Year Zero (41 page)

Writing fiction can be a very solitary pursuit. But I was blessed in having a few people who kept me company, in a sense, by reading and commenting on multiple drafts of
Year Zero
throughout its development. It isn’t an outlandishly long novel, but Scott Faber and Alan Peterson read enough versions of it to make
War and Peace
look breezy by comparison. Arch Meredith also went through multiple editions,
and all three of these guys had a huge impact on the book’s final form through their generous feedback.

Susanne Losch was another source of priceless input, above all her polite but firm suggestion that I consider adding a plot to the book after reading an early draft of it. Susanne then introduced me to Lynn Hightower, a twelve-time novelist who is also an instructor with UCLA’s writing program. I spent several months restructuring my story with Lynn as a mentor, coach, and taskmaster, and the results were transformative. Dan Muth, Jim Gable, and John Hlinko all gave me detailed written, annotated, and verbal feedback on the first truly complete draft of the book, and each of them pushed me to hone and sharpen the story in ways that improved it significantly. Chris Alden and John Battelle helped me in similar ways with my final major rewrite.

Several more people were generous with their editorial input after reading full drafts of the book, including Avril Love, Bob Lesko, Drew Curtis, Eric Kronfeld, George Gilder, Juan Enriquez, Miles Beckett, and Ryan Vance. Others shared their expertise in areas as diverse as lobbying, the law, office politics, geek culture, and kick-ass rock ’n’ roll by reading focused parts of the book, or by answering detailed questions from me. They include Dan Horowitz, Diana Woods, J. P. Shub, Julia Popowitz, Kevin Kiernan, Lawrence Lessig, Matt Keil, Scott Sigler, Stephen Bishop, Tim Chang, Tim Quirk, and Zahavah Levine. Kevin Pereira, meanwhile, had almost nothing to do with the creation of this book, but I’d like to thank him anyway. Let’s just say he’s owed.

Before sending
Year Zero
out to publishers, I approached four people who I admire in hopes of getting short written
endorsements from them. After reading the book, all of them pushed me hard to revise and revisit it in ways that significantly improved it. Chris Anderson, Jill Tarter, John Hodgman, and Mark Jannot therefore have my deep gratitude not only for giving
Year Zero
their blessing, but also for helping it to become the book that it is. Excerpts of their comments are now on its cover, along with a few others from people that I approached after Random House/Del Rey agreed to publish it.

Speaking of Del Rey, I would like to thank my editors, Betsy Mitchell and David Pomerico, for believing in this book, and for their wise and generous counsel as I honed and polished the story under their guidance. My profound thanks also go out to my agent, Alice Martell, both for believing in
Year Zero
and for finding it an amazing home at Del Rey.

Finally, while this book doesn’t have a co-author, it does have something of a co-pilot. Ashby the Dog stationed herself on a chair next to my own throughout its creation, and kept a careful eye on everything. I couldn’t have written this book had my office been overrun with noisy, distracting squirrels, and with Ashby on duty, this was never a danger.

R
OB
R
EID
is the founder of
Listen.com
, which created the Rhapsody service, the world’s largest seller of online music until it was eclipsed (rather badly, he’ll admit) by Apple’s iTunes service. He is the author of
Year One
, a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School, and
Architects of the Web
, a business history of the Internet. He lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Morgan.