Hugh Howey's Blog, page 56

One Week!

Happy Saturday, everyone! It’s the 10th of August, just one week from the release of DUST, the final chapter in the Silo Saga. The e-book is up everywhere right now except for B&N, which doesn’t do pre-orders. But have no fear, Nook owners. The file is uploaded, and it should go live on the 17th.

In a first, the physical book went out before the e-book. My mom and I shipped around 600 copies this week, and copies are already hitting mailboxes. People are already reading. This is the most terrifying part of the publishing cycle for me. But I’m hanging in there.

I see a bunch of new orders coming in, and many of these will be fulfilled next week. I’ve got more copies ordered from the printer. Basically, if you ordered a signed copy of DUST before the 7th of August, it’s on the way. All the more recent orders will go out on or after publication day. The UGLY edition of DUST will remain available until the 17th, and then I’ll take that down and just offer the purty edition.

Thanks for all the support, everyone. Thanks for taking me on this journey. Have a great week!

Livestream DUST Signing (and some special orders)

Mom and I will be signing and packing up books tonight, sometime around 6 EST. There are also a handful of other books available, some of which are no longer in print. Tim Grahl from Outthink Group set up a special one-time store for me. When the books run out, it’ll say there are no more available.

Here’s the link to the store.

Here’s a pic of the books (Some are gone from a signing we did here at my mom’s house. Some have been moved to the Great Wool Giveaway).

What I have:

9 7 X The Hurricane

10 0 X Wool Omnibus (Simon & Schuster Paperback) Sold Out

3 0 Shift Omnibus (New Random House cover) Sold Out

3 0 X I, Zombie Sold Out

3 0 X Half Way Home (New matte cover) Sold Out

2 1 X Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue (Second Edition – The first edition that I self-published)

20 9 X Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue (First Edition from Norlights Press [With Amber and myself on the cover]) – First edition of the first book I ever wrote

5 3 X The Plagiarist

16 12 X Molly Fyde and the Land of Light (First Edition with Amber’s Feet on the cover [Last of these in existence])

3 0 X Molly Fyde and the Blood of Billions (First Edition with Amber’s Hands on the cover Sold Out)

9 8 X Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue (New Edition with Jasper Schreurs art on the cover)

That’s So Awesome!!!

Fair question, indeed.

What say you, little man?

They’re here!

“Dusting is a good example of the futility of trying to put things right. As soon as you dust, the fact of your next dusting has already been established.”      -George Carlin

The Great WOOL Giveaway!

In celebration of the upcoming release of DUST and the conclusion of the Silo Saga, I’m giving away some killer swag. May the chances of success forever be beneficial to you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Pre-Signing

Gathering Dust

A Word from my Sister

For the first time ever, the pride parade will travel down King Street and through the heart of Charleston, SC. This is a big deal, and I feel honored to be able to ride along on a float. Like many people, I had a gay uncle, a fact that I never knew until I was 16. Not to say I didn’t know; it just wasn’t an issue. Uncle Carr and Alan were family.

Carr was my mothers baby brother and the most amazing man I knew as a small child. His house was full of interesting collections and spectacular furniture. They had the best Christmas parties. Alan spent weeks decorating a tree that reached to the top of their 14 foot ceilings. Each limb was hand wrapped with its own strand of lights. It was a sight to see, and they beamed as their house filled with their friends and family.

Carr passed away the day before my 16th birthday.  Alan passed just a few years later. This year marks 20 years since I have seen his face and held his hand. He missed the premiere of Philadelphia by months, and in doing so missed my realization that he was different. I witnessed a love between these two men with no preconceived notions. The thought that they deserved less was beyond me.

Carr’s death and Philadelphia cemented my place as an advocate for the LGBT community from that day forward. Which brings me back around to why tomorrow is such a big deal. I will be joining my lovely friends from We Are Family on their float tomorrow during the pride parade. I will be just feet away from Rita Taylor, the godmother of gays in Charleston, as she ushers in the first downtown Pride. This is history. This is the right side of history. This is something my uncle never got to see. Gay marriage will be legal throughout the states soon, and we have everything to do with it. Stand tall, stand proud. 

Tomorrow, both of my uncles will be watching me from the clouds as I wave at the onlookers and support my friends and family. Some are out and proud. Some are still closeted and proud. And some still are closeted and scared. I’m coming out for you. Straight but not narrow. So this weekend take time out of your day to hug a gay. Tell them you stand with them and show your own pride.

