I am not a writer: Jeffrey Archer

Hyderabad: “I am not a writer, I am a storyteller. A writer knows exactly where he is going, I don’t. I started the Clifton series at 70, planning it to be a five-part series, but after the fourth book, I decided it would be a seven-part series,” said celebrated English author Jeffrey Archer at an interaction with students at the Indian School of Business (ISB) here on Thursday.

The author was in the city to launch the fifth part of the Clifton Chronicles, Mightier than the Sword.

“We all end up doing the thing we are second best at,” Mr Archer quoted French author Marcel Proust while speaking about his career as a novelist.

After his first novel in  1976 had failed to sell more than 3,000 copies in a year, the author’s wife had reportedly asked him to find a “real job”. “If my second book had failed, I would have been prime minister by now,” he joked.

The author spoke about the art of storytelling and what it takes to make a book sell. “Creativity is a gift of God. However, hard wo-rk will make a difference to your writing. I spend at least 300 hours on a first draft.” Tho-ugh a stroke of luck is needed, a good enough story, which is unique and creates curiosity, usually survives, he said.

On the “nature’ of the world of publishing, Mr Archer said, “My novel Kane and Abel and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird together sold less copies than 50 Shades of Grey. Even after selling over 37 million copies, I have to ring up the publishers every month to get more copies of Kane and Abel printed,” he said.

“The facts are frightening, for every 1,000 who writes a book, hardly one gets published and amongst a 1,000 published books, only one becomes a bestseller.”

The author has toured India 10 times prior to this trip, and said that he is quite influenced by the people and that the country never fails to fascinate him. The biggest change, he observed, was that Indian women had become the most able and most ambitious he had ever come across.

“At a recent interaction, nearly 70 per cent of the audience were women and more than 50 per cent of them under the age of 25. Four years ago, I met a 12-year-old girl during one of my interactions in India, she has published a book already and told me men won’t be getting in way of her career. That’s the new India.”

Mr Archer started out by saying, “England will win the Cricket World cup 2015.” About the Indian cricketers he said that the “team is becoming a bit too Bollywood. The 20-20 format is rubbish, One Day is stupid, cricket is V.V.S. Laxman.”