The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf
The Star Online: Lifestyle: Bookshelf |
| Posted: 11 Dec 2012 03:16 AM PST After turning his back on writing, Michael Sullivan took another bite at publishing and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. BY all accounts, Michael Sullivan is a very successful self-published author. His six-book fantasy series The Riyria Revelations, mostly self-published, sold tens of thousands of copies in e-book and print format. Then, they were picked up by the publisher Orbit, which offered him a six-figure advance (for a condensed three-book version). He has even won bagfuls of awards for them. Yet, the series about two thieves framed for the murder of a king almost didn't exist at all. "Twenty-two years," says Sullivan via e-mail (even in written form, you could hear the emphasis of that three-word sentence!). That's how long it took for The Riyria Revelations to land on bookshelves the world over. "That's 14 years 'thinking', four years writing, two and a half years editing, nine months working with the editors at Orbit and six months waiting until all the books made it through their releases," the Virginia-based American writer says. The Riyria Revelations' success is especially gratifying to Sullivan after his painfully discouraging start as a writer. So disappointing was his foray into the field that he gave up writing creatively for a decade. The former graphic designer had always been a storyteller and found the act of writing fascinating. "It's the only job I know where you get to play God," he says. So he taught himself to write by taking apart books – classics and popular novels – to study how tension was built, how characters were created and how dialogue was made believable. (He didn't actually read books about writing or attend a single seminar, he says.) When the first of his three children was born, Sullivan and his wife Robin decided that one of them should stay at home to raise the children. "My wife made more money than I, so the logical (albeit unconventional, perhaps) choice was for me to be the caregiver. It gave me time to write when the kids were down for their naps," he explains. He gave his writing career an earnest go and over 10 years, wrote 13 novels. But there was not a single spark of interest from literary agents or publishing houses. "I would write query letters for agents, send them out, get rejected, rinse and repeat. I'm not sure who first coined the term 'query-go-round' but that describes the process well," he says. After a decade, his children were in school and most of his friends had successful careers. Not wanting to be left behind, Sullivan embarked on a "conventional career" and eventually started an advertising company, Spectrum Design. "I had the fancy high-rise office, an all-glass conference room, a bunch of employees ... the whole nine yards. It made me feel for the first time like I had 'accomplished something'," he says. He had "no itch to write" at this time because he was so busy building the company – nevertheless, his mind was busy filing away ideas, it seems, because when he started getting bored with the money-making routine, he found himself itchy to write again. And he thought: Why not just write something for fun, without the intention to publish? "Because I didn't care about pleasing anyone but myself, the joy of writing returned," he says. Rather than the literary novels that he'd written in his previous stint as a struggling novelist, he decided to write fantasy, something he'd loved writing when he was a child. The years of mentally filing away ideas in "the attic of my mind" paid off. He wrote the first book in just a month, and spent the same amount of time with the second book. "I had so much of it already thought out, and it had been so long since I had written, that it was like a dam breaking. The story just poured out," he says. By writing the series, Sullivan also hoped to ignite a passion for reading in his then 13-year-old daughter, who suffers from dyslexia. However, when he showed her the stack of papers that was his manuscript, his daughter said that it was "too weird" to read it that way. "If you want me to read it, you have to get it published," she told him, according to Sullivan's blog at tinyurl.com/a7yn767. Since he thought that his first attempt at publishing was a "tremendous waste of time", Sullivan wasn't very eager to get back on the "query-go-round". But climb back on he did for his daughter's sake – and his first book, The Crown Conspiracy, was picked up by small press publisher Aspirations Media. It was released in late 2008. Unfortunately, Aspirations Media didn't have enough cash for the second book's (Avempartha) print run, so the printing rights reverted to Sullivan. In the end, Sullivan and Robin set up their own publishing company, Ridan Publishing, in 2007 just to publish the books. (Ridan went on to add new authors, and is now a legitimate small press in its own right.) At first, Sullivan's books sold moderately well – about 1,000 books across four titles a month. However, something strange happened in November last year. Suddenly, he was selling more than 10,000 copies a month! Between November 2011 and February 2012, Sullivan sold 40,000 books. He was doing so well that when Orbit came knocking, he and Robin did some math and realised that they could lose about US$200,000 to US$300,000 (RM 610,540 to RM 915,810) if the books became a moderate, traditionally-published success. "Obviously, if they became a breakout hit, we would make much more, but the chances of lightning striking like that again was highly unlikely," Sullivan says. But money wasn't Sullivan's motivation for signing up with a New York publisher. "I didn't care if I'd lose some money because the books had already made more than enough so that both my wife and I no longer needed 'day jobs'," he says. What he really wanted to do was to extend his "brand" and to go through doors that had previously been closed to him: bookstores, libraries, movie and television opportunities, and having his book translated into different languages. Sullivan thinks that there's never been a better time to be a writer than now, what with e-books growing in prominence and popularity. "In the old days, the only choice to make any 'real money' was with a big-six publisher. The problem, of course, is they have a limited number of slots each publishing calendar so the bandwidth was extremely limited," he points out. As a result, many books were turned down simply because there just wasn't any room for them. But these days, with e-books making self-publishing so easy, there's an infinite number of spaces. "Because of the high percentage of money that remains with authors, in many ways it is easier to make a financial success in self-publishing than through a traditional publisher," Sullivan says. Ultimately, he wants to get as many of his books as possible into people's hands. "Still, I imagine one day that I'll be in some public area, like a commuter train or plane, and I'll see someone reading my book. Now, that would be something!" |
