WEBVTT - Hugh Howey: “I write for myself.” 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:07.360 You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:12.160 What I'm writing I write for myself. It's almost like reading. 0:00:12.480 --> 0:00:13.920 You kind of have an idea of the story, but 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:16.560 the sentences surprise you and say You're getting to read 0:00:16.560 --> 0:00:19.000 what you're writing in real time. It's a magical experience. 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.959 Hi, I'm Bob Pittman. Welcome to this episode of Math 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:29.040 and Magic. Today we're going to chat with a man who, 0:00:29.400 --> 0:00:32.159 in his heart is a creative, but he also has 0:00:32.200 --> 0:00:35.479 the mind and instincts of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur in the 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:38.360 purest sense, he has figured out how to do something 0:00:38.400 --> 0:00:41.599 he loves, make money from it, and still have control. 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.520 He's the author of the wildly successful Silo series, which 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:48.159 is one of the top series on Apple TV Plus, 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:51.159 and from a business perspective, he is one of the 0:00:51.200 --> 0:00:55.520 pioneers and most successful examples of self publishing. He's Hugh Howie. 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.920 He grew up in North Carolina and he's also been 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.760 an adventurer. Attended college but never finished because he kept 0:01:02.800 --> 0:01:06.039 being lured to the sea. He worked as a bookstore clerk, 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:10.119 computer repair person, roofing, but his real passion led him 0:01:10.120 --> 0:01:13.360 to be a boat captain and then a writer. We're 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:15.959 going to dig into all the improbable twist and turns 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:19.000 it took. He was a great friend, nice and kind 0:01:19.080 --> 0:01:23.040 everyone he meets, and is a true adventurer. Hugh, Welcome, 0:01:23.560 --> 0:01:24.039 Hey Bob. 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:26.119 Thanks, So what's the best introduction I've ever had? 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:29.319 Okay, well listen. Before we get to the meaty stuff, 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:31.000 I want to start off with a feature we do 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:33.440 called you in sixty seconds. Ready? 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:34.199 Ready? 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:35.959 You prefer cats or dogs? 0:01:36.480 --> 0:01:36.920 Dogs? 0:01:37.319 --> 0:01:39.280 Early Riser? Night out? Oh? 0:01:39.319 --> 0:01:40.040 Early Riser? 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:43.880 West Coast or East Coast, East Coast, New York City 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:48.200 or North Carolina, New York City City or Country Country. 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:50.120 Surprisingly coke or pepsi? 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:51.960 Oh, coke? Let it be close? 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:53.080 Books or movies? 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:54.000 Books? 0:01:54.480 --> 0:01:55.320 Cook or eat out? 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:56.000 Eat out? 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:59.520 It's about feel a little harder. All time favorite music artist, 0:02:00.240 --> 0:02:00.560 just for. 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.600 The length of time and the number of hits them 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:06.240 out to go with the Beatles. First job a cook 0:02:06.320 --> 0:02:10.959 in an Alpeck Steakhouse. Favorite TV show recently it was adolescence. 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:16.320 Oh okay, good one. Childhood hero by mom? What did 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:18.040 you want to be when you were growing up? 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:19.880 I wanted to be a writer. 0:02:20.320 --> 0:02:23.600 Favorite sport to watch basketball, Favorite. 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.160 Movie probably Shaw Shake redyption. 0:02:26.040 --> 0:02:28.440 Secret talent probably billiards. 0:02:28.840 --> 0:02:31.359 People are surprised, but I can run the table almost anybody. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:33.080 Okay, let's jump in. 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:35.280 Hey, that's fun. You could really get to know someone 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:35.560 that way. 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.079 Exactly sixty seconds and we're done. Okay, I got to 0:02:39.120 --> 0:02:43.000 start with the obvious. Silo, huge, huge hit on Apple. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.840 Let's dissect it. It all started with the trilogy, wrote, 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:50.720 but start by describing even how you built that trilogy, 0:02:51.160 --> 0:02:53.960 and also for people who haven't watched it or read it, 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:56.960 what it's about in your words, and then let's talk 0:02:56.960 --> 0:02:57.840 about how it happened. 0:02:58.480 --> 0:03:02.200 Silo is about the last ten thousand people on Earth. 0:03:02.600 --> 0:03:06.400 They live in this underground silo, almost like a missile silo, 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:10.079 and they've been there for so many generations they've forgotten 0:03:10.080 --> 0:03:13.520 how they got there or why they're there. And it's 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.519 a bit of a mystery as a new sheriff starts 0:03:16.560 --> 0:03:20.760 to unravel the kind of the dark secret behind the silo. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.239 And it started with a short story I wrote while 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:27.560 I was working in a bookstore in North Carolina, and 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:30.720 at the time I didn't think it would be a 0:03:30.720 --> 0:03:33.960 commercial success. I wrote it as a bit of cathartic writing. 