Barry Nugent

Barry at this very first Waterstone's signing

Barry Nugent wrote his first story at the young age of 11, after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark, and never looked back.  In his spare time he is one of the co-founders of the podcast/website called Geek Syndicate which focuses on all aspects of pop culture.

Barry’s first novel ‘Paladin’ was published in 1999. In 2004 he self published his next novel Unseen Shadows: Fallen Heroes, the first in a trilogy. Overcoming the hurdles of being a self published book  Fallen Heroes went on to to be stocked by several branches of Waterstones, including their flagship store in Piccadilly. In 2011 the Kindle version of Fallen Heroes was released and soon after became a number one bestseller on Amazon. The first issue of the comic adpatation of Fallen Heroes sold upon at it’s launch in under an hour.

Barry is currently writing ‘Forgotten Warriors’ the follow up to Fallen Heroes. He was also working with a talented creative team to expand the world of Unseen Shadows into different mediums such as comics, audio and live action.

Barry lives in Northampton with this partner Sue and their two cats/criminal masterminds Max and Frankie.

Tell us about Fallen Heroes ?

I think with all the different genres and main characters in Fallen Heroes, there’s something for everyone.

Why self-publishing?

Well I could give you the standard response which is no one wanted to publish it but I think there was more to it than that. I made some mistakes along the way that I think hampered my chances in the first instance to find a publisher. I didn’t realise those mistakes until I had self-published the book. By self-published I mean I put the book out as a Print on Demand novel via Lulu. I read afterwards that POD isn’t considered, by some,  true self-publishing and it’s more vanity publishing. To be honest I’m not too worried with either tagline as they both seem to have a stigma attached to them (although vanity published stuff definitely gets a lot more flack).

When the first draft of Fallen Heroes was finished it was over 200,000 words and I pitched it as a multi–genre novel (another bad idea as I learnt that publishers like to know exactly where a book will fit into the marketplace in terms of genre).  I pitched this first draft for about a year with no luck. I received some feedback telling me that the book was way too long for a first time novel. I worked on the book over the next eighteen months and edited it down to a more manageable 130,000 words, which was probably still a little long. I heard about Print on Demand and Lulu and went straight into that avenue as I wanted to get the book out there.

I was not prepared for the negative views on Print on Demand or Self-Publishing I encountered. I really did not think it would be a problem publishing in this manner. I think my attitude came from the comics world where there didn’t seem to be anywhere near the same stigma and bad press that a self-published novel can get.

I told myself I had a choice. I could move forward or I could write-off Fallen Heroes and move onto to the next book. I chose to soldier on.

The goal I set myself was to produce a book that is if someone picked it off a shelf in, say, Waterstone’s, they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between it and any other book on the shelf.

Looking back now I wouldn’t change anything but I think I should have tried pitching the final edit around a bit more before going the POD route. I do find it interesting that in the while working with the Unseen Shadows creative team on moving the stories into other mediums, like comics, audio and live action I’ve haven’t experiences  any of that stigma.

Marketing yourself and your projects in the early days. Did you have a clear strategy?

 The only strategy I knew was the fact that I had no strategy. I had no idea how to market the book. The idea of shouting from the rooftops “Buy my book, it’s great” filled me with dread. Self promotion has never been one of my strong points but I knew if I didn’t do it no one was going to sweep in and save the day.

Halfway through writing Fallen Heroes my mum, who was my world and my biggest supporter of my writing passed away. She was the one who always told me to keep going no matter what everyone else said (my partner Sue has also been fantastic in that regard). I told myself if I ever finished the book it would be dedicated to her. I had no intention of letting her down and if that meant stepping out of my comfort zone then so be it.

I knew I wanted to get the book looking as professional as possible and the best place to start was the cover. I think the first hurdle a lot of self-published authors can fall at is not having a cover that does their book justice. I was not going to make that mistake. I found a great artist and we bounced some ideas back and forth about the look and feel of the cover. I think he surpassed my own expectations on what I was after.

I picked up a book called Pod People by Jeremy Robinson to get some solid marketing advice. Jeremy was a POD author who had become very successful with his book by following some simple marketing steps which he laid out in Pod People. The book was easy to read and understand. I did everything the book suggested and it was single most important purchase of my writing career.

 How much of your spare time did you give to pushing Fallen Heroes and developing the world of Unseen Shadows ?

 Pretty much all of it, apart from some of the weekends. If I wasn’t sending out query emails or putting together a press release I was trying to dream up other ways I could push the book or expand the Unseen Shadows universe.

