Free Author Interview: David Cooper

My debut novel Hatred, Ridicule & Contempt – a legal thriller based in the UK, all about a libel action from the viewpoint of the defendant newspaper and its lawyer – can be found on Amazon via the links on my blogsite. It is $2.99 for USA buyers.
http://davidcooperbooks.blogspot.com/p/hatred-ridicule-and-contempt-prologue.html

I am looking at a follow up “serious book” about law for small businesses, but if inspiration for a further novel comes first, so much the better!

I have had an interesting journey as a writer – eleven years in the making, to be precise! I devised much of the plot for HR&C in the late nineties, and wrote a great deal of it then, only for various life upheavals to intervene. I think that was, with hindsight, probably for the better as I was able to bring twelve years’ worth of perspective and reflection back into my final push over the summer of 2011.

Why self publish? Well, can I just say that the e-publishing revolution has focused very sharply on the interests of authors and readers alike, and is just as much a liberating force as the internet itself? Taking that into account, I would most certainly do it again as and when the seeds of a new plot start to take effect.

What could I suggest to new authors? Write about what you know about, and never pass up a chance for good advice close to hand – once I had completed my first draft, my wife’s help in editing and producing ideas for refining the flow and the content were very welcome.

So who’s my favourite author? You’re expecting me to say John Grisham, I’m sure. However, given that my aim in writing HR&C was to combine the tried and tested excitement of a Grisham drama with a series of plot twists that would keep the reader guessing to the end, I’ll go for a true master of the latter – Robert Goddard, a real inspiration to me.

Promotion – now there’s an interesting one. I have my own blogsite. I am hard at work via Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. I put my cover onto a set of business cards. And my reference work of choice is John Locke’s “How I made $1m from e-books…”

Character creation? I have been practising law in the UK for 25 years. I have seen working life and practice in big firms and small firms, courts and tribunals, conference chambers and (inevitably) bars. The heroes and villains all emerged that way.

And what finally drove me to get it all done and launched, many years after the idea first took shape? Partly the e-publishing boom. Partly a drive through the Deep South from Nashville to New Orleans in the summer of 2011, where plans for a worthwhile conclusion to the book came up thick and fast amid the experiences of music history, the Civil War and the skyscraper era in Chicago where the last four nights were enjoyed. And partly the imminent milestone birthday next March – well, now that I’ve had a book published, I might not need the Harley Davidson after all…