My pleasure to introduce Eliot for AMA today at 1 PM PST!
Eliot Peper is the author of The Uncommon Series, the tech startup thriller trilogy. When he's not hacking away at his next novel, he works with entrepreneurs and investors to build new technology companies as a drop-in operator and advisor.
@eriktorenberg thanks for having me. I’m excited to field questions from the @ProductHunt community!
For anyone unfamiliar with my books, The Uncommon Series follows a young entrepreneur, Mara Winkel, as she leads her company from garage to IPO. They develop a new kind of algorithm that can help uncover fraud in financial data but get sucked into an international conspiracy along the way. It’s a page-turner about tech entrepreneurs.
Exit Strategy is the third and final book in the trilogy but you’ll want to read the book in order. You can find all of them here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product...
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@eliotpeper: when can we expect the film version of the trilogy? And what's your next project?
@fmariev I'm still waiting for J.J. Abrams to call me back, he's probably just out of the office or something...
The process of turning a book into a movie is labyrinthine. An agent sells a film studio the option to make the movie, then the studio has to decide to ACTUALLY make the movie, then they *hopefully* do and, if everything goes swimmingly, it hits theaters. Although authors generally have very little to do with the process, I haven't embarked on it yet.
And that brings us to your second question. The reason I haven't yet pursued Hollywood is because I'm working on a new novel. It's a new story with new characters that takes place in a near future Bay Area ravaged by income inequality and persistent surveillance. I'll be writing the rough draft over the next few months and I look forward to getting your take on it.
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Hey @eliotpeper! When can I get one of those awesome t-shirts James is always wearing in the books?
@adchamberlain Hahaha, great question! A number of readers have asked about this. I tried to find an amazing designer to bring the t-shirts to life but haven’t yet discovered the right person to do them justice. If folks have suggestions here, I’d love to hear them. It would be a lot of fun to sport James’s infamous apparel.
@jacqvon On the startup side, I talked to major venture investors, dozens of founders, and CEOs that have taken multiple tech companies public on NYSE and NASDAQ.
On the thriller side, I interviewed federal special agents, financial service executives, money laundering investigators, cybersecurity experts, investors, and technologists in order to deepen the story’s verisimilitude. I was shocked with what I learned along the way.
The United Nations estimates that organized crime brings in $2 trillion a year in profits and the black market makes up 15–20% of global GDP. It takes a median of 229 days for data breaches to even be discovered. That’s a long time for criminals to be inside our systems, building new backdoors for future exploitation. Worse, institutions are loath to report breaches even when they are uncovered for fear that our trust in them will degrade even further. In a study released last month, The Government Accounting Office found that many federal examiners in charge of bank information security audits have little or no IT training.
Capos, arms dealers, human traffickers, and cartels manipulate corrupt insiders, exploit legal loopholes, lobby crooked politicians, and take advantage of the same kinds of technical weaknesses that made the OPM hack possible. They are only able to get away with it because banks and regulators turn a blind eye or, more often, don’t even know when it’s happening.
I was just trying to make the books feel real but found that fact is far more disturbing than fiction.
@brentsum Ooooohh, I'm prepared for this one. I just assembled a Collection called "Fiction for Founders" with loads of reading recommendations:
http://www.producthunt.com/@elio...
Let me know what you think and what other books should be on there.
@melissajoykong Make things that improve people’s lives. If you write a book, make sure the story is important to you. If you go on a podcast, don’t just talk about yourself. Instead, think about what you might be able to share that would make a real impact for listeners. If you write a guest post, don’t just try to drive traffic to your work. Craft something that’s valuable on its own as a piece of evergreen content. Basically, put the interests of your readers ahead of your own.
Even if you only have a few readers, do everything you can to make their day. Don’t force email blasts into their inboxes. Send them personal, substantive notes that show how much you appreciate and respect them. I respond to every single email from folks who subscribe to my newsletter and cold emails from readers who loved the books.
Last fall, I heard from a startup founder in Ireland who read and loved the trilogy. We corresponded back and forth a few times and when my wife and I visited on holiday in June, we grabbed beers with him in Dublin. That conversation was incredibly special for us both and neither of us is likely to forget it. I’ve heard from financial executives that found the books terrifyingly real, aid workers in East Africa who deal with corruption everyday, and random readers who blew through one of the novels to mitigate the boredom of a long flight. Don’t treat fans as metrics, engagements, or anything else. They’re people. The more we treat each other like people the more we earn each other's respect.
I’ve found this essay and book quite formative on this topic:
http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-t...http://www.amazon.com/Discoverab...
I’ve also shared some of my own process here:
http://www.williamhertling.com/2...http://blog.reedsy.com/post/1042...
@dfmorse23 I'm very much at the beginning of my career as a writer and improving craft is my #1 priority. I write a lot, even when I feel uninspired. I focus on improving specific elements of craft like structure, characterization, pacing, tightening copy, etc. I believe that "real artists ship" and releasing new material on a regular schedule has been enormously helpful because each manuscript goes through the full editorial and production lifecycle and gets real feedback from readers. Folks like @shanhikes, @joshanon, and @hertling have taught me a lot.
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