A VERY SPECIAL INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN
You all know I live and breath fantasy, write it and read it. But I'm pretty particular about what I read. So when I say I've become a fan of this author, it's because his books are on my shelf of favorites. That's not a compliment I give lightly.
I'm overjoyed to have Michael J. Sullivan here to discuss his books and teach us something about his remarkable journey from small press to self-published to traditional published, all with the same series of books. He's the author of the Riyria Revelations, the Riyria Chronicles, and Hollow World series as well as some short stories.
I, and I’m sure many others, find it inspiring that you were first published with a small press, then moved to being self-published, and then got your tradition publishing deal, all with the same books, the Riyria Revelations. Can you share a little about that journey and to what do you attribute the success?
The full credit goes to my wife, who has been the architect of “the business side” of my writing. I think it illustrates a kind of persistent determination that is so important in publishing. Robin is the type of person that doesn’t let obstacle stop her. She’ll find a way to go over, dig under, or break through any wall in her path.
Decades earlier, I had tried and failed at the whole publishing game, and when I picked up the pen again it was only on the condition that I wouldn’t seek publication. But Robin was convinced that the books needed to get “out there,” so she took it upon herself to do exactly that. She sent out hundreds of query letters, persevered through the rejections, and eventually landed an agent. At the time, we thought we were on our way. A year later we still had no offers, so she moved her concentration from the big-six to the smaller independent companies. My first contract was with AMI, a small press out of Minnesota. When they fell on hard times, and couldn’t raise the money for the print run on the second book, she jumped into self-publishing. As the series neared its completion, and sales were starting to pick up, she thought it might be worth submitting to New York again, and she was right. Our agent sent the book to 17 publishers (all whom had seen the same project many years before and rejected it). Half of them expressed immediate interest, and Orbit made a really attractive pre-emptive bid…and the rest, as they say, is history.
What would you say was the hardest step along that journey? Getting your first break? Deciding to self-publish? Deciding to switch to tradition publishing? Getting an agent or something else?
Is “all of the above” too much of a copout? Seriously, though, the publishing business is rarely easy no matter which route you take. I compare publishing much like hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. You climb, struggling all the way, and just as you reach the crest, you look out to see row after row of other peaks extending out to the horizon. There is always a new challenge to overcome.
Having done the full gamut, I’d say that each path has its own challenges, and I wouldn’t classify one route has harder or easier than the other. I will say that getting that very first independent person who says “I like this,” is a monumental step. And it, more than any others, makes you think, “I just might be able to make this thing work, and I’m not totally delusional about my writing ability.”
One thing you would change of your writing journey, if you had a magic lamp/time machine?
Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing about my publishing path. I think doing it the way I have has given me great perspective, which is especially important given all the flux in the publishing business right now. I’m more agile than most, because I’ve done it all and can pick and choose from a wide range of possibilities for each project. My latest novel (Hollow World – releasing in April) is a true hybrid. I sold the audio rights to one publisher, the print rights to another, but I’ve kept the ebook rights. For most authors, they just keep publishing in whatever way they started out with, and I think that they could benefit from a little more diversity.
On the writing end, I wouldn’t have taken my ten-year hiatus. At my writing pace, that could have meant another 20 – 25 books. As I get older, I realize that many of my stories will die with me, as I won’t have enough years left to write them all. At the time I quit, it seemed to make perfect sense; I had written twelve books over the course of a decade and got nowhere. To me it was all just a waste of time, but now I know it was actually laying the foundation for my second go at publishing.
You mention in the acknowledgements of The Crown Tower (recently released) giving up writing for ten years. What drove you to get back to the work of creating worlds and people?