0:03:34.480 --> 0:03:37.600 I was dealing with the loss of dog, and so 0:03:37.720 --> 0:03:40.120 I wrote just a really dark story that I thought 0:03:40.120 --> 0:03:42.480 no one would want to read, and it was only 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.000 about fifty pages long, and I put it online for 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:49.320 ninety nine cents, and within a month it was out 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:52.440 selling the six novels that I've written at the time. 0:03:53.640 --> 0:03:56.720 And pretty soon that short story was making me enough 0:03:56.760 --> 0:03:59.600 money that I could quit my day job and just 0:03:59.720 --> 0:04:04.520 work on writing the follow up stories, and those collected 0:04:04.600 --> 0:04:08.960 became the novel Wool, which all self published, became a 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.280 New York Times bestselling novel, and got a film deal 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.200 with Ridley Scott and Agent and all the other improbable 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:17.559 things that are not supposed to happen. 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:19.440 So we're going to come to that, but I want 0:04:19.480 --> 0:04:22.040 to go back a little bit into this. Where did 0:04:22.040 --> 0:04:24.320 the idea or silo come from. 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:28.320 There's a few different ideas that kind of merge into one. 0:04:28.480 --> 0:04:31.800 I was working at a university bookstore at the time 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:35.640 that smartphones started taking hold of our attention, and I 0:04:35.760 --> 0:04:38.880 noticed the kids, who I was a generation apart from, 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.600 coming through the bookstore. Their view of the world more 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:46.320 and more was coming through screens. It's this little window 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.039 into a world that's not quite real We want to 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:54.200 see things that are more titillating or shocking or scary 0:04:54.279 --> 0:04:57.600 or funny, and so we get an unclear picture of 0:04:57.640 --> 0:05:00.080 the world. At the same time, I've always been in 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:04.560 in a philosophy. When I was looking at Plato's allegory 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:06.680 of the cave, where we don't see the true forms 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:09.400 of things, we see shadows on the wall cast by 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.920 fire that's behind us. Let's just started thinking that maybe 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.040 these screens are the new cave allegory. The other thing 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.479 is I had sailed to Cuba a few years prior 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:24.720 on a friend's boat that I was working on, and 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:26.880 what I found in Cuba was very different than what 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:30.080 I'd been told would be there. And this is related 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:32.640 to the other point that in order to understand the world, 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:34.279 you really have to go out and see it and 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.760 experience it. And so the silo is kind of born 0:05:38.200 --> 0:05:41.480 in the idea that these people, with a limited view 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.640 of the world through this singular screen on the top 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:48.200 level would have to piece together what the world's like. 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:50.920 And if they were shown bad news all the time, 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:53.880 would they lose the courage to go out and see 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:57.800 the world for themselves. And so the hero of our 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.919 story is someone who's courageous and to think that the 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:03.880 outside world might be better than we're led to believe. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.880 So where did you hit on the idea of it 0:06:06.960 --> 0:06:07.760 being a silo. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:11.640 I'm pretty sure that's just being a kid of the eighties, 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:15.680 Like I grew up terrified. We used to do fallout drills, 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:19.280 like you'd hide under your desk, which I guess somehow 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:21.800 this desk were armored enough to keep us safe from 0:06:21.800 --> 0:06:25.920 a nuclear blast. The thing that I was drilled into 0:06:25.960 --> 0:06:28.680 at a very young and impressionable age was that at 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:31.200 any moment, Russia is going to drop bombs on us. 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.040 And all the movies you have to have a bad 0:06:34.080 --> 0:06:37.840 guy in film, and back then there was always the Russians, 0:06:38.680 --> 0:06:41.800 and of course we had missiles aimed at them, So 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:44.880 missile silos were kind of a big deal to my 0:06:44.960 --> 0:06:48.320 childhood and other popular culture. There was a video game 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:51.919 when I was a kid called GoldenEye, a Nintendo sixty 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.479 four game, and one of the game levels takes place 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.719 inside of a missile silo at the spiral staircase. And 0:06:57.800 --> 0:06:59.880 that's why stories have a lot of the same flavors. 