The Exchanges

Q Is there anything else that comes to mind?

A Farming out things individually, um, giving worldwide rights to, uh, to publishers now is crazy because the, the world market is getting more and more lucrative. So I'll do deals just in North America, basically, and that lets me do separate, like wool is with Random House in the UK and here in Australia and New Zealand and basically worldwide English. And, um, the book is different. The, it's localized for the For the, for Queens English, basically, instead of American English, and they know their market better, and putting them in charge of it, instead of having someone in America shop that out to subsidiaries, it's not only makes for a better product, it makes for, um, better business sense. So I've done, like, amazing deals in Brazil, um, you know, 60,000 dollar advances, which I would have been gaga for in the, um, in North America with my first books, and here I'm getting it from a country that is exploding with, um, interested new readers, and I had no idea that was a market, and we've done, we've now done deals in over 40 countries, and doing them individually has maximized the decisions we made. For instance, in, um, In Taiwan, we went with a very small publisher. It's a one man operation. Literally like one guy runs the whole business and does the translation, everything. He's a, he's a dynamo. Yeah. He's amazing. Only does like two books a year. And he, he was offeri…

AI assessment note: “Farming out things individually, um, giving worldwide rights to, uh, to publishers now is crazy”

Q And then, so you, you take your rough draft, you edit it and revise it. And then do you send that out to your friends? Do you send it to your agent? Do you like, how do you get feedback on that? Or do you get feedback on that? Or do you just go?

A No, I'd get lots of feedback, I think, and we can talk about the storytelling tradition and, uh, in, in more in depth, but, um, writing and telling stories was really never done in a vacuum. For me, my first, um, when I'm happy with my story and I can let someone read it, it goes to my mom first. And she would like disown me if I did anything differently. She's, she, she bugs me more than my agent, uh, does about when am I going to send something new for her to read? Um, and she'll print, yeah, she'll print the whole thing out, get a red pen and just go through and demolish it and mail me a stack of pages. And I'll go through and, and incorporate these, uh, changes and try to make the book better for my mom. And then it'll go out to Um, some beta readers and my editor, and each book's been a little different with how many beta readers I'll use or if I'll use them at all, and eventually my agent will get it once it's pretty much ready to publish, and she's actually gotten, um, I think I get on her nerves some because I assume she's, like, too busy for me, and so I don't bug her with almost anything, like, and she's always telling me, you should bug me more, like, let me know when you've written something, and sometimes I'll publish something and forget to tell her, um, And because I don't think it's good enough for her to shop around and she'd be like, why didn't you tell me lik…

AI assessment note: “No, I'd get lots of feedback... it goes to my mom first.”

Q And I think you just made wool free, didn't you? Or was that like in the last year or something?

A Uh, the first part of wool, which it's the short story that, that launched my career, um, that's been free for years now, probably seven years. You can read the first part of the book and there's a lot of, um, and I do, it's not like I don't think about these things. I, I spend a lot of time thinking about the psychology of pricing and reading, um, I would rather someone read something for free because if they don't like it, they don't feel like they're not likely to write a bad review because what can they say? Like, I'm, I feel ripped off. Like I didn't pay anything. I didn't enjoy this. And so there's a bit of a sifting mechanism there. If someone enjoys it, they're likely to buy the next part of the story, which is only 99 cents. And they're inclined to write a good review and tell people about it and convince their friend, like, what do you have to lose? It's free. You know, give it a try.

AI assessment note: “that's been free for years now, probably seven years.”

Q purely an artist when it comes to this, or are you also a businessman? Like, are you, uh, you mentioned some people in the romance and sort of erotica space are a little bit more savvy about how they go about positioning the book or maybe selling or marketing it. Um, do you do any of that? Have you done any of that and you just don't do it now?

A Yeah, I, I would say it's a pretty even mix. I'm, I'm probably more The business and marketing side, I'm so fascinated by that. I probably do more of that than I give myself credit for. Um, uh, yeah, I think about everything, like, just as an example, I think I know, and really early on, when I was just starting my career, I knew more about publishing than publishers who were the biggest in the world who had been doing it forever, because I was questioning everything, and they were very ossified in their thinking. For instance, when I published with Simon & Schuster, they categorized my, one of my books as And under, um, just science fiction on the Amazon store. And I knew from experimenting that the way the categories worked is the, uh, parent categories were inherited by the child categories, which sounds confusing, but the way it works is if you put your book in, you know, general books dash science fiction dash general dash, uh, dystopia. Then your book shows up in every one of those categories. They're all inherited. So if you're browsing the general books bestseller list, and if your book is in the top 100, it shows up on that list. It also shows up in the science fiction list and the general science fiction list and the dystopia list. And this is a free way of making your book show up on multiple bookshelves in a bookstore, which anyone would want. If you could do that f…

AI assessment note: “I would say it's a pretty even mix. I'm, I'm probably more”

Q How did you fall in love with sailing?