Ha, I promise I didn’t peak ahead. It’s interesting this question follows on the heels of my regret about quitting. It was probably the confluence of a few things. · I had grown bored of the profession I had been doing (I ran my own advertising agency), and boredom has always been a catalyst for my creative endeavors.· My dyslexic daughter was having problems reading, and I wanted to give her a book to ignite a love of reading. The best way to do that was to write something myself.· Writing had always been my life’s goal, even when I was a child, and I had reached an age where if I didn’t start then, I would never do it.· For that decade when I was going “cold turkey,” the stories just kept coming to me, and they were piling up. I felt the best way to exorcise them out of my brain was to transfer the ideas to paper.
· The realization that writing and publishing don’t have to be married together. I could write books just for me, my daughter, my wife, and a few friends and the satisfaction would come from the doing…not any form of external validation.
Like George Lucas, you’ve taken your Riyria Revelations series and gone to prequels with The Crown Tower and The Rose and the Thorn . On the one hand you really know the characters well, but what is the hard part of writing prequels to a well-known series?
Well, unlike Lucas, it wasn’t planned that way. I had never intended to write any more about Royce and Hadrian other than the six books of The Riyria Revelations. But my readers, and more importantly my wife, were having major withdrawals, which made me think about writing more. Since the series was so carefully planned and executed I thought “tacking on” would be the wrong thing to do. So instead, I went to the other end of the timeline.
I think there were two difficulties. One is that there were pillars, foundations that can’t be messed with, so I’m more boxed in. The other is that my readers already know a lot, and so I have to push the envelope to grab and keep their interest. My approach was to expand on things only lightly mentioned in Revelations. Whenever I write, I employ the iceberg approach to both character and world building. Writing Chronicles allowed me to open my trunk and tell more about people and events, which only I knew about. Things like Gwen and Hildfred’s history and the circumstances that put Gwen in the right place at a very critical time.
You seem to be a people person. I see you on twitter and Goodreads. You’re very active in your own marketing and promotion. As someone who successfully self-published would you share some tips on what were your most successful promotional tools, besides writing captivating characters and engaging plotlines?
I attribute my early success to two main sources: Bloggers (who are amazingly hard working people that create works of love with little, or no, monetary reward) and Goodreads which is an amazing community of readers.
For bloggers, it’s important to treat them with the upmost respect. That means everything from doing your research before approaching them, providing them things to make their jobs easier (cover pictures, author bio, book blurbs, buy links, contact information), etc. Also you have to realize that they have a lot of people competing for their attention so you need to “pitch” your book in a way that really gets them excited. Don’t just jot of an email saying, “I wrote this book, do you want to read it?” Instead, create a “mini ad” that has a catchy headline, the book’s cover, some quotes from readers or other reviewers, and some compelling “back of the book” summarization. Again respect their time, so be short and sweet, but present your book professionally and you’ll have a better chance of being pushed to the top of their very high TBR pile.
For goodreads, and any venue where readers gather, it’s important to be a member of the community first and only bring up your books where appropriate and only if the rules allow. Some groups have designated folders for promotional activities; others forbid you mentioning your book at all. So know what you can or cannot do. If you violate the rules, the wrath will be swift and harsh. But if you participate in the discussion and are a “genuine” person, then people will take the initiative to checkout your books on their own. You don’t have to say, “buy my book” that never goes over well, but if you are engaging (and most importantly helpful) then you’ll get sales without ever saying those three words that put so many people off.
What’s the most important thing you can give a first-time reader to turn them into fans for life?
I think the first chapter of the first book of The Riyria Revelations (Theft of Swords) does a really good job at showing my style and voice. It actually reads like a self-contained short story about two guys who are being robbed in the middle of nowhere. Not only do they escape harm, but they also give the robbers pointers for future attempts. It shows the dynamic between Royce and Hadrian, and if people read that chapter and like it, it’s a pretty good bet they’ll like the rest of my writing.
Along the same lines, I also created a short story, The Viscount and the Witch which is free on all the major sites (for some reason I can’t get it free on B&N where it is $0.99, but I’ll always send free copies to people who email me). Like the start of Theft of Swords it is a short, easy to read introduction to my main characters and overall style of writing.
What do you find most fascinating about writing an epic series with multiply volumes like Riyria Revelations?
