Hugh Howey

Bestselling author of Wool and other books. Currently sailing around the world.

Learn more

A Reddit AMA Anniversary?

It’s been nearly one year since my Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything). The timing is amazing. On March 13th, I put up an AMA entitled: “I’m a self-published author, and I just quit my day job.” I had no idea what to expect. It ended up being one of the more incredible days of my writing life.

The AMA was voted up to the #2 spot on Reddit, and hundreds of questions poured in. This was long before Ridley Scott and the Random House UK deal. It was back when I doubted whether or not I’d be able to write full-time for a year or just a few more months. I was terrified and excited, and the Redditers were incredibly generous to me. I spent the entire day pecking back replies and trying to keep up.

On March 12th, the print version of WOOL hits U.S. bookstores. Just under a year to the day since the AMA (or better: exactly one elapsed year). There’s no way I could have imagined all that would happen within those 365 days, which is why I’m planning another AMA. I’ll be on the road for the book tour, but I think I can still make it work. I feel like it would be an amazing set of bookends for the past year, a way to reflect, and a chance to answer questions and dole out any crumb of wisdom I may have picked up along the way.

Here’s my last AMA in case you want to check it out.

7 replies to “A Reddit AMA Anniversary?”

Every writer has it, even writers who’ve been at it for years. I can’t remember who, but I heard in an interview of some well known author that he called up his agent halfway through his book to say “This book just isn’t working.” His agent went on to tell him, “Did you know that when you get to this part of your book you call me and tell me that every time?” The author was surprised. There’s two things that are really hard but essential for becoming a successful writer – start stories, and finish them. Please give yourself permission to suck on your first draft. Everyone’s first drafts suck. Writing is revising. Just keep at it and you’ll get there. Push through the hard parts, or listen to author interviews and read amazing books to get inspired to keep going. Best of luck. Sorry or hijacking your comments section Hugh.

That was fascinating and I read the whole of the AMA. An update from a year on would be really interesting to read.

Thanks for sharing this Hugh. I was not aware of that reddit. I copied expanded every comment, copied all of the text, threw it in my text to speech converter and listened to it as an .mp3 over the coarse of three commutes. It was over 2 hours long :) I gleaned a lot of awesome writing wisdom from it. Thank you very much for letting us know about it.

Thanks for all the insight. I am currently revising a book I plan to publish through Amazon.com and have been discouraged at times that there will likely only be a handful of readers. Anyway, I will just make it the best book I can, publish it, and then probably go on to something else. By the way, I read the Wool Omnibus and loved it. It is clear that you revised it extensively. Very well written. You success has encouraged me to continue writing, even if I ever have just a few readers. Writing is also its own reward.

Comments are closed.