Hugh Howey

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

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Two New Things

If you look down the left hand side of the site, just below the pro-piracy button, you’ll see two new handy features on the website. The first is my Indie Toolbox. These are the artists, formatters, and editors that I personally use and swear by. Top quality for the best price. I can’t recommend these peeps highly enough. If you want your work to shine, use them.

Just beneath this is a list of blog posts that I get requests for. Rather than search for them over and over, I thought I’d put them in one place. I’ll update the list if I find more non-sucky blog posts in the archives. These are mostly geared to writers, since no one reads any of my other ramblings.

:)

11 replies to “Two New Things”

And this is what I get for thinking, “Eh, I’ll just pop over to passivevoice.com and hughhowey.com before sitting down to write today.” Thanks a million, there goes the next hour. ;-)

Really though I can’t thank you enough. The resources, tips, and encouragement you provide to writers is well worth the occasional lost hour or two.

Nice of you to share your resources. We do something similar. Although AKW Books is a small “traditional” eBook publisher, we like to help all authors, including indies.

To that end, we maintain a tool box page that authors can use. We don’t use all the services on this page, so use them at your own risk. http://akwbooks.com/authors/tools.php

I’ve always figured that artist work speaks for itself (you DO judge their books by the cover – grin). We have a separate page showing many of our covers grouped by artist. http://akwbooks.com/authors/coverartists.php Some are easy to work with, none are a total pain. Some require detailed instructions, others are best given clues (what the book is about and descriptions of main characters) and turned loose.

What a fantastic coincidence that your formatters ALSO live in Australia, albeit Tasmania. I think I may just have to use them!

Thanks for the links, Hugh.

I’m curious about this “pro-piracy” button of yours… I’d actually never noticed it before. I assume it’s meant to invite a pay-what-you like possibility for people who have downloaded your novels for free across authorized and unauthorized platforms. How do you get the word out about this option? I’d be interested in doing something similar for my own books (I think the piracy of creative content can be hugely beneficial, especially in countries with state-controlled medias.) I’d love to see a blog post about your experiences with piracy!

I don’t spread the word about it. I had people asking how they could Paypal me and apologizing for stealing the books. So I put a button up to direct them to (I also tell them that it isn’t necessary and thank them for reading). Others find it on their own. I have a handful of people do this every week. If the link was at the end of the book, I think it would be a lot more. :)

By Post Author

I love it! Clearly people recognize the value of your work, no matter how they first obtained it. :) Thanks for explaining!

Thanks for sharing the Indie Toolbox, Hugh. As a writer just beginning to navigate the self-publishing waters, info like that comes in mighty handy. If you have a second, can you elaborate on why you go with a professional formatter rather than doing it yourself when, I assume, you have the tech chops necessary? I’m guessing that it’s a question of of what your time is worth versus handing the job off to someone who has a lot more practice and can do it more quickly and efficiently, especially when so many weird complications can throw your file off—and that makes perfect sense—but just wanted to confirm.

I don’t think writers should edit themselves. I did in the beginning, but I also used lots of beta readers to spot mistakes. It’s hard to see our own writing flaws; easy to spot others’.

Even employing an editor, I do 8 or 9 full passes on my own. My manuscripts are never error-free, but I’ve heard from several editors that they are amazingly clean. That’s not from talent; it’s from study and effort.

By Post Author

Good point: formatting’s very close to editing, and I’ll never spot the mistakes myself. My tech ego wants to do the HTML on my own because of the “teach a man to fish” aspects, but going with a formatter seems to make a lot more sense right now.

Thanks for the prompt and helpful reply, Hugh—much appreciated.

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