Page 72 - Phonebox Magazine July 2016

Self-Published Amazon Bestseller Adam Croft
Talking to Ian Roberts
Ihad a wonderful surprise last week when I was sifting through my morning online papers, there right in front of me was a big photo of a good friend of mine with
the headline saying: “From paying the bills, to £2,000 a day: making a killing from self- publishing.” - It was only my old mate Adam Croft. Now some of you reading this might not know his name yet, but you may just know his face; you see Adam was the lead man and the face of the video for a song I released last Christmas in aid of Shelter and The Trussell Trust called “Christmas at our House” the video was directed by our very own David Pibworth and filmed beautifully by local lmmaker Frank Scarito, in fact everyone involved was local, oh and the video location? Yeah you guessed it, Olney. And here’s another thing: Adam and everyone else involved in the video worked for free to help raise as much money for the charities as possible, that tells you a whole lot about all the amazing people involved, so you know where Adam’s heart is, he’s a good man.
The article in the Guardian went on to say that Adam’s brilliant new book, called ‘Her Last Tomorrow’ had hit the top 10 in the Amazon digital chart and last week was No 12 on the overall Amazon paperback chart, ction and non- ction combined. And now it has topped all sorts of charts, outselling the new Harry Potter book at one point, and was ahead of Game of Thrones in the overall paperback chart, in fact it’s the biggest selling indie book of the year so far, and he’s on course for £1m of books sold in 2016. Now let
me tell you something; that takes some doing when you self-publish and it just shows the quality of writing that ows out of Adam. Now I know that he’s a ne writer (and a great actor) and of course I knew that he’d previously self- published eight books selling over 350,000 copies since 2011, but this was in another league, so I rang him for a chat, here’s how the conversation went.
So, over £2,000 a day?!! How does that feel?
“You know me Ian, I love writing and I love being a writer, just as you love being a songwriter, and it’s the same for anyone else who is living out their dream through their chosen art. You know it’s not about the money, we do this because it’s just what we do, I’d still be writing if it all fell apart and I ended up in the gutter, just as you’d still be writing songs. It’s never about the money, it’s about the creativity and the feeling it gives you, I think creativity opens minds. It’s no coincidence that creative people tend to be more adventurous, more open minded, more compassionate. And I don’t think there’s any such thing as being born creative and being born technical/academic/for manual work. I think we can all be creative. It’s something that’s learnt through doing it more and more, and all minds can be opened by being creative. But I’m not going to lie to you, I love the attention and the lovely emails from readers telling me they really enjoy what I do. I love seeing my name in newspapers and on bestseller lists. Who wouldn’t? But this isn’t overnight success, I wrote for the best part of a quarter of a century before getting any of that. And as you know I’ve been writing full-time for ve years, just about paying the bills, until it all took off. Of course the money helps but it’s not what drives me, and it never will be, and all this attention is attering but what’s more important is that it will enable me to reach a wider audience.”
So what inspires you to write the way you do?
“I write the books I’d like to read, just as you write the songs you’d like to hear, and I enjoy exploring the characters and storylines just as much as the readers do. I sit down to
write and hours pass by in seconds. And I’ve always written stories, ever since I was a kid. I remember being kicked out of class when I was about six or seven. It was my brother’s birthday, and I remember writing him a story about pirates for his birthday. It was meant to be a punishment sending me out of class to write a story — says a lot about some of the schools I went to, and was actually pretty fortuitous.”
There must have been times when you were just scraping by, as you mentioned earlier just about paying the bills, and like lots of artists you must have thought that it might be better if you just got a “proper job”?
“Yeah of course there are times when that crosses your mind, but I’ve been lucky enough to have a decent fan base who buy my work, just as you have Ian, it keeps you ticking over, and it holds your belief in what you’re doing, so when the dark days come just remember that there are good people out there who support you and really want you to succeed and to grow as a writer. And anyway, I’d still carry on writing if it all fell apart, it’s what I do and I love it.”
So what would you say to anyone who is reading this who dreams of being a writer?
“They say that everyone has a book in them. Everyone I speak to says they’d love to write a book but they don’t know how, well it all starts with the rst word. You wouldn’t say you wanted to be a footballer but then never kick a ball would you? Knock a few words about a few times a week, get practicing.”
72 Phonebox Magazine | July 2016