L.A. Little's Blog, page 3
August 20, 2015
Why I Hate Hugh Howey
(& His 40 Year Old 20 Minute Abs)
You probably have questions. Like: Do you really hate Hugh Howey? Yes. You may ask, “What has Hugh Howey done to you?” Nothing. I hope you’ll ask, “Who the Hell is Hugh Howey?” That would really put a smile on my face. Perhaps you want to know “Why do you hate Hugh Howey, this person who’s never harmed you and of whom I have no prior knowledge?” That’s a good question.
To be completely honest it’s almost purely envy, possibly complicated by my own inflated sense of self-worth. You see, Hugh has the life I’ve always wanted and he got it by doing something a whole lot like what I do and have done since I was a little kid. Hugh writes pretty good science fiction.
Sure, you’re probably thinking, he’s more successful than you in your chosen field but there are others who also fit that bill, in fact a whole lot of them and they’re way more successful than Hugh Howey, whom I’ve just Googled and now know something about. Why not hate one of them? First of all, you hear that Howey? “A lot of them,” and “way more successful than [you]”. Stick that on your stupid sailboat mast and hoist it. Second, dear reader, you are full of great questions.
There are lots of reasons Hugh brings out the green-eyed monster in me, so let’s deal first with the elephant in the parenthetical sub-title. He posts pictures of his abs—while lounging on his sailboat as he flits around the globe being rich and, according to you, not so famous. All the pictures I post of myself are from the shoulders up. I have great shoulders if you like them big, but my abs are an unmitigated disaster. I work out ‘til the sweat is mingled with my own tears and I forego so many delicious things. My doctor still says things like, “25 pounds down, only 50 to go.” That bastard’s on my list too. So I stick to posting the shoulders. They’re pretty diesel. You would think that since Howey is younger than me, but looks older, that I’d be pretty psyched about the head shot. Nope. He’s one of those guys that look better as he gets older. I look like an eternally young and wrinkle free dork—one of the fat elves of Dweebenwood if you will. Damn Hugh Howey.
Are there lots of better looking guys who are younger than me and in better shape? Well that’s a stupid question, of course there are. So now you’re thinking it’s the money? Yes, yes I suppose, but I do pretty well and I’m quite good at my day job. I have an unusual amount of autonomy. I’m hardly missing any meals for lack of funds, as that quack of a physician will surely attest. I’d like more money but there’s hardly the gap between Howey myself as there is between say, the CEO of McDonald’s and the young woman working the drive through. I assume it’s a young woman. I swear, I’m eating healthy.
If it’s not the money and it’s not the looks (well, it’s a little bit the looks) then it must be the professional success. Is that your thought? Okay, you got me. I admitted all along it was envy at the heart of my darkness. But I’m willing to bet it’s not professional jealousy in the way you think. You see, at risk of sounding rather more full of myself than is socially acceptable, I don’t think Hugh Howey is a better writer than I am. I know, I know, you Googled him—boat, abs, better with age, absurdly large and favorable publishing deal, and he kept the electronic rights that made him part of the sailorati in the first place. All that’s very impressive and it’s plenty of reason to hate him, but it doesn’t make him a better writer than me, just a prettier, richer, more successful one.
The truth is I like Hugh’s writing. I just don’t think it’s empirically better than mine. He tends toward a bit of the classic, future dystopia, and does it well. At points it’s more nostalgic than surprising, but even then, even when he plows covered ground, it’s in a way that’s comfortable, that reminds us why we read the masters of the genre when we were young. Sometimes he is better than me—much better. Sometimes though, I believe I more than hold my own. There are authors who are hands-down better than me whom I love. Alyssa Wong is one. Anna Zumbro is another. It’s not that I think Hugh is better than me because, though he’s quite good, I don’t think he is better than me, at least not all the time.
The reason Hugh Howey bugs me is the way he did it. He took an idea that others had hit on, loading up the online self-publishing platforms with content to reach a critical mass of search results, and actually put good writing out there. There have been quite a lot of hacks who’ve done this even before Howey (to be clear, though I hate him, Howey is not a hack). There are quite a number of “authors” in the horror, mystery, and erotica genres particularly that can barely string a coherent sentence together, yet make a substantial income writing badly.
