Seasoned English thriller writer Terence Strong is already waiting for me at the café where we have arranged a meeting. He has nursing a tall glass of mineral water, lemon and crushed ice rather than his more usual pint of ale, red wine or vodka.
I recognise him immediately from the photo on the jacket of his latest hardback Word of War. It is a novel set in Libya during the Arab Spring of 2011. The story features his trademark subjects of front line journalism, espionage and Special Forces.
Strong is watchful, but relaxed in chinos, denim shirt and a canvas travel- vest. Just what you might expect from a man who has spent most of his adult life writing about action and high adventure.
He has a firm grip as we shake hands and an easy smile that reaches and softens the fierce blue eyes. When I mention this, he says, ‘I like people, most people. The good, bad and the ugly. And their foibles. We’re all human.’ His smile lingers. ‘You could say I’m pretty much fascinated by the human condition. I’m sometimes surprised at what people tell me, things they confide.’
‘Secrets?’ I ask.
‘Often,’ he replies. ‘Some times quite dark and deep.’
‘Why do they tell you?’ ‘I think they realise I’m genuinely interested in them and what they have to say. Most people tend to want to talk about themselves. It’s only natural. But, my job is obviously to learn about them and their lives as I am researching as a journalist or novelist. I’ll sometimes kick off by confessing something quite personal about me or my experiences. That might put them at ease, help them feel comfortable to drop their guard.’
As I watch the tanned lanternjawed face and thinning thatch of fairish hair, I wonder how old Terence Strong is? ‘Sixties,’ he replies. ‘But I’ve been known to lie about my age. Only my doctor and the taxman know the truth.’
Why is he coy about his age? He chuckles. ‘I’m not really. It’s just that I can’t think any reader would believe in the jottings of a geriatric thriller writer with a zimmer frame.’
Which is prompted my next question. ‘When did you start writing and what inspired you?’
Strong warms to that, has been asked hundreds of times before. ‘I was a late starter reading, perhaps a bit dyslexic. At eight I was reading Sam Pig by Alsion Utley. By eleven I was halfway through the 40 odd Biggles books I ended up reading.’ Biggles was a very British pilot character for young adults whose adventures spanned from World War One to more modern times. ‘That was the age I wrote my first novel, all 16 pages of it, a complete rip-off of Biggles.
He continues, ‘A friend’s father, who was a publisher, spent a weekend taking a blue pen to it. It should have put me off for life. Instead the scales fell from my eyes. I learned so much from that detailed critique, I can’t tell you.
’ ‘What happened next?’
‘About the time I left school – a private commercial college I was sent to after I’d failed my primary
school exams at 11 – I completed my first full-length adult novel.’
‘Another Biggles rip-off?’ I suggested cheekily. Strong doesn’t rise to the bait. ‘More Hammond Innes or Alistair Mclean. High adventure, but completely original.’ These were big author names in the 60s and 70s. ‘Mine was called Sweet Smell of Intrigue, which I set in the Baltic states.’ ‘Very topical today,’ I suggest. ‘But not then,’ Strong admits. ‘
Anyway I put it in a drawer and forgot it. Just part of learning is the writer’s craft. I was now sixteen and gagging to start work.’ ‘No university?’ I ask. ‘I had no interest, really,’ he insists. ‘Nor did I have enough O Levels. You needed five and I only scrapped by with four; though I was robbed of history.’ However, Strong did win First Prize in an essay competition between 26 branches of the commercial college he attended. Perhaps a portent of things to come. It was to be nearly 20 years, another unpublished novel and a career in advertising, journalism and military research that Terence Strong finally hit pay dirt with his million copy bestseller Whisper Who Dares.
‘I’d become friend with a former SAS soldier and became fascinated with the Regiment of British special forces soldiers that no one in the outside world knew much about at the time,’ Strong explains. ‘I was made redundant from the PR agency I was working for at the time and cobbled together a topical story set in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t quite finished in the three months I had available.’ It joined the other two manuscripts in the drawer.
But two years later the SAS made headlines around the world when they broke the terrorist Iranian Embassy siege in London and freed the hostages. ‘More information about the secretive regiment became available,’ Strong said. ‘I dusted off my manuscript, completed the story and submitted it to four paperback publishers simultaneously.’
‘Obviously successfully,’ I say. ‘One grabbed it,’ Strong replies. ‘Coronet, an imprint of Hodder and Stoughton, ironically who used to publish my favourite Biggles books. And they went big. It went on to sell over a million copies.’ ‘So what is the secret of getting published?’
‘Honestly, knowing the right people helps.’ Strong shakes his head, apparently saddened by his own statement. ‘Utter persistence and a big bucketful of good luck. The right story at the right time,the right theme.’ ‘And agents?’ I press. ‘No agent, no publisher,’ Strong says. I know this is a sore point with Terence Strong.
