I was lucky to get an interview with the fantasy author Martin Owton who wrote the novel Exile. Together with its sequel, Nandor, it forms the Nandor Tales.

Please, tell us a bit about yourself…
I'm a UK-based writer. I hold a PhD in Synthetic Chemistry and I retired recently from my position as a drug designer for big pharma.

Why should I buy your books?
Would you like to read a fast-moving well-characterised story set in a classic fantasy setting where the stakes are high for the protagonists, but the fate of the world is not at stake? There's a touch of magic, a hint of romance and a lot of sword fights. Mark Lawrence called it "sword-swinging, castle climbing, hard drinking fun", dare you disagree with him?

“I’m very interested to see what the outcome will be of Brandon Sanderson’s fight with Audible, whether that leads to more competition in the audiobook marketplace.”

— Martin Owton

What got you into writing? And how long have you been doing it?
I've written stories since I was a child. I got more serious about it in the mid 90s starting with short stories (I have around 30 published short stories) then one story refused to end and turned into a novel which became Exile.

Why did you choose to write fantasy and sci-fi? And why pick this particular fantasy subgenre?
I blame my mother for reading me “The Little Grey Men” when I was a child, and my junior school teacher for reading “The Hobbit” to my class for the last lesson on Fridays.

Which other author has had the biggest influence on your writing?
David Gemmell, particuarly his Drenai books

What’s the best thing about being a writer?
When someone you don't know says “I loved your book”. I had someone read the unfinished draft of Exile say she had stayed awake until 4 a.m. Reading it and demanded I finish it. She was the first person to read it, and it was just so good to know that the story worked.

What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?
Staring at the blank page not knowing what to write

Do you have any tips or an author app, tool, or resource that you can really recommend we try?
I've been using the Absolutewrite forums for about 20 yrs. There's a wealth of useful information there as well as critiquing threads. My own website has a list of UK SF/F agents that I try to keep current. It is the best list I know of, otherwise Querytracker.net is great for US agents.

And now it's time to yank out your Palantir! Let’s talk about the future. What new projects are you working on?
Along with the Nandor Tales I have 2 contemporary fantasy novels (Shadows of Faerie and Deeper Shadows of Faerie) set in Southampton and the New Forest where I'm from. I'm also working on a fantasy series with wider scope and higher stakes than Nandor Tales. The first book is done and I'm 20k into the second book. I'm currently trying to find a home for it as my agent declined to take it to the market.

Do you expect new technologies to come along soon that will have a huge impact on self-publishing? For instance, when will we see a decent novel written by an AI author?
I'm very interested to see what the outcome will be of Brandon Sanderson's fight with Audible, whether that leads to more competition in the audiobook marketplace. I doubt we'll get a good book written by AI for many years. There may well be plenty of mediocre AI written books though, there are plenty of mediocre books written by people.

Do you have any dreams you’d like to share?
My agent selling one (or more) of my books for proper money so that the books are available in bookstores. So far he hasn't found a home for 2 books of mine; this is not an uncommon story for agented authors.

Anything else you would like to say before we close?
I would like to thank my agent for his efforts on my behalf, and for his work that went into making Shadows of Faerie a better book.

Thank you for doing the interview Martin and I hope your agent finds a home for more of your books and that they find a lot of readers!

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