Without doubt it is the ability to weave threads and plant Easter eggs so that there are actually two stories for the reader. Each book has its own tale to tell, where there is a main conflict which is resolved fully, but there is also an over arching story and each book provides various clues, or red herrings that people can start to piece together.
Here’s an example. In the first book of Revelations, the main characters find themselves in a prison where a spell (experienced through constantly played music) dredges up a person’s worst memory, forcing them to relive it perpetually. For Hadrian, it’s killing a tiger while a crowd shouts “Gillanti.” Readers aren’t suppose to know what this means, but some will note it as important. Sure enough, several novels later (in the second book of Rise of Empire) they learn the whole story behind that memory and why it’s so painful.
Because I write the entire series before submitting them for publication (a technique I don’t recommend for new writers), I’m able to go back into earlier books and add threads when a really good idea comes up in later books.
This is something a lot of writers have heard over and over from agents: I just didn’t connect. There’s no question that your main characters are full-fleshed out. What do you think makes a main character relatable, and how do you add depth to them?
I cheat. Having a duo, rather than a single protagonist, helps me out immensely. Some will gravitate toward Royce, others Hadrian. I also get to show two sides of the same coin. Both characters wrestle with the regrets of their earlier lives, but their experiences produced different results.
For Hadrian, it makes him desire to be a hero rather than a parasitic thief for hire. He’s the more affable of the two, who is willing to lend a helping hand, as a way of paying pence for years of squandering his skills. Royce, on the other hand, was hardened by his tough upbringing. Distrustful, cynical, and much more concerned with self-preservation, he builds walls which isolate him from any chance of love or redemption. But both affect each other and while Royce is teaching Hadrian to stop being so naïve, Hadrian is earning Royce’s trust which gives him a way to break out of the prison of his own making. I think people want to be one or the other, or just have them as friends and share in their adventures.
For those that don’t have duos, my best advice is to write characters that you personally like and would enjoy spending time with. My books don’t follow the current trend in fantasy, of reprehensible characters in oppressive worlds. My characters may not win every fight, and there is death and heartbreak along the way, but I do have a dash of optimism that people enjoy when reading as a form of escapist entertainment.
There are dire words floating around about the market for fantasy. Agents proclaim no editor wants it, at least in YA. What are your predictions regarding the fantasy market?
I’ve never been “market driven” which probably explains why I failed in the early days. My mantra has been “write books I want to read,” and ultimately I’ve made that work for me. But it’s much easier to live by those words once you’ve “make it.”
I do think we have a lot of diversity right now, and there is still room for more. The truth is that no one knows what will sell, and traditional publishing has more failures than successes. The statistics I’ve seen is something like one book in five produces a profit and has to subsidize the other four that fail. You can’t really try to “time the market” as whatever you are writing now is years from release in the slow moving traditional system. To complicate matters, publishers operate with a “pack-like mentality.” There was a time with paranormal urban fantasy was hot, but once a certain sub-genre is deemed “oversaturated” they reject everything in that vein. In many ways they perpetuate the system.
The good news is there are now two sets of gatekeepers: traditional (that may lock out certain types at certain times) and self-publishing, where the readers will decide a book’s fate. So in many ways you have to “get it out there” and let the readers decide.
While you can rarely judge what will be hot, there is something that never goes out of style, and that is a good story well told. The will always be room for an engaging story with characters the readers become emotionally attached to.
I’m a firm admirer of using humor in stories. So many main characters are all with the drama and never with the quip. Your main characters never let go of their fun side. What made you decide to go in this direction with them?
I’ve made no secret that I write books that I want to read, and to me a book filled with dire people in even direr situations isn’t as entertaining as one that makes me smile or laugh. I think sometimes writers feel that adding humor brings their books down a peg, but I don’t think books that lack it are any more complex, realistic, or engaging. In fact, when it comes to realism, I think it hurts the story to omit it. We crack jokes in real life all the time, even when times are tough…or especially when they are tough. It’s a coping mechanism. As a writer we all want to touch a reader with our stories, and to me that means shedding a tear or laughing out loud. If I can do both on the same page it’s doubly sweet.
