Top all-time · #2126
Hugh Howey
Personal blog · hughhowey.comwritingbusinessai
Hugh Howey's personal blog at hughhowey.com covers writing, business and ai. Since 2014, 36 different Hacker News readers have linked it 64 times, most often “Harmonism”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-28, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link Hugh Howey's blog for writing advice, self-publishing commentary, and pages on his Wool series and his neo writing tool. Commenters cite it as a source on the publishing industry.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
The worlds of Hugh C. Howey, best selling author of WOOL and the Molly Fyde series
Most-linked posts?
- Harmonism3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2023-04-07
- A Crumby Deal2 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2024-12-27
- The End of an Era2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-07-31
- Neo2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-08-10
- The AI Bubble Explained2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-09-26
- Neo – Desired Word Processor for Authors2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-07-19
- Write your next book without the friction2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-09-25
- Arriving Early with Assholes2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-07-12
What Hacker News says?
Hugh Howey on becoming a writer: > Insight #4: The best writers are the best readers. There aren’t any shortcuts around this. Successful writers read. They read a lot. And the best writers read a wide variety of books. It’s impossible to stress the importance of this insight. When aspiring authors ask my advice on making it as a writer, this is my most common first response: Read. https://hughhowey.com/writing-insig…
Comment linking /writing-insights-part-one-becoming-a-writer/
on “To become a better writer, read as much as you can”Submitted Neo – Desired Word Processor for Authors as a story · 134 points
HN discussionFrom 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…
Comment linking /our-silos-leak/
on “I was in the MAPS MDMA for PTSD study”Submitted So You Want to be a Writer (2016) as a story · 53 points
HN discussionHugh 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 >
Comment linking /?s=self-publishing
on “I wish I'd self-published sooner”Submitted We Can't Destroy Planet Earth as a story · 25 points
HN discussionOne writer recently wrote his own program for the job, but at least he eventually finished some books: https://hughhowey.com/neo/ Me, I just write in Emacs, set up a makefile, and export to PDF with Pandoc. But I admire the work to make a comfortable yet undistracting writing environment.
Comment linking /neo/
on “Novellas with Groff”Submitted The AI Bubble Explained as a story · 17 points
HN discussionBestseller 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 tho…
Comment linking /the-nyt-and-wsj-best-seller-lists-must-die/
on “Why Are Some People More Creative Than Others?”Submitted Neo – Hugh Howey as a story · 7 points
HN discussionI'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.
Comment linking /books/wool/
on “The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy Books of the Past Decade”Submitted A Crumby Deal as a story · 4 points
HN discussionFinding 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-ki... Robin Sloan: https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/at-home-in-high-dimensional-s... H…
Comment linking /ai-training-permission/
on “Paying AIs to read my books”Submitted A Crumby Deal as a story · 4 points
HN discussionAuthor 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.
Comment linking /
on “Author Earnings – Traditional vs Self Publishing”Submitted Arriving Early with Assholes as a story · 4 points
HN discussionsee also, his : https://hughhowey.com/the-end-of-an-era/
Comment linking /the-end-of-an-era/
on “Humazon”Submitted The Age of Excess as a story · 4 points
HN discussion> 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/15662306587665039... > 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…
Comment linking /most-books-dont-sell/
on “Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?”Submitted Neo as a story · 3 points
HN discussionThe 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
Comment linking /neo-a-word-processor-for-authors/
on “The End of an Era”Submitted State Surveillance as a story · 3 points
HN discussionOf 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/
Comment linking /harmonism/
on “AI could create religions to control humans, warns Sapiens author Harari”Submitted The Stochastic Parrot Sings Back as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Arriving Early with Assholes as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The WOOL TV Show as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted The Future of Crypto as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted Neo – A Word Processor for Authors as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted False Summits as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted AI on AI's Future as a story · 2 points
HN discussion
