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An Interview With René O'Deay

Tell us a bit about yourself. What would you like us to know about you?

ESTES PARK, COLORADO — Before taking on writing King Tut's stories, my career path revolved around Photography, journalism, computers.
Now, my major drive is to create the series of novels about Tutankhamen, get them published in both digital and print form, and let people know about them.
You can find out more about this obsession with Tutankhamen's story on my website's author page at www.reneodeay.com/author.html

First Book is out now in digital format: Sun Child, Prince of Egypt, about how Tut became King of Egypt, and is available at my website.

Book Two: The Scorpion Queen, is in production now, about the first year or two of King Tut's reign and his Queen Ankhesenpaaten.

What are you doing now? (Career? Married? Single? Children? Pets?)

After a varied career from entertainer, computer operator, student, journalist and photographer, have settled down to writing, website creation, and book publishing and promotion. Live in Estes Park, the best little town in the Colorado Rockies, love to camp, have two roommates, one a black flat-haired lab.

What is your favourite food?

Avocadoes and green chilies.

What is your favourite colour?

All shades of blues, from aquamarine and turquoise, to royal blue and lavenders. The royal blue of Lapis Lazuli and the many colors of Turquoise, both considered "Stones of Heaven" by the Ancient Egyptians.

What is your favourite sound?

The sound of a mountain stream, from rapids to soft burbling, up in the hills away from the madding crowd.

Who is your favourite person?

Ankhesenamen (Ankh-e-sen-a-men), formerly known as AnkhesenpaAten (Ankh-e-sen-pa-A-ten), thrice Queen of Egypt, Royal Heiress, Great Wife of Pharaoh Tutankhamen.

What is your favourite place?

Colorado mountains and forests.

What is your favourite memory?

The museums of Chicago and the concerts and Love-Ins on the West Coast in the sixties.

What is your favourite article of clothing?

Footwear, boots and sandals, and skirts.

What is your favourite word?

Shanti, a Sanskrit word for Peace.

What is your favourite writers' quote and why?

"To speak the name of the dead is to make them live again..." an ancient Egyptian inscription, a truly powerful magic spell.

Since I write historical novels, it's nice to think that my characters live again each time someone says their name aloud.

What is your most favourite quality about yourself?

Optimism.

What is the least favourite quality about yourself?

The state of my bank accounts.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would it be and why?

Hawaii, for its mountains, forests, flowers, beaches and warm moderate climate.

What inspires you to write and why?

A fascinating story. Obsession, when the story won't leave me alone. I want to tell you this story.

What is your favourite book and why?

Talbot Mundy's "Om: The Secret of Ahbor Valley", 1926
A spiritual historical adventure in a Land of Mystery near the beginning of the 20th Century, a journey along the hidden secret routes in British-dominated India, an insight into the lives and thoughts and various religious ideas of the many peoples of India and Nepal and Tibet along these mysterious trails.

OM begins with a master scene of catastrophic coincidences that build into riot and mayhem and death, and culminates in the beginning of this journey into the past and the depths of India.
The only book I have read more times than the Lord of the Rings series, have had multiple copies, loan to friends and never get back.
An incredible novel that should be ranked as a world classic.

What is your favourite genre and why?

This is hard to name, because if the book is well-written I love it in all genres, from non-fiction to fiction, historical, comic, mysteries, sci-fi, fantasy, even romance and westerns. But, good Historical fiction inspires me to dig into the hard non-fiction histories.

List your three favourite authors (any genre) and why?

Hard to do, since they change as the authors' themselves change. Too many, three in every genre.
Sci-Fi: Poul Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein and Robert Silverberg.
Historical Novels: Pauline Gedge, Wilbur Smith, Jean Plaidy.
Mystery-detective: Elizabeth Peters, Carl Hiasen, Jamie Lee Burke.
Romance: Nora Roberts, Elizabeth Lowell, Roberta Gellis.
Western: William Eastlake, Tony Hillerman, William Johnstone.

What do you think makes a writer successful?

When the story told is well-written and so fascinating that the reader skips no pages, wants to read it again and tell their friends about it.

Whta is it that makes you successful as a writer?

Imagination, research, and the ability to see the story unfold like a movie and perhaps translate that into words.

What are your goals as a writer?

My main goals are to finish creating the series about Tutankhamen and his queen, and a shorter series about Howard Carter and his drive to find Tut. And to make enough off these novels to support myself, set up a couple book and education foundations, and leave something to my son.

