2013 - 11/2013 Meeting

Page Created: 07/24/13. Last Updated: 12/03/13.

MICHAEL SULLIVAN, FANTASY AUTHOR

ROBIN SULLIVAN, JILL-OF-ALL-TRADES

Official Site: http://riyria.blogspot.com/

Books:

The Riyria Revelations

..........Theft of Swords

...............Reprints The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha

..........Rise of Empire

...............Reprints Nyphron Rising and The Emerald Storm

..........Heir of Nevron

...............Reprints Wintertide and Percepliquis

The Riyria Chronicles

..........The Crown Tower

..........The Rose and Thorn (forthcoming)

Hollow World (forthcoming)

Meeting Date: November 9, 2013.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church

Official Attendance: 13.

Meeting Program: Talk / Q & A with Fantasy Author / Book Marketer.

Newsletter Account

The November 9, 2013 General Meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County featured Michael and Robin Sullivan. Michael writes the heroic fantasy adventures of the mercenary duo Hadrian Blackwater and Royce Melborn. Robin handles the business end of things.

Attendance was very disappointing. Where was everyone? We had three new people show up and this hardly showcased the club at its best. A couple of the newbies watched HOODWINKED until Barry's Ice Nine discussion commenced. The Sullivans became part of the discussion and helped enliven matters. The discussion focused mostly on television (AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D., UNDER THE DOME) and movies (ENDER'S GAME).

Robin was a last-minute add-on to the program and was a big asset to the talk. The couple have produced eight heroic fantasy novels set in the world of Elan. The first six books were self-published and have been re-issued in three volumes from Orbit Books, THEFT OF SWORDS (reprints THE CROWN CONSPIRACTY and AVEMPARTHA), RISE OF EMPIRE (reprints NYPHRON RISING and THE EMERALD STORM), and HEIR OF NOVRON (reprints WINTERTIDE and PERCEIPLIQUIS). THE CROWN TOWER and THE ROSE AND THE THORN are prequels to the main work.

The Sullivans had many careers before achieving success as a publishing tandem. There were times when one or the other was doing very well financially. There were times that were not so good and they had to move to rural Vermont to stretch their funds. On some jobs they worked together, on some they worked apart. But the marketing skills they picked up during those years would later prove priceless.

The author is essentially a self-taught writer. He was an art major in school. He took no writing classes, joined no writing groups and did not network. Instead, he wrote and wrote and wrote. Mr Sullivan wrote over a dozen unpublished novels in a variety of genres before developing the concept for the Elan books.

His inspiration was the television series, BABYLON 5. He loved how J Michael Straczynski had plotted the entire series before filming the first episode. Wouldn't it be great, our guest thought, if someone were to do that for a sword-and-sorcery series. Following the lead of JMS, Mr Sulilvan wrote the initial 6 books (it was originally going to be 5) before trying to sell it. The big publishers all passed, but small press publisher AMI took on the project, beginning with THE CROWN CONSPIRACY.

Here's where things got complicated. CROWN sold well, but AMI's other titles were not doing as good, so AMI couldn't pay their creditors. One of their creditors was their distributor, who put a hold on all their titles until they were paid. So the Sullivans had books which were in demand but would not be shipped until accounts were settled. Eventually, Michael and Robin worked out a deal whereby they drove to the distributor's warehouse, purchased every copy of CONSPIRACY they had, and gave a check which was applied to the AMI balance due. In exchange, AMI reverted the books' rights to the Sullivans.

Rather than take a risk with another small publisher, Michael and Robin decided to self publish the series as e-books. Between word-of-mouth and a well-planned marketing campaign which included--among other things--releasing a book every six months, sales of the books slowly built momentum before taking off in books four and five. Taking off in this instance refers to selling 1000 copies (all series titles combined) per month with the appearance of book four and 10,000 copies with the appearance of book five.

This caught the notice of big publishers and a deal was soon cut with Orbit Books. The six smaller books were combined into three larger volumes to help Orbit market them as big, fat fantasies. The first volume was given a different opening scene to introduce the reader to the main characters right away. (The scene had originally been written for another spot in the series but had been left on the cutting room floor before being reworked to open the series.)

The books sold well and Michael easily sold his publisher on a prequel trilogy, but he ran into trouble with his next proposal. This was a science fiction novel titled HOLLOW WORLD. It is in the tradition of classic Verne / Wells / Asimov / Heinlein sf. Orbit passed on the work, feeling that with the exception of military sf and new space opera, science fiction does not sell. So our guests struck a deal with a small press to produce a print version while the Sullivans will issue it as an e-book.

THEFT OF SWORDS was the object of a scathing review at STRANGE HORIZONS magazine. This led into a discussion of criticism, expectations and objectivity. This write up will continue at the 11/2013 Meeting Page at sfabc.org.