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:02.080 We're not just inspired by each other, but we grew 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:05.080 up through experience in the same kind of events. 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:09.159 So very dystopian. Is that tied in any way to 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:12.280 your love of the sea and being out there in 0:07:12.320 --> 0:07:16.240 sort of solitary moments nothing but you in the water. 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.840 One hundred percent and the wave they're linked is probably 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.760 not obvious. But when we look at all the disaster 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.080 films of the end of the world stuff that we 0:07:25.160 --> 0:07:28.320 see in fiction today, people think that this is because 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.080 folks are losing hope or something, and that's not the case. 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:36.920 Our primary story engine for millennia has been the survival story. 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.920 If you look at Sir Dauwaine and the Green Knight 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:43.080 or the Iliad of the Odyssey, you have these stories 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.760 where someone is away from their friends and family and 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:51.640 technology and civilization and they're trying to survive. So the 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:53.520 precursor to these stories would have been Lost in the 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:57.520 wood stories, which we have so many legends and fairy 0:07:57.560 --> 0:08:00.840 tales that show us where those stories came from, because 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:03.679 when we were tribal, the woods were the scary place 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:06.000 and there were things in there that would eat you. 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:09.000 If you look at the story progression of the years, 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:11.040 like we went to sea and now you had lots 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:16.560 of seafaring tales, you had castaway stories, deserted island stories. 0:08:17.240 --> 0:08:21.800 We started writing Westerns as we pushed beyond civilization into 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:24.880 the West. Once we kind of covered the globe, we 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:27.400 started writing about being lost in space, and so you 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.360 can see that we're telling the same story, which is like, 0:08:30.400 --> 0:08:34.600 how would we survive without our people, without our tribe, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:40.320 without our tools, and apocalypse stories are the only way 0:08:40.360 --> 0:08:44.240 to really tell that without rewriting history. We have to 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:47.360 imagine a future in which our tribe is gone, our 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:51.360 civilization's gone, our tools are set back, and how do 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:56.959 we survive in a fraud and liminal space. Being at 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.840 sea made me think of like deserted island stories. But 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:03.679 when you're writing science fiction, you're telling the same thing. 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:05.400 Orth it just becomes the deserted island. 0:09:06.200 --> 0:09:09.960 So you started with fifty pages, how did it go 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.600 from fifty pages to wall to the trilogy? 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:19.080 Because of Amazon reader reviews. I was working on a 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.400 different novel when the short story blew up. And one 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:26.000 of the advantages of self publishing is you can hit 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:30.720 refresh on your Amazon Kendall dashboard and sees sales in 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.520 real time. Someone buys a book, and I had refreshed 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:36.560 the sale pops up. In traditional publishing, it might take 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.520 six months to a year to find out that something 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:43.760 is happening. So I'm sitting at the bookstore thinking about 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:46.560 the novel that I should be writing, and I noticed 0:09:46.720 --> 0:09:50.400 the sales picking up on the short story. You know, 0:09:50.440 --> 0:09:52.520 you don't get a lot of reviews. You can sell 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:55.320 a thousand books and only get like maybe one or 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:59.040 two reviews. It's just not something everybody does. But reviews 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:01.560 started popping up on this book at an alarming clip. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:06.800 They were all five stars. The only thing negative people 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:08.280 had to say it was that it was too short 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:11.800 what happens next? And so I'm reading this feedback. I've 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:15.080 never had an audience clamoring for a sequel for me 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.640 other than my sister and my mom, you know, wanting 0:10:17.600 --> 0:10:20.800 to the next book. And I started thinking, well, a 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:23.680 bit of a spoiler, but it's only fifty pages in. 