Steven Ryan's Blog

Serial killing seagull

Steven Ryan is a middle aged man who works in the NHS as a support worker but over the past 3 years he has found the time to pen the novel ‘Bird of Prey’ set in his home town of Bexhill-on-Sea. Steve is very modest about his achievement; how many people have written a novel while in full time employment? Most people tend to get home from work, slump on the sofa and enter the T.V. coma.

Steve says: “I am a T.V. coma kind of guy, or have been for most of my life and then one day I just decided that I needed to do something that I could be proud of, before I entered that big T.V. coma in the sky”. However, he doesn’t seem overly full of praise for his debut work, even though it has received very good reviews on UK and US Amazon sites and Goodreads; a website consisting of over 55 million readers, authors and reviewers from all around the world. Steve still isn’t happy but maybe he is just an unhappy guy? Some of his dry personality is reflected in the pages of his book where a seagull begins killing spree of local cats in Bexhill.

Where did he get the idea from? “I first began on the premise that people are fickle when it comes to other species, the subtext of the story is; why do we value some animals over others? ‘Ahh that lamb is soooo cute! I’ll have the roast lamb please’ or ‘the Swiss are completely disgusting – can you believe they eat dogs?!?!’ the book is a comedy (some don’t find it so) that explores our hypocrisy with some satirical characters, human and other kinds in Bexhill, a popular retirement town, as the backdrop”.

So why the disappointment, you have had some very good reviews? “Well I have no regrets and it’s out there now but in hindsight I would have released it 2 years ago as a short story but I was blinkered to writing a novel and I feel like it’s a patchwork of ideas nobody so far has spotted the joins, so it’s probably more my hang up and my never be happy mind-set”.

You self-published which is a big step for someone unsure about what they have created, as you say it is ‘out there’ now, how difficult was it to get it out there? “The publishing aspect is easy, just click a few buttons after overcoming the fear of rejection or discovering that what you have produced is actually rubbish, I just took a leap of faith and some vodka and hit the buttons, but what came after was the biggest and hardest lesson. I never thought or anticipated that the book would make me a millionaire but one aspect that I didn’t understand was that it is one book in an ocean of 7 million others on Amazon and when you are a shy and retiring little fish it’s hard work entering the world of social media to publicise it, I’m not a natural salesman but you need to be! Ultimately I found social media isn’t that great for such a niche story and that was the other major problem, I thought; ‘Ah I’ve written a dark social satire, good for me’ but subsequently Is to find that unless you write about sex, which sells like hot cakes, you really need to find where your slot in the market is and then to get the message to the right audience. It has been a very slow and expensive learning curve but it is gradually getting attention and has been embraced by local Bexhillians”.

Why didn’t you give up? “The book is my baby and I can now see the whole project in its entirety, and it’s a big entirety made up of lots of parts, not just writing, it is a venture, adventure or hobby not a money making mission or a job that you labour to get out of bed for each day, I pressed on not so much because I see myself as the next Shakespeare, I think I know where I am in terms of my quality as a writer, I’d be embarrassed to call myself an author, I prefer to think of myself as someone who wrote a book and I’m quite proud of that”.

What do you say to the people who are offended by the violence in the book? “I’m sorry that you feel that way, the story is a means to an end and the cats that died were only fictitious and all died in a good cause, I guess we are just not on the same wavelength. However, some people have told me that it is a page turner but not for them but if you say that it is a page turner, what bigger compliment can there be? Regardless of subject matter if I am so engrossed in the material that it keeps my attention, it doesn’t matter if I am offended or shocked – it grabbed me and that’s all I care about – I like grabbing people!”

Are there any more books on the horizon? “Yes but I don’t know when or what they will be about, I have been asked by so many people if I am going to write a sequel to this book, as the story is left open ended but I’ll have to wait until I come out of my current T.V. coma to decide”.

Steve is happy to talk about his work. If you want to talk to him he can be reached via the contact form at the bottom of his webpage www.stevenryan.co.uk