When people first find out about me having “writing” as one of my hobbies, some are curious about why I started writing, and how come I got books (I can use the plural now, yeah!) published. So I thought it might be useful to have a FAQ of some sort some where:
Q: When did you start writing?
A: I forgot (seriously). My first short story was finished in August of 1999, which is the summer before my grade 12 year.
Q: How come a boring, cold blooded, techie engineer writes romance stories?
A: Because not all engineers are boring and cold blooded. Most engineers are techies alright, but learning how to assemble a computer doesn’t require someone to lose his/her feelings towards other things in life, like some suggests. In fact, one of the most successful internet novel story writers (no, my ego isn’t big enough to say it’s me) is a PhD in hydraulic engineering.
Q: Then how come YOU write romance stories?
A: Well, I don’t know. I think I always have the urge to write. I remember when I was alone on the bus on the way back home from elementary school, I’d come up with fragments of scenes (you can see how bored I was). But I didn’t start writing, err, typing my ideas down until the later years of high school.
Q: Where can I find your stories online?
Q: How many books of yours is in print?
A: There’s currently two books, 相擁時，或許可以找到愛情 and 思念不只三天兩夜. The former has two editions: Traditional Chinese and Simpilfied Chinese; the latter is a compilation of 3 shorter stories.
Q: How many copies of the books are printed?
A: As of now:
相擁時，或許可以找到愛情 (Traditional Chinese): 3000
相擁時，或許可以找到愛情 (Simpilfied Chinese): unknown
思念不只三天兩夜: 2500
Q: Now to the more important question, how many of those copies are actually sold?
A: I don’t know, seriously. These things are really out of my control, so whether I know or not doesn’t really make a difference.
Q: Do you make money off the publications?
A: Yes.
Q: How much?
A: Not so much that I would consider quitting grad school to pursue a full time writing career.
Q: Where can I find your books in Vancouver?
A: 相擁時，或許可以找到愛情 is not carried in the local Kingstone bookstore. I don’t know about 思念不只三天兩夜 (I haven’t been to the bookstores since the book came out). Alternatively you can order from one of the online Taiwan book retailers like books.com.tw or kingstone.com.tw. Buying locally and ordering from overseas cost roughly the same.
Q: How did you get the publisher to publish your book?
A: There are publishers in Taiwan that specializes in internet stories (stories which are first posted publicly either on web sites or on BBSes). After I finished the stories, I e-mailed it to them and they’ll evaluate whether it’s worth it for them to put it in print. I think publishing a novel is easier than it was, say, 10 years ago.
Q: Why would people buy books of stories that is available freely online?
A: Good question. But a lot of people do buy internet novels. I think it’s because most people do not like reading off the screen all the time (unlike me), and the fact that those books are cheap in Taiwan (~C$5 to ~C$10), so it’s worth buying a copy for collection purposes.