Michael J Sullivan biography

Michael J. Sullivan is an American author of epic fantasy and widely regarded as one of the most successful self-published fantasy authors. He has written two series, The Riyria Revelations, a six book epic fantasy series, and The Riyria Chronicles, an ongoing series.

"Every author has different needs when it comes to story editing. I had written thirteen novels before The Riyria Revelations so I was already pretty seasoned on aspects such as pacing, limiting exposition, building characters, and the like. I had always had a talent for creating compelling plots, so I might not need as much developmental editing as some. Still, authors need an objective critic, and I’m fortunate that my wife is very good in this regard. She really puts my books through their paces, and I’d match her talent with anyone employed by the big-six. Copy editing is probably the area that we have the most problem with. We hire freelancers, and have used many, but it seems that there were always little mistakes that were missed, even though the same book may be gone over by as many as five people. Personally I think if you are self-published the copyediting of your book has to be three times better than the traditional published works, and will still get criticized twice as often. People expect editing to be poor in self-published books and they love pointing out any little mistake and hold it up as proof of poor quality. In comparison, the same number of mistakes in a book from a large press will not incite ire, as they know professionals are involved. The reality is, in 100,000 words there are going to be mistakes here and there. You just have to do the best you can."
Taken from a conversation with Fantasy Book Review's Ryan Lawler about editing self-published books

February 27th 2012 interview with Michael J Sullivan

Michael J. Sullivan is a full time author whose self published series, The Riyria Revelations, hit the big time selling more than 70,000 copies in a very short time. Picked up by Orbit in the middle of last year just after the release of his fifth [...]

Read interview

All Michael J Sullivan Reviews