will email with a requests for a video. Instead of responding and flagging that email, I grab my camera and tripod, shoot the video, copy it to my computer, and send them the attachment. Interview questions come in? I answer them immediately. A scene I need to write? I write it. Dog wants to go for a walk? Let’s go.

This doesn’t mean you can’t have down time. It just means that when you do, you’ll have far fewer things weighing on you. If you’re in school, you should really try this once. Keep in mind that you’re going to put in the same amount of effort and time either way. The difference is how many days you’ll spend stressed. It certainly takes willpower. It takes practice and effort. But there’s no greater tool in your arsenal for being successful, whatever it is that you want to accomplish.

Try it. Start right now. Take a shortcut today. And then enjoy a rest while the world catches up.

I’m Quitting My Day Job. Again.

Two years ago today, I worked my last week at the bookstore. It’s only been two years! In that time, I’ve gone from selling a few thousand copies of WOOL at 99 cents to selling close to two million books (digital, print, and audio) around the world. I’ve also flown clear around the globe. I’ve been to nearly a dozen countries and a ton of cities. It’s crazy to look back on what the last 24 months have been like.

In the last few months, things have gotten so hectic that I have feared my ability to keep up. I don’t take days off. I often work from sunrise to long after sunset. Because of this, I’m quitting my new day job of answering emails. That doesn’t mean I won’t sneak around and do it here and there, but I really want to wean myself off of them. I want to spend more time reading great books (maybe even yours) and writing more stories (maybe even that sequel you’ve been bugging me about). I want to spend more time scanning social media to see what you think and less time writing what I think.

I don’t know how successful I’ll be. This is a huge change. It’s much more rewarding to sit and press that pleasure button of refreshing websites and clicking “like” and posting my drivel and nonsense. But in the long run, I worry I’ll get away from the reading and writing that truly fill my soul. This is a New Year’s resolution of sorts. It’s an attempt to find balance in my life. It’ll probably be wildly unsuccessful, but I’m going to give it a go. Wish me luck. And keep an eye out here for regular blog posts and subscribe to my newsletter to find out when I release something.

You cats are awesome.

A Little Something Extra

What more can you do for your readers? How can you turn your ebooks into collectibles? How can you be creative with your print editions? A few of my ideas.

Defying the Odds (And the Naysayers)

I keep hearing that breakout success is harder and harder. I’ve even heard that it isn’t possible, not like it was two years ago when WOOL took off. Don’t tell that to A.G. Riddle, whose ATLANTIS GENE debuted last year and has sold several hundred thousand copies. And don’t tell that to Matthew Mather, whose ATOPIA CHRONICLES has sold hundreds of thousands as well and was picked up by 47 North and landed a film deal.

That’s just two examples in my genre. And from the last two years! In that same time, I’ve watched several others in the mystery/thriller and romance genres go from nothing to the top of the bestseller lists. How about Jasinda Wilder, who I watched go from publication to world dominance in just a couple of years? Or Blake Russell, one of self-publishing’s superstars both in terms of success and as a spokesperson?

I rarely comment on the outliers like this. My focus has usually been on the indie midlisters who are finding readers and paying bills and who otherwise wouldn’t be published at all. But I keep hearing that no one can go from unknown to bestsellerdom anymore. And yet I see a new name on the lists every couple of months and across a wide variety of genres. (Look at the science fiction list on Amazon right now. It’s Card, Martin, and indies. Amazing).

When I worked in a bookstore, I saw perhaps two new names a year have moderate success. Every year or two a single author would come out of nowhere. If we (booksellers) were lucky. The Stieg Larsson stories are vanishingly rare. The A.G. Riddle stories seem to be occurring with much greater frequency. Several indies a year are now breaking out and making hundreds of thousands of dollars (I estimate Riddle has made close to or over a million). The traditional book industry would go nuts over this many new bestsellers a year. It’s usually the same old names over and over.

Yes, more and more people are self-publishing these days. And so yes, the odds are against all of us. But don’t listen to the naysayers. There are still millions of readers out there looking for a good story at a fair price. So keep writing great books. Keep winning over one fan at a time. Keep improving your craft. It may not happen to you —  I sure as hell didn’t expect it to happened to me — but it’s still happening. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Again, this isn’t a “Everyone can do it! Write a book and get rich quick!” post. This is a “The people who say the goldrush is over and that indie authors can no longer come from nowhere and have success are idiots” post. There’s a huge difference.

Sand Proofs and Kindle Paperwhite Winners

I came home to a dune of Sand. And tonight I’ll be selecting the winners of the two Kindle Paperwhites and the two gift cards. I’m doing that off-line in case the winners want to remain anonymous.