Writing life: Bestselling author Mark Edwards on his long road to overnight success

THE LONG ROAD TO OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

Bestselling author Mark Edwards describes the close calls and near-misses that led to self-publishing and seeing his books go stratospheric

2022marks the anniversar tent y of h my first traditionally-published novel, and the publication of my eighteenth. My total career sales recently crossed the four million threshold, I’ ve had numerous number one bestsellers, have been translated into a dozen languages, have had books optioned for TV and, most importantly, I’ m a full-time writer, doing what I always dreamed of and earning a good living.

But it wasn ’ t too long ago that if you ’d told me I would ever be able to write a paragraph like the one above, I would have asked you to stop teasing me. Because early in 2010, after years of trying to get published, hundreds of thousands of words written and too many rejections to count, I had given up on my dream of being an author. Put the dream aside.

And then my wife bought me a Kindle.

I hadn ’ t wanted one. I liked print books and thought ebooks were a gimmick that would soon disappear. But as I searched Amazon for titles to download onto this new gadget, I noticed that a lot of the novels riding high in the rankings were selfpublished. Some of them were even pretty good. Doing some research, I discovered that a growing number of writers were making good money selfpublishing. And so, shortly after my fortieth birthday, I decided to give it a go myself. And the rest, as they say...

Wait. Let ’ s rewind.

I started writing novels in 1994, when I was in my early twenties. Amazon had just been invented but nobody I knew had the internet, so we aspiring authors had no option but to buy The Writer ’ s Handbook and submit to agents using brown SAEs. I wrote my first novel in 1994 and got enough scribbled words of praise on rejection slips to encourage me to keep going. I sometimes wonder if my life would have been easier if some literary Simon Cowell had told me to give up the dream when I started. But nobody did. Over the next few years I wrote four or five novels (I forget) and learned to dread the arrival of my postman.

In 1998, I landed my first agent, Dinah Wiener, who told me I was almost certainly going to be a huge success. I still remember her phone call and how excited I was. I thought, This is it (the first of several such moments over the following years). However, Dinah wasn ’ t able to sell my novel, nor the next.

Then a strange quirk of fate landed me on a BBC documentary about aspiring writers. I was sure this was going to lead to publication but, in retrospect, I think it made me look like a desperate loser with a box full of rejection letters. It did however lead to a friendship with a writer who emailed me – I was online by this point – and told me she was in the same boat. Her name was Louise Voss.

I kept writing. Louise went on to get a massive book deal and I was happy for her (yes, really). My book, The Magpies, was almost acquired by Louise ’ s publisher, Transworld. When they decided against it, Dinah dropped me and I was back in the wilderness.

This was 2002. One night, while out drinking, Louise and I hit on the idea of writing a stalker thriller together, which we called Killing Cupid. I moved to Japan to teach English and she remained in London, and we wrote the whole thing by email. Halfway through, Louise showed it to a TV producer who promptly optioned it for BBC drama. I couldn ’ t believe it. Surely this was it?

Reader, it wasn ’ t. Louise ’ s book agent wasn ’ t keen and no publisher wanted it. I came back to the UK and carried on writing, trying again to find an agent. It wasn ’ t long before Louise was without an agent or publisher too. And so, in 2006, we decided to co-write another book: this time a fastpaced thriller about a virus. Yes, I was an armchair virologist fourteen years before everyone else.

This book, you guessed it, also failed to attract an agent. In desperation, I even sent it to Dinah who replied with a single line: ‘Just not good enough’ . That was the final straw. It was time to

quit. I had a decent job by this point, where I was appreciated. Why continue to cause myself so much grief and stress? Why spend all my spare time labouring over novels no one was ever going to read? I was starting to have children at this point too. I decided that, looking back, I would be able to say I’d given it my best shot. I’d tried but hadn ’ t quite made it. It was nothing to be ashamed of. I was content with my decision and, for a couple of years, I forgot about my dream.

Then I got that Kindle.

‘We should self-publish our two novels, ’ I said to Louise, who was still writing but without much success. She was reluctant. Wouldn ’ t it be a lot of effort for little reward? Wouldn ’ t it be embarrassing? But I persuaded her, and we set about editing the books, updating them and removing all the references to smoking in pubs and adding new-fangled inventions like mobile phones and Facebook. I bought a stock image and my sister-in-law designed a cover for us for free.