A Um, I think I was probably about, I don't know, nine or 10 years old. We, we used to go to the beach every, uh, I grew up in, um, near Charlotte, North Carolina, so a bit inland, but we went to the beach every, every year for a couple of weeks, and one of the first things I would do is drag this little, uh, they're called sunfishes. They're these little dinghies with tiny little sails, but for, for a kid my age, it felt like I was, um, like launching the Titanic, um, This thing was like really, uh, a pain to move around by yourself. It was kind of like a Herculean task when my brother and sister were running around, you know, choosing which bedroom they were going to have. I was dragging this thing down to the sound and launching it and trying to get the mast in by myself. And, um, yeah, I would just spend all day sailing around the sound in this little thing. And even then was dreaming about, um, sailing to the other side of the world, which at the time was always China. Um, we used to like dig holes in the sand and Pretend we were digging our way to China as little kids. And, uh, and so, yeah, it's been a dream of mine for, um, man, 30 plus years to, to do this, and it's kind of crazy that I've made it this far, uh, on this trip, because it was just a, just a fantasy for so long.

AI assessment note: “I would just spend all day sailing around the sound in this little thing.”

Q What sort of feedback do you seek from like beta readers? Are you asking them what works, what doesn't like where they get lost or confused? Like what specific questions are you asking them for?

A Yeah, I don't, I've been a beta reader for other people, and they've sent a document that's very detailed about what they want, and I haven't really done that with my beta readers. I kind of want them to share what, what they're good at spotting, and I don't want people to, I don't want to say I'm looking for typos when someone's really good at spotting plot holes and terrible at seeing typos. So like, here's, here's a book as I would publish it, and like, what, what do you think? And some people will come back and be like, I think it's great, and I ignore that, you know, advice. Uh, I assume that they're Um, too easily pleased. And then I'll have people say, like, you know, just send me a list of all the typos they find. And someone say, I was confused in this spot. And someone say, I was kind of bored. And for those people, I might be like, do you remember where you got bored or, you know, when you stopped reading and when you lost interest? So for each beta reader, I'll get something different. Um, my mom is really good at, um, highlighting passages that she thinks I need to Make clearer. She'll also highlight stuff. She says, I'm not allowed to change, like, things that she loves, and, and she doesn't give out, um, uh, she, she's probably my biggest fan. She loves my writing, but she doesn't hold back. Like, she demolishes my stuff.

AI assessment note: “I kind of want them to share what, what they're good at spotting”

Q Were you an avid user of technology before you started sailing around the world?

A Yeah, I still am. I'm, like, the biggest geek. And, um, I am like an early adopter on everything. I, I love gadgets and upgrading stuff. I love reading manuals. One of my first career was in computer repair. So I was like building computers in high school out of, uh, spare parts and, um, you know, down to like the soldering level and, and, um, like chip level stuff and haunting radio shack and building things out of like five, 55 timer chips and, and LEDs and anything I could scrap together. Um, so, uh, but yeah, Like one of my, one of my very, uh, favorite people, and I've been, I'm lucky now to call him a friend and, and travel and spend a lot of time living with him is Kevin Kelly, who was the first editor of Wired Magazine. And Kevin wrote a great book called What Technology Wants, which I think everyone should read. Um, uh, it's really a, a, a primer on what technology is and what it's trying to do if we want to anthropomorphize it. Um, Kevin is one of the, He knows more about gadgets and technology than just about anybody. I mean, he has this like podcast called cool tools where he's always telling people the best, like three things for anything you can imagine. And he's been writing about technology for decades, but he's also so, um, removed from technology. Like he analyzes every new piece of technology that he puts into his life and how it's going to impact him and whe…

AI assessment note: “Yeah, I still am. I'm, like, the biggest geek.”

Q And so how does, how does that aid your perspective on yourself and sort of like maybe our existence if we want to go up to a philosophical level?