I was going to ask who your favorite character is, but that’s like asking which is your favorite child. So I’ll ask what genre is nearest your heart. You do write in a wide variety of them.
It’s funny because everyone thinks of me as a “fantasy writer” because that’s the first thing that got published, but I do write in just about every genre that exists. I wrote twelve novels during my first ten years when I was originally writing to publish. That includes: fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, mysteries, literary, coming of age, young adult, you name it. The only ones I’ve not dabbled in are romance, erotica, and westerns.
Fantasy is my first love, what got me interested in the written word. Prior to reading The Hobbit it was like pulling teeth to get me to finish a book. After it, I read extensively and writing became my favorite pastime. It will probably always have a sentimental spot in my heart because of that, but I do hope to be able to release books in a wide range of styles.
Do you rely on critique groups to go over your writing or did you hire an editor when you were starting out?
I think every author needs independent feedback. My first and most trusted source is Robin, who is great at finding plot holes, and has a really good eye for pacing and character motivation. She’s made immeasurable contributions to my work, long before anyone else sees it. I do also utilize beta testers and my critique group (shout out to the Arlington Writers Meetup). Beta testers read the full manuscript, of course, but my critique group generally only gets the first chapter. I also have a number of writer friends whose opinions I trust, and they are early readers as well.
As to editors, Avempartha was my first self-published book (actually book #2 of the series) and it had gone through the entire production cycle with AMI, so it was already professionally edited when the rights reverted. The same was true for Book #1 which eventually reverted once the print run sold out. Because both of those books were edited by AMI, we only needed to do a bit of proof reading. For book #3 (Nyphron Rising) and #4 (the Emerald Storm) we did hire freelance copy editors. Book #5 (Wintertide) was edited by Robin and a fulltime intern we had at the time, and Book #6 (Percepliquis) was edited by Orbit. Then, of course,the whole series was re-edited by Orbit once they bought it.
No interview with a writer would be complete without asking are you a pantser or plotter?
If people watched me write a book, they’d probably say plotter, because I start out with an outline and pretty much have the entire framework laid out before I sit down to start. That being said, I would actually answer that I’m both. There is no way for me to anticipate where the story will lead once actual writing begins. So I’m all for deviating from that original outline.
To me it’s like taking a trip. I know what highways I’ll take, what towns I’ll stop in for food or to sleep. But I might find a particularly interesting town and wind up staying a few days even though I had originally planned to just pass through. The side trip might even put me on the road to a different destination, but it is a “known” place. I don’t wander aimlessly, and so when I drive out of town I know where I’m now heading to.
Just for fun, silliest mistake you ever found in your own writing?
I’m famous for homophone errors, and sometimes I don’t even understand that a word that I’ve always used is actually spelled two different ways. This deficiency has made for some pretty embarrassing mistakes. The funniest of recent memory is from Hollow World. In it I have a character, who after seeing a brutal murder ended up “balling on a couch” rather than my intended “bawling on a couch”). Too very different acts ;-). It’s even more ironic considering the character in question is from the future where genetic engineering has removed gender and everyone is basically the equivalent of Ken dolls. When my wife got to that part of the book, she just had to come upstairs to teach me there are two versions of that word.
I’m going all fan girl here. Hadrian or Royce from your Riyria books with you on a deserted island?
There is no contest, definitely Hadrian. Did I mention he was the more affable of the two? Royce would immediately leave, finding some out of the way place where he could live out his days in solitude. Picking him would pretty much be equivalent to being alone, but with the added danger that he would kill me if supplies were scarce.With Hadrian, we would talk, work together to build some kind of shelter, and basically make the best of a bad situation. He would divide rations fairly even though he could pummel me easily. I’d never have to worry about watching my back as he could be trusted at all times.
