Vancouver author Sebastien de Castell says he’s finally made the career jump from barista to plumber.
Not literally, of course. Well, maybe literally, because de Castell is talking about writing books and how he’s finally able to make a decent living at it, thanks to a massive new book deal.
In an interview with The Province from the Hague, where he’s living for a year with his wife, de Castell reveals he’s just signed an eight-book deal with Zaffre Publishing. It’s a deal he says is worth somewhere in the mid-six figures — and it follows the growing popularity of his Greatcoats series of fantasy novels.
“My first book deal got me into the barista level of writing success,” he says with a laugh during a late-night Skype call, “which meant if all I did was write those books I’d earn somewhere in the neighbourhood of a barista. My goal was to get to dental hygienist for the next deal, but I got lucky. I think I’m at the high end of plumber now.”
Listen to the full interview with Sebastien de Castell on The Province’s Book Rogues podcast.
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De Castell is actually downplaying his success, as the Greatcoats books have taken off internationally. And it’s easy to see their appeal: they’re great action romps that have the right mix of fights, comedic banter and dark drama, mixing up the traditional elements of fantasy with a distinct Three Musketeers vibe.
The series stars a group of travelling adjuticators — think judges who settle things with duels — who have fallen upon hard times. There’s Kest, a master swordsman, Brasti, a wisecracking archer, and Falcio, a rogueish fighter whose most dangerous weapon is his tricky mind. Think Han Solo with a sword rather than a blaster and you’ll have an idea of Falcio.
In the first two books of the series, Traitor’s Blade and Knight’s Shadow, the Greatcoats get involved in various political intrigues in the fantasy nation of Tristia. There’s treachery and betrayal, and lots of swordplay.
De Castell calls it Game of Thrones meets The Three Musketeers.
“I really wanted to write about the optimistic but flawed heroes that I loved reading about when I first started reading fantasy as a kid, but set in an environment that had some of the depth and darkness of a lot of modern fantasy,” de Castell says. “It’s that juxtaposition I like, of dealing with what would normally be very idealistic characters inside of a setting where idealism doesn’t seem to work very well.”
De Castell says the Greatcoats series will run four or five books and then end. He does plan to revisit it in another series that is set 40 or so years after the events of the first series. The new book deal, however, will not involve the Greatcoats world.
“I was fortunate enough to sign a deal with [Zaffre], a British publisher,” de Castell says. “[They] read another book that I wrote, whose working title is Spellsinger. It’s sort of cowboy magic with a talking raccoon … They were kind enough to offer me an eight-book deal over four years.”
It’s an astonishing deal, especially in today’s publishing climate, and de Castell knows how lucky he is.
“My experience has been so odd,” de Castell says, sounding almost bewildered. “All of the things that people say don’t happen anymore, that are sort of the old days, kind of happened in my case. It’s just that weird combination of you happen to write the right thing for the right audience at the right time, and you just kind of get lucky.”
Even de Castell’s agent was surprised at his success.
“I jokingly said to her, ‘Can we get a six-figure deal in the next three months? Or I’m going to try to self-publish.’ And she said, ‘That’s not really how it works anymore.’ And then almost three months to the day, I was on a cycling trip with my wife, and she emailed to say, ‘Funny thing happened’ … and it turned out to be six figures.”
The deal is for two different kinds of books: a young adult series and an adult series. De Castell doesn’t want to talk the exact dollar figures of the deal, but says it’s in the mid-six figures range, which is substantial indeed in the publishing world.
In order to meet the terms of the deal, de Castell will be writing three books a year for the next four years. It’s a challenge, but he has a strong work ethic — and he knows how blessed he is to be able to do what he loves for a living.
“I kind of like being a working man,” he says. “And I try to be writing that way … I want to make the best art I possibly can, but I don’t want to lose sight of the fact that there’s just that ethic that has to go along with it.”
The hardest part of finishing the books will not be the writing part, though. Instead, de Castell says it’s the sudden attention you get as a writer that’s difficult to manage.
“It’s oddly shocking when any large enough group of people like your work,” he says. “All of a sudden they start talking about what they love about it, and in the age of social media … you’re really much more exposed on a day-to-day basis about what people love about your series. And it’s really hard when you’re writing the next book to not have those voices in your head: ‘Oh man, everybody really liked the horse from Book 1. Damn it! How do I get the horse from Book 1 back in there?’
“You constantly have to return to that point of the artistry side of it and say, ‘I’ve got to tell the best and truest story that I can and not worry about duplicating what someone happened to like about the first book or the second book, and just hope and trust that with those characters and that world and your own voice as a writer that you’ll be finding either the same things or new things that people like.”
Whatever happens in the new books, de Castell’s fans are sure to like the fact there are going to be a dozen of them coming out over the next few years.
Who knows? Maybe he’ll even reach the payday level of dentist with his next book deal.
pdarbyshire@theprovince.com
