Publishing several
He even sold Wool's film rights to 20th Century Fox, with Ridley Scott expressing interest in directing a movie adaptation.
Howey's accomplished this pretty much entirely on his own, without any help from traditional publishers. Don't think it was easy, though – in a Reddit AMA last year, Howey said it took him four years of grinding it out before his readership really took off.
He's still holding fast to the values he embraced from the beginning, however. After turning down a couple seven-figure deals with other publishers, his recent deal with Simon and Schuster got Wool into bookstores across the US and Canada while still allowing him to sell his books on his own.
Given his experience, it's easy to see that Howey clearly has some interesting ideas on the future of books and where the publishing industry is heading. He was kind enough to answer some questions for us, which appear below.
BUSINESS INSIDER: Wool began as a short story but became so popular that you ended up turning it into a series of books. Were you publicizing aggressively?
HUGH HOWEY: I didn't publicize it at all, which is uncomfortable to admit. It troubles me that the one work I published silently was the one that took off. It may mean that my attempts to promote my novels had an off-putting effect! :)
The first Wool story went up in July of 2011. By October, it was outselling all of my other works (which had readers in the thousands up to that point, so I did have a base from which to launch). It wasn't until after Wool eclipsed everything else I'd written that I even put a link to the story on my website. It really was completely forgotten until readers began clamoring for more.
BI: With the internet enabling so many voices to be heard, how did yours manage to cut through the noise?
HH: I have no idea. Luck must've played some part. Having 7 or 8 other titles out there (around 5,000 combined copies sold), gave me a bit of a readership. I wrote a lot and stayed very active in my community (both physical and online). I wrote the stories I cared about rather than what I thought would sell. I never dreamed of getting rich or famous; I just enjoyed writing. But these are only guesses. I have no clue why it happened to me other than to credit word of mouth from readers, which just moves the question back a step. I'm certainly not comfortable saying that I wrote a wonderful piece of fiction. I'm never that happy with my prose.
BI: What was your experience like publishing through Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing system? What was especially easy or difficult?
HH: It couldn't have been easier. Write, revise, edit, cover art, press a button. The difficult part is watching a book not sell, which is why it pays to forget this step and move on to the next project. There is no time pressure for a story to sell when it can't go out of print.
BI: Does Amazon's cut seem reasonable to you?
HH: Amazon's cut seems insanely generous to me. I keep 70% of the sale price? That's ludicrous. And it's fair to say that I make a lot of money publishing with them. I know hundreds of authors who are quitting their day jobs because of these royalty rates. Lives are being changed because of this. Artists are earning a living. When's the last time you heard that?
BI: What could a traditional publisher have offered you that Amazon's platform couldn't?
HH: I would say access to bookstores, except that my print on demand CreateSpace books started showing up in major indie bookstores and even in Barnes & Nobles. The difference with a traditional publisher is how they can blow out a release. The book will hit major markets all at once and with incredible marketing power. But these are advantages only given out to a limited number of titles each year. And the cost of a blowout release is a limited timeframe of availability It remains to be seen if it's better to have a work that stays in print forever via print on demand or a work that attempts to penetrate the market in a larger manner but in a limited window.
BI: What role (if any) does technology play in your writing process?
HH: I do everything between my MacBook Air and my Android phone. I love Evernote. I write in Pages, which is a bit unusual, but it allows me to swipe over to a writing environment devoid of clutter and distractions. I just wish new versions would come out!
BI: Does the fact that some people will be reading your books on an e-reader change anything about your writing process? Are there any special considerations to make?
HH: Not really. The only major difference is that I no longer worry about the length of a story. There's no need to pad a short work or truncate a longer one. I can just set the price to reflect what I feel is the value of the work, forgetting the print costs.
BI: Are paper books going extinct?
HH: Not by a long shot. They're just making room for another storytelling medium. Books won't go away for good, ever. They enjoy a cultural status that will survive even if only for decorating. And some works are designed to be read nonlinearly, which e-readers haven't figured out how to do yet (and I'm not sure if there's a solution superior enough to paper).
That doesn't mean all is rosy for paper books. I see them being the minority of books sold within a few years. Bookstores are going to continue to take a beating. As a huge fan of both (I have a massive book collection and worked for many years as a bookseller), I'm not happy about this. But I'm also not blind to the changes that are currently underway.
BI: When you read for pleasure, do you prefer paper books or an e-reader? Why?
HH: I still do most of my reading with paper books. I think the main reason is not wanting to carry another device around or deal with one more charger.
BI: What's the future of books, physical and otherwise?
HH: Physical books are going to continue to see declining shelf space. The top authors and the occasional breakout hits are going to dominate, with everything else impossible to find unless you search it out and buy it online. Most books bought offline will be from airport shops, big-box discounters, and grocers. It won't be pretty. Hopefully the indie shops will pick up some of the slack by offering destinations for book lovers. Book clubs, live events, allowing local indie authors to sell on commission, hosting writing workshops ... there are countless ways to expand their offerings.
The next step for bookstores will be to get print on demand machines in more spaces. Any book you want can be printed and bound in five minutes. The returns system employed by booksellers (I say this as a former bookseller) is harmful to the industry. It needs to go. Printing books as needed, straight to the customer, is one way to break this abhorrent practice.
Books will continue to gain market share, but no longer at triple-digit growth. If feels like the major jump has happened, even though the steady growth will continue. And before we know it, someone will invent the next stone tablet/scroll/scribe/press/e-device and make the current model moot once more.
Of course, I'm probably wrong about all of this. The great thing about an industry undergoing change is that we're all experts and dullards in equal measure. It makes it an exciting time for a dullard like me to be entering the industry. Suddenly, I'm an expert.