To learn more:Blogs: Riyria | Hollow World | The First EmpireContact: email | twitter | facebook | goodreads | redditOnline sites: Wikipedia | Amazon | B&N | ibookstore
I'm overjoyed to have Michael J. Sullivan here to discuss his books and teach us something about his remarkable journey from small press to self-published to traditional published, all with the same series of books. He's the author of the Riyria Revelations, the Riyria Chronicles, and Hollow World series as well as some short stories.
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I, and I’m sure many others, find it inspiring that you were first published with a small press, then moved to being self-published, and then got your tradition publishing deal, all with the same books, the Riyria Revelations. Can you share a little about that journey and to what do you attribute the success?
The full credit goes to my wife, who has been the architect of “the business side” of my writing. I think it illustrates a kind of persistent determination that is so important in publishing. Robin is the type of person that doesn’t let obstacle stop her. She’ll find a way to go over, dig under, or break through any wall in her path.
Decades earlier, I had tried and failed at the whole publishing game, and when I picked up the pen again it was only on the condition that I wouldn’t seek publication. But Robin was convinced that the books needed to get “out there,” so she took it upon herself to do exactly that. She sent out hundreds of query letters, persevered through the rejections, and eventually landed an agent. At the time, we thought we were on our way. A year later we still had no offers, so she moved her concentration from the big-six to the smaller independent companies. My first contract was with AMI, a small press out of Minnesota. When they fell on hard times, and couldn’t raise the money for the print run on the second book, she jumped into self-publishing. As the series neared its completion, and sales were starting to pick up, she thought it might be worth submitting to New York again, and she was right. Our agent sent the book to 17 publishers (all whom had seen the same project many years before and rejected it). Half of them expressed immediate interest, and Orbit made a really attractive pre-emptive bid…and the rest, as they say, is history.
What would you say was the hardest step along that journey? Getting your first break? Deciding to self-publish? Deciding to switch to tradition publishing? Getting an agent or something else?
Is “all of the above” too much of a copout? Seriously, though, the publishing business is rarely easy no matter which route you take. I compare publishing much like hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. You climb, struggling all the way, and just as you reach the crest, you look out to see row after row of other peaks extending out to the horizon. There is always a new challenge to overcome.
Having done the full gamut, I’d say that each path has its own challenges, and I wouldn’t classify one route has harder or easier than the other. I will say that getting that very first independent person who says “I like this,” is a monumental step. And it, more than any others, makes you think, “I just might be able to make this thing work, and I’m not totally delusional about my writing ability.”
One thing you would change of your writing journey, if you had a magic lamp/time machine?
Honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing about my publishing path. I think doing it the way I have has given me great perspective, which is especially important given all the flux in the publishing business right now. I’m more agile than most, because I’ve done it all and can pick and choose from a wide range of possibilities for each project. My latest novel (Hollow World – releasing in April) is a true hybrid. I sold the audio rights to one publisher, the print rights to another, but I’ve kept the ebook rights. For most authors, they just keep publishing in whatever way they started out with, and I think that they could benefit from a little more diversity.
On the writing end, I wouldn’t have taken my ten-year hiatus. At my writing pace, that could have meant another 20 – 25 books. As I get older, I realize that many of my stories will die with me, as I won’t have enough years left to write them all. At the time I quit, it seemed to make perfect sense; I had written twelve books over the course of a decade and got nowhere. To me it was all just a waste of time, but now I know it was actually laying the foundation for my second go at publishing.
You mention in the acknowledgements of The Crown Tower (recently released) giving up writing for ten years. What drove you to get back to the work of creating worlds and people?
