Hugh Howey

Hugh Howey self-published his Wool series and has written some good stuff about the process of self-publishing (and the publishing industry in general): <https://hughhowey.com/?s=self-publishing>

Author Hugh Howey (http://www.hughhowey.com/) wrote one of the most successful self-published Kindle series to date (Wool, and its sequels Shift and Dust). He (along with an unnamed co-author) wrote a report that analyzed data from public sources about authors' revenue segmented on publishing model and popularity, among other dimensions. The results are fascinating.

The author created a writing tool, neo[0]at github [1] Dowloadable,freemium [2] but the Premium is 20 Espees. So, what's an Espee, other than an award from ESPN? (ESPY) [0] https://hughhowey.com/neo-a-word-processor-for-authors/ [1] https://github.com/smeans/neo [2] https://neotechnologies.io/app-details.php?app=neo-word

Of course the headline is silly, because AI systems lack any awareness or intention, but "the first religion that attracts devotees with sacred texts created by artificial intelligence" came out last month - it's called "Harmonism": https://hughhowey.com/harmonism/

I'd also add 'Wool' to this list. So good, such world building. https://hughhowey.com/books/wool/ The later books in the series weren't as good though.

Bestseller lists are an even less reliable way of measuring talent than the Nobel Prize. There have been numerous articles about how flawed and subject to manipulation the NYT Bestseller List is, for instance.[1][2][3][4] Calling a 19-year-old a "child" is really stretching the definition of a "child", in my view. Compare that to chess and music prodigies, for instance, who are already performing at levels above those of most adults even before their teens.[5][6] [1] - https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/27/16208294/handbook-for-mortals-nyt-b… [2] - http://gary-lindberg.com/do-you-trust-the-nyt-bestseller-list/ [3] - http://www.hughhowey.com/the-nyt-and-wsj-best-seller-lists-must-die/ [4] - http://www.politicususa.com/2010/12/02/palin-bestseller-fraud.html [5] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_prodigy [6] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_prodigy

see also, his : https://hughhowey.com/the-end-of-an-era/

> Wrote a book, published nine years ago. This might work for some writers and books, but not for others. There was this one Tweet that went into detail about what some trial documents revealed about a particular publisher: https://twitter.com/aprilhenrybooks/status/1566230658766503937 > In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books. There were also articles that disagreed with the claim: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-only-a-doz… Which also had some discussion on HN, where some people suggested that it was somewhat true, while others explored other aspects of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32794673 But even the article itself refers to more claims like that, with many suggesting that in writing, like many other industries, there will be a few very successful books/projects, and many that will fall by the wayside (honestly, I'd say the same about most things, from making SaaS products, to game development and art/music). Here's a humbling article that someone wrote: https://hughhowey.com/most-books-dont-sell/ I guess what I'm trying to say here: don't write a book hoping to earn a lot of money. Write a book because you find the experience interesting or fun, and just because you want to write (and publish) a book.

From a comment elsewhere by "Brian" on moving past psychological trauma: http://www.hughhowey.com/our-silos-leak/ "Cognitive behavioral therapists don’t even bother trying to figure out the why — because when most people get their so-called “epiphany” explaining why they’re feeling so badly, the knowledge doesn’t give them any clue as to how to feel better and be happy. All they know is, X and Y and Z happened to me many moons ago, and that’s why I feel like crap now. But what do I actually do about it? Bandler and Grinder figured it out forty plus years ago during the infancy of NLP too: focus on what you want, focus on what makes you happy, model people who are successful and happy and voila …. you’ll move in that direction too. Like you said above, Hugh, thinking about something that bothers you over and over is just another way of reexperiencing the pain and torment. Unless you’re coming at the memory from a fresh perspective, it’s like rubbing salt in the wound." So, if a drug like MDMA helps someone see a memory from a fresh perspective, maybe it could help? But otherwise, the general advice above seems useful.

Finding non-fiction writers is easy because plenty of technologists - Paul Graham, Tim O'Reilly, Ethan Mollick, Addy Osmani, Steve Yegge - have positive takes on LLMs and have published works (often about that topic). I'll highlight some fiction writers instead: Stephen King: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2023/08/stephen-king-books-a… Robin Sloan: https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/at-home-in-high-dimensional-space/ Hugh Howey (Silo): https://hughhowey.com/ai-training-permission/ Joanna Penn (J.F. Penn): https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2023/05/05/ai-assisted-artisan-author/ Ken Liu: https://bigthink.com/high-culture/ken-liu-ai-art/ Jeanette Winterson: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/mar/12/jeanette-winterson-ai-al… Debbie Urbanski: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a46025901/debbie-urbanski-… James Frey: https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/james-frey-new-book