‘You left your last publisher Simon and Schuster to go solo?’ Strong nods. ‘It was mutual. My lovely original editor there left and it’s said that commercial male fiction sales generally have lost traction in recent years and that the publishing industry as a whole has become more female orientated.’ He sighs.
‘I was happy to part of company with them. But my agent was another matter. It’s often been said that in truth agents value publishers over their own authors. After all, publishers are the source of their income and authors are forever seeking agents, a percentage of whom will always be good money-earners.’
‘You felt betrayed?’
‘Somewhat.’ ‘So you published your latest hardback thriller Word of War yourself?’
‘Yes. I’d already started publishing part of my backlist in eBook under the Silver Fox Press imprint. Loss of a publisher and an agent rather forced my hand.’ Strong’s smile is deep and genuine. ‘Luckily my readers were still out there, clearly gagging for my next title.’
Terence Strong has been rekindling his past readership on social media after what he feels is years of neglect from mainstream publishers. He now has thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook, which incidentally is how I came across the author and his work. I ask, ‘Has the publishing market changed in recent years? With eBooks, self-publishing and so forth?’ Strong is adamant.
‘Decisively, Publishers were slow to react to eBooks. Now an author can earn 70 percent of his cover price, rather than the 7 percent of old. But he has to provide editorial services, artwork and marketing out of that. Whether the writing is good or bad, by definition self-published books have not been chosen and invested in by a professional looking to make money from the author.
Quality editing is unlikely and the author has a lot more admin to do.’ ‘Does that mean bookshops will still exist in the UK for much longer?’ I wonder. There is a shake of the head from Strong. ‘Many believe that currently Waterstones is only kept afloat because publishers consider it too big to fail. They have too much invested, too much to lose.
And others have told me that in five or 10 years only WH Smith Travel (railway stations and airports) will survive, its high street outlets perishing if current trends continue.’ He adds, ‘Paradoxically, that may allow independents to recover.’ ‘That is why you are now happy to have your books to be available exclusively on the internet, online?’ I suggest. ‘And maybe independents only one day,’ Strong predicts. ‘While global internet giants like Amazon have shrunk the high streets, it will allow smaller artisan retailers in from off the internet.’ He is thoughtful for a moment.
‘Markets evolve like nations. We saw Yugoslavia break up in the Bosnia War, disparate nations needing their national freedoms. Of course, it happened with the Soviet Union. I think it’s likely the European Union will go the same way.
Revert to individual independent nations in time.’ ‘And the USA?’ I provoke. Strong laughs. ‘Now there’s a thought. People do seem to be thinking small is more beautiful.’
‘Will people still want to read books?’ I ask. ‘Or will they just want to play games on computers and iPhones? ‘What goes around comes around. People will always want – even need – stories. Always need stories and storytellers.
Fiction is sometimes the only way of effectively conveying life’s truths.’ I am serious. ‘What advice would you give to any wannabe author?’ Strong is also serious in his response. ‘Don’t. It may make you happy. It makes me happy – making my readers happy. But it won’t make you money. Although I’ve sold many books I’d have made more being a bus-driver.
Only the very few make a decent living. I’ve been lucky. That said, my best advice is glue your trousers to your seat and get your work finished!’ ‘You’ve written 19 thrillers – 17 published by top publishers – will you ever run out of stories or story ideas?’I ask and seriously mean it. ‘That thought was mooted to thriller writers at the end of the Cold War,’ Strong replied.
‘But the truth is while there are catastrophes, war and political turbulence around the world and human characters caught up in them, there will stories to be told. I still hope to tell as many of them as possible.’ It is time for me to go. We shake hands. ‘Terence Strong. I thank you.’
His first job was six months at a solicitors in the City of London taking Court notes, which he hated as it suffocated his creative drive. Without a degree, his only way into the alluring world of advertising was to start at the bottom as post boy.
Within two years at the international pharmaceutical adverting agency he’d moved to the print and production department, and was writing editorials for one of its clients’ promotional journals.
That experience of print and editorial landed him an assistant editor job on New Trade Weekly in the newspaper, magazine and book publishing industry. Within a year he became its editor – the youngest in Fleet Street at the time – and launched a sister monthly called Books & Paperbacks, providing him the opportunity to interview some of his favourite authors (including Denis Wheatley, John Braine, Gavin Lyall and Hammond Innes).
Over two years of lunchbreaks, he tapped out his second fulllength novel, a nautical adventure thriller called North of Capricorn. He sent it to Hale publishers, who asked him to halve its length and resubmit it. Strong did the work but decided by then that it wasn’t good enough. Today, it still remains in his attic‘I was then headhunted by a big paperback house at the time.’
The Ethiopian Herald March 31, 2019
BY MEHARI BEYENE
