Featherstone 
What writers can learn from author Michael Robotham
Plenty! But here are just a few takeaways.
Australian author Michael Robotham has sold more than 8.5 million copies of his books in 25 countries. His books have been made into TV series and movies, and yet he still finds time to drop into libraries to shoot the breeze via author talks.
And he’s as much a storyteller in real life as he is in print, sharing colourful stories with the crowd of more than one hundred who turned up to see him on a Monday night at Port Macquarie Library (yes authors…it’s worth getting out into regional Australia!).
Interviewed by event librarian to the stars, Leanne Wright, he spoke about many things including:
- How as an 11-year-old in country NSW he inhaled Ray Bradbury’s books including Fahrenheit 451. He posted a fan letter (minus the stamp!) to Random House New York mentioning there were three of Ray’s books he couldn’t get in Australia. Months passed and he received a letter and three books from Ray in the post. Many years later, he went on to meet Ray and form a special friendship.
- His experience as a country kid doing a journalism cadetship (in the same intake as writer and future Pulitzer Prize winner Geraldine Books).
- His start in ghost writing, where he ended up writing books for people including Geri Halliwell and Denis Thatcher and the surreal feeling when he eventually saw his own name on his book after ghostwriting so many.
- What it was like in the early days when he was lucky to get one or two people to his author talks, compared to more recent experiences in Germany where 800 people queued in the snow for an hour to meet him!
- How it felt as a debut author to be put on the spot at a writers festival by an audience member who accused him and his publisher of stealing their book idea.
- What it was like to receive ongoing death threats from a reader in Wisconsin who took umbrage to just one sentence out of 116,000 words because it disparaged George Bush.
- How his fictional characters are as real to him as real people.
- How his Mum wouldn’t read his first novel until AFTER she’d finished the books of three other authors she had out on loan from the library.
- And his thoughts on the dangers of AI, which has put thousands of voice actors out of audiobook work and in which he’s involved in legal action due to his books being used without permission (or compensation) to train AI models.
Michael also chatted about the change in the publishing landscape and how twenty years ago he was unable to get any publisher to make an offer on his manuscript, because according to publishers, ‘no one wants to read a crime book set in Australia’.
How times have changed with Jane Harper and Liane Moriarty busting that door wide open! And it was fun to hear Michael is rewriting that manuscript for publication all these years later.
My key tips and takeaways for authors from Michael Robotham’s author talk:
- Be generous and kind to readers (and other authors).
- So many lives can be touched by your book, and you may never even know.
- Perhaps that manuscript you wrote all those years ago could be polished up and resubmitted.
- Practice, practice, practice – Michael did the work, writing millions of words as a journalist and ghostwriter before becoming a novelist.
- You can’t be prepared for every question you’ll receive at a writer’s festival or author talk, but you’ll be okay and it’s okay for you or another panellist to shut the person down if they’re disruptive
- The impacts of AI will keep unfolding.
A note on AI from me for Australian authors and writers: did you know that LinkedIn has a policy whereby they can use any of your data to train AI models unless you opt-out? To opt out you need to go into: Settings – Data privacy – Data for Generative AI Improvement and switch the button on ‘Use my data for training content creation AI models’ to OFF.
And though crime writing/reading is not really my thing (and you can read about why here) I absolutely appreciate the creativity, craft, imagination and dedication authors devote to any genre.
Finally, it’s so worth going to author talks and events. You get to hang out with other readers, writers, librarians and booksellers and this night was no different.
Claire from Bookface was as insightful as ever on the current state of books and publishing (she’s one of my go-to’s when I need feedback on book cover concepts for the authors I work with).
I was also captivated and moved chatting with accomplished writer Dom O’Grady about the memoir he’s currently working on.
And of course…the librarians! I know there are plenty of books out now that feature librarians as characters, but I can now also visualise the movies… ‘Night at the Library’ and ‘Librarians after Dusk’!
Anyway, Michael Robothom’s new book, ‘Storm Child’, is out now! If you get a chance to get to one of his author talks – take it!