Paul Cleave
“I was 19 when I started writing and 29 when I got signed up…
Back then, I hadn’t thought too much about international markets outside of the US and UK. When the German rights to my first book The Cleaner sold in 2007, I thought ‘cool’, but, aside from where to find it on a map, I didn’t know much about Germany. Then, I was sent an advance copy of the German edition. Advance copies look like normal books but instead of a blurb they have marketing information on the back — in this case information I couldn’t read. So, I jumped online to translate it. There was a number: 120.000. The dot threw me. It seemed like it meant they were printing 120,000 copies — but how could that be? 120,000 was an insane number. I rang my New Zealand editor to check. It was no mistake. Those 120,000 copies sold in a month. Then they printed another 120,000 and these sold too. That was the beginning. Other countries came on board, and everything changed. It allowed me to make writing my full time job, taking it from being something I was trying to fit around other work to becoming a business — and a business I take very seriously. Part of that job is going to Europe two or three times a year to sell the rights to my books, to catch up with editors, agents, other authors. Book fairs are critical. So last year, with its delayed book releases, zero book signings, and no sales into other markets — and with bookshops being closed for months in my biggest markets — will have a very large impact that will ripple into the next year or so.
A huge amount of work goes into the writing. I’m onto my twelfth book, so I’ve honed my process a bit. I write four or five drafts, and when I hit my stride some days I’ll be in the office twelve or fourteen hours writing. If I’m enjoying it, it feels good to be with my characters and to find out what they’ll do next. I don’t always know what that will be, because I don’t plan. That means today I might put a really cool scene on the page, but if I were to wait and write that scene tomorrow, it would be completely different. E.L Doctorow compared writing to driving at night in a fog. That’s how it is for me, I can see just a little further than where I’m at, but nothing beyond. The upside is that if it’s surprising for me, then it’s more likely to be that way for the reader too.”
Paul Cleave is an internationally acclaimed crime writer. His books include The Cleaner, Whatever it Takes and Blood Men.