Please welcome Yannis Karatsioris to Books for Company.
Yannis is the author of The Books of the Forsaken which won the gold medal on authonomy.com's HarperCollins UK hosted competition
Yannis has written a guest post to tell us how he came to write in English when he is Greek.
Thank you Yannis
This invite came as a result of me being and Editor’s Desk winner on Authonomy, the latter meaning I get an award –a review from one of HC’s editors (unofficial consideration for publication too). But before I get into how I made it, and what happened along the way, I’d like to mention that I’m a non-native, I’m Greek actually. And a young one at that, as I just turned 29.
This is the main reason I signed up for the authonomy experience. I wanted to see how good I am in respect to producing literature in a second language. I have already published a fantasy novel in Greece, have already staged a play and have won a national award for a fantasy novelette. But I wasn’t sure I had it in me to compete with English native-plus-talented authors, aspiring as the case may be.
The second reason I chose authonomy and not another site for writers is that I’m a goal-oriented person and knew that I would do my best if there were something tangible at the end of the road. Being reviewed by HC felt tangible enough. So I registered and uploaded the 10k words that is the minimum for one to take part and go public.
The response to the story from the community was immediate and I hit #40 (out of six or seven thousand books at the moment) within two months. The shinning reviews made me doubt my earlier doubts and I thought I actually had a chance. I won the gold medal this February, after six months of being reviewed by the members of the site.
I learned a good deal of things regarding the editing and/or revising my manuscripts, I met great people, made a handful of friends and I answered the question whether as a non-native writer I’m good enough to be read out of Greece.
Yes, I am.
After submitting the manuscript to thirty agents, (a low number for those who know how this works) only because I chose who to submit to carefully, I got the known polite response twenty something times and two positive comments. I chose not to contact indie and other small publishers and just go with it on my own.
“The Book of the Forsaken” is available for less than a month now after being proofread and edited, both in Kindle format and as a paperback. And all one has to do is read the opening pages to see how different and engaging the book is.
It has a long way to go, but as I said, I’m goal-oriented…"
Author’s Short Bio:
Yannis Karatsioris, Greek born and raised, is 29 years old and lives in Athens, Greece. He has already staged a play, published a fantasy novel in Greek and, after winning with The Book of the Forsaken the gold medal on HarperCollins' competition on authonomy.com, is now making his first steps in the publishing world out of Greece. It is the first of a series called “The Game” series.
His tastes, dark and sarcastic, guide him to a style reminiscent of Neil Gaiman, Douglas Adams, Jonathon Stroud and Mikhail Bulghakoff.
More about Yannis and his writing? www.yanniskarats.com
Find Yannis
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Buy The Book of The Forsaken
Oh this is exciting! A greek author!
ReplyDeleteLovely post! Thank you for sharing!