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.199 So here you go. At the end of that short story, 0:10:26.280 --> 0:10:29.440 all the main characters are dead, or they appear dead anyway, 0:10:29.920 --> 0:10:33.000 and so you're like, Okay, you want more in this world, 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.160 but everyone that I set up you to care about 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:39.560 is off the page now. So I had this really 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.520 fun challenge and a unique situation where people were asking 0:10:43.520 --> 0:10:45.400 for more story and there's really no more story to write. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.640 I hadn't planned anymore, so I had to sit down 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:50.719 and figure out, Okay, who's the bigger story going to 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.200 be about? And I came up with Juliete Nichols, who 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:58.560 is easily become the most beloved character I've written over 0:10:58.720 --> 0:11:02.480 twenty novels and stories. So once I had this character, 0:11:02.520 --> 0:11:05.480 I could plot out, Okay, it's going to take five 0:11:05.559 --> 0:11:08.880 stories to tell this in a novel, and I serialized that. 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:12.000 I released them as I was writing them, and within 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.520 two or three months, these five stories were all at 0:11:15.559 --> 0:11:18.680 the top of the science fiction bestseller lists on the Amazon. 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:23.200 I credit it to these initial readers who were asking 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:26.160 me to write more, giving me positive feedback, and that 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.959 reinforcement gave me the courage to plow forward. 0:11:29.480 --> 0:11:32.440 When you're writing, do you think about who that reader is? 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.160 And I know you've met a lot of the readers. 0:11:35.520 --> 0:11:37.160 Are they who you imagine they would be? 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.800 No to both. When I'm writing, I write for myself. 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:43.160 It's almost like reading. You kind of have an idea 0:11:43.160 --> 0:11:45.559 of the story, but the sentences surprise you and say 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.560 you're getting to read what you're writing in real time. 0:11:47.640 --> 0:11:50.400 It's a magical experience. Once you've started playing around with 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.480 fiction writing, all of a sudden, characters will do or 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:55.880 say things that you didn't plan on, or you'll come 0:11:55.960 --> 0:11:59.720 up with a joke in the moment that makes you laugh. 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.640 So you're creating and consuming in this little feedback loop. 0:12:03.800 --> 0:12:07.920 It's just delightful. So I concentrate on myself as the 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:12.080 reader when I'm writing. When I think about what readers expect, 0:12:12.520 --> 0:12:15.120 I usually use that as a tool against them. You know, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:16.719 they want this to happen, so I'm going to give 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.160 that to them. They expect this to happen, so I'm 0:12:19.200 --> 0:12:21.680 going to tease them that something else might happen, or 0:12:22.480 --> 0:12:26.080 send the story in a different direction. Like having a 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:29.920 feedback from your audience allows you to subvert what they 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:33.720 think the story might do. So I found that very valuable. 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:36.520 But I try not to write with the thought that 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:39.280 a million people might read this, because that's paralyzing. 0:12:39.720 --> 0:12:42.200 Let's talk a little bit about the self publishing aspect. 0:12:42.280 --> 0:12:44.240 Let's start of the business. I mean, you've had just 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:47.520 a wild success with self publishing. Tell us a little 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.240 bit about what the publishing business look like when you 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.839 started all this and what self publishing was and how 0:12:54.920 --> 0:12:56.160 you figured it out. 0:12:56.320 --> 0:12:59.560 Self publishing was very different. When I started writing, I 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:01.920 was told by everybody that if I self published, it 0:13:01.920 --> 0:13:05.840 would be the end of my career. Prior to the 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:09.600 rise of kindle and print on demand, an amazing paperback 0:13:09.679 --> 0:13:12.800 technology where you can print a book the moment it's ordered, 0:13:12.800 --> 0:13:15.120 it's printed and shipped out the same day, so you 0:13:15.160 --> 0:13:16.880 don't have a warehouse. You don't have you not sell 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:18.880 them out of your garage or the trunk of your car. 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:24.000 So prior to two thousand and nine, self publishing was 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:28.280 often called vanity publishing. You paid someone a lot of 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.559 money to create cover art at it and produce a book, 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:34.280 and they made money. The chances of you ever selling 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:39.000 enough books to pay that debt off is nil. Almost 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.800 when I started writing, the kindle and print on demand 0:13:43.840 --> 0:13:46.440 came around, and all of a sudden, it was actually 0:13:46.520 --> 0:13:49.800 free to publish, Like it costs nothing to make a 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.000 book available as an ebook, and even a print on 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:55.920 demand physical book, even an audiobook can be done with 0:13:56.040 --> 0:14:00.680 no cost, and that had never happened before. So I 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.320 published my first book with a small press, but they 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:07.120 were using self publishing tools to publish, and I realized 0:14:07.160 --> 0:14:09.040 this tools are available to me as well. 