The key to making it as a writer is to write a lot, write great stories, publish them yourself, spend more time writing, study the industry, act like a pro, network, be nice, invest in yourself and your craft, and be patient.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
The stigma is gone. Self-publishing is the beginning. For many, it will be the end. The moment the stigma disappeared among traditional publishers (i.e. they began signing already-published books to major deals) it meant the top-down approach to publishing flipped upside down.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Publishers aren’t the enemy; their contracts are. I don’t want publishers to go away. I don’t see them as the enemy. They do some wonderful things, and I love the people I’ve met in the industry. Love them. But their contracts suck because there has never been a reason for them not to suck.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Network and be nice. I can’t stress this enough. Just being around other writers will inspire you to be a better writer. Join a writing group (in person is better. online if you must). Go to writing conferences. Go to writing camps.. And be nice to your fellow writer. Making it as an author isn’t easy. The last thing we need to do is make it harder on each other.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
The vast majority of books traditionally published never earn out their advance. They go out of print. They are now dead. This never happens to a self-published work. It can only go up, either in sales or by being picked up in a deal that you choose. The top-down approach is one where you leave options open. Self-publishing leaves all options open (it didn’t used to). Traditional publishing leaves almost no options open (this hasn’t changed).
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Pros read up on grammar. They read books with an eye to what works and what doesn’t.. They set goals for how much they’ll publish in a year. Five years from now, these pros will have 10-20 works available. They only need to sell 250 – 500 books a month to earn a supplemental income. Ten books a day across twenty titles. That’s the longterm goal.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Be a pro. The writers who take this seriously are the ones making money. They do all the things above, but they do something more. They approach this like a little more than a hobby. It’s a second job, one that you can love and work hard at at the same time.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
You want to be a writer for the art of it? Forget the industry. You want to earn a living? Study it.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
If you want to earn a living as a writer, which I’m assuming the people asking for my advice are, you are going to have to be more than a writer. You will be an entrepreneur and a publicist. Or you won’t make it.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Self-publishing used to mean the death of a book. Now, traditional publishing is the more likely death of a book.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
If you blow up, do you want to own your rights or have someone else own them? Do you want to be making 12.5% or 70%? Remember, the chances are that you’ll never have a mega-hit. Traditional publishing will not increase those odds.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Own your work. The chances of a book blowing up are slim whichever way you go. I would say the chances are minimally the same, and the odds may now be tilting in favor of self-published works.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Think about this for a moment: The self-pubbing revolution is in its infancy. The people writing and publishing today have had no time to be discovered. It’s a marathon.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
If you self-publish, you will have the rest of your life (and your heirs’ lives) to make it. Your print-on-demand books will always be available. Your e-books will always be available. You can keep writing and promote later. You are building your backlist.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
You are writing for the reader, who is your ultimate gatekeeper. Get your work in front of them, even if it’s one at a time, one reader a month or year.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Know your gatekeepers. Appealing to readers is the endgame. They want story over prose, so concentrate on that (aim for both, but concentrate on story).
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Secondly, learn to write rough. Stop caring about spelling and sentence fragments and plot holes and grammar. Get the story down. Listen to the dialog and try to keep up with your fingers. Get to the end of your manuscript and THEN worry about the quality. If you can master the art of powering through to the end of your story, you are on your way.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Get comfortable staring at a blank screen and not writing. This is a skill. If you can not write and avoid filling that time with distractions, you’ll get to the point where you start writing. Open your manuscript and just be with it.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
To begin with, you need to write. This seems axiomatic because it is. The only way to amass a pile of words into a book is to shovel some every single day. No days off. You have to form this habit; without it you are screwed.
My Advice to Aspiring Authors – Hugh Howey. (2020). Retrieved 23 June 2020, from https://hughhowey.com/my-advice-to-aspiring-authors/
Rolando Andrés Ramos 
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