Ha, I promise I didn’t peak ahead. It’s interesting this question follows on the heels of my regret about quitting. It was probably the confluence of a few things. · I had grown bored of the profession I had been doing (I ran my own advertising agency), and boredom has always been a catalyst for my creative endeavors.· My dyslexic daughter was having problems reading, and I wanted to give her a book to ignite a love of reading. The best way to do that was to write something myself.· Writing had always been my life’s goal, even when I was a child, and I had reached an age where if I didn’t start then, I would never do it.· For that decade when I was going “cold turkey,” the stories just kept coming to me, and they were piling up. I felt the best way to exorcise them out of my brain was to transfer the ideas to paper.
· The realization that writing and publishing don’t have to be married together. I could write books just for me, my daughter, my wife, and a few friends and the satisfaction would come from the doing…not any form of external validation.
Like George Lucas, you’ve taken your Riyria Revelations series and gone to prequels with The Crown Tower and The Rose and the Thorn . On the one hand you really know the characters well, but what is the hard part of writing prequels to a well-known series?
Well, unlike Lucas, it wasn’t planned that way. I had never intended to write any more about Royce and Hadrian other than the six books of The Riyria Revelations. But my readers, and more importantly my wife, were having major withdrawals, which made me think about writing more. Since the series was so carefully planned and executed I thought “tacking on” would be the wrong thing to do. So instead, I went to the other end of the timeline.
I think there were two difficulties. One is that there were pillars, foundations that can’t be messed with, so I’m more boxed in. The other is that my readers already know a lot, and so I have to push the envelope to grab and keep their interest. My approach was to expand on things only lightly mentioned in Revelations. Whenever I write, I employ the iceberg approach to both character and world building. Writing Chronicles allowed me to open my trunk and tell more about people and events, which only I knew about. Things like Gwen and Hildfred’s history and the circumstances that put Gwen in the right place at a very critical time.
You seem to be a people person. I see you on twitter and Goodreads. You’re very active in your own marketing and promotion. As someone who successfully self-published would you share some tips on what were your most successful promotional tools, besides writing captivating characters and engaging plotlines?
I attribute my early success to two main sources: Bloggers (who are amazingly hard working people that create works of love with little, or no, monetary reward) and Goodreads which is an amazing community of readers.
For bloggers, it’s important to treat them with the upmost respect. That means everything from doing your research before approaching them, providing them things to make their jobs easier (cover pictures, author bio, book blurbs, buy links, contact information), etc. Also you have to realize that they have a lot of people competing for their attention so you need to “pitch” your book in a way that really gets them excited. Don’t just jot of an email saying, “I wrote this book, do you want to read it?” Instead, create a “mini ad” that has a catchy headline, the book’s cover, some quotes from readers or other reviewers, and some compelling “back of the book” summarization. Again respect their time, so be short and sweet, but present your book professionally and you’ll have a better chance of being pushed to the top of their very high TBR pile.
For goodreads, and any venue where readers gather, it’s important to be a member of the community first and only bring up your books where appropriate and only if the rules allow. Some groups have designated folders for promotional activities; others forbid you mentioning your book at all. So know what you can or cannot do. If you violate the rules, the wrath will be swift and harsh. But if you participate in the discussion and are a “genuine” person, then people will take the initiative to checkout your books on their own. You don’t have to say, “buy my book” that never goes over well, but if you are engaging (and most importantly helpful) then you’ll get sales without ever saying those three words that put so many people off.
What’s the most important thing you can give a first-time reader to turn them into fans for life?
I think the first chapter of the first book of The Riyria Revelations (Theft of Swords) does a really good job at showing my style and voice. It actually reads like a self-contained short story about two guys who are being robbed in the middle of nowhere. Not only do they escape harm, but they also give the robbers pointers for future attempts. It shows the dynamic between Royce and Hadrian, and if people read that chapter and like it, it’s a pretty good bet they’ll like the rest of my writing.
Along the same lines, I also created a short story, The Viscount and the Witch which is free on all the major sites (for some reason I can’t get it free on B&N where it is $0.99, but I’ll always send free copies to people who email me). Like the start of Theft of Swords it is a short, easy to read introduction to my main characters and overall style of writing.
What do you find most fascinating about writing an epic series with multiply volumes like Riyria Revelations?