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:11.360 You mean you went to them, you thought they were 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.360 a regular publisher, But what they were really doing was 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:15.120 just self publishing exactly. 0:14:15.160 --> 0:14:17.440 And that's what most small presses do, and there's no 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.520 scandal there. They are providing a service. Like not everyone 0:14:20.520 --> 0:14:23.440 wants to learn how to paginate a book. Trede cover Art, 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.560 do all their own editing, marketing, all that stuff. Some 0:14:26.600 --> 0:14:28.080 people just want to write a book and hand it 0:14:28.120 --> 0:14:30.040 to someone and let them keep most of the money. 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:33.720 But while they were publishing, I thought the interior layout 0:14:33.800 --> 0:14:36.560 wasn't quite up to par. And I'd been a bookseller 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:39.720 for years, an avid reader since I was a little kid, 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:43.080 and so I just love the craft of books. And 0:14:43.120 --> 0:14:45.000 while they were paginating the book, I would get the 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:47.320 pages back and say, man, I think I would spend 0:14:47.400 --> 0:14:49.240 more time on it than they will, and I'll do better. 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.080 So I got a copy of end Design, which is 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:55.040 the industry standard for laying out books, and started learning 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:57.520 how to use it. And when I sent them an 0:14:57.520 --> 0:15:00.560 interior file, they were like, yeah, we'll use your because 0:15:00.560 --> 0:15:03.840 it was so much better. They gave me some cover 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.720 art that was just like stock art that you buy 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:11.400 off a five dollars kind of immager website with some 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:14.200 texts on the front. It just looks so self published, 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.440 and I was like, I can dabble in photoshop and 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:19.680 come up with something on my own. And the cover 0:15:19.760 --> 0:15:21.680 art that I came up with they liked more, so 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:23.720 I was like, man, I can actually do all the 0:15:23.720 --> 0:15:27.320 things that they're doing. So when they send me the 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:29.720 contract for the second book, I said, actually, I'm going 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:31.320 to self publish it, and I would love to buy 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.200 the rights back to my first book. And I had 0:15:34.200 --> 0:15:37.000 a great relationship with them, so they allowed it to happen. 0:15:37.000 --> 0:15:39.200 But I got kind of a hurt email from my 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:41.240 editor who said this would be the biggest mistake I 0:15:41.280 --> 0:15:46.360 ever made. And that was the general consensus. To get 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:48.640 to your original question, what was the state of self 0:15:48.640 --> 0:15:52.360 publishing at the time. I was hounded out of writing 0:15:52.400 --> 0:15:55.640 forums for suggesting that self publishing might be viable with 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.120 these new tools. Everyone told me I was crazy, but 0:15:59.560 --> 0:16:02.080 it just sense to me. I wasn't trying to get rich, 0:16:02.160 --> 0:16:05.040 but I thought if I sell ten copies, it'd be 0:16:05.040 --> 0:16:08.480 great to make one hundred bucks instead of ten bucks, 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.280 and pretty soon that's what I was doing. Like I 0:16:11.320 --> 0:16:13.800 was making enough every month to pay a power bill 0:16:13.960 --> 0:16:16.760 or something, which not every hobby. You know, most hobbies 0:16:16.760 --> 0:16:19.640 cost money. This was a hobby that had money flowing 0:16:19.680 --> 0:16:22.000 in and it just grew. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:28.480 So you started with a publisher, then you went self publishing. Today, 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.360 I know you also have publishers. How does that work 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:33.520 with yourself publishing? 0:16:33.720 --> 0:16:36.520 I never thought I would go with a publisher because 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.000 by the time I was making enough money to live 0:16:40.040 --> 0:16:42.720 off my writing, they couldn't offer me more than what 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:45.360 I was making. And every time they made an offer 0:16:45.440 --> 0:16:48.280 it was something that I might have accepted six months before. 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:51.040 So they were always lagging. As my sales were increasing, 0:16:51.840 --> 0:16:55.280 their offers were coming in too low. So I remember 0:16:55.280 --> 0:16:58.960 when I got a fifty thousand dollars offer for one book. 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:01.440 At that time, I was like, I was making that 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:03.360 in a month on my own sales, and I was like, 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.360 you're going to take lifetime rights for a book that 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.040 earned that much last month, And none of that made 0:17:10.080 --> 0:17:12.000 sense to me. And there was worldwide rights and all 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:14.040 the ebook and all the print and audio and everything, 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:17.920 And then six months later someone would offer me six figures, 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.080 and I'm like, that's what it made last month. And 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.720 then we got to where publishers were offered me seven figures, 0:17:24.280 --> 0:17:26.080 and I was like, I've already made that. And these 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:28.760 were all incredible deals and I would have jumped at 0:17:29.320 --> 0:17:32.320 had they come six months earlier. So that was kind 0:17:32.320 --> 0:17:35.560 of my advantage. I knew what I was making before 0:17:35.600 --> 0:17:37.560 they knew the potential of this series. 