FAQ

I absolutely love the art in the Farperoo books and was wondering if you were selling any of the original pictures? I am extremely interested in the illustration on the chapter entitled 'The Fifth Gate' which features Raziel trapped in the sphere. (Marc Hodkinson)

The 'original' is an A4 pencil sketch which probably looks nothing like you imagine. This was then scanned and worked on in Photoshop to provide the shading and lighting effects. What this means is that the original looks nothing like the finished article (see the 'Illustrations' page for an example) I'm not planning on selling any of the originals at the moment, but who knows what the future might bring. On a brighter note, have you considered getting one of the A3+ prints from Sqwubbsy?

I just read your site and it said there would only be three volumes. I noticed the symbols on the bottom of the book. Only one was was....(how to put this) "lit up". I think it would be cooler to have four volumes and on each book, one symbol would be "lit up" (Jared Rogers)

There will be three volumes of Farperoo, all with similar green covers and all with the scarab symbol lit up. When we move to the next book, the covers will be blue and the crocodile symbol will be 'lit up', for however many volumes there are in that book, probably four. So well spotted! You saw the link - you just confused volumes with books. As we move from one element to the next, the symbols will light up, and in the fifth book they will all be lit.

I'm also an author - would you please give me some advice on how to get my book published? (Simon Sayers Franklin)

There are just two ways to get published. One is to get an established publisher to do it for you (in which case you must convince them that your work is worthy of investing their money) or do it yourself (in which case you must convince yourself that it is worth investing your money!) It costs a lot to publish a book, even in paperback, so you're probably going to want someone else to pay for it. That means your book needs to be really good - it must stand out above the other 150 which the publishers will receive that same week. You would be wise to try to find an agent first though, because publishers don't usually like to be approached directly by authors. Unfortunately getting an agent is also very difficult because they are swamped with submissions from hopeful authors. My advice is to get a copy of the Writers' and Artists yearbook from the library. See which agents handle the kind of thing you are writing and then send them a synopsis and the first three chapters. Then you must sit back and wait for a reply (which can take ages).

Obviously this isn't the definitive guide to getting published but it's a good place to start.

And of course there are dozens of books on the subject of getting your work into print...

It took a while for me to realise this, but the Dark Inventions series is a re-visitation of my youthful reading. I was a voracious reader as a child, and like most kids my age I consumed vast quantities of Swallows and Amazons, Famous Five, Secret Seven, The Narnia series and so on. I think my writing is influenced by these in such a way that it allows an adult reader to return to that kind of reading, but with the added edges of humour and danger. My modern day influences without a doubt are Rowling and Pullman - Rowling style humour with Pullman style depth and realism.

I'm still working on the late drafts of Farperoo Volume 2 at the moment - but I have a lot of notes and chapter fragments for the next book.

Are there any of the signed or unsigned copies of Farperoo left? (Lots of people)

I live in Australia and I don't have a credit card. How can I get a copy of the book? (Alice Wood)

Be sure to check with them first though, to make sure you understand the shipping charges for your part of the world.

I would love to answer yes to this one, (for obvious reasons) but even if such a movie were to be made I wouldn't be in charge of casting (or anything else for that matter!) For now I'll be quite happy if we can get both volumes of the book out to readers. If you really want to be in a movie, keep studying with a view to getting into a good drama academy.

First of all you must love the act of writing, because you’ll be doing a lot of it. And that’s not as silly as it sounds. Maybe you’re just attracted to the idea of being a writer, (the fame you gained from having written a series of bestsellers) but not so keen on the fact that you need to do a lot of writing to get there. If so, then give up now – find something else to provide your fifteen minutes in the spotlight, because writing is unlikely to provide it. There are hundreds of thousands of new books published every year (and that’s just in the UK), and the chances of you or your writing being noticed in that mass of pulp are infinitesimally small. Agents and publishers are continually swamped with submissions – some of them get more than a hundred manuscripts a day to consider. Now how long do you think they’re going to take to consider your masterpiece? The answer is almost no time at all, and to prove it, just look at how many times J.K.Rowling was rejected before finally finding a publisher! If you really want to write, then go ahead and do it – lots of it. Learn the craft. Try to get into the habit of always writing properly. Spell correctly. Use proper punctuation, and try to think like you’re writing the whole time. It’s no good having one way of writing (for school, texting, short stories) and then have to switch over to ‘proper’ writing when you need to. Write everything as though you were writing that blockbusting novel. And one day, who knows…

First of all I wrote the book. That’s the easy part. Then I made a huge list of all the things that needed to be done to get the book to market. When I picked myself up off the floor I realised that the list wasn’t even complete! I can’t really begin to describe each stage of the process (I’m sure someone has already written a book on it though, something like ‘How to get yourself into print in 97 easy steps’) – suffice to say that there is a lot of hard work that takes you away from the actual process of writing. If I had an agent or a publisher then that would be a different thing. Would that affect my writing? Yes, because I’d have more time to spend on creating stories and need to spend less time on talking to printers, copy editors, illustrators, graphic artists – you get the picture. And that’s just the book production side – just imagine having to arrange all your own publicity – photo shoots, press releases, advertising, oh, and then of course there’s the web site to be created and maintained. And all those e-mails to be answered (like the one I received from you). If you like being busy, then this is the life for you, but if not…

P.S. As of today (November 25 ‘04) I’m not even published, so don’t take my word for it!

Book two will be called 'Finisterre' (the end of the earth) - the spelling might be a little different though.

How often will the books in the 'Dark Inventions' series appear? (Andy Piper)

I'm hoping to write a new book every year. Farperoo took longer than that, but I'm getting quicker!

I don't want to wait until next year. Can I get hold of a copy of Farperoo any sooner? (David Fulford)

Lucy Blake is the heroine of the story, like Lyra from 'His Dark Materials', but she also has many unusual talents, like Harry Potter - although some of them she doesn't know about just yet. Lucy is not simply based on these two characters though. She has a vibrant personality of her own, and a very interesting future, as you'll soon find out!

One day perhaps, but for the time being only the special two volume hardback is available.