-Mollie Howey

This piece of mail blew me away

Hi Mr. Howey,

You don’t know me, but my name is Matt Kadish.  I’m an independent author, such as yourself, and I just wanted to write you to share a little success story you had a small part in.

Over the last four years, I worked on a Young Adult Sci-Fi Adventure novel called Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet.  It was my first novel which I’d tossed around for about a decade, but didn’t start writing in earnest until 2009.  That’s when I sat down and said “Dag nabbit, I’m gonna finally write a novel!”  I pitch it to people as “Harry Potter meets Star Wars” but it’s really a love letter to all the Spielbergian sci-fi I grew up loving in the 80s.

Anyway, when I finally finished the novel, I started looking for a publisher.  Then my mother (who is also my editor) forwarded me a New York Times article on you.  That article inspired me to just publish my book independently instead of breaking my back looking for a publisher to give it a shot.  I published my book on Amazon at the beginning of July right before I left for a vacation.  I didn’t think much about it, in fact, I didn’t even check the stats until last week after my mother kept bugging me about how many copies I’d sold.  When I did check it, I almost fell out of my chair.

Without any promotion whatsoever, my first novel will have sold 1,000 copies in July.  It’s debuted on 5 of Amazon’s top 100 lists, ranking #1 for Superhero Fantasy and in the 30s for Sci-Fi Adventure, both in the Kindle Store.  It’s also #75 in the general Sci-Fi category on Kindle.  For all books (e-book and print) it is again in the 30s for Sci-Fi Adventure and last I checked #81 overall in general Science Fiction.  All the reviews so far have been 5-star, and people I don’t know are sending me messages telling me how amazing they think my book is.  If the trend keeps up, as more of those 1,000 people who’ve bought the book keep recommending it to others, sales should virally increase over time (at least, that is my hope.)

I’m pretty much floored by the response the book has gotten so far.  It’s a real inspiration and makes me want to continue to pursue my career as a novelist. It took me four years to write the novel because I had to work at another job while I did it, but now I’d like to focus all my efforts on just writing full time.  I’m certainly not getting rich off book sales, but I’m encouraged by the outpouring of support from readers so far that I might actually have a knack for this.

Anyway, I figured you’d like to know you played a small part in this amazing little success story of mine.  Your story was an inspiration and helped encourage me to take that leap into self publishing and see what could become of it.  So I just wanted to thank you.  I know you probably get lots of emails from people, so I’m not expecting you to actually read this or care, but I thought I owed it to you to at least let you know.

Hopefully, someday soon, I can join you in those top charts for the genre.  I really enjoyed your Wool Omnibus, and thought it was a great story.  Hopefully my work can live up to that level of success.  :)

Yours truly,

Matt Kadish

Author:  Earthman Jack vs. The Ghost Planet

The Mother of All Book-Signings

I’m supposed to have physical copies of DUST (both Ugly and Sublime) on Wednesday, August 7th. Later that evening, I’ll be signing books and packing them up for shipping out to you all. Assisting me in this endeavor will be my mother and editor, Gay.

My mom used to own a yarn shop in Charleston (she recently closed the shop). In addition to wool (heh), she also carried my books. I arrived here in West Jefferson this past weekend with the remaining stock of her books. It includes quite a few of the original MOLLY FYDE books with the covers I made (the ones that feature Amber’s hands and feet). And even a dozen or so of the NorLights Press editions that have both Amber and myself on the cover (embarrassing!)

There are some of the individual WOOL books here as well, a few of #1, and a handful of the others. Some HURRICANE and PLAGIARIST. The new HALF WAY HOME covers (with a matte finish; they’re badass), and the new SHIFT. You can see it all in the picture.

What I’m working on is a way to sell this pile of books while we’re packing up copies of DUST. The entire unboxing and signing process will be live-streamed on YouTube via Google Hangouts. You’ll be able to chat with us, ask questions, request a doodle in your book, and hopefully pick up one of these surplus babies if you want. It’s a bookstore signing coming to every living room on planet Earth (which means: the six living rooms who will actually care about any of this).

But my mom will be there, so I’m calling it The Mother of All Book Signings. Probably doing this from 6:00 PM EST to 10:oo PM, so that you cats can get home from work and those on the Left Coast can join in. See you there!