About Matt Drabble:
Born in Bath, England in 1974, a self-professed "funny onion", equal parts sport loving jock and comic book geek. I am a lover of horror and character driven stories. I am also an A.S sufferer who took to writing full time two years ago after being forced to give up the day job.
I have a career high position of 5th on Amazon's Horror Author Rank of which I am immensely proud. I was also accepted as a full member of the Horror Writers Association.
"GATED" is the 2015 Readers Favorite Gold Medal Winner. It is also a UK & US Horror Chart Top Ten Best Seller & winner of the Full Moon Awards 2014 Horror Book of the Year.
"ASYLUM – 13 TALES OF TERROR" was a US Horror Chart #5. It was also voted #5 on The Horror Novel Review's Top 10 Books of 2013 & was the Readers Favorite 2014 Gold Medal Winner for Anthology Fiction.
"ASYLUM II" was also a UK & US Horror/Anthology #1 and is the 2016 Readers Favorite Silver Medal winner for Anthology Fiction.
"THE TRAVELLING MAN" won an Indie Book of the Day award.
"ABRA-CADAVER" is the 2017 Readers Favorite Silver Medal Winner for Horror Fiction. It is also a 2015 Kindle Book Review Finalist, an Indie Book of the Day winner and the 2016 Book Excellence Award Winner for Horror Fiction.
The full length multi award winning novels "Abra-Cadaver" and "Double Visions" are available for free.
What inspires you to write?
A few years ago I was diagnosed with a condition called ankylosing spondylitis. It rendered me unable to work a normal full time job and thus left me too much time on my hands and thoughts on my mind. Writing became an escape from the day to day humdrum of my new life and a bonus was that I found myself naturally able to produce a novel.
Tell us about your writing process.
I treat writing like any other job. I clock in in the morning and put in a shift. I set myself a target of 10,000 words a week and always hit my quota. I like to start with a vague idea, then an outline, then a book cover design and then I enjoy finding out where the story takes me.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
My characters are always designed to (hopefully) come across as three dimensional. Some characters that start out as villains can become sympathetic and I can find myself turning against some heroes!
What advice would you give other writers?
Get a thick skin. Some people will hate what you do and how you do it no matter what. If you have 100 reviews and 99 are positive and 1 is negative, then fixing what the 1 didn't like will no doubt turn some of the 99 against you. If you start chasing everyone's approval then you'll never stop running.
How did you decide how to publish your books?
Self publishing was just gaining traction when I started out and I've stuck with it. There are a lot of small publishers out there but outside of the big boys it's hard to find the merits of using one of the smaller presses. I think that writing inherently lends itself to ego and thus exploitation. If anyone is promising you success for a a fee then run!
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
People will always read so there will always be a need for writers. Self publishing has become so incredibly saturated now that trying to grab a readers attention is always hard. The large publishers have the ability to shout the loudest so they will always dominate the market place. It used to be that we would dream of getting discovered by an agent or publisher, now we dream of getting a kardashian retweet.
What do you use?: Professional Editor, Beta Readers
What genres do you write?: Horror/Thriller normally with a twist in the tale
What formats are your books in?: Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Matt Drabble Home Page Link
Link To Matt Drabble Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
Goodreads
Facebook
Twitter
All information in this post is presented “as is” supplied by the author. We don’t edit to allow you the reader to hear the author in their own voice.
