We talked to RR Haywood, author of the superb The Undead book series about all thing zombies, doing what you love and seriously strong coffee.
1) Hi RR, how are you?
Hi, I am fine thanks, bit tired!
The Undead team have spent this week in London promoting the series with a giant mobile billboard. The Undead Series is the best-selling UK zombie horror series on Amazon with over 600 top reviews, 30,000 downloads and we even won an award but we were still not getting noticed by the mainstream publishing industry – hence the mobile billboard and a personal visit to every single literary agent in London!
Then we got some professional actors into Covent Garden along with the billboard and gave flyers out. The result was fantastic and we now have three mainstream literary agents asking to sign us!
2) Tell us about your writing background and The Undead.
Ah, I have no writing background to speak off. My chosen career meant I was constantly writing reports but of a factual nature. It was in May 2012 that I read Three Feet of Sky by Stephen Ayres, a wonderful book that blew my socks off and even more so when I realised it was entirely self-published. Immediately after that I read an extremely poor book that was also self-published and just figured I would have a go myself. I started with The Undead Day One and here we are, two years later and The Undead Day Fifteen was released just a few weeks ago becoming a best-seller within a few hours.
3) What draws you write post-apocalyptic fiction?
I love the post-apocalyptic genre, books, movies – anything I could get my hands on. What irritated me was most of the good books seemed to cover the initial outbreak of whatever disaster befalling mankind then skipped forward ten years to the main character living in the Welsh Valleys surviving on home-grown carrots.
I wanted to know what happened on the first day, the second day, the third and so on, I wanted the minute detail. What did the world look like? What about food and water supplies? When would the power run out? What would the High Streets look like a week after it happened? What about safari parks and densely populated council estates? I couldn’t get the detail I needed so I wrote the book I wanted to read.
4) How far do you see The Undead going? Is there a definite endpoint in mind?
The scope is vast and even now, On Day Fifteen with over a million words committed to the series, we’re still only breaking into our stride. The stories are complex and rich, they deal with the needs, wants and desires of the human mind and takes our modern society and what we are now and reflects it back on us. The values, rules and laws we hold dear now – how long would they last? How long would we last?
5) What would you say if Hollywood came knocking at the door for the rights to put it on the big screen?
Truthfully? After picking myself up I would phone Brimmers – (my editor Rachael) and tell her.
She is the voice of reason and common sense in my utterly infantile world of make believe. She would no doubt remind me that the series is important to be continued and that selling out with no control would be the wrong thing to do. Hmmm, or she would tell me to take the cash right now so she could buy a new horse box…
6) Is there anything that inspires the series the most?
I could be really smart here and say that humanity inspires the series. That the warped value we place on objects overrides the value we give to the human life.
I could say about how we are heading for a global meltdown with an over-dependence on fossil fuels and that our governments are continually lying to us so they can invade weaker countries that have better resources. I could say that.
But really it’s coffee and zombies. I love coffee, strong coffee that has me biting the edge of the table while the veins in my head bulge out. Coffee so strong I get filled with wild fantasies and rush about trying to write them all down. And I love zombies. Zombies. ‘Nuff said.
7) And finally, why should we be reading The Undead if we aren’t already?
Cos it’s bloody awesome! A stonking roller coaster of a journey that will have you crying, laughing and cheering for the goodies against the evil baddies. This is the age old fable of good versus evil.
It has vast epic battles, absurd abstract British humour, self-effacing ordinary people doing extra-ordinary things. It has over 600 four and five star reviews, romance, love, betrayal, bigger battles and more zombies…the attention to detail is staggering and I adore writing it but even more than that, I adore the interactivity you get from a fast moving self-published series that the readers can get involved with and make suggestions as to plot twists, storylines and who they love and hate.
You can check out The Undead series directly from rrhaywood.com or via Amazon so be sure that you do.
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