Hollow World is a story I never meant to write. At any given time I have seven or eight novels sitting in a queue waiting their turn, and Hollow World wasn’t one of them. It started out because of an anthology called The End—Visions of Apocalypse edited by N. E. White. Nila runs writing contests on sffworld and wanted to put out an anthology to showcase some new writers. She asked me and a few other established authors to act as anchors in the hopes of a wider readership. I wrote a short story called “Greener Grass”. It told the tale of an embittered, angry man who goes forward in time to find an utopia, but since the world he finds is so different than the values he believes in (God and country) to him it’s the worst possible future. I won’t spoil what happens to him (in case you want to read the short story) but when I had finished it, I realized it really didn’t fit the concept of The End Anthology. I went on to write another short story for that anthology, “Burning Alexandria” and now I had this short story left over.
I showed “Greener Grass” to my wife and a few writer friends, and they all loved it. They wanted more…and I had more to say. Many of the concepts from Hollow World were thoughts that had been floating in my head for decades and just didn’t have the right place to come out. As I worked on other projects, ideas for Hollow World kept coming to me. I’d jot them down in my notebook and try to keep focused on the book I was writing at the time.
The next book on my queue was Rhune. This is the first novel in a three-book series: The First Empire, a new fantasy series based in the distant past of the world or Elan (setting for my Riyria Revelations and Riyria Chronicles). My thought was that those books should sell well, as they have an established readership who has already expressed an interest in that plot line. Writing Rhune was the smart thing to do. But I’m pretty much known for not doing what is smart when it comes to my writing career.
Hollow World was a huge risk. It was in a different genre, and one whose readership had been dwindling over the years. A quick look at the publishing landscape made it clear that the only science fiction books that were selling well were those of an established franchise like Star Wars or Halo, space opera, and military science fiction. This book was none of those. Not to mention it touched on subjects that people argue over constantly: liberal versus conservative, gay rights, religion, and God. There are plenty of ideologies in this book that people will feel strongly about, and I’m sure many people will hate the book, and possibly me, for some of the things expressed within its covers. But none of that could diminish my desire to write this story.
While we are on the subject of ideologies, I’m sure several people will infer what they believe are my opinions on any number of topics. They’re probably almost certainly wrong. As a writer, I spend a great deal of time imagining myself in others people shoes and I’ve been known to argue one side of an argument over a few beers, and once I’ve convinced my drinking buddy to agree with my position, I turn around and argue the opposite side and bring him right back to where they started. It’s an annoying habit, but it can be fun.
In my book Rise of Empire Royce Melborn is arguing with Hadrian Blackwater about the notion of absolutes. They are discussing how an object (in this case a dagger) appears differently when viewed from different perspectives. Hadrian concludes that neither perception is correct, but Royce has a different take: that both are right. He goes on to say, “One truth doesn’t refute another. Truth doesn’t lie in the object, but in how we see it.” In other words, two people can have completely different opinions and yet they can both be “right.” The problem, as I see it, is that most believe that if they are “right” then the other opinion must be “wrong.” I believe in dualities.
But getting back to the writing of Hollow World, from a logical point of view, I shouldn’t have written it. I knew it would be a tough sell to publishers, and it may never find an audience. But I don’t care. I love the way the book came out and if the only people who ever love it are my wife and myself, well then that’s enough for me.
After reading the book my agent told me she loved it (okay so that’s three, but in some respects she is paid to love my work), and then she said what I already knew, which is it will be a hard sell. If she could get an offer, it wouldn’t be for much. No new news there. She sent the book to Orbit. My editor echoed Teri’s opinion…“Great book. No market. We’ll have to pass…and oh, by the way, why isn’t Michael working on the next fantasy series?”
In many ways the rejection was a relief. I had been wanting to do some self-publishing for a while. This isn’t to say I’m turning my back on traditional publishing…remember I’m a believer in dualities. And while much of the publishing landscape is waging a religious war between traditional and self-publishing, I probably understand better than most (because I’ve done both) that there are pros and cons to each. Truth be told, I had every intention on self-publishing The Riyria Chronicles but Orbit’s offer was more than I thought I could make through self-publishing, so I signed a contract for it.
So anyway, I had gotten it into my head that I would self-publish Hollow World, but there was a miscommunication and my agent had submitted the book to another publisher after Orbit passed it over. They loved it (that’s what, four now?), and made a nice five-figure offer. Robin ran the numbers, and determined that I could still earn more with Hollow World through self-publishing so I turned it down.
For those that don’t know, I originally self-published the first five books of The Riyria Revelations and then later the series was sold to Orbit. While our self-published books were quality products, they were also produced on a shoestring budget. I did all the covers, Robin was the main editor, and we paid a few hundred dollars to freelance copy editors. We’ve always had the philosophy that if you are going to self-publish a book, you need to have a product equal to what New York is releasing.
Having published The Riyria Revelations and The Riyria Chronicles traditionally, we had experienced the “New York” process. We wanted to use the same professionals that had worked on those projects (see the acknowledgements for full details), and so we discarded the shoestring approach to have Hollow World produced just as if it had come out of New York. We estimated needing about $6,000 for cover art and editing. Having seen several authors successfully use Kickstarter, it seemed like a good way to raise cash to fund the startup costs.