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:39.719 How do you do it today with the publishers. 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:43.280 I got this amazing email one day from my agent, 0:17:43.359 --> 0:17:45.880 Kristin Nelson, and I was getting calls and emails from 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:47.679 agents at the time because I had a book on 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.960 the New York Times list that was not represented by anybody, 0:17:51.600 --> 0:17:54.640 and Kristen sent me an email then the subject said 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.359 you probably don't need an agent, however, and I was like, 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.440 this is different from all the other agents were all 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.680 calling me and saying like, okay, first thing you should 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:05.680 know is I want to take fifteen percent. And I'm like, wait, 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.840 who is this? What's happening? But Kristin was like, you 0:18:08.840 --> 0:18:12.800 probably don't even need an agent. She is so so 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.000 savvy and she understood what was happening even before I did. 0:18:16.359 --> 0:18:19.440 About the industry. She said, you should just keep doing 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:21.640 what you're doing in the US. But I can take 0:18:21.920 --> 0:18:23.920 this book overseas and get you deals that you're not 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:26.199 even thinking about. And I can get you a co 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:29.960 agent to help in Asia, one in Europe, one in Hollywood, 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.120 and we'll work our butts off to you know, bring 0:18:33.119 --> 0:18:35.600 this story to more people, and you get most of 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.320 the money for all the work we do. And that 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:40.480 was the second best decision ever made in my life, 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:43.800 was signing with Kristen. We started getting really interesting offers 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:47.320 from publishers by saying no to everything else. So after 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:50.280 saying no to a seven figure deal, Simon and Schuster 0:18:50.800 --> 0:18:53.080 came in gave us what we had wanted, which was 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.760 a print only deal for a limited term of license, 0:18:56.480 --> 0:18:58.480 so they could do the print book for five years, 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.520 and after that we get all rights back, which had 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:05.639 never been done before. And it hasn't been duplicated much since, unfortunately. 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:11.119 And I've done three or four deals now on the 0:19:11.160 --> 0:19:14.840 same series of books, and I keep getting the rights back. 0:19:15.280 --> 0:19:16.520 If this is the way it should be done, the 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.520 way it's done overseas. All my foreign deals have limited 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:23.760 terms of license, and so you can reevaluate how the 0:19:23.760 --> 0:19:27.720 book is doing and what it's worth, and make decisions 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:29.640 down the road that makes sense for both parties. 0:19:29.880 --> 0:19:31.720 I want to close out the sil of piece a 0:19:31.760 --> 0:19:36.200 little bit. How close is the TV series to your books? 0:19:36.440 --> 0:19:37.160 How true? 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:41.960 Pretty close? In the modern world of adaptations, like this 0:19:42.119 --> 0:19:44.880 is about as good as it gets. It's so much 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:47.560 better than what I imagined because I'm just one one 0:19:47.600 --> 0:19:51.520 person who's slightly creative. When we built the show with 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.119 two hundred people who were massively creative. So we have 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:58.720 someone who's just thinking about fabrics, and someone who's just 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:03.520 thinking about pat and someone designing furniture and doing signage, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:07.240 and an architect, Like it's so addedive. Having that many 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:12.280 creative people come together with a common goal is much 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.600 better than me just putting some words on a page. 0:20:17.000 --> 0:20:19.520 More of math and magic right after this quick break, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:28.680 Welcome back to math and Magic. Let's hear more from 0:20:28.680 --> 0:20:33.080 my conversation with you, Howie. Let's go back in time. 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:35.920 You were a child of the seventies, eighties, a little 0:20:35.960 --> 0:20:39.240 bit of the nineties. You were born in Charlotte, North Carolina. 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:43.160 Can you paint the picture of those times in your childhood, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.600 what it felt like, what you were exposed to what 0:20:45.760 --> 0:20:46.359 influenced you. 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:49.359 I grew up in the country. My dad was a 0:20:49.400 --> 0:20:53.840 third generation farmer corn and soweetpean and wheat before I 0:20:53.840 --> 0:20:58.520