Hugh Howey

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

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Sensing a trend…

Colleen Hoover, a fantastic author you should check out, just announced a print-only deal with Simon and Schuster. This is an even bigger development than my agreement, because it signals a trend rather than an anecdote. How long before other publishers realize they need to offer similar concessions to successful indies or miss out on ready profits? How long before established authors ask to retain digital rights for new books in popular series?

Interesting times. Feel free to pop by Colleen’s blog and leave your congrats. I did!

9 replies to “Sensing a trend…”

Cool news, Hugh — and thanks for spotlighting it. I was just daydreaming about the day when my ship comes in and some big ol’ legacy publisher wants to buy me off with an advance, and I’ll say, “Just wait a minute, there, pardnah! I think I want you to do only the print books and I’LL take all the healthy profits from the ebooks, thank yew very much.”

It’s an exciting time to be writing… and reading. Now back to work for you because my husband and I are waiting impatiently for the next WOOL book!

I agree. But I think the real question is how long before authors give power back to traditional publishers by giving up digital rights?

Part of what made George Lucas so wealthy was his ownership in the merchandising rights of Star Wars (Fox, and most studios, at the time didn’t think merchandising rights were worth anything). Boy, did someone mess up there, right? Good luck getting that deal today.

However, the one thing I see as vastly different between the development of radio, TV, and film is that several companies had a stranglehold on distribution. The internet bypasses this… to an extent.

How much would things change if somewhere down the line Amazon required/requested ownership of material to be listed on their site?

Would it be much different from what we see today?

You set a precedent, Mr. Howey. Thank you for your giant strides forward into the new world of publishing and thank you for the gift of WOOL.

Just got back from talking with several aspiring creative writing (journalism, poetry and fiction) students at NYU and I am so upset that they ARE NOT being told by their profs what is happening regarding indie opportunities in the publishing world. I’m thinking about writing letters to the program directors at Columbia and NYU asking “why not”? Creatives have a hard enough time economically existing as it is..

I just tried to read Colleen Hoover’s ” Hopless” and IMHO it’s very, very bad. Maybe she is fantastic in some other books, and I had bad luck, but after this boring, amorphous, storyless and characterless book I think I never will read her novels again. Sorry if I upset her fans.

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