A Oh, you know, yeah. So you started asking about, um, what have I learned from different cultures? You know, probably the craziest thing from these deep immersions in these cultures is like how universal human nature is and how similar we are everywhere. And we really focus on very slight differences in order to try to group people or make it easy for ourselves, you know, to, um, assign labels. To different groups. But the things that we have in common are so numerous. I think we take them for granted. It's almost like if you look at the body plan of most mammals, Like even a human and a, and a dog, the similarities are crazy. Like you, you, you can spend days just making lists of all the things that are similar in the bone layout and number and structure and the way, um, if you go down to the, um, cellular level, the way, you know, mitochondria powers us, like we have so much DNA in common and what we make really a big deal out of is that two percent of us that's different. And I think that's what I found with these cultures is like, You know, you know, I was raised hearing, you know, Americans are, uh, overweight. We have terrible diets. And it turns out that's just what happens when you're wealthy enough, um, to afford basically unhealthy foods. When you have an unlimited, um, uh, basically budget for food, you're going to eat too much. And, and every country is going to have…

AI assessment note: “how universal human nature is and how similar we are everywhere.”

Q Is reading time going up now? Because, I mean, in theory, all this technology should be freeing up time over the last 20 years, and wouldn't that bear out in sort of the, I don't know what the numbers say, but wouldn't we already be seeing this increasing reading time?

A Yeah, we are. And we're filling it with Netflix. So we're, we're getting a lot more free time, but we're also getting a lot more stuff to fill it with. And there's just so much, um, you know, so many sports to watch and so many things to do with your, with your kids and, you know, hobbies and activities. Um, there's things that we can do now that didn't exist not that long ago. So we keep inventing ways like, you know, go to a trampoline park, like When I was a kid, like, you were lucky if there was someone in your neighborhood who had a trampoline. Now, most cities have these parks full of trampolines where you can go, you know, feel like, um, Magic Johnson and like, you know, fly off these trampolines and dunk basketballs and play dodgeball on trampolines and games that like, you know, we just keep inventing new stuff to do with our time, and these businesses are doing well, so people are obviously engaged in it. The video game industry has become bigger than Um, I think the music industry, it's crazy how much, um, of our free time, and I'm, uh, one of those people, I love playing video games, and it's a different way of telling a story, and you're more engaged in it, and have more control over the story, so that's really cool. But, you know, any hour I spend doing that's an hour I spend not reading. And actually, when I started writing, the way I freed up time to write was j…

AI assessment note: “we're getting a lot more free time, but we're also getting a lot more stuff”

Q What's your writing process for a book? So you get an idea, walk me through all the way until that becomes something that I can read in my hands.

A Um, most of the, most of my writing takes place away from the keyboard. So, um, it helped working in a bookstore for years while I was writing because I was, you know, having to walk around and dust shelves and, um, reshelve books and, and do very like quiet rote tasks. And the whole time I'm doing them, I can daydream about, um, my story in the world that I'm thinking of next. Um, and often I'm building out several, um, Worlds and stories in my mind at the same time, and I'll just seize on whichever one's interesting to me in my head and kind of think about that world and those people and what's going to happen next. And, um, the first time I started doing this was when I was working on yachts in my, um, twenties. I was a yacht captain for about 10 years, and I would have these really long days of just staring at the horizon with the boat on autopilot, looking at sensors and the GPS to make sure nothing bad happened. And gives you a lot of free time to, to daydream. And, um, so it's much easier to write when you know what's going to happen, when you've built out the world ahead of time and had all these conversations with your characters ahead of time. Um, so that's the first part of my writing process is basically daydreaming. The very thing that used to get me in trouble when I was in school and when I was actually preparing for a career.

AI assessment note: “so that's the first part of my writing process is basically daydreaming.”

Q What are some of the other things that you've learned about yourself through sailing and, uh, a lot of time in solitude and a lot of experience with different cultures around the world through your travels?

A Yeah, the cultural experiences have been amazing. Um, I've always loved to travel, but there's something about When you travel to Paris and you, you know, get out of the airport and you have, maybe you have some friends with you or a loved one, you spend a lot of time with that person and you dip into the culture and you have some of the food and you, you know, have encounters with strangers and you kind of get a sense of what that culture is like. But if you have to go study abroad and you, you know, live in a, a dorm or an apartment and you spend months there and you start picking up the language and you're grocery shopping and, you know, Cooking with whatever's available, um, in that place instead of eating out, um, that extra time, that deep immersion gives you a much better sense of the, the flavor of the culture, and the crazy thing about traveling like this is that I'm taking my home with me. You know, I have my kitchen everywhere I go, so I'm always, you know, buying groceries and, um, learning local recipes, and I'm having locals, you know, come stay with me on the boat, and like in French, um, Let's see. In Fiji, I had a big, large family come on and do a, um, uh, kava ceremony, like right on the boat. And, um, a lot of these.