What is the best tip you can give to fellow writers?

Don't put off writing. If you are driven, make time to do it. If you feel insecure about your writing skills, take some classes. When the inspiration hits, you'd better write it down or record it immediately, or you'll probably lose it.

What do you hope to provide your readers with through your writing?

A sense of who this fabulous boy, King Tut, must have been to rate so much stuff: "wonderful things..." in his small little tomb, after such a brief reign as Pharaoh of Eternal Egypt, or why his tomb alone in the Valley of the Kings survived almost intact for so many thousands of years.

List your three favourite online writer-resource sites and why (include URLS).

1. Funds for Writers www.fundsforwriters.com/
Great resource site for freelance gigs, contests, grants, eBooks on writing and etc.
2. InstantPublisher.com www.instantpublisher.com/
Get your manuscript in shape, ready for publishing. Save tons of money in self-publishing.
3. Everyone Who's Anyone in Adult Trade Publishing and Tinseltown Too
everyonewhosanyone.com/index.html
The most outrageous and controversial directory of agents, publishers and editors on the web. Great info, personal emails, responsiveness, etc. with some good laughs thrown in.

If you have published a book, tell us about your publishing success (title, publishing date and company, where it is available to purcahse).

So far only digital publishing: on my websites: www.thesunchild.com and www.reneodeay.com/getbook.html .

The Sun Child, Prince of Egypt, 2005, the digital version of the novel, Book One in my planned series Children of the Sun, about the life of King Tut. An easy entertaining read even on a computer.

Got some great reviews.

And am now exploring routes to having it published in hard copy.

How long did it take you to write your book(s)?

Two years, or most of my life.

What would you do differently if you could repeat the same publishing experience?

Start at a younger age, not let other things get in my way or send me off on non-profitable tangents.

Maybe if I had realized how much work was involved in getting my book ready for a digital release, plus creating my websites, I would have at least tried to go the traditional route. Maybe I would have lucked out and found a good publisher and agent.
But I didn't even try, mostly because I have been so disappointed in most of the new books coming out in recent years and that have been hitting the Best-Seller Lists and I do not like the lousy deals authors get.
So disappointed, I wonder what editors and readers are thinking.

What have you learned about the publishing world?

The traditional publishing world is very old-fashioned, inspite of the condensing of the many diverse publishing houses into a few major houses, designed to profit the companies and agents more than the actual authors who provide their product. A homogenization and degradation of quality fiction is a result.

Although more and more aspiring authors are going the self-publishing route, with Print On Demands (PODs) and other routes, many POD publishers offer only slightly more royalties than the traditional houses, and the author has to foot just about all the bills. And then there's the smear, I suspect promoted by the traditional publishing houses, of "Oh, that book is only a self-published vanity book."

Unfortunately many are amateurish, badly edited, and even badly published by some of the most famous PODs.

But many are well-done, and deserve attention from the reading public. Hopefully my books fit in this last category.

There has been a lot of success with eBooks sold over the Internet, but most have been non-fiction, information and how-to books. Some of the eBook formats are really cute, but are in .exe formats requiring Windows and Internet Explorer. The universal one is PDF, readable with Adobe Reader or on Macs with Preview, or with a PlugIn on a browser.

Fiction in eBook or PDF format is a harder sell, possibly because files are created too big or are hard to read or to navigate. Curiously a year or two ago, Mercedes Lackey's newest novel was released with a CD including all her books in digital format. The publisher noted that the reason was to let the reading public know about her other fabulous books and hopefully inspire them to purchase hard copies of each.

I have kept the PDF of "Sun Child, Prince of Egypt" under a megabyte with Chapter bookmarks for navigation. I think it is easy to read. A very busy professor read it in less than a day. I think he liked it.
You can see his comments on the PDF eBook at: www.thesunchild.com/comments.html , or at www.reneodeay.com/comments.html .

This is your chance to 'Talk Back' to your readers. What would you like to say to them?

Save a tree. Try digital novels. Available worldwide instantly. You can even have your computer read it aloud for you.

What's the one thing that you want them to know about your writing?

If it's boring or too trite to me, or doesn't further the story in some way, it's out.

I write page-turners. You won't want to skip pages. And you won't find yourself asking, "Why am I reading this book?" or ... "Why is this in here?" or ... "Who cares?"

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