Mind's Eye
Page 36
As an aspiring writer, I found myself both intimidated and star-struck, at a level impossible to describe. I also expected that a good number of these people would be arrogant and pretentious. Cold and unapproachable. I found just the opposite. The conference, and the writers, shattered my every expectation. At the banquet, R.L. Stine, who has sold over 400 million books (Goosebumps and others) and has a dour, sinister air about him, introduced Anne Rice and spent fifteen minutes putting everyone in the room into stitches. He was funnier than most professional stand-up comedians I’ve seen. R.L. Stine! Really! Talk about unexpected. And the nicest guy in the world. “I’m having a tough week,” he began. “This morning in the lobby, a woman came up to me and said, ‘Wow, has anyone ever told you that you look a lot like R.L. Stine. No offense.’” I’m still laughing at this.
ThrillerFest was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Because far from being prima donnas—and in addition to being funny, articulate, and fascinating—these superstar writers were friendly, generous, humble, helpful, and self-effacing.
But why? Why should this be? They were super-famous and worth tens of millions of dollars—yet when meeting them you would never guess it. The more of them I met, the more determined I was to figure out why they were all such wonderful people. And by the end of the conference, I think I did. But before I tell you, allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Douglas E. Richards, and I am a lottery winner, plain and simple. How so? Well, I was a biotech executive who quit the industry to pursue my dream of writing. I wrote several middle-grade science fiction thrillers that were originally published by a minor publisher, but which I later self-published after buying them back to regain full editorial control. The books were critically acclaimed, listed as “recommended literature” by the California Department of Education, and praised by kids, parents, educators, and in publications such as Asimov’s Science-Fiction magazine, Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and so on.
Yet despite their success, due to the costs associated with self-publishing printed books at the time, not to mention distribution, I was making little more than minimum wage. So I decided to try my hand at writing for adults, penning a thriller called WIRED. Several major publishers loved it—but just not enough for them to take a financial risk with an unknown writer. So after years of fighting the good fight and watching my bank account dwindle, I threw the manuscript in a drawer, gave up on my dream, and returned to biotech.
But in mid 2011, I noticed that tens of thousands of eBooks were being self-published. It was simple to do, so I dusted off the WIRED manuscript and threw it online, hoping that ten or twenty people might read it.
And that’s when I won the lottery. WIRED went viral. Later that year it spent five weeks on both the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists, a testament to my brilliant marketing strategy of doing absolutely nothing and scratching my head in wonder as I watched it all happen (I call it the “sit on your hands and hope you get really, really lucky” strategy).
And while I did win the lottery, over the past few years I have come to appreciate more than ever that becoming a successful author is brutally difficult—and unpredictable. The truth is that anyone who has ever hit it big as a writer feels as though they are the luckiest person on the planet. And they’re right. Which is the reason, I’ve come to believe, prominent thriller writers are so friendly, helpful, and humble.
Every superstar writer has his or her own story of winning the lottery, and of how luck played a tremendous role in their ascendance. They are all amazingly talented, but they also all know that there are many huge talents who never make it. That making it is like catching lightning in a bottle. R.L. Stine told me that his first few Goosebumps books sold poorly. That it took a fairly long time for them to catch on. That if he had published them today, when publishers and bookstores can’t afford to be as patient as they once were, he would never have made it. Anne Rice, in her address, described how she had written books that were not big successes before writing Interview With a Vampire. When she finished this book, she felt sure it was too unusual to ever be picked up by a publisher. She described how she was in tears when her agent called to tell her one was making an offer.
Scratch a wildly successful author and you’ll find someone who toiled in obscurity for years, and was rejected repeatedly and told they weren’t up to snuff and would never make it, from Dr. Seuss to John Grisham. Almost all of them will gladly tell you how lucky they’ve been. Because the sobering, nerve-wracking, gut-wrenching truth is that it doesn’t always matter how much talent a writer has, or even how great a book he or she writes. Both Stephen King and J.K. Rowling have demonstrated this experimentally, writing books under pseudonyms that were well reviewed but never came close to being as successful as any of those written in their own names. Their talent didn’t diminish. Just their results.
So that, in a nutshell, is why thriller writers are so incredibly nice. And while I have no idea what is in my own future, I can tell you this. If I get even luckier, win the lottery a second time, and go on to become a household name like Michael Crichton—you will never catch me being haughty, or arrogant, or unfriendly. Never. I will never pretend I should be treated any differently than anyone else. Instead, like the writers I met at ThrillerFest, I will be eternally grateful to readers for supporting my work, and well aware that I’m one of the luckiest people on the planet.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Douglas E. Richards has been widely praised for his ability to weave action, suspense, and science into riveting novels that straddle the thriller and science fiction genres. He is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of WIRED, AMPED, THE CURE, QUANTUM LENS, MIND’S EYE, and BRAINWEB. He has also written six middle grade/young adult novels widely acclaimed for their appeal to boys, girls, and adults alike. A former biotech executive, Richards earned a BS in microbiology from the Ohio State University, a master's degree in genetic engineering from the University of Wisconsin (where he engineered mutant viruses now named after him), and an MBA from the University of Chicago.
In recognition of his work, Richards was selected to be a "special guest" at San Diego Comic-Con International, along with such icons as Stan Lee and Ray Bradbury. He has written numerous feature articles for the award-winning magazine, National Geographic KIDS—some having appeared in a dozen languages in as many as sixteen countries—as well as essays for the BBC, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Earth & Sky, Today's Parent, and many others.
The author currently lives in San Diego, California, with his wife, two children, and two dogs.
Also by Douglas E. Richards
WIRED (Technothriller/Science-fiction)
AMPED (The WIRED Sequel)
THE CURE (Technothriller/Science-fiction)
QUANTUM LENS (Technothriller/Science-fiction)
BRAINWEB (MIND’S EYE 2)
Middle Grade/YA (Enjoyed by kids and adults alike)
THE PROMETHEUS PROJECT SERIES (Science Fiction Thrillers)
Book 1: TRAPPED
Book 2: CAPTURED
Book 3: STRANDED
THE DEVIL’S SWORD (Mainstream Thriller)
ETHAN PRITCHER, BODY SWITCHER
OUT OF THIS WORLD (Science Fiction/Fantasy)