Without doubt it is the ability to weave threads and plant Easter eggs so that there are actually two stories for the reader. Each book has its own tale to tell, where there is a main conflict which is resolved fully, but there is also an over arching story and each book provides various clues, or red herrings that people can start to piece together.
Here’s an example. In the first book of Revelations, the main characters find themselves in a prison where a spell (experienced through constantly played music) dredges up a person’s worst memory, forcing them to relive it perpetually. For Hadrian, it’s killing a tiger while a crowd shouts “Gillanti.” Readers aren’t suppose to know what this means, but some will note it as important. Sure enough, several novels later (in the second book of Rise of Empire) they learn the whole story behind that memory and why it’s so painful.
Because I write the entire series before submitting them for publication (a technique I don’t recommend for new writers), I’m able to go back into earlier books and add threads when a really good idea comes up in later books.
This is something a lot of writers have heard over and over from agents: I just didn’t connect. There’s no question that your main characters are full-fleshed out. What do you think makes a main character relatable, and how do you add depth to them?
I cheat. Having a duo, rather than a single protagonist, helps me out immensely. Some will gravitate toward Royce, others Hadrian. I also get to show two sides of the same coin. Both characters wrestle with the regrets of their earlier lives, but their experiences produced different results.
For Hadrian, it makes him desire to be a hero rather than a parasitic thief for hire. He’s the more affable of the two, who is willing to lend a helping hand, as a way of paying pence for years of squandering his skills. Royce, on the other hand, was hardened by his tough upbringing. Distrustful, cynical, and much more concerned with self-preservation, he builds walls which isolate him from any chance of love or redemption. But both affect each other and while Royce is teaching Hadrian to stop being so naïve, Hadrian is earning Royce’s trust which gives him a way to break out of the prison of his own making. I think people want to be one or the other, or just have them as friends and share in their adventures.
For those that don’t have duos, my best advice is to write characters that you personally like and would enjoy spending time with. My books don’t follow the current trend in fantasy, of reprehensible characters in oppressive worlds. My characters may not win every fight, and there is death and heartbreak along the way, but I do have a dash of optimism that people enjoy when reading as a form of escapist entertainment.
There are dire words floating around about the market for fantasy. Agents proclaim no editor wants it, at least in YA. What are your predictions regarding the fantasy market?
I’ve never been “market driven” which probably explains why I failed in the early days. My mantra has been “write books I want to read,” and ultimately I’ve made that work for me. But it’s much easier to live by those words once you’ve “make it.”
I do think we have a lot of diversity right now, and there is still room for more. The truth is that no one knows what will sell, and traditional publishing has more failures than successes. The statistics I’ve seen is something like one book in five produces a profit and has to subsidize the other four that fail. You can’t really try to “time the market” as whatever you are writing now is years from release in the slow moving traditional system. To complicate matters, publishers operate with a “pack-like mentality.” There was a time with paranormal urban fantasy was hot, but once a certain sub-genre is deemed “oversaturated” they reject everything in that vein. In many ways they perpetuate the system.
The good news is there are now two sets of gatekeepers: traditional (that may lock out certain types at certain times) and self-publishing, where the readers will decide a book’s fate. So in many ways you have to “get it out there” and let the readers decide.
While you can rarely judge what will be hot, there is something that never goes out of style, and that is a good story well told. The will always be room for an engaging story with characters the readers become emotionally attached to.
I’m a firm admirer of using humor in stories. So many main characters are all with the drama and never with the quip. Your main characters never let go of their fun side. What made you decide to go in this direction with them?
I’ve made no secret that I write books that I want to read, and to me a book filled with dire people in even direr situations isn’t as entertaining as one that makes me smile or laugh. I think sometimes writers feel that adding humor brings their books down a peg, but I don’t think books that lack it are any more complex, realistic, or engaging. In fact, when it comes to realism, I think it hurts the story to omit it. We crack jokes in real life all the time, even when times are tough…or especially when they are tough. It’s a coping mechanism. As a writer we all want to touch a reader with our stories, and to me that means shedding a tear or laughing out loud. If I can do both on the same page it’s doubly sweet.