| Posted: 11 Dec 2012 03:03 AM PST For this author, it's all about the story and the storyteller, and tales told with passion and skill. IS it good news or bad news that E.L. James of Fifty Shades Of Grey fame is not the only author in her family? While each book in the Fifty Shades trilogy has sold in record-breaking numbers, critical reaction to them has been decidedly ... lukewarm, to put it kindly. So how will a book by her husband, Niall Leonard, fare? Both James and Leonard actually share a background in TV; James' website says she was a "TV executive" while Leonard actually made (and still makes) a living as a writer for TV series. In fact, you may have heard his words without realising it if you are a fan of excellent British TV crime dramas like Wire In The Blood and Silent Witness; he also wrote episodes for the drama Monarch Of The Glen and the screenplay for the TV movie Horatio Hornblower 3. Leonard recently followed his wife into the realms of printed fiction with Crusher, a gritty young adult fiction novel about a young man who wants to avenge the murder of his stepfather. And, again like the wife (who famously began writing fan fiction rather than for print), his book was an unintended consequence of a personal project: it was his entry for the 2011 National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) event. While Crusher's narrative centres on a teenager, it seems that writing for the young adult market was not Leonard's intention. "I actually wrote Crusher for myself, and tried to make it the sort of story I would enjoy reading. I never thought the book would get published, so I didn't worry about whether it would appeal to anyone else," he shares in a recent e-mail interview. Indeed, he doesn't seem to find writing for adults or teenagers any different, as he believes that Crusher can be enjoyed by all age groups (except perhaps very young readers for whom he deems the book unsuitable). "As a teenager I used to read 'adult' books and as an adult, I enjoy reading 'teenage' books along with everything else. It's all about the story and the storyteller and whether the tale is told with passion and skill." So why did he decide to move into print fiction, we ask. "Writing for television is exciting and varied but it can feel limiting. The writer's choices are restricted by the format of the show and the established characters, and he or she must mould his or her ideas to conform to those of the producers. Writing a book gives you much more freedom to tell a story your own way. That freedom itself can be scary, but once I'd decided to explore the tale of Crusher through (protagonist) Finn Maguire's eyes, everything seemed to fall into place." According to Leonard, the idea for the story stemmed from a conversation he had with a friend. "A friend of mine complained there were no books for her 17-year-old son to enjoy because he did not like sci-fi, paranormal tales, or romances, and lots of books for teens these days seem to use those conventions. "I immediately thought someone should write a gritty, realistic story set in present day London, featuring a 17-year-old boy setting out to find a killer. That was the seed for Crusher." Next came the bare-bones structure for the story: "When I started Crusher, I knew who the villain was and what had been going on behind the scenes. But I did not know how Finn was going to find out, so what he did sometimes surprised me. Sometimes, I knew beforehand how he would get in trouble but had no idea how he would get out of it and had to find a way – that made the storytelling exciting for me, and I hope that excitement comes across in the writing." Leonard feels that readers will identify with Finn because he wants to know the truth and do what's right. "He's tough, he's funny, and he's smart, but he's human and he can get hurt, and he sometimes trusts the wrong people. I think that's why he's likeable – he's human, like us. "I think we also identify with him because he makes things happen, in a way we would like to do ourselves if we were smart and brave enough. I hope that readers will take to heart that if you believe in yourself and stand up for what's right, you can surprise yourself and the people around you." In the novel, Leonard makes it a point to mention that Finn's scriptwriter father writes a minimum of 10 pages a day. A case of art imitating life, perhaps? According to Leonard, the best, most successful writers are very disciplined. They set themselves a target to write every day, and achieve it, an action that forces them to confront problems and solve them rather than put them off for another day. That being said, he finds it very hard to write large amounts unless he has spent a lot of time beforehand working out who the characters are and where their story ultimately goes. He credits this process to his experience in writing for TV, where there isn't much time to experiment, as one needs to ensure at the very beginning that the story is the right length and includes the correct elements. That discipline comes in handy when it comes to writing books, Leonard points out. As for young adult books or authors he admires, The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins and the King Alfred series by Bernard Cornwell are two he mentions. "Cornwell's books are not for adults or young adults – they're just great, stirring stories with fabulous characters that all ages can enjoy. Suzanne Collins's books, too, are being enjoyed by all ages." With his wife's experience and now his own behind him, what advice would Leonard give aspiring writers? He stresses upon not making excuses or procrastinating. "If you have a good idea, sit down and work out where it goes and how you will tell it, and start writing. Keep moving forward until the story is finished – don't keep going back to revise Chapter One. "Never show off, just write for yourself, and try to enjoy it, so that your reader will, too. The more you write, the more you will learn about writing and the better you will get." Leonard is currently working on the sequel to Crusher, and after that, he hopes to write about an amazing historical character he came across recently (who it is, he refuses to reveal) whose real-life adventures were, according to Leonard, completely amazing. |
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