AI assessment note: “Yeah, the cultural experiences have been amazing.”

Q you'll be able to own the fleet. And if you own the fleet, you'll have a lot of influence, not only in the city, but you'll just generally have a lot of influence. How do you think that plays out? Like, do you think it'll be individuals owning cars? Like, and they contribute them to this common fleet, or do you think it's like Google owns a fleet of cars?

A I think it'll be both. I think, you know, Google and, and we probably don't even know who's going to come out on top of this yet. It's always someone you don't expect. It's never the first mover. It won't be, you know, Tesla. It'll be, um, and, and we've learned enough about disruption that it could be a big player who pivots well. It could be a GM, which would be surprising, but it's possible. Um, building cars is very different from building apps. The disruption's much more difficult. Um, I think there'll be a company that'll come along kind of like a, Tesla that will, uh, improve self-driving. We'll learn to trust them like the way, um, we trusted, uh, Apple's operating system over Windows. Like imagine if in 15 years ago, Apple and Microsoft were both building self-driving cars, the blue screen of death would actually be a blue screen of death, and no one would put their life behind a Windows product. Um, so there'll be a company that comes along, and all it will take is a handful of crashes, and there's already been a few with Widely publicized deaths, even though these cars are probably a lot safer than humans. Uh, we don't know, have enough data yet to, to say that because we have driven, you know, billions and billions of miles as humans and these things, while they've done a lot of miles, they've also, there's been some accidents and some deaths. So the, the numbers ri…

AI assessment note: “I think it'll be both. I think, you know, Google and”

Q Thank you. Uh, you've thought about this a lot more, uh, in terms of the future than I think I have, and I appreciate you going into so much detail. I'm curious as to how you think the ways in which we're going to consume information is going to change in the future as well, from books to magazines to how does information consumption, how do you see that changing?

A I'm a little worried about that, to be honest, um, mostly for myself. Um, my book reading has really, uh, dropped off. I've been an avid reader my whole life, and there have been periods of my life where, um, I was reading a book a day. It was two, like, long periods of my life where I was keeping up that kind of pace, and, um, I don't understand how I was doing that now. Uh, there's just so many other things to distract my time, and I was doing this while I was in university and had full-time jobs and stuff, so, um, I, I fear that when I, when I got a smartphone and started using social media, that my attention span started changing. And part of what's been great about sailing is that it's gotten me, uh, completely disconnected when I take off and get out of a range of a cell phone tower, you know, I have like no connection or access for long periods of time. And, and I've loved that. And then I, you know, get back, I'm laying in the islands and, and reading a lot, but when I get back into, uh, when I get plugged back in, I guess you could say, um, my ability to sit and read for hours at a time is diminished. And there's been great books on this and, um, how our brains are being kind of rewired. Um, there's still a healthy reading, um, population out there. You know, I know that just from, um, spending time in bookstores and talking to owners and, Um, watching my own, you know…

AI assessment note: “when I got a smartphone and started using social media, that my attention span started changing”

Q I like that saying, freedom of choice is better than economies of scale. It's going to stick with me for a second. Walk me through sort of like you, you sell your books now, but you don't sell your electronic rights. You sell, do you sell audio and, uh, physical distribution and foreign translation, or do you, how does that work?

A Yeah, that's, that's kind of the thing that, um, got me on the radar from the publishing side. The people are really geeks about, uh, publishing news. Um, when I, when wool took off, I was working in a bookstore and this short story I'd wrote, um, Went up the charts, and I fleshed that into a novel by writing four more parts and combining them into a story. It was like serialized novel and the, the, uh, like the way Dickens used to publish, I guess. And, um, when the novel hit the New York Times bestseller list, uh, as a self-published ebook, um, I started getting a lot of interest from agents and, and publishers. And, um, I was, I was lucky in a few ways. One, I was living a very simple lifestyle. I didn't have, I was debt free. I had a very small house. Um, I didn't need the money. So I wasn't going to be swayed by an advance. Um, the second thing is I didn't need the validation from a publisher because I was already getting it from readers who were writing reviews on Amazon that I would read every day, like how much they love the story. And people were contacting me by email. I had my email on the back of the Book. And I was hearing directly from readers all over the world. And so having an editor tell me, I love your stuff, which probably would have done, that would have worked on me if I hadn't had anyone else tell me they loved it. And that's just part of the, the self do…

AI assessment note: “that's kind of the thing that, um, got me on the radar”