A book that’s been called the “Sci-fi Fifty Shades of Grey” (as in, a self-published book that became such a hit that Hollywood came knocking — NOT because it takes eroticism into space), Hugh Howey’s Wool, is going to be released in paperback and hardcover by S&S, this coming March. Wool began life as short story, followed by four more titles, which are collected in Wool – Omnibus Edition (Amazon/CreateSpace; 9781469984209), available through wholesalers as print-on-demand and owned by several libraries.

Back in April, Howey told Publishers Weekly, that he had not made a deal with an American publisher (although he had one with Random House in the UK), because he found the terms being offered unattractive. On his Web site, Howey says he decided to go with S&S because, “This deal is all about the new publishing paradigm. There are no clauses limiting what I can write and how quickly I can release. I keep control over the ebooks, which means the prices will stay where they are.”

While he doesn’t mention it specifically, he has chosen to go with a publisher that does not make their ebooks available to libraries. He does mention libraries in his announcement of the deal, but makes a common erroneous assumption about the preferred library format:

And it gets better. Simon and Schuster is planning a simultaneous paperback and hardback release … It’s the best of all possible worlds. Affordable e-books published swiftly, paperbacks where anyone can find them, hardbacks for the libraries.

Ridley Scott is producing the film and has hired J. Blakeson as the director.

Below, Howey gives many more details about the book deal (as part of the post, “Luddites, Rejoice!” because print book are for Luddites. Presumably, that includes libraries):

This entry was posted on Monday, December 17th, 2012 at 2:12 pm and is filed under 2013/14 - Winter/Spring, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Self-publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.