We published Killing Cupid in February 2011. On day one, we sold two copies: one to my mother-in-law; the other to my boss. When I told people I had self-published a book they looked at me with pity. But I quickly became obsessed with trying to sell it. I blogged, I used forums, I spent hours on social media, I networked with other writers, sought out reviews, and endlessly tweaked the book’ s blurb. Slowly, Killing Cupid climbed the charts. By May, it sat just outside the top 100 on Amazon.

Then we released Catch Your Death. For the first two weeks, it sold steadily but slowly. I became addicted to checking the download figures. One weekend, I noticed something exciting. Sales were coming in thick and fast. Catch Your Death shot up the charts.

Three days later, it was number one on Amazon UK and Killing Cupid was number two. They stayed there for a month.

And during that month, the thing I’d always dreamed of happened. First, after contacting a few agents, all of whom were very interested, we got taken on by one. He sent it to all of the big UK publishers and within a week we had a four-book six-figure deal with HarperCollins. It ’ s not an exaggeration to say that I shed several tears. After all the hard work and rejection, the thousands of hours honing my craft, I finally had a publishing deal. It had taken seventeen years. And I thought, This definitely is it.

But there is one more twist in this tale. The ‘ all is lost ’ moment they talk about in screenwriting classes.

Killing Cupid and Catch Your Death were republished in 2012. It was thrilling to walk into a bookshop and see my name. Okay, it was a shelf at Asda, not the plinth at Waterstones I’d long imagined, but I didn ’ t care. Unfortunately, though, the books didn ’ t sell. They failed to dent the charts. When the third book came out in early 2013, it was hardly stocked anywhere, and we already knew book four – which we were still writing – wouldn ’ t be in any shops. It was heartbreaking, especially after the highs of 2011. More practically, I was broke. I had gambled and quit my job to go freelance. I was thousands in debt, my wife was pregnant and the taxman was threatening to send round bailiffs. I had also moved to a city where there were no jobs in the industry I’d been working in. The stress made me ill and I had detached retinas in both eyes, my sight saved by a brilliant NHS surgeon.

I refused to give up hope, though. Louise and I vowed to carry on and, in the meantime, I decided it might be worth trying self-publishing again. I still thought The Magpies, my 2000 novel, was good – maybe I could do something with it. I realised I didn ’ t have a copy (it was saved on a long-lost floppy disk) but luckily it was attached to an email deep in my wife ’ s email inbox (I owe her a lot, don ’ t I?). Louise and my wife both helped me edit it, I once again got my sister-in-law to design a cover and I released it in March 2013. I figured if I could sell 20,000 copies I would earn enough to pay my tax bill and keep the bailiffs from my door.

For the first couple of weeks it looked like it wasn ’ t going to happen. And then, on Good Friday, something miraculous happened. The Magpies, ahem, flew up the rankings and stuck. And a few weeks later, it got to number one. It has since sold over half a million copies.

The success of The Magpies led to a deal with Thomas & Mercer, who have published all my books since, including two more with Louise. I’ ve just signed another three-book contract with them. I’ m still working hard, still have a lot of ambitions I haven ’ t fulfilled yet, and I still have disappointments and bad days like every other author.

But on those bad days, I am able to remind myself of how difficult it was to get to this place and that I’ m living the dream. And it ’ s still wonderful to see my books on shelves. Best of all, I love hearing from readers. I know writers, too, who tell me they were inspired by my story. Occasionally, I hear about authors who were snapped up by the first agent and publisher they approached. Who got rich before anyone had even had the chance to buy one of their books. I’ m not envious. Because success is so much sweeter when you ’ ve had to fight for it.

No Place to Run by Mark Edwards is out now (Thomas & Mercer, £8.99)

Mark’s top tips

1. Be sure where your book fits in the market and which authors you can be compared to. It’ s much harder to break through if you ’ re novel is ‘ a little bit this and a little bit that’ . 2. Don ’t delete writing scenes that might seem crazy or outrageous.

They ’ re the ones readers will remember. Be bold. 3. Work on your pitch. The fewer words you need to describe your book, the better.