Hugh Howey's Blog, page 91
May 27, 2012
My last everything
The last morning in the sun porch. The last evening at the dog park. The last time I’ll eat at our favorite Mexican joint. It feels like the last everything.
Our house is a huge pile of boxes. I can’t figure out where all this stuff was hidden, or where it’ll go once we get down there.
I leave tomorrow and won’t be back until next Sunday. Monday will be our day of stuffing the truck. Tuesday, we hit the road.
For those of you with orders in for signed books, I’m really going the extra mile. I’ve got some signed and packaged that my wife will ship off on Tuesday (the post office is closed tomorrow). I’m also having her bring the books set to arrive here at the house this week when she comes to ConCarolinas. I’ll have padded mailers and printed address labels down there with me, so we’ll get the rest off on Friday before we hit the convention. The next time I ship off signed books, it’ll be from Florida, from a different post office. Because the last time I went to the post office up here was one more case of my last . . . everything.
May 26, 2012
Really Breaking the Site This Time
The new site design is going live, and it’s a piecemeal process. Bear with me.
Also: That banner is not staying like that. I’ve got a nice one I’m working to get back in place. All kinds of fun stuff breaking, but some cool things already in place.
The About Me, Books, and Reviews pages are all new. And the Forums link goes to the new vBulletin forum, which is sparse right now, but I’ll be working on that as well.
New Digs for Everyone!
Amber and I are just about a week away from moving into a new home. I think that’s a good excuse to spruce things up around here as well. There’s a new-look website coming. Even better, I’m taking that coffee money you’ve been providing, and getting you all something special: a new forum. I bought a license to vBulletin, probably the most popular forum software in the galaxy. Very clean and easy to get around (you’ve been on them before, whether you knew it or not).
Hopefully it’ll make discussing all sorts of topics easier. And the new website is so clean and purty; I can’t wait to let you all track mud through it.
May 25, 2012
No. Freakin’. WAY!
This takes book promoting to new heights (har). If you’re not grinning at the halfway point, you’re probably an alien. Who hates people who litter space.
Watch the entire thing. And then go grab the book. It’s outside in your tree.
May 24, 2012
A New York Encore!
No, I’m not dancing in Times Square again. I can’t do that without my little sis along to give me company, strength, and an increased sense of timing.
This second take is all about meeting up with you all! In just a few days, I’ll be touching down in the Big Apple. I’d love to sit and sip a cold one and chat about what the hell ever. Last time, we had 8 or so readers show up, and it was a blast. We talked about what they did for a living, kids, favorite books, the city, all kinds of stuff. I think we chilled for almost two hours. Still, it seemed to fly by.
This time, we’ll be hanging out at Lillie’s Victorian Bar and Restaurant. Come join us on Wednesday the 30th. I’m going to try and be there by 8:00, and I’ll probably hang out until 10:30 or so. Lillie’s is right near Union Square, on 17th between 5th and Broadway. I’m going to beg superstar author Jonathan Hayes to join me, but he’ll likely decline. Such outings are beneath men of his stature.
Nothing has ever spoken to me more.
Best thing I’ve ever seen, and seeing it at precisely the right time.
I’m now committed to enjoying this more. And to making good art.
Me and the pirates are tight…
I love my readers. Really, I do. Even the ones with eye patches.
I’ve been known to download a thing or two without paying for it. I’ve got songs I’ve snagged because I bought the cassette two decades ago and feel entitled to own the material for life. I’ve “sampled” games and software before paying for them. I was a general scallywag when I was younger.
As I got older and started earning a paycheck . . . no, that’s not what happened. I could always afford these things. What happened is that I got lazy. The pain in the ass of finding a keygen and dealing with the viruses that came with pirated games or software, at some point the thrill of getting something for free wore off and I just wanted to spend the money, own the thing legally, be able to install updates and all that, and above all: support the people who code and create art and are trying to afford daycare for their kids.
When I became a content creator a few years ago, I used my own experiences as a guide. I wanted it to be easy as hell for other people to own my stuff. That meant never putting DRM on my e-books. This is the digital rights management protection that makes it difficult to convert my books, copy them around, all that stuff. I wanted to reward the buyer rather than worry about the pirate.
Some of my favorite game developers adopted this strategy a while back. No DRM at all, because they knew fans would reward them for making it easy to install and own the game. I always bought those games on the day of release. It was the model I wanted to emulate.
The funny thing is, it took the Wool explosion to even land me on pirate sites. I felt no small twinge of pride when I first saw that I was getting passed around by pirates. It’s a mark of desirability. And here’s the cool thing, tonight I got an e-mail from someone who stole the Omnibus, loved it, and sent me more than the retail price through Paypal. And they wanted to let me know that they couldn’t find FIRST SHIFT: LEGACY on any of the pirate sites. So I fired up Calibre, converted one of my .mobi Kindle files to .epub, and sent the pirate a copy.
How cool an exchange is that? There’s a ton of little software programs that I use daily, like VSO Resize and WinRar that I love to support. There’s probably a dozen or so apps like this that I’ve paid for after years of using them for free. Some have trial versions that allow the free use, but once I saw how much I relied on the thing, I wanted to support the creator.
Look, I’m just delighted to have readers. Especially readers as awesome as you all. People who counsel me when I’m down, who buy me a cup of joe because they think my prices are unreasonably low, who chime in on negative reviews to let trolls know that you aren’t imaginary, who order signed copies of books they’ve already read, who make this website an active, exciting place to visit, and who pay for the books they steal . . . because they liked them that much.
Arrgh, everyone. Arrrgh. I think that says it all.
Getting caught up…
It took three trips to get all the signed books into the post office today, but I’m finally caught up on that front. The commenting system on the website is much improved. The spam is being blocked, and it looks like everyone is able to log in and be a part of the conversation. Also, a very long streak of having something PR-related every single day seems to have wound down. There was someone to Skype with, podcast with, do a phone interview, etc., every single day this week and much of last week. Feels good to finally get caught up.
What else? Well, I guess these are my final days in Boone. I’ll leave on Monday for New York, come back to Charlotte for ConCarolinas (who’s coming?!) and then drive back up a week from Sunday, pack the truck on Monday, and hit the road.
If our house up here closes on the 8th, you’re gonna see a very happy author. I may even do a dance. There’ll be so much stress off my shoulders at that point that I’ll be able to really concentrate on writing my best prose possible, keeping up with all of you, and enjoying time with family.
I’m looking forward to that!
May 23, 2012
IndieReader and Huffington Post
So, a guest article I wrote for IndieReader.com got picked up by Huffington Post today. Very cool to be published on either of these awesome sites, much less both!
And now, I shall break this site!
I’m tackling some site updates, so if things get wonkish, you have only me to blame.
Edit: Success! We have the latest version of WordPress running. For now. They’ll probably issue some major update tomorrow.
Also, I’ve added some kind of spam plug-in. I hope this means I can leave the commenting open (no login required, just a name and email address, which you can make up). Hopefully this works. I don’t like readers not being able to comment, but I also hate the flood of spam I get.
Now to fiddle some more.
