Hugh Howey

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

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You Have to be a Little Crazy

5 o’clock in the morning. Been up for two hours, jetlagged like mad. Uploading SAND to Nook, B&N, and iTunes. While files are uploading, I’m firing off Tweets, making an update to AuthorEarnings.com, handling e-mail, and daydreaming about the next writing project.

How do you get a bunch of stuff done? You do a bunch of stuff. The last two weeks have been spent working on that earnings report, traveling to Taiwan and promoting two novels there, finalizing a children’s book deal, discussing film rights for SAND, and wrapping up this apocalyptic anthology, which releases in three weeks.

No social life helps. Being batshit crazy is practically a necessity. Now it’s back to iTunes to get this SAND pre-order page up. (Is it sick that I feel like I haven’t released a title in practically forever? I think it’s sick.)

25 replies to “You Have to be a Little Crazy”

The secret to successful multitasking is one of life’s greatest mysteries. I like to mix it up, work on a WIP to my daily word goal, then get up and do something else for thirty minutes (housework, shovel snow, cook), and then sit and work on writing again. It takes some discipline at first, but after a couple weeks, it’s routine.

Sounds like you’ve got more success than most of us would dream of. Oh, to have your problems! :)

I’m not even close to your level of sales, but I know what you mean about multitasking. When I quit my day job to write full time, I thought it would be smooth sailing now that I could devote all my time to the biz of writing and of course, writing itself.

Still feel run off my feet!

Congrats for all your success, and thank you so much for the report. Look forward to more.

You are crazy-productive. I wish I had half of your energy!

I was just at the authorearnings website and looking at the petition. The question about supporting a new author organization made me pause. I love the idea, don’t mind the fee, but I was wondering why can’t we take over the Author’s Guild? Is Scott Turow king and unremovable? We can’t all join the Guild and elect you (or another wise volunteer) as our leader?

Thanks!
Sandy

I had issues with the same question, though not in the same way. The AG is broken and I’m not sure it’s repairable in its current state. I question why we need a guild at all. Big Pub Houses will change their contract terms or they won’t. They haven’t listened to authors for over a hundred years, why would they start now?

Why do you think Einstein’s hair looked that way? ;-)

Thank you, for being an advocate — you’re going above and beyond the call of duty. I bet you never thought you’d be a world traveler after penning that story a few years ago, did you?

“(Is it sick that I feel like I haven’t released a title in practically forever? I think it’s sick.)”

Yep, you got the right instinct there. ;)

I love how you just casually just throw out discussing film rights for SAND.

WHHHAAAAATTT?????????????

Hoping. Hoping.

Hi Hugh,

You do seem to be insanely crazy, so I feel bad about asking you if Sand is going to be on Kogo. I have my hard copy, which is great, but I really don’t want to mess it up.

Really looking forward to the next Molly Fyde…. :-p

Thanks!

I just saw this morning that it’s now available for pre-order on Kobo, with a delivery date of Feb 28th. Thanks, Hugh! I know it must be a lot of work to support all these different e-book stores, but we love you for it.

It’s the years of captaining ships. Being a boater myself, I know there is always, always something that must be done. Not; should be, or would be nice to get, or if I have time, but must be done.

Sand finally appeared for preorder on iBooks today, with an expected date of April 15?!

Is iBooks really this broken? I will not buy through Kindle, so perhaps it’s time to order a paper copy directly from you…

Thank you!
Matt

I was talking to a friend yesterday about how I’d just lost my job and decided screw it, I’ll just write full-time, and told him that I am either optimistic or insane—maybe optimistically insane. ;)

This is an upload weekend for me; I just released something last Tuesday, but it feels like it’s been forever!

It’s a good life, though.

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