I put together an audio trailer with a few voice actors,  I designed and created my own  website with backgrounds on the major characters and organisations mentioned in the book to try and raise interest. I’ve got audio versions of the first two chapters on the website and I’m now working with a voice actor to produce an audio version of the entire book (we’re about halfway through now). I’ve created a special edition of the book which is only available at conventions to sell copies of the book. The special edition comes with deleted scenes with my reasons as to why I deleted them from the final version, the original sketches used to help develop the cover and a preview of the second book. I sell this version slightly cheaper than the normal version but only at conventions. I’ve always managed to sell out of these at conventions which has been great.

I have Facebook and myspace pages for the book. I have a promotional pack containing business cards, bookmarks, postcards and even a few fridge magnets.

I’ve done a few signings for Waterstone’s and sent out countless press releases and updates on the book. I’ve been in my local newspaper, been mentioned several times in the writing magazine, done a couple of radio interviews and been on a few podcasts to try and raise the book’s profile.

I contacted nearly two hundred branches of Waterstone’s  and got the book into a number of shops. One of those branches is Waterstone’s flagship branch in Piccadilly which is also regarded as the largest bookshop in Europe.

Most bookshops aren’t interested in Print On Demand books so to have got it onto the shelves of a single branch was a dream come true for me. The first time I walked into Waterstone’s and saw my book sitting next to an Indiana Jones novel I was the happiest man in Northampton.

One of the hardest things I’ve had to do was to walk up to customers during a signing and try to talk to them about the book. I remember walking up to one guy who was looking at a particular book. I looked over his shoulder and told him he shouldn’t buy the book he was holding because it was crap.

“Is it?” the man asked. “How do you know?”

“I’m the author,” I replied.

We both laughed and then chatted for a bit about the book and he later picked up a copy. I’m sure people shopping in the Sci-fi/Fantasy section of Waterstone’s that Saturday thought I was some kind of stalker.

What you realise very quickly is that no one knows who you are and just having a sign up saying you’re there to sign copies isn’t enough. You have to be willing to put yourself out there and talk to people which can be a challenge(well it was for me). My fondest memory however was explaining to a ten year old how I became a writer and then looking up and seeing ten other people listening, most of whom bought copies. I won’t ever forget that.

No doubt you received a good number of knock-backs – give us an idea how thick your skin had to get and how hard it might have been to get on and make another call/send another email?

 I remember putting the first three chapters of the book onto a website for other writers to critique each other’s work. I was nervous as this was the first time I’d put the story out there. My first review…well to say it was scathing was an understatement the guy ripped the first three chapters to pieces. My favourite part  of the review was when he said I had stolen Tom Clancy’s name by calling one of my characters Clancy, which showed my lack of imagination or originality. For the record I’ve never read a Tom Clancy novel though I do love the Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell games.

The review really knocked me for a while but then I realised that not everyone is going to like my writing and I needed to get used to that.

Am I good writer? I don’t know, I hope so, it’s not for me to judge. I write what I enjoy and hope people enjoy it, that’s all I can do. If I get feedback so long as the criticism is useful rather than ‘Fallen Heroes sucks’ then I can always look at that and think “Does this person have a point and if so what can I do about it on the next book.”

When I was sending out query after query to publishers and getting the knock-backs it was hard, very hard. What I tried to do was allow myself a day of mourning where I could thrash around and then wake up the next day and go “Oh well, who’s the next one on the publisher list.” It’s not a perfect coping mechanism but it’s better than nothing.

I think being able to deal with the knock-backs is an essential part of trying to get your stuff out there.

At the end of the day nothing is going to stop me writing, except maybe World War 3 or they bring out a new Indiana Jones game on the PS3.

 Did you get lucky with any of the copies you sold at book shops or conventions?

 I did. Very. I always thought it would be really cool to see my book as a graphic novel but I never thought that would happen.  But amazingly, the creative director of Insomnia Publications, Nic Wilkinson had picked up a copy of the book and enjoyed it. She approached me with the idea of adapting the book as a graphic novel and I jumped at it.

 A graphic novel, eh? Now given your love of the genre, how did that brighten your day?

 I was over the moon. The cover has a kind of graphic novel style to it  but I thought that would be as close as I would ever get to it. It was definitely a dream come true for me and I can’t wait to see it finished.

Right. Time to remind ourselves. This is a self-published novel. Not one pushed out by a major publishing company. Where does it go from here?

 Well at the moment I’m working with a large creative team to expand the Unseen Shadows universe. There is the comic adaption of Fallen Heroes, four spin offs comics, Two audio dramas and hopefully some live action webisodes being planned.

My one dream from when I first started writing back when I was eleven was to walk into a bookshop and see my book sitting on a shelf. Here I am now twenty nine years later with copies of  my book in the largest bookshop in Europe. I’ve done book signings, I have a graphic novel on the way and a possible TV series in the works. Regardless of what happens now I think I’ve made the 11 year old Barry very happy.

You can contact Barry Nugent at barry@unseenshadows.com