By being the first good genre writer to achieve great and well publicized success this way, Hugh has opened the floodgates. Every author of every caliber now sees this approach as valid and viable and therefore the publishing world is fundamentally overcrowded and completely un-curated for quality. The most successful authors are often nowhere near the best writers, they’re the best Tweeters and the fastest to e-press so they can fill the web with their issue.
You see before the internet, there were gatekeepers who kept this flood of drivel pent up in bedazzled notebooks and angry letters to the editor. Now it’s not only all out there it’s all competing with and detracting from decent writing. Thanks Hugh Howey. No, he didn’t invent the internet, nor did he make publishing fail so completely to anticipate the digital future. He just showed what was possible to everyone, including me. You see before Hugh, internet self-published authors were viewed as universally something less than quality, which was unfair. Now it has to be admitted that at least some internet authors are pretty good.
This goes back to the failure of the traditional publishing industry to recognize and cultivate both the talent and the opportunity represented by the digital shift. Hugh Howey, more than any other author has shown the holes in publishing’s game. He’s upset the apple cart and made it an internet free-for-all. As a result publishing has to change or die now, even more and even more quickly than it already has. Thanks Howey.
Of course, I was never the favored child of traditional publishing. In fact, in the olden days, like, 15 years ago, I was only published by presses so small it could hardly be called professional publishing. I almost never got paid and no one knew who I was. Now I scrape and claw and my stuff sells a little here and there—and I get paid every time it does. I actually have fans which is new and weird. All this started when I was inspired by Hugh Howey to belatedly jump into the self-publishing game like I meant it. So. It’s not all I hoped for, but it is better than when I sent stuff out to editors who seemed to only communicate by form letter, and whose publishing decisions have been generally inscrutable as their industry has bled out as if its throat were cut.
I hate that guy for figuring it out before the great flood, before I had the chance to see if I could do what he did, to find out if I really am on a similar level as a writer. However, since he convinced me to try self-publishing in earnest and it’s going better than the traditional route ever did, I kind of love Hugh Howey. What’s that? You’ve known since I was talking about his abs? Don’t tell my wife. It would be awkward.
Free book!
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00E...
January 3, 2015
New year, new books, new projects
I did this because I want more people to read the book. I originally set the price where I did because a certain price was required to be able to do giveaways through Amazon, and that was an important part of my strategy to promote the story. I'm not going to be marketing this novelette as heavily going forward so I wanted to have the price at a level where the casual browsers might pick it up on a whim.
Instead of marketing Deadblood, I am putting more emphasis on completing and marketing forthcoming works. Right now I'm looking for a home for my first full length novel, The Flatstone Beach. I expect to have a collection of my short stories out this year and may be releasing a second novelette, unrelated to the Deadblood universe.
Finally,I will be revisting the Deadblood universe in a couple of ways. The first pages of Deadblood: The Mourning Walk are complete and will be going out to advance readers in the next couple of months. I hope to have that full length novel complete by the end of summer. I'm undecided as to whether I will pursue a traditional publishing route or self-publish that one. I am excited to see it out. Also, there are two or three other Deadblood related projects brewing, including a collection of stories about secondary and tertiary characters who pass through the first two books.
Thanks for reading!
September 14, 2014
Last 2 Days to get Deadblood FREE for Kindle
http://www.amazon.com/Deadblood-L-Lit...
Deadblood Out in Paperback At Last!
https://www.createspace.com/pub/simpl...
September 11, 2014
Terrible Weight anthology getting close
Wailing Wall
Tres Letras
Buzz
Final Count
Last Train for Dasha
I Can Take It
Souls
and of course Terrible Weight
These include my two most "award-winning" stories and the two that editors liked best --bizarrely, 4 different stories. There will also be brief notes about each story related to their inspiration, publishing trials, etc. To round it out I'll be adding 2-5 completely new stories including one that is pretty darn scary! I hope to have it out in digital and paperback for a Halloween release and promo.