I was going to ask who your favorite character is, but that’s like asking which is your favorite child. So I’ll ask what genre is nearest your heart. You do write in a wide variety of them.
It’s funny because everyone thinks of me as a “fantasy writer” because that’s the first thing that got published, but I do write in just about every genre that exists. I wrote twelve novels during my first ten years when I was originally writing to publish. That includes: fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, mysteries, literary, coming of age, young adult, you name it. The only ones I’ve not dabbled in are romance, erotica, and westerns.
Fantasy is my first love, what got me interested in the written word. Prior to reading The Hobbit it was like pulling teeth to get me to finish a book. After it, I read extensively and writing became my favorite pastime. It will probably always have a sentimental spot in my heart because of that, but I do hope to be able to release books in a wide range of styles.
Do you rely on critique groups to go over your writing or did you hire an editor when you were starting out?
I think every author needs independent feedback. My first and most trusted source is Robin, who is great at finding plot holes, and has a really good eye for pacing and character motivation. She’s made immeasurable contributions to my work, long before anyone else sees it. I do also utilize beta testers and my critique group (shout out to the Arlington Writers Meetup). Beta testers read the full manuscript, of course, but my critique group generally only gets the first chapter. I also have a number of writer friends whose opinions I trust, and they are early readers as well.
As to editors, Avempartha was my first self-published book (actually book #2 of the series) and it had gone through the entire production cycle with AMI, so it was already professionally edited when the rights reverted. The same was true for Book #1 which eventually reverted once the print run sold out. Because both of those books were edited by AMI, we only needed to do a bit of proof reading. For book #3 (Nyphron Rising) and #4 (the Emerald Storm) we did hire freelance copy editors. Book #5 (Wintertide) was edited by Robin and a fulltime intern we had at the time, and Book #6 (Percepliquis) was edited by Orbit. Then, of course,the whole series was re-edited by Orbit once they bought it.
No interview with a writer would be complete without asking are you a pantser or plotter?
If people watched me write a book, they’d probably say plotter, because I start out with an outline and pretty much have the entire framework laid out before I sit down to start. That being said, I would actually answer that I’m both. There is no way for me to anticipate where the story will lead once actual writing begins. So I’m all for deviating from that original outline.
To me it’s like taking a trip. I know what highways I’ll take, what towns I’ll stop in for food or to sleep. But I might find a particularly interesting town and wind up staying a few days even though I had originally planned to just pass through. The side trip might even put me on the road to a different destination, but it is a “known” place. I don’t wander aimlessly, and so when I drive out of town I know where I’m now heading to.
Just for fun, silliest mistake you ever found in your own writing?
I’m famous for homophone errors, and sometimes I don’t even understand that a word that I’ve always used is actually spelled two different ways. This deficiency has made for some pretty embarrassing mistakes. The funniest of recent memory is from Hollow World. In it I have a character, who after seeing a brutal murder ended up “balling on a couch” rather than my intended “bawling on a couch”). Too very different acts ;-). It’s even more ironic considering the character in question is from the future where genetic engineering has removed gender and everyone is basically the equivalent of Ken dolls. When my wife got to that part of the book, she just had to come upstairs to teach me there are two versions of that word.
I’m going all fan girl here. Hadrian or Royce from your Riyria books with you on a deserted island?
There is no contest, definitely Hadrian. Did I mention he was the more affable of the two? Royce would immediately leave, finding some out of the way place where he could live out his days in solitude. Picking him would pretty much be equivalent to being alone, but with the added danger that he would kill me if supplies were scarce.With Hadrian, we would talk, work together to build some kind of shelter, and basically make the best of a bad situation. He would divide rations fairly even though he could pummel me easily. I’d never have to worry about watching my